March Madness 2012...

At the beginning of the month I wasn't sure how much I was to even going play Poker Maximus events but luckily on Sunday, Mar. 11 I decided to play a few games. I bought into the $33 event 23 with only a $167 bankroll, not a bankroll strategy I'd actually recommend. I ended up finishing in 3rd for my best cash ever. After that I was a full fledged MTT addict again.

I went up to Harrah's Cherokee with my Mom for couple of days the day after this nice finish and played some live cash. Netted a $570 profit for a few hours play on my first day but then lost a couple of hundred the next day but left with over a $300 profit so not too bad, beats losing.

Then on Wednesday night I won the $11 2r 1a $8.5K guaranteed for another nice cash. I was on a roll, or so I hoped. Alas nothing else great happened. I had a couple of other cashes in Poker Maximus events but nothing great but that's just how it goes in MTTs.

Funny thing.... all my best cashes have been in March. In March 2009 I finished 49th in the Cake $250K guaranteed for $645. This was my first real money cash and I'd only been playing for real money for a few days before this game. Then March 2010 I won the $4.40 $2K guarantee on Stars for $640. March 2011 I finished 7th in the $11r $50K guarantee for $1571 and made the most in a month ever for a total of $3400. Then these two great cashes above this March. Next year I guess I should go to every live event I can find in March.

I hadn't played much on Carbon until recently since I'd mostly been playing on Hero so my previous MTT results weren't too great so below is what a SharkScope graph looks like when a fish gets lucky and wins some nice money...

Guess I'm going back to the cash grind now. I'll still do MTTs a couple of days a week but I'll mostly be playing cash on Intertops for April and maybe into May. MTTs can really drain a bankroll without something to supplement it so I really want to get to where I play cash for a steady income and MTTs for the extras. Needless to say I'm pretty happy with my results this month and hopefully I won't have such a long dry spell between good cashes this time.

Run good saved the day...

The Prop Bet:

Finished the 10K hands prop bet and won! Many thanks to the poker gods for the run good over the last 3K hands. Not that I ran that bad over the first 6 to 7K but I just stayed in the red during that time. It was my worst run since I started playing cash in January. One thing I realize and fully admit is there was some play bad mixed in during that downswing. I made some bad decisions and I paid for them. As you can see from the graph I didn't really run below EV very much at all but at times I wasn't running that great either. That coupled with some play bad cost me but that's poker. I learned from every mistake and corrected them as best as I could.

I have to say I was pretty happy about how well I handled the downswing. In the past I would of gotten all tilted and wanted to give up swearing that I just suck at cash instead of excepting that's just how it goes. This time I evaluated my play and figured out how much was my fault and how much was just normal unavoidable coolers and moved on, got back on the tables the next day and pushed ahead. I had only two episodes of insane monkey tilt and it went away really fast once I interjected a little logical thought.

The Month:

I played 19,142 hands this month with a decent profit for 10NL. I wanted to try to make it to 20K but after the last two days trying to finish the prop bet I was just too tired and/or lazy. Overall I was very happy with my February results. I'm playing pretty well overall and really improving my post flop decisions, which was a really weak area prior to this cash grind. I'm learning to slow down and think more about my opponents ranges and on what level they are thinking and thus making more correct decisions. Hopefully next month will go as well.

The Total Results:

Almost 30K hands down at 7BB/100 which is just amazing. My total Carbon bankroll is now $300. My goals for next month are dependent on what I decide to do about playing Poker Maximus games, the MTT event series running this month on Merge. In the past I would of been so excited about an MTT series like this but now I'm kind of so so about it. I hate to take much time away from cash to play for hours in MTTs and min cash or less. Of course there is the reason we play MTTs, those big cashes that actually happen sometimes but just not nearly often enough. I'll know by the middle of next week which direction I'm going and I'll post some March goals at that point. No matter what, I want to get in a minimum of 10 to 15K hands of cash and I'd love to move up to 25NL by month's end but that might be a bit of a stretch. For now, decision time...