As anyone who plays poker will attest to poker can be a brutal game with some brutal beats. Some days are so stressful and despite your best efforts nothing seems to go right. Other days every flip goes your way. I'd like to say I'm getting more and more used to it but I doubt that's the truth. I don't know if I'll ever totally get used to the stress and the tilt and the bad beats that seems so unfair. I'll continue to play and to try to improve and detach emotions from my game as much as I can but it's not easy.

I've had a really good month so far actually. I finished 7th in the $11r $50K for a nice 4 figure sum. I also had a deep run in two MTTs on Full Tilt and I accomplished something I've tried for ages to accomplish and oddly enough never have and that is I won a $6.50 90 man KO. So odd, I've had every final table finish several different times but I never managed to win one. I've won several 180 man MTSNGs on PokerStars and even a 1000 runner MTT on Stars but for some reason the 90 KOs alluded me until Monday night. I reached the final table in 9th place with less than 10 bbs and just sat patiently and waited for the right spots and finally got to the final three. I went into heads up with a 4 to 1 chip disadvantage but managed to take it down. My 7th place finish in the $11r was exciting and so was my 4th place finish in the $1r 6 max $2K but honestly I was more excited about finally winning a 90 KO. I think because I tried unsuccessfully for so long.

Well the month is almost over and this Sunday PokerStars is bringing back the Sunday Women's $55 with a new $5K guarantee and it will be nice to play with the ladies again. This is also Turbo Takedown Sunday and since the ladies game starts at 1:00 pm est I might take a shot at the Sunday Warm Up.

Well on to more pokering.

The Six Ps....

Someone once told me the 6 Ps of management, Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Well I've been thinking and there 6 Ps of poker success as well. All this has been said many times but by putting it in Ps maybe it's easier to remember.

Proper bankroll management, the most important aspect of your poker career. Without it you will always be broke. There a several good web sources for this P so I won't go into it here but here are some links: http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-strategy-articles/bankroll-management and my favorite: http://www.pocketfives.com/blogs/jennifear/ and the ultimate Jesus rules: http://pokerbankrollblog.com/chris-ferguson-challenge.htm

Patience, next to bankroll management patience is the next important thing you have to master to succeed in poker. You may sit through who knows how many hands before you get anything playable. Your stack may start diminishing right before your eyes while you wait but if you are patient and wait for the right spot you will win more than you lose. Playing online helps because you can play several tables at once so you will usually have something going on on one or more tables. One thing I see so many people do is get really impatient when they lose a big hand and big chunk of their stack and just shove on the next hand. This is usually a mistake, wait for a few hands or a good spot and then get it in. If you push trash the next hand after a big loss you're going to get called a lot lighter because everyone will assume it's a tilt shove.

Perseverance, the old adage "if at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again" is never anymore true than in poker. "Poker's a day to learn and a lifetime to master." ~Robert Williamson III, this is so true. Don't expect to read a few books and/or watch a few strategy videos and go online or to the casino and win a fortune. You might get really lucky and win a big tournament but it's luck not skill in most cases and you can't win consistently on luck alone. Keep trying and keep studying, reviewing and learning and most importantly playing and playing some more. If you're following the first P you won't go broke while you're learning.

Planning, when you get dealt a hand plan out what you will do with it. If you raise with it think about the "what ifs". Don't just look at your hand and think oh great I have pocket jacks and I'm going to win a big pot. Pay attention to the action before you and then decide what to do with your hand. If you're in early position and the first to act make a raise but don't be set on playing them a certain way. There are only two hands I never fold pre-flop and that's AA and KK assuming I'm not on some exact satellite bubble with a few short stacks. Don't get married to your hand before you see what others are going to do. Think about how you will proceed on different flops, turns and rivers. Plan, don't be impulsive.

