Lucky 13

Last night, I only played 13 hands. You know there are really only two scenarios which could have led to such a low number:

1. the last hand was strong, I fell in love with it, went all in, lost to a stronger hand, and had the self-control not to reup at another table

2. I won a disproportionate number of the 13 pots, realized a nice profit, and had the self-control to stop playing and take the profit

I'm happy to say that last night it was the second scenario.

I've been thinking about the golden ratio a lot, and have decided to kiss it goodbye. It served me very well on the road to my first play million (which I aim to re-achieve and then surpass), but it's silly to obsess over a statistic; too much desire to hit the ratio could too easily lead to poor poker decisions.

I've also been thinking a lot about how poker requires constantly learning new things, and re-learning old things one has gotten rusty on. This evergreen characteristic of poker is one of the reasons I love it, and why I'm never bored by it!

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 13 hands and saw flop:
- 1 out of 2 times while in big blind (50%)
- 1 out of 2 times while in small blind (50%)
- 7 out of 9 times in other positions (77%)
- a total of 9 out of 13 (69%)
Pots won at showdown - 1 of 2 (50%)
Pots won without showdown - 2

delta: $11,500
balance: $890,487

Golden ratio

Last night's winning session brought me back, after many months, to what I call the poker golden ratio. This is the ratio I've decided will ensure continued poker success. It' s simple to state -- the number of your winning sessions must be at least double the number of your losing sessions. It's less simple to achieve :-)

Since I started keeping stats on March 24, 2009, I've had 69 losing sessions and 138 winning sessions. That hits the golden ratio right on the nose!

Last night, I was pretty good about sticking to my new philosophy of keeping up my fold percentage. I did let one hand get away from me; I lost just north of 10k on it. I didn't feel too badly, though, as I'd just won a big pot and was willing to gamble a little.

delta: $34,000
balance: $605,203