April 2008 Poker

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Well, it’s a few days early, but I honestly don’t think I’ll be playing any (or much) poker before the end of the month. If there is a material update, I’ll post again.

In keeping with my new schedule, even though I had a ton of time to play this month, I still played a pretty light schedule. Because of that, I paid the full freight to enter one of the Sunday big tourneys. In that one, I came in 66th out of 907. That was my one nice hit for the month ($500 returned for $215 invested).

In addition to that, I won qualifiers for the big tourney twice, but bombed out in both of those tries in the actual tourney. One of those was frustrating, as I came 140th and they only paid to 100th. I also won another nice qualifier for a big Omaha Hi-Lo tourney, but bombed out in that as well.

I played in a number of my normal 7pm Omaha Hi-Lo tourneys, and cashed once or twice (minor prizes), but also bubbled (finished one out of the money!) at least once, and 3rd or 4th out of the money a few other times.

In general, my play this month was as good as it’s ever been. I had some great luck in at least one of the qualifiers where I won an entry to the big tourney (still turned into no cash), but in the actual tournaments (more so in the Omaha ones, but a little in the Hold’Em ones too), I had one of the worst runs of bad luck one can imagine.

It’s one of the main reasons I bubbled so many times. For a change, rather than easily drifting into a minor prize, I risked all of my chips (repeatedly!) with much the best hand. In general, I was an 80-90% favorite when I got all my chips in. In nearly every case (this month), the river (or occasionally the turn) brought a miracle card to my numskull opponent, and I was out with no money. The frustration was enormous, but I also felt vindicated at my bet when the other person flipped over their cards.

Oh well, that didn’t help the account value, just the ego… Total for the month was a very disappointing -$316. Nothing material (given my account size), but not a happy situation either.

As for why I won’t be playing, as of today, my site has radically changed their tournament structure. There are almost no Omaha Hi-Lo tourneys left, including their removal of the nightly 7pm that I love so much. They’ve even revamped their normal Hold’Em schedule, blowing away the more interesting (given my risk appetite) ones in the times that work best for me.

I am now seriously considering just emptying my account and giving up online poker for a while. Of course, I could search for another site (many of them still likely have tons of tourneys that would fit my profile perfectly), but it’s a lot of work to pick one, and to get the money in there now is a hassle, so I’ll mull it over and decide.

Of course, I could just keep my money here and play in the big one any Sunday that works for me, and just ignore them the rest of the week. At least that would give them a chance to realize what a boneheaded move this new tournament schedule is (the 7pm filled up every single night, so it was popular and profitable for them!). I suspect that’s my most likely (short-term) course of action!