Pause, before every action pause and think your moves through. Never make rash actions. Think about what will happen next if you make this call on the flop etc. If you've ever watched Chris "Jesus" Ferguson you will notice that before every action he pauses for the exact same amount of time. This always gives him a minute to think before making a play and by pausing the same amount of time he doesn't give away tells.

Premonition, no I don't mean E.S.P. what I do mean is our sub-conscience mind sees and stores things that our conscience mind doesn't even notice. When we're involved in a hand our sub-conscience may be screaming fold you fool or call he's bluffing. Listen to this and you will see more times than not your hunch is correct because it's not a hunch. Your mind recognizes something in your opponents actions that don't make sense based on things you've observed in the past. Never be stubborn enough not to listen.

Well for those who've been playing awhile none of this is anything new but for any newer player may you find it helpful.

Moving on up....

Just finished a bit over 10K hands of cash since starting back to playing cash. After several fairly successful days of full ring cash games I stupidly decided to try 6 max, bad idea! I lost some money but still managed to stay in the black and maintain a positive BB/100.

Today I switched back to full ring and my first session of 562 hands went really well with a $108 profit. Full ring is so much less aggressive and softer than 6 max. The variance is very obviously lower. I seem to stress out and tilt much less at full ring. So full ring it is for now.

I like the faster pace of 6 max but I just don't do as well and tend to run into more decent opponents than I do in full ring. Another thing is I can play 6 tables of full ring pretty easily but I can only comfortably handle 4 tables of 6 max. So while 6 max moves faster with the 2 extra tables of full ring I think my hands per hour are about the same.

I've still played some MTTs and SNGs with mixed results. After playing cash where I can take a break whenever I please and stop and start my sessions when I want it's tough to be tied down to a tournament. I also get more stressed out in tournaments. I'll still continue to play some but I'm really going to concentrate on my cash game for now. I would love to get in another 10K hands by next Sunday but that will take some work and commitment. If I try hard I should be able to do it.

Well enough for now, next update at 20K hands.

Girls Rule!!!

Well I have to say after two months of runbad February was much improved. I finished the month up in tournaments and in cash. Yes I said in cash, I'll discuss this little wrinkle later on. As anyone who knows anything about me and poker knows, up and cash games are not usually found in the same sentence where I'm concerned but more about that later (cliffhanger...).

In February I participated in a $4.40 180 man challenge (games were played on PokerStars) through Full Contact Poker (www.fullcontactpoker.com). You could either go for it alone or have a partner. I choose to have a partner, my friend Rose. There were 14 teams for a total of 22 participants competing. All were men except Rose and I , thus the title of this post. Well to make a long story short (aren't you thankful) Rose and I won. We will each receive $225 for our efforts. Each team or individual had to complete 30 games and the top 25 counted. I played 19 and Rose played 11. Our total score was 666 (too funny huh?). Many of the guys are great players and beating them was no easy feat. Needless to say this win did wonders for my attitude after two months of runbad.

Now for the part about cash games. Eight days ago I decided to give 50NL (.25/.50) full ring cash games a try. Previously, and unsuccessfully, I had played 6 max cash games and done rather poorly. Well so far I have played 5,383 hands with a winrate of 5.81BB/100 and a $312.90 profit. I am simply amazed! I am actually enjoying playing cash games online and winning some, will wonders never cease. While a small sample size of 5,383 hands is not enough to really say I'm a winning cash game player at least it's a step in the right direction. I could just be on one hell of a heater but let's hope not or at least hope it last awhile. As you will see in the graph below I have been running a bit above EV.

Well hopefully my next update won't be about cash games going straight to hell. Until later, may the flop be with you.

Well I should have known better...

I've never liked STTs and why I thought I could stick with grinding them is beyond me. I seem to have started this year off on the wrong foot. The STT grinding was my 2nd attempt at something that just didn't work for me. So it's time to re-group and get on track.

I did decently well last year and ended with a small profit. So I've basically decided to improve on what was working. I will play what I want when I want and I'll work to improve that which is already working.

