
The first month of the year has come to an end and for me it has been an epic fail. I was down almost $6,000 at the tables at one stage before recovering slightly at month end.
I started the year with a very positive outlook and an attempt at
SNE was to be my primary goal.
It all began at
NL100 where I began 24 tabling while trying to gain 2740
VPPs each day. I believed firmly from my calculations that this was feasible at this level. However it soon became clear that I was regularly getting only between 0.21 and 0.25
VPPs per hand when I had forecast the year at 0.27. This meant that I need almost 9hrs a day to make
SNE instead of the 7.5hrs that I thought. Dam.....
I had been inspired by the
SNE story of player
dannyohboy who worked a full time job, had 3 kids and made
SNE at
NL100. He only sleeps 3hrs a day
btw, insane..!! I thought if he could do that, I could easily do it without a job and any kids.
My main problems were a terrible start and a poor initial bankroll. January the 2
nd or
Spewfest Day as I have named it saw my attempt fancy play after fancy play with occasional bad beats thrown into the mix. The culmination was my 2
nd worst day ever and almost 13
BIs down at
NL100.
I continued at
NL100 for 6 days and was then at around 20
BIs down and around a day behind
SNE pace. I decided that the
SNE chase would be too hard at this level and had to be carried out at
NL200. This was also mentioned to me by player
OMGBentley.
Since I did not have the roll to play my normal 24x 100
bb Tables I decided to try for the first time the
gamboool that is 50
bb poker vs the 20
bb short stacks. This meant that I would still sit down with $2,400 in play but with the increased
VPP rate. I knew my
ranges and strategy had to change to counter the edge the SS player gains from the All-in shove move that they continually employ. This form of poker is far less interesting and basically eliminates 2 streets (Turn/River) of poker as u will find your stack in the middle on the flop or
pre.
I haven't played well until the final week of the month and have suffered many bad beats while being ahead with all the money in the middle. This took me to around $6,000 down by around the 23rd of the month. At this stage I got quite negative about the
SNE chase and decided to have a few quiet days.
WBCOOP began and I decided to play most of the events. During the day I played
DoNs and Fifty50s with a little bit of
NL200 and in the evening I would fire up
WBCOOP.
I did well in this Series of Events, Final Tabling 1 and cashing in 3 events altogether. I also finished high up on the leader board and was the top player from the UK.
Doing some analysis on the bigger hands in HEM I can clearly identify around $1,500 in spew this month. I used to be so solid after I had played poker for a year. Now coming up to 6yrs experience I seem to be tilting more and more. Note to self: Eliminate Spew
I successfully cashed for the 3rd time in a row in the Turbo
Takedown. This gives me an
additional repeat cash bonus.
I am now around 10 days behind
SNE pace and my goal for Feb is to try to close the gap by playing the 50
bb tables for the first 10 days. Then I will switch to the 100
bb tables but I will only play 10 tables and work on my game. I have to become a winning player again. If I can do this then I will go back to 24 Tabling and pursue
SNE again, if not then I will play less tables and aim to be a winning player in 2011 and ignore
VPPs. I may also add in a few new sites to my play if this scenario plays out. Stars is often touted as the toughest site out there. I am interested in and have been looking at William Hill. If anyone has any experience of this site I would be grateful of some feedback particularly with reference to traffic, software and player ability at
NL100+.
The final numbers for January are as follows:
164,000 Hands Played
55,334
VPPs
-$5,380 (Cash Game Losses)
+$ 159 (Tourney Winnings)
+$3,000 (
FPP Cash Bonuses)
+$ 600 (Stellar Rewards)
+$ 200 (
TT Repeat Cash Bonus)
+$ 237 (3x SCOOP tickets)
-$ 30 (New Mouse)
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-$1,214 (Total Month)
See you all soon
