November Update

Wow it's been forever since I've updated this. So many things have happended that I don't know really where to begin. I guess to be blunt I've went through some very tough times with poker. Have almost quit the game many times for various reasons which I may or may not go into this post. Sorry if this post is sort of out of order and what not, I'm just going to do I mind dump and see what happens.

First thing that comes to mind is my giant 'swoon' since the last post. I hit some rough times in both the 2.20/180's and 3.25/45's. My ROI jumped down from around 25-30% in both games to almost 10%. To be honest I started losing some hands and the started playing bad because of it. Instead of being very aggressive, I started losing faith that I was making the right plays and backed off when I know I should be staying aggressive. It was definately a humbling experience.

My account on pokerstars reached about 1400 dollars at it's peak. After a few months I found myself down to around 700 dollars. I had to ask myself were all the money went. After doing some reasearch I noticed I was down around 300 or so over 3 months in multi table tournaments. Also I swapped 200 for full tilt money to play in some mini ftops events. So I lost about 200 or so in the 45/180 SNGs.

So sometime in October I cashed out my entire 700 roll. I honestly need the money for other things at the time and was really sick of playing anyway. I put 200 some back in a few weeks later and then cashed that out because I wasn't enjoying playing.

I spent most of October and Novmember away from poker, part of me thought it was for good. However, I did miss playing some days. People who know me understand that I've had addiction problems with things in the past. Some would quickly point to poker as another one for me. To be honest I can't say that it's not an addiction for me. However, it's helped me through some times in my life.

I've almost been sober from drugs and alchohol for 2 years. Some of that is because of poker, I really believe this. My 2008 year of losing showed me that I can not play poker while under the influence of drugs or alchohol. It's just not possible for me to be a winning player that way. If I'm sober there are no guarnetees that I'll win, but I have a much better chance.

Do I want to be sitting around playing poker everyday in the future? Not really, I actually want to go back to school. At this point poker is a good trial run for me in that regard. It takes concentration while playing, time to review sessions, and requires me to read books to try and stay ahead of the game. Even things like reading weren't possible for me 2 years ago, I still struggle with it some today. It's getting better and hopefully with time I'll be able to feel comfortable enough to return to school.

So my plan is to play the 2.20/180's exclussively from this point forward. No MTT's, except if it's SCOOP or maybe MiniFtops, and I'm only playing 1 or 2 tables of them. My results mixing in 3 or 4 Mtt's with 12 or so SNGs are just terrible. I was playing the 1.10/45's, because my bankroll was low. However I've been working more hours at work then normal so I have some extra money again to give the 2.20/180s a run. This are the games I want to be playing at the moment anyway.

On the live play side I've cooled off considerably from my previous play. I joined a league for 250 and have yet to cash (top 3 of 9 or 10 man table cash), in the first 3 months. There's also a point system which pays out at the end of the year, that I'm not looking so good in either. I also booked two losing sessions. One -80 at Diamond Joes and -130 at a local cash game. The truth is I'd rather take the 200 buyin at Diamond Joes and stretch it over some time and play online.

My Stars account is at 97 from the 110 I put into it. I have about 250 reserved that I can deposit if I need to. So what if I bust this bankroll? Truth is I'm not sure, I'll definately have to reasses things. The total 350 bankroll is almost enough (around 440 is recommend for a winning player to have as a bankroll for 2.20/180s), to know if I'm really a winning player.

Thanks for reading, I'll do an update next month.

MNPuck