I love MTTs and MTSNGs and that is what I will play. You STT grinders and cash players can have those games and good luck to you. I don't know how you do it. As an MTT and MTSNG player I will have to just grow to love that crazy thing called variance. I will make every attempt possible to increase my volume and improve my game but I will play MY game. I will do what makes me happy and to hell with what anyone else thinks I should do.

I had hoped to be back to playing the PokerStars women's league games this month but PokerStars disappointed all the more serious women players by changing to the league to attract new women to PokerStars by making the league games micro stakes. I'm very surprised after the former league seemed to be successful that they ignored us with this change. They say they will be reinstating the $5.50 and $55 buy in games at some point but so far nothing. I think Stars ignored a fundamental aspect of good business by ignoring their existing paying customers and chose to spend their efforts to attract new customers instead. PokerStars marketing needs to send some staff members back to business school.

Well until next time, may your cards be live and your pots monsters!

Grinding the $6.50s on PokerStars

Well I'm amazed at myself, okay for those of you who grind out 500+ games a day go ahead and start laughing now, I played 103 $6.50 9 man turbos since late Sunday night, over 49 hours to be exact. I didn't do great only up about $1.90, go ahead I'll wait while you laugh some more, but it beats losing. I'm playing 8 to 9 tables at a time now so it's been pretty easy to get the 100 games in. I have committed to play 1000 of these this month and this is a pretty decent start.

Funniest thing is despite only being up $1.90 I made the bottom of the High Orbit Leaderboard on Star's Battle of the Planets, 86th place. So funny seeing my name there. Not huge but feels good no less.

The most games I've ever played in a month is 450 across all sites so playing 100 over 49 hours is a big jump in volume for me. I had to really push myself and I'll have to continue to push myself, especially through the downswings, but in the end it will be worth it.

Hopefully I can make at least gold star this month and if I get in 1000 of the $6.50s and a few other games I should make it. I'm getting sick of looking at that silver star every month.

Well here's to the grind.... wish me luck!

SKLANSKY BUCKS

Well first off after a rough go with the bankroll challenge, well not too bad really, I've decided trying to do it on PokerStars is too difficult because that's where my bankroll is and where I play to make money. Also sorting the challenge games from my regular games on Stars using PokerTracker just proved extremely difficult once I moved up to the $3.40 games. So I have put it on hold for now and I will start it back up on Full Tilt the first of February. I don't have a bankroll to speak of on FTP, only about $75 and I need to start winning on there just to prove that I can and build a bankroll on there so moving the challenge to FTP just makes sense. I made around $50 in the challenge on Stars by the way.

So now for the topic of this blog, Sklansky bucks and of course variance. This has been my worst online poker month in like.... forever! No, this isn't a whine post! It happens, no one can run good all the time and it was just my turn. If you don't understand variance and learn to cope with it you'll never make it in poker.

Sklansky bucks is a really interesting way to think about variance.

The official definition of Sklansky Bucks is as follows:

"Sklansky bucks are theoretical money won or lost based on the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. The FTOP is discussed in The Theory of Poker. Basically, if you lose a hand but your opponent made mistakes, such as drawing to a flush without proper pot odds, you may lose the pot but you have earned Sklansky bucks by causing your opponent to make a mistake. On the flip side. If you are drawing without odds but you get lucky and draw out on your opponent, you win the pot, but you lose Sklansky bucks."

from: http://www.sklanskybucks.com/

So that said I am due for some serious cash out in Sklansky bucks and I will hopefully collect this weekend and improve my outcome for January. I will be playing in the Turbo Takedown on Sunday after winning my seat this month in the first satellite I played for 500 FPPS. I am working on a Sunday Million seat and this time if I win one I will be playing. So here's to breaking the Sklansky bank and cashing in those bucks.

Below is my EV graph for January the blue line is net expected won in chips and the pink line is actual chips won, so as you can see I was definitely running a bit below expected value. My Sklansky bank runneth over.