Sheetah

Well October is about to end and this is good moment to summarize all the [censored] that I went through.

Those who read my blog probably remember me for crazy Star's experiment of playing extremely under-rolled and jumping fast through stakes. The experiment failed (obv.), I decided to abandon the operation for the reasons stated in previous entry, went back to where I started, unloaded my roll that I started with, with only profit being using my FPP points to get a T-shirt and "Mathematics of Poker" (they have a good chapter about BR management ). The book is awesome, there's a lot to learn and think about and this was by all means very good choice - will be studying it hard.

In the mean time my (life) busyness was still going slow and since the money became the issue I had to turn to Poker. Very soon it became the race between real-life job consuming my time with profit being 'somewhere in the future' and Poker. I went back to my good old fish and basically used any available second to play. I stopped reading forums, watching TV, having life - just play, play, play ... I played HU (used to crush it), limit (limit players SUCK, all the sharks of old went to NL waters long ago) and my home since introducing 6max tables - shorthanded cash, NL50 and some NL100. Funny thing, when starting long ago it was "maybe I can win something", then after learning ABC it was like "wow, maybe I can make enough to by some " and now it's more like "I need the money, time to grind".

Aaaaand ... October was my best month ever - more than 1.3k and counting. Due to life issues I was withdrawing every week and in the end everything I made - I spent. So, I'm finally crushing and can't grow the BR. Good thing is that slowly I'm making a little more than I can spend. Don't get me wrong, I've suffered some ugly coolers in the process, I understand what running hot is and how cruel variance can be. But I also understand the difference between being lucky and outplaying opponents. And I'm pretty honest to myself when it comes to sucking out on others (rare, but happens).

In the end it's "ummm, fine" - didn't really 'moved up in stakes several times' or something, but then again this was my best month ever and it's not even close. Hell, I've made more than in my first year and a half! And my confidence is hiiiigh. No reasons to complain.

(For those who missed) About ten or so days ago I've got some crazy ideas and thought of a 'grand plan' to move up in stakes rapidly - at least it was properly named: Bank Roll Monkey Adventure.

At first I had little swings but pretty quickly moved to NL100, when sick cooler hit me. As it usually goes, hand in hand with Mrs Variance goes Mr Tilt and after (this time magnified) swings and swongs I'm back where I started: $80. During the operation people here couldn't stop berating me for my weird BR model (rightfully) and I kept promising to not give up.

However, after coming back to break even I took a good look at stats and accidentally clicked 'show in BB' or something like that. And the results were - Hero is like 3 buyins up. Wtf? My first impulse was that I probably accidentally picked different range of hands, but after rechecking there were no doubts: I was 3 buyins up into break even (!?) ... WHAT THE FUCK !?!?

Several minutes later after scratching my head trying to figure out the enigma it suddenly hit me: "Of course! Why didn't I think of that before!? It perfectly makes sense!".
Let me illustrate: imagine that you take for ex. 3 BI shot at NL100 and you lose and have to drop down to NL50. You are break even, right? BUT, those $300 were 'made' at NL50 which is 6 buyins. Even though you didn't win anything, technically you are 3 buyins up. And my BR model was based on taking 1 BI shots (ouch). Blinds are blinds, stacks are stacks, everything is proportional no matter how much $ BB really is. And this only the thing that matters. And this is by far the most important thing I learned from all this mess. Needless to say, BRMA is officially canceled.

After failing I decided to break a routine and turned to the game that I was always doing well at: limit holdem. Back 2+ years ago when I got addicted to poker, limit was the main game and naturally that was what I learned first. Then NL exploded and slowly I turned to NL, like everyone else especially since limit multitabling grinders learned preflop charts too well and most (used to be so juicy) low limit games turned into a nit-fest and it became obvious that with rakes as they were LL games became a massive EV- for anyone in it. As the time passed, all good limit players figured that out and one by one moved to NL. Surprisingly LHE was left 'off guard' - cause just a quick glance at 1/2 2/4 3/6 tables was like: "WOW, where have all the nits gone!?" So I sat in two 2/4 tables. After 15min I started to remember old limit-only lines like 'play', 'ram and jam' and after (pretty normal for limit) swinging a little I ended a night with solid ($100+) profit - with ABC-I'm-rusty-a-little game.

Not that I intend to move back to limit or something, NL is still my main game. But from now on I'll keep an eye at limit tables. There's plenty of good money waiting there.

In fact, the only reason I'm still at Stars are my FPP points, cause I need just a little more to get enough for two (for limit) awesome books:
1) Stox's "Winning in tough holdem games"
2) Chen's "Mathematics of poker"
Then I'll unload my Stars moneyz and combined with some other money from elsewhere, load my newly opened Rednines account and grind w/ rakeback.

The problem with "thin" BR management is that it takes so little to send you down. And that's what happened: my flopped set of aces ran into a flopped flush. The villain in the hand was aggressive, already caught semi-bluffing and no way I could have folded my top set. Just when I was hoping the cooler was drying out, Variance LOL'ed and slapped me in the face.
Since my "BR" dropped below $150 I had to go down.