Milestone

Last night, I achieved another milestone. I recorded the 40th Partial Monty of my MTT NLHE career. As a refresher, a Partial Monty is a tournament in which I received winnings of at least one million play dollars. If the tournament is a midnight train, a Partial Monty results in a profit of at least 800,000 play dollars. If I achieve another Partial Monty tonight, I'll be perilously close to back in the black for the year :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE   174000  26000       6      55   15     3  1081000
MTT   NLHE    45000   5000       6      67   18    39        0

delta: $831,000
MTT NLHE balance: $43,374,368
2022 balance: $-847,900
blue distance: $865,100
balance: $93,996,053

Milestone

On Friday night, I played two tournaments and failed to make the money in either one. Nothing really stands out about the session. The most memorable thing abuut it was that I hit a milestone - I've now played 500 MTT-R NLHEs where I chose not to add on. I'm firmly convinced that not adding on has really helped my bottom line this year.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    45      66   15    25        0
MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    10      65   15    45        0

delta: $-200,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $46,421,000
2019 balance: $13,097,250
balance: $59,681,510

Milestone

Last night I achieved a milestone - I made the final table of an MTT-R NLHE for the 40th time in my career. I started the final table in sixth place, and finished in fifth. It's always a good feeling to ladder up at the final table, even if it's only one spot :-) I haven't crunched the numbers yet, but have a feeling that I've finished higher than where I started at the final table more often than the reverse. If I'm as successful tonight as I was last night, I'll be back in the blue again.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid  place winnings

SNG   NLHE    42500  7500       6    17       6    2      3        0
MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    65      77   18     34        0
MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9   123      43    9      5   913000

delta: $663,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $21,264,500
2017 balance: $21,870,455
balance: $33,288,285

Milestone

Last night, I had my sweetest four hand session ever. On hand 2, I won a pot worth $99,485 with a jack high straight. On the next hand, I was dealt rockets, and ended up winning a pot worth $5,175 without a showdown. I opted to take the money and run. I've now won more than 5 million play dollars playing cash game no limit hold'em; it's clearly my best poker flavor. I still plan to reward myself with the excitement of playing tournaments when my overall balance tops 8 million, however.

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

delta: $64,608
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $5,026,003
balance: $7,475,411

Milestone

Last night, I hit another milestone. My balance went over the 7 million play dollar mark again. It's the second time I've achieved this; the first time, I was playing tournaments, and my balance quickly fell way back down after a run of losses. Every time I cross a million play dollar boundary, I take a moment to think back on where I started, and how I got where I am. I started out scared of high stakes, and petrified of no limit. First I weaned myself of my fear of high stakes; much later, I weaned myself of my fear of no limit. I can't say I was ever actually afraid of playing tournaments in the past, since for some reason it never crossed my mind to play them until I'd been playing online cash game poker for about 3 1/2 years. I can say that, due to my experiences playing them, I have a healthy respect for how hard it is to make money playing them. You might even say I'm a teeny bit afraid of tournaments now :-)

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 66 hands and saw flop:
 - 7 out of 12 times while in big blind (58%)
 - 6 out of 11 times while in small blind (54%)
 - 24 out of 43 times in other positions (55%)
 - a total of 37 out of 66 (56%)
 Pots won at showdown - 2 of 8 (25%)
 Pots won without showdown - 4

balance: $9,807
cash game no limit hold'em balance: $4,551,120
balance: $7,000,528

Milestone

Tonight marks my 365th post. I can remember boasting when I hit 50 posts that I was probably already in the top 50% of bloggers when measured solely by number of posts. What I didn't realize then was how therapeutic, and therefore addictive in a good way, blogging is. Knowing this now, I retract my braggadocio. I have no idea where I stand in the universe of bloggers, but it doesn't matter. Blogging was, is, and will always be its own justification, needing no outside recognition or stamp of approval. It's a conversation you carry on with yourself over time, with the benefit that others can listen in if and when they want.

