My life has changed substantially since my last few blog entries a couple of years back. I moved from LA down to the OC after having procured more of a challenging (and lucrative) corporate position. Now that I’ve somewhat solidified that aspect of my life, it’s time to focus, once again, on the fantastic game of poker.
Speaking of which, my game has also changed substantially, and for the better. Long story short… I gave up my attempt at the limit poker grind and decided to focus on becoming a no-limit cash game player. Along those lines, I purchased a stoxpoker.com training account (which may be one of the most invaluable poker tools available), upgraded my tracking software from Pokertracker to Hold’Em Manager (which may very well be the next most invaluable poker tool available), and procured a second monitor so that I can now regularly 12-table while keeping a second screen active for viewing statistics and the like.
How has this worked out for me? Pretty well, thus far. Towards the end of my limit poker journey, I was consistently bleeding money, to the point where my online “bankroll” had dwindled from the $1,000 range down to a paltry $100 or so. I knew I had serious leaks in my game that I needed desperately to fix, but I honestly had no idea how to go about identifying what those leaks were. Then the pressures of my corporate commitment eventually rendered poker something of an afterthought, so I stopped playing the game for awhile.
I picked it back up in the early part of 2009, electing to focus on no-limit. After studying several of the stoxpoker.com training videos for awhile, I began to grind at the $.05-$.10 levels, then $.10-$.25, then $.25-$.50, and onto $.50-$1.00, which I’m now playing and looking to conquer. My progression through these levels – as well as a first and a second place finish in two $10 buy-in multi-table tournaments on Stars – has resulted in my online bankroll growing to its current level of approximately $13,500. And this is without the benefit of VPP cash awards, since I’ve taken to using the points to instead procure things like flat-screen televisions for ex-girlfriends, in perhaps unsurprisingly successful efforts to make amends for past instances of exceedingly narcissistic behaviour lol…
In broad strokes, the current status of things is as follows: Hold’Em Manager confirms I’ve won about $5,800 at the $0.50-$1.00 level; however, the winrate is fairly anemic, given that it’s taken me about 250K hands to get to that point. In examining the leak buster feature of HEM, I’ve since determined that I was losing a TON of money in taking top pair hands too far – which is something I should probably have become aware of earlier, given my WtSD% rate of close to 30%. So while my bankroll is now large enough to move to the $1-$2 level, I’ve committed to first attaining a winrate of 6bb/100 at $.50-$1.00 over the course of a full month. Thus far, I’m at 5.97 halfway through January, with my WtSD% at a more reasonable 25%… so far, so good.
As far as the blog is concerned? Well, I've deleted the majority of the older posts, as they're pretty much inapplicable to my game as it stands today. I did, however, retain two posts recounting the play of a few specific hands from a 2007 Vegas trip, which I've been told by a few people are an entertaining read...
And my Islanders beat the Red Wings 6-0 on Tuesday. Just for those of you who aren’t sure if they’re for real… ;)
