October 2010 Results / November 2010 Goals

Another month, another struggle for this online dabbler of the unlimited Texas hold ems.  First, let's take a look at my goals vs. what actually happened:

[X ]  Play at least 60,000 hands (I played 116,444 hands)
[ X ]  Watch at least 1 CR video per week
[  ]  Improve Double Barreling.  I'm not sure how to measure this exactly, though.  But want I want to do is to dub when a) I turned more equity (or still have good equity); or b) a scared card hit (scare card based on my opponents range of holdings). (Fail.  I never really paid much attention to it.)
[  ]  Do not look at HEM results or cashier more than 2 times per week. (Huge fail.  I looked at cashier and HEM results constantly.  I really need to just.stop.doing.it.)
[ / ]  Get to, and stay at NL50 (I almost have enough roll to play there now, but I will prolly start at 25NL mixing in some 50NL. (we'll call this 1/2 accomplished.  I played 27910 hands of 50NL Rush but I stunk.  Getting to 50NL will not be a goal for November.)
[  ]  Read Tommy Angelo's book again. (I did read some excerpts but ended up reading the latest Dexter release instead.)
[ / ]  Study for a minimum of 15 minutes per day -- generally in form of HH review; do at least 1 equity calculation. (I studied a a bit in the form of HH reviews, but didn't do much in the way of equity calcs.)
[  ] Edit:  Whenever I play 50NL+, I will play a maximum of 2 tables.  If I feel like "grinding", I will play 25NL or lower only (As discussed in a previous blog, I dropped the whole maximum of 2 tables.  In the end, I I love mass tabling and playing tons of hands). 

Overall, I ended up for the month thanks to bonuses and rakeback. 

November 2010 Goals:

[  ]  100,000 hands
[  ]  Positive winrate
[  ]  Stop looking at your results/graphs.  Seriously dude, don't look at it.  Poker is a long-term game.  No more than 1 time per week, okay? 
[  ]  Do session reviews at end of 5 of 7 days.
[  ] Lose 10 pounds

Stats for 2 Table Rush vs. 8 Table Rush

As I discussed in my last post, I have been playing 8 tables of FR Rush lately (4 of one level, 4 of another level). 

Here are the results and stats side by side (sorry about the formatting -- I'm a blogger newb):


                        2 Tables           8 Tables
Hands:              30,615             25011
$                      - 433                +306
Winrate:           -2.95bb/100     +6.82bb/100
VPIP:               13.4                 11.0
PFR:                 11.2                  9.2
3 Bet:                4.0%                2.9%
AF:                   2.33                 2.43
Steal:                39.2%              31.7% 
WTSD:             26.2%              26.1%
W$SD:             54.7%              59.1%
CB Flop:           68.9%              70.2%
CB Flop Win:    50.6%              49.3%
Riv Call Eff:        1.44                3.07
Sets:                   13.1                11.4 

In analyzing the stats, I am obviously playing tighter, stealing less, and 3 betting less.   I am winning more at showdown (makes sense since my starting hands are slightly better).  I am actually hitting less sets.  The biggest difference in stats appears to be my River Call Efficiency.  While this sounds the opposite of what it should, I feel like I am doing a better job with my river play - mostly in that I am not making hero calls on the river.  I think this is mostly because I don't have the time to talk myself into the call.  Instead I am relying on my insticts (based on reads, stats, how the hand went down) to quickly decide if it makes sense to call.  

For now, I will stick with 8 tabling Rush because a) I am winning; and more importantly, b) I am having fun getting tons of hands in.  It remains to be seen if in a few weeks I will be writing to say that I need to play less tables and really "think" about each and every decision.....   

Mid-month update

I promised myself that I would use this blog more often.  It is cool to look back at what I was thinking/doing with poker a year ago.  Man, I was a fish.  Man, I'm still a fish.  :-)

So this month has been difficult thus far.  I really struggled at the start of it with two tabling.  One of my goals was to only play two tables for the month of October.  I have failed that goal, but at least it was a conscious, thoughtful decision.  While two tabling does allow me to concentrate more, it also allows one of my biggest leaks to fester, and that is overthinking.  I am a classic overthinker.  I overthink even the (relatively) smallest of decisions.  When I overthink at a poker table one of two bad things usually happens:  1.  I get FPS thinking he has to be bluffing; or 2.  I fold too much thinking he has to have me beat.  Also, when I take a bad beat it affects me more and I go on tilt more easily.  I guess that's 3 things, lol.  Math skillz FTW.

When I play multi-tables I don't have time to overthink things and I don't tilt as much.  Granted, I am on auto pilot and I am not good enough that auto-piloting will make me a big winner, but it does cut down on a few of my leaks.  I would love to be able to find a coach that could that could devise a strategy that would allow me to just crank out hands because that is one of my favorite things to do.

So anyway, I decided to 8 table rush.  I am playing 25NLFR and 10NLFR and I'm really enjoying it.  I can get in around 1900 hands per hour, which is pretty sweet.  I am stacking the tables and I color-code them so I know which one is which.  I also use TableNinja for FT and that works great and helps lessen the confusion on which table since it auto-puts in bets.

 Anyway, I'm going to play like this for awhile and see what happens.  Like anything else I've tried, I will probably be blogging in a few weeks that I suck at playing that many tables and I need to play less tables to improve.  True story. 

Week 1 of October

has sucked thus far.

It is very depressing.

That is all.