Well, May is over and it's time for my monthly post-mortem. It's been another somewhat frustrating month, as I was up quite a bit halfway through the month, but then gave back most of my profits on just a few poorly executed hands. Luck had a say in some of the matter, and unfortunately the Lady L. didn't grant me a lot of favors over the last 30 days. Here's the summary:
Cash Games. After being up nearly $100 mid-month in cash games, I ended up barely squeezing out a net profit of just $10 for the past 30 days. Most of the losses occurred in the last week of play, and this in itself contributed to a bit of tilt (both bug-tilt and traditional tilt), which then helped to add to the negative slope. Sigh. I made two big blunders (one with calling down with AJ-high on a totally dry board against a maniac (who held QQ this one time) and another where I got my money in with trip Kings and ended up against someone else's trip Kings and bigger kicker.) The other big losing hands were more of the same; i.e., good cards running bad. I lost twice with AA, getting it all in preflop and getting bad-beaten by a set of Kings and a set of Jacks. Kiss $30 down the drain on just those two hands alone.
Okay, all that said, I don't feel too bad about my play. Reviewing my PT3 stats is encouraging and I think I'm doing most things right. There is a definitely a leak in my preflop raise percentage, as it's only ~half of my VPIP number. Based on what I've read on the forums, my PFR should be closer to 75-80% of my VPIP. The rest of my stats look pretty good, with an average VPIP of 16.3%, a WTSD of 23% (maybe a teeny bit on the low side), and a W$SD of 55.5% (which ain't too shabby, if I do say so myself.) Positional stats look pretty good, too. My VPIP is over 20% in later positions, and well under 10% in EP. In other words, I think I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing, but the cards just aren't cooperating. I do need to get a little more aggressive preflop, and I could stand to make a few more crying calls on the river than I am, but overall the numbers are okay. I really just need to keep on keeping on, as they say. [EDIT: I had a little bit of free time on Sunday night and got in 200 hands of $.25/.50 and $1/2 limit poker; made a little more official profit for the month; my total cash game gain for May is now $25. Still not great, but certainly better than it was this morning.]
Tourneys. This is another area where I was up considerably halfway through the month, but then gave back about half the profits in the last week of May. I played a total of 52 SnGs, and netted $21.20 in profit for the effort. To be fair, this isn't as bad as it sounds, as I played mostly $1 and $2 games, plus I took a stab at a number of dollar 45-man games, where the variance is pretty high. My OPR numbers look pretty solid, with an ITM of 43% and an ROI of 10%. My PT3 numbers look decent in this area, too, with an average VPIP of 17.7% and a PFR of 13% (which is much better than my cash game ratio of VPIP to PFR). WSD is a solid 55%, but my positional stats are a bit weird, with an obvious "hole" in the cutoff and hijack seats, where I actually lost money overall. The hands that cost me the most in these seats were Anna, and some middle pairs that I couldn't get off. There are only 3600 hands in total for the 52 games, so the stats aren't entirely meaningful.
Guru Sessions. I only played at the Guru's place on two occasions this past month, but in both instances we did fairly well. I think we're up a few hundred or so for the two sessions, and today we played really solid poker, making only a couple of mistakes and generally kicking ass and taking names. The poker gods gave us some love on a few coin flips, and we've won enough to cover the entry into a$750K guarantee tourney plus some tokens. Not bad for just a few hours of playtime.
Next Month. Like I said earlier, I need to just keep on doing what I've been doing in cash games, and focus on a little more aggression and playing basic ABC poker. I'm also intending to start (re)watching some of the Grinderschool videos I have in my library; just sweating a good player seems to reinforce good play in my own game. It also makes me think more about thinking through hands prior to acting, rather than just playing by rote.
As far as tourneys go, I'll keep playing low-dollar SnGs, but satellites into the WSOP events are popping up all over on FullTilt, and I expect to spend the early part of June playing in some of these with the handful of $26 tokens I've accumulated under my old bug account. I've also got enough FPPs under the new account, too, to play a couple of 1800-point games and see if I can win a few more tokens
Other News. I've been reading a couple of good books on poker this past month, and I started reading the forums more regularly, too. I've also resubscribed to Cardplayer magazine. This month's issue was pretty good, but there was one bizarre column that I just have to comment on. Typically, I read the mag cover to cover, but I tend to skip anything written by Phil Helmuth (see below) and Todd Brunson. Both are ego-driven guys who rarely if ever offer anything useful to the reader. In fact, advice given can be downright bad.
This month, for some reason, I actually read Todd B's piece and was reminded of how poor his advice can be. In the article, he described how, during a recent tourney, he looked at only one of his cards and sort of looked at the other. The first card was an ace, and by the blank spot on the second card that he could see when he squeezed the card, he deduced that he either hand another ace, a deuce, or a three. Then, without knowing what he had, he re-shoved on an EP raiser with his unknown hand and after a long pause, surprise, got called. Turns out he had A3, and was eliminated from the tourney by the other player, who was holding 66. Brunson then goes on to defend this bizarre play by saying, "There are several reasons to [not look at both cards in your hand], one is that makes it hard for your opponent to get a read on you if you don't know exactly what you have yourself. And it makes it easier to make bold plays, as I did here." Seriously. What a bozo.
Finally, before I leave, let me express my disappointment at Daniel Negreanu's weekly column in our local newspaper being replaced a few weeks ago by the Poker Brat himself, Phil Helmuth. Whereas Daniel would almost always offer some sage advice or tips for the readers, Phil's column is nothing but an ego fest. The theme of his columns alternates between "what an amazing call I made" and "let me tell you about the celebrities I hang around with." There is almost no useful information contained in his columns, and, worse, there are often terrible examples for new players to emulate. Granted, he can make some pretty sick calls, but for 99% of us reading the piece, the advice should almost always be the opposite of what he proffers. Useless drivel at it's worst. One more reason to think about not renewing my subscription to the morning paper...
All-in for now...
-Bug
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