A Long Week

I haven't finished playing today but as of right now I'm slightly ahead of the SNE pace - 107545 VPPS earned to 106850 needed.

It was a crazy and difficult week. At about 6:00 yesterday I had played approximately 13,000 hands on the week and was down almost 7K. It was particularly frustrating because I was only down 110 big bets at that point. Every time I stepped up and played 30-60 this week, I got absolutely crushed. Early in the week I made the mistake of 4 tabling during the day with all the regulars. I ran bad but it wasn't a smart decision given how tough those games can be. After that point I was very selective about the 30-60 games I sat in but ran incredibly bad. After 300 hands of 30-60 yesterday I was down 6K! I gritted out another 1000 hands or so of break even poker at 15-30 before mercifully taking a break around 6:00. I started playing 15-30 again around 9:00 PM and everything completely turned for me. From that point up until now I went on a 300 big bet upswing and actually turned a terrible week into a winning week (barring anything catastrophic taking place tonight).

Here is what my week looked like in graphical form:





I realize I focus a lot on short-term results in this blog and it's not something I'd recommend any poker player should do. Poker can and will drive you crazy if you focus on short-term results. There's incredible variance that can last for tens and tens of thousands of hands. When I'm suffering through losing streaks, the first thing I do is look at my long term results. I have a graph of my lifetime results that is always on my desktop. Unfortunately it's human nature to look at short-term results and that's why most of us do it. But I'm able to cope with it by also keeping long-term results in mind.

My plan is to continue playing 30-60 but be very selective about the games I get in. There are some very good games going at night and weekends so I'll try to target those games and spend the rest of my time playing 15-30.

All in all, I'm very happy with how the year has gone. I'm still averaging about 1.2 BB/100 with almost all of my hands being 5-6 handed. I also made another significant change to my game. I ran a few reports in Hold-Em Manager and did a little number crunching that led me to revamp my 3-betting ranges from each position. So I'm excited about that (I easily excite) and think it will help add to my bottom line over time.

Off to play some more....