Why choose the 365th post as a milestone? Of course, it's because 365 is the number of days in a year. If I'd managed to post every single day since I started, this post would have been written on November 24th, 2010. Loving statistics the way I do, I calculated that I've been posting at nearly a 60% clip - roughly 6 posts every 10 days. Of course, given the subject matter of my blog, that also means I've been playing poker at the same clip.

Last night, I had the canonical "poker diet" session. I'd take 10 of them in a row any time!

During current Hold'em session you were dealt 38 hands and saw flop:
- 2 out of 5 times while in big blind (40%)
- 2 out of 5 times while in small blind (40%)
- 20 out of 28 times in other positions (71%)
- a total of 24 out of 38 (63%)
Pots won at showdown - 5 of 8 (62%)
Pots won without showdown - 1

delta: $5,898
balance: $1,738,051

Another milestone

Tonight, I reached another milestone; for the first time, I cracked the $400K barrier. I have to say, this hot streak I'm on is surprising even me! I'm doing so well, I need to reset my short term goals to give me something really challenging to shoot for. My new goal for the end of this month is to break $500K. I realize that's brash, absurd, and unrealistic, but I'm gonna give it a shot anyway!

I chased a flush tonight, but got away with it. It hit on the river, and paid off handsomely, to the tune of $47,200.

delta: $24,400
balance: $400,627

P.S. I started reading "The Biggest Game in Town", by A. Alvarez, on my Kindle last night.

Milestone

Tonight marks a milestone of sorts -- my 50th post. When I started this blog, I certainly didn't have "number of posts" as a goal; my goal was (and remains) to win a million play dollars, through a combination of guile, ingenuity, guts, and luck. Yet there's something about the sheer number of posts that will be a by-product of this quest that makes the act of posting significant in itself, whether or not I ever achieve my goal.

I don't have an account on Twitter, yet I follow with interest the varied opinions of the blogosphere on this intriguing company. Some fascinating statistics have come to light, which I'm sure also have relevance to "regular" blogs, in addition to the "micro" blogs Twitter has pioneered and popularized. What really captured my attention were what could be termed the "one-tweet wonders" -- micro-blogs consisting of a single, solitary tweet. I'm sure there are "one-post wonders" in the realm of traditional blogs as well.

I guess you could say that right now I'm indulging in a not-very-transparent act of self-congratulation. Though I have no statistics to support this claim, I'm nevertheless somehow absurdly certain that this blog is more successful than half the blogs ever started, where the definition of success is "at least 50 posts". How can I make this claim with no statistics to back it up? Intuition, baby; it's what we poker players live (and die) by :-)

My intuition was working well tonight. I even came up with a couple additional rules of thumb!

additional rule of thumb #1: it's worth it to flush the bluffers from the scene by betting a decent amount in late position even when your hand is nothing much to speak of. What you get when you do this is information; all information costs something, so consider it money well spent.

additional rule of thumb #2: you need to make it clear to the rest of the table that you bluff sometimes, just to "keep them honest" in their distrust of you. If you never bluff, you're a marked man. In that case, it makes it a simple decision for them to fold when you bet a significant amount.

The hardest thing I had to do tonight was to stop playing when I felt like I was on a roll. The thing is, I've had enough experience to know how dangerously seductive that "just a couple more hands" attitude can be. You need to try to do the right thing, as well as you're able, always! Sometimes, the right thing makes you feel like a wimp, but so be it.

I honestly believe this to be true: if you have a good memory, the more you play, the better you'll get. By good memory, I mean a memory for situations, not exact circumstances. You have to listen to the innermost voice of your experience, which can't be bullshitted. The problem is, that voice speaks very quietly. There are a whole bunch of intermediate voices in between you and it, all of them louder than it, and all trying to drown out that innermost voice. Ignore them! Just listen to the quiet one. It knows!

delta: $1,430
balance: $276,048