Lucky 13

Last night, for the 13th time so far this year, my overall balance returned to the blue. It also marked the 28th time I made a profit of at least one million play dollars in a single session. My extrapolated profit for the year is 26.1 million, which would put my overall balance over 71.6 million. 100 million is in my sights; a stretch goal would be to achieve it by the end of 2019.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9   123      73   15     4  1649000

delta: $1,499,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $42,744,500
2018 balance: $9,021,000
balance: $54,534,260

Lucky 13

This is actually the fifth time I've used this blog post title. I'm sure I'll continue to use it, since it's quite expressive. Last night, I won my 13th straight MTT NLHE. My aggregate percentile for those tournaments is 85.9981; you'll forgive me if I round that up to 86 :-) My next longest MTT NLHE win streak is a mere 3 tournaments. I'm somewhere in the middle of an outlier, and I'm going to keep it going as long as I can.

buy_in entry players hands entries places_paid place winnings

   900   100       6    63    1186         300   156     2294

delta: $1,294
MTT NLHE balance: $-8,738
balance: $7,440,306

Lucky 13

Imagine my surprise when I discovered this is actually the fourth time I've used this blog post title. I knew I'd used it before, but three times? Get outa here! Here's the skinny on my 13 hand cash game sessions:

+--------+--------------------+
| delta  | poker_session_date |
+--------+--------------------+
|  11500 | 2010-10-05         |
|   1140 | 2011-03-03         |
| -40000 | 2012-11-26         |
|  53999 | 2013-04-19         |
|  47456 | 2014-01-02         |
|  11313 | 2014-07-24         |
+--------+--------------------+

I've come to the conclusion that 7 card stud has a different, and lower, profit sweet spot from that of no limit hold'em. The profit sweet spot of no limit hold'em, in my opinion, is half your starting stack. My experience so far in stud is telling me that the profit sweet spot of stud is one quarter of your starting stack. That's what I achieved last night.

During current Stud session you were dealt 13 hands and:
- saw fourth street 8 times (61%)
- saw fifth street 8 times (61%)
- saw sixth street 7 times (53%)
- reached showdown 5 times (38%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 5 (40%)
 Pots won without showdown - 3

delta: $11,313
cash game 7 card stud balance: $115,527
balance: $10,201,261

Lucky 13

Last night, I had a short and sweet session - only 13 hands. In general, it's great to have such a short session when you're playing a cash game, but it's disastrous when you're playing a tournament. I decided to check the archives to see how I've fared in 13 hand sessions; the results are in:

date        sit_and_go     delta

2013-04-19           0     53999
2012-11-26           0    -40000
2012-09-23           1    -50800
2012-09-14           1    -50800
2012-08-23           1    -50800
2012-07-21           1    -81000
2011-03-03           0      1140
2010-10-05           0     11500

The only surprise here is the losing cash game session on 2012-11-26.

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 13 hands and saw flop:
 - 1 out of 1 times while in big blind (100%)
 - 0 out of 2 times while in small blind (0%)
 - 6 out of 10 times in other positions (60%)
 - a total of 7 out of 13 (53%)
 Pots won at showdown - 3 of 4 (75%)
 Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $53,999
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,785,523
balance: $7,234,931

Lucky 13

Believe it or not, last night's session was even shorter than the one before. I won a big pot on hand 2, and exited stage left on the next hand. In my last three sessions, I've only played 13 hands, but they're a lucky 13! I'm averaging $10,700 per hand over that span. That number resonates, as it's very close to the buy in for the World Series of Poker Main Event. Of course, you can't buy in with play money :-(

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 3 hands and saw flop:
 - 0 out of 0 times while in big blind (0%)
 - 0 out of 0 times while in small blind (0%)
 - 1 out of 3 times in other positions (33%)
 - a total of 1 out of 3 (33%)
 Pots won at showdown - 1 of 1 (100%)
 Pots won without showdown - 0

delta: $36,600
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,227,319
balance: $6,676,727

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