Quarterly Review
I was bitten by a donkey on Sunday. This being a poker blog, I imagine you think I am talking about a poker analogy, but no, I was actually bitten by a real donkey. I was at a donkey sanctuary with my son, and whilst he was stroking it, the bedraggled looking creature started snuffling at my shirt. And then it bit my beer gut…hard. I have a large purple bruise all around the middle of my stomach now. Donkeys are clearly a souce of pain both on and off the table…anyway - quarterly review time:
Overall
An average 3 month period resulted in a profit of $3,700 across all disciplines. This figure is after subtracting $2,300 worth of rake (those Vegas tournaments certainly charge a lot of juice!).
Live London Holdem Tournaments (3/10)
I lost $1,100 over the period. Whilst not playing badly, I didn’t make as many cashes as I would have liked, and certainly didn’t kick on in the Loose Cannon league, after being nicely positioned at the end of March. I think I need to make some adjustments in this area - I am getting into too many confrontations where I am in a coin flip scenario, and I haven’t been winning the races.
Live London Cash (7/10)
A definite improvement in this area. Despite going back to all my old habits on Friday night where I lost $340 playing way too aggressively and drunken, I have been playing a more measured game and it has been generating some modest returns. I hope to continue in this vein for the rest of the year, and hopefully elimate the wrecklessness all together.
I’ve noticed I have had strong results when we are playing multiple games (such as rounds of Omaha/Irish/Holdem), but bad results on just Holdem. I have a real issue getting bored in the “Holdem only” game and thus end up in pots I should be no-where near. The problem is, if there are any new players at the table, you can’t really make them play Omaha if they haven’t played it before. I made a profit of $400 in this area over the period. I would love to see the split between “vanilla” holdem and mixed games, but I haven’t kept a record.
Live Professional Tournaments (8/10)
Finally got the monkey off my back by cashing in the WSOP 5k. This was very important for my mindset. I blew great positions in WSOP 2007 and Irish Open 2008 (if a bit unluckily) so if I had missed out on the cash again, I would have started to doubt myself. I can take comfort from the steady improvement curve in my big ticket tournaments so far I think:
EPT Warsaw 2007 - I was outclassed and bullied
Irish Open 2007 - Top 20 in chips 1 hour from end of Day1 - but didn’t make Day2 WSOP 2007 - One of the dominant forces at table - above average chips near the bubble, but busted when big stack nutter called my re-shove with my against his .
NPL 2007 Main Event - Final table - but didn’t cash due to tiny field of 34 players. Irish Open 2008 - 8th in chips after Day1 - lost half stack with set v overpair and then tilted.
Newcastle UKPT 2008 - played pretty well, but ultimately compromised after making two big laydowns.
WSOP 2008 - Cashed 44th place in 5k event.
I made $3,900 in the period in these events.
Home Games (8/10)
I am normally everyone’s cash cow in the home games, but made $1,100 over the 3 months. It must be noted $700 of this profit was after a brutal outdraw against the Baron.
Online Holdem Tournaments (7/10)
I simply didn’t play enough, but can’t argue with results when I did make time to enter. Profit of $1,800 for the period.
Online Holdem Cash/Online Omaha (N/A)
Hardly played at all. My 1k to 100k challenge hardly got off the ground due to lack of time. Combined loss of $100.
In terms of future events, I think I am almost certain to play the UKPT Grand Final Main Event in November as well as some of the side events. I may also play a WSOPE side event if there are any good ones this year. Unfortunately I have now run short on holidays available from work until December after the Vegas jaunt, so I’ll have to be pretty selective over the big ticket tournaments I enter for the rest of the year. I’ll aim to keep the form ticking over by playing regularly at LC and Gutshot over the coming months. I will also try to get to the Empire a bit more, as I hear the cash games in particular can be a bit juicy there.
This week will see the Better Poker event tomorrow night (I always bust out of that on level 4 to some random outdraw it seems :)) and then the new Loose Cannon UKPT League kicks off on Thursday night. This time, we are playing for multiple entries to the £500 side event which runs at the Vic a few days before the Grand Final.
| PROFIT/(LOSS) USD 2008 | |
|---|---|
| Live Holdem Tournaments | 2,515 |
| Live Holdem Cash | (1,481) |
| Live Omaha | 110 |
| Live “Professional” Tournaments | (6,316) |
| Home Games | 540 |
| Online Holdem Tournaments | 56,628 |
| Online Holdem Cash | 17,026 |
| Online Omaha | 330 |
| Sundry | 854 |
| Rake | (4,167) |
| Total | 64,824 |