My blind race to Supernova brought to a halt

[Zapatos80]

Unfortunately, my worst fear happened. I lost over 2k and i'm now forced to go back down to 50NL. However, it's not all bad as i've really learned a lot about myself and my limits, poker-wise. For one, I always thought i'd be really discouraged if this happened but I don't feel discouraged at all. Not checking my bankroll after each session has helped tremendously and I know it's going to be an important part of my poker success.

It's funny because just yesterday I read about the Peter Principle on PTR : http://www.pokertableratings.com/blog/2010/01/the-peter-principle/ and for me, 100NL is definitly my wall. After 84K hands, i'm at roughly -2000$ with an EV of -1400$ so i'm clearly a big losing player at these tables. However, after 94k hands of 50NL i'm at -150$, EV of -75$ so i'm about a breakeven player, which was pretty much my first goal. Here are my graphs, for the curious :

50NL :



100NL :



If I had to make an educated guess, i'd say my biggest leak is non-showdown pots. This isn't a big surprise since I know i'm playing overly tight in a lot of places. I almost never call steal re-raises even in position with good hands like AQ or KQ, I rarely fire 2nd barrels, I rarely make small river bluffs, I never 4-bet resteal the light 3-bettors although I know i'm getting 4-bet restealed by regs quite a bit, etc etc. All of this hurt me a lot less in the less aggressive 50NL games but at 100NL, those small edges are really required to be a winning player. All in all, I think i'll invest 80$ to get Leakbuster. The trial version was a big help and I think all the tips, analysis and videos will really help me take my game to the next level.

All in all, this was a nice reality check. I'm going to take a little time to work and improve my game. The nice thing is I just hit 50K FPP so i'll be able to buy the 650$ bonus which will bring my bankroll to 3600$, more than enough money to play 50NL very comfortably. Obviously, i'll have to review my goals for the year but I think 200K VPP at 50NL is a realistic goal, especially since i'm finishing college this year and i'll probably start working a "real" job IRL this summer. For a break-even player, 200K VPP is still a healthy 14K/year in bonuses/milestones, not bad at all for a small part-time job.

If my last 94K hands of 50NL are any indication, this is probably what I can achieve with my current skills. However i'd like to become a winning player at 50NL and I think by studying the game, reviewing my hand histories and working hard, that's a reasonable goal for 2010. I'll still update this blog every week with my progress as i'm sure there's others like me going through a similar phase (although I won't be able to get as many hands in since this is my last week of vacation before school starts full-time again). So here's to all the struggling micro/small stakes players, the quest for Supernova is still on!


New target : 550VPP/day to reach 100K by the end of June.

Current VPP : 14,297

9,897 VPP ahead of pace.

[HardGrindeR]

keep it up mate.

[Biox]

Nice, how many tables at once do you play?
Keep it up :):

[Deltathree]

Your leak is definitely nonshowdown. I'd say you get yourself a good paid coach and work on that, thats a WAY too steep redline there sir :D

[Jakejenks]

Keep going, you seem good at analysing your play and taking steps to improve, all good signs mate!

[Kyle Bentley]

Peter Principle is pretty iffy in poker, too much variance. Winnings don't really converge until around 300,000 hands. Of course if your bankroll can't handle adapting to a new stake you would have to drop down. Some people just don't play within their bankroll or think they're better than they are. You should read wonderboy's posts from 2+2. Made 500,000 in one year and feels like there are only minute differences (mental and emotional) between a 1-2 winning reg and a 5-10 winning reg.

http://pokervariancesimulator.fr/

[Kyle Bentley]

Oh yea, you should also read Tommy Angelo's Element of Poker. Kind of on the same wavelength of wonderboy (boywonder?) posts on 2+2.

[Zapatos80]

Just bought Leakbuster and spent the day reviewing my hands, listening to videos and reading on 2+2. Wow did I learn a lot. After looking at my stats with leakbuster I saw a bunch of very obvious and terrible leaks that can be plugged relatively easily.

There's so many adjustments I want to make that I think i'll drop to 4-tables until I feel really comfortable with all this new stuff. I'm very confident that I can get an above-breakeven winrate at 50NL now and i'll probably switch to 4-tables of 6-max to have more opportunities to practice aggressive play. Obviously that will bring my VPP grind to a big halt but I think i'll make more money in the longrun by becoming a more solid player than by robot-grinding rakeback. I still think I got a solid shot at Supernova for the year anyway :)

[Zapatos80]

@Biox, those graphs are 24-tables, full ring.