August 2007 Poker Update

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Another month, a ton more poker played. 🙂

The month started off OK with 5 days of poker generating $70 of profit. Then a trip to Zope made for zero poker played for the next 5 days (until the weekend). For the next few weeks, I was really busy on weekends, and while at Zope, had no time to play during the week either.

When I got back to NY mid-month, I got to play during the week, but weekends were still busy until the end of the month.

I started losing in dramatic fashion for a few weeks in a row. I made a few bone-headed moves, that I knew were bone-headed moves when I made them (a little out of frustration, and a little out of feeling that my luck just had to change, which is a different form of frustration). That said, for the most part, I believe I was playing as well if not better than I did in July (when I was winning a ton), and I was just wildly unlucky on more rivers than I can remember in recent history. As they say, if you get all of your money in with much the best of it (meaning, not 50/50 races), then you’re playing well and doing your job.

So, with the exception of the few bone-headed moves, I really shook off the bad beats (better than I ever have before), and I plowed on, playing the same way. I was surprised that I was able to handle the slide as well as I did (psychologically), but I have to admit that a huge part of it is that my account is so healthy, that I knew that even if the slide continued for months, I still wouldn’t have to put any new money in my account, and I could continue to play with confidence. There’s nothing like a healthy account (bank, brokerage, poker, etc.) to keep your decisions on track.

At the peak of the bad streak, I was down $354! Not a good thing, but truly nothing compared to my July win.

Then, with nothing changed on my part, but with fewer river beats, my results started changing, and dramatically at that. In addition, on at least 3 occasions, I was the one with the lucky river, handing someone else a bad beat. 😉

I started cashing frequently in Omaha Hi-Lo tourneys. There were many (some pretty small), but the highlights were a second that returned $343 (I won my entry into that tourney for $3). I was the chip leader when there were only 2 of us left, but I can’t complain. The day before, I finished fifth in the same tourney (also won my entry), and got back $131 for my $3.

Bottom line, I ended up $74 for the month (after hitting up $119 mid-week). I’m pretty happy with the turnaround, and with the fact that I didn’t get frustrated and start playing too stupidly.

Sounds like a reasonable month, given how badly it went in the middle. Well, it was actually a much better month than the “bottom line” implies. As I noted in a non-poker post, I was unable to play in any of the big Sunday tourneys in August. I was busy at 5pm (booked in advance) on every single Sunday. While I played a few qualifiers this month (because you can unregister and use the Tournament Dollars [TDs] for a future entry). I lost them all.

This week, I am available to play (tomorrow). It won’t be August, but the qualifiers played this past week are part of my August results. I played in two qualifiers this week. I won a seat in both! That means that in addition to playing in the big one tomorrow, I had enough TDs to play in a future Sunday big one of my choice, without having to play in another qualifier. Each was worth $215, and they are not included in my results for August. In fact, they both show up as losses, so I’m negative $46 for those two entry fees. To be consistent with previous accounting (and I’m comfy with that decision), any winnings in future tourneys with these TDs will be free money.

In addition to that, I’ve won quite a number of qualifiers to my nightly 7pm Omaha Hi-Lo (I had a really good streak), and used one of them on Monday night (that I had won on Saturday!) to win the afore-mentioned $343!

The point is, that this month turned around a lot more than just -$354 to +$74.

So, another month with a positive cash-flow in poker, therefore another happy month. 🙂