A good poker year

The year is winding down, and it's been a good one for me, poker-wise. Barring a collapse, it will be the fifth best poker year of my career, profit-wise. Currently, my extrapolated profit for the year is a smidgen below four million, which would better last year's profit by nearly a million. Not too shabby :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     368   99    96    64000
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     302   72    89        0
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     280   72   114        0

delta: $-86,000
2024 balance: $3,716,000
2024 blue distance: $86,000
balance: $16,525,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.71 (1262 of 3026)

In the sweetness

I first came up with the phrase "in the sweetness" when I was playing sit and gos, but one can be in the sweetness when playing any poker style.

This is an excerpt from my May 19, 2019 post. Lately, I've been in the sweetness playing MTT NLHE tournaments. I've made the money in 15 of the last 19 I've entered, which is nearly at a 79% clip, close to double my lifetime average of 42%.

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     325   81    74    71000
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     301   72    49   112000

delta: $83,000
2024 balance: $3,802,000
2024 blue distance: $0
balance: $16,611,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.71 (1261 of 3023)

Poker parkour

This is all by way of trying to describe the kind of daring that at times is absolutely required when playing tournament poker. It's kind of like leaping from stone to stone across the Grand Canyon, when these stones are magically suspended in mid-air and don't even appear until after you've already started to jump towards where you hope the next one will be.

This is an excerpt from my July 29, 2017 post. In my luckiest hand of yesterday's session, I took a leap of faith with a pair of jacks, only to discover that I was up against an opponent who had a pair of aces. I saw the bottom of the Grand Canyon far beneath me, and was in freefall on the flop and the turn, but was miraculously saved by a stone materializing under my left foot - a jack on the river :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     317   81    11   209000

delta: $159,000
2024 balance: $3,719,000
2024 blue distance: $0
balance: $16,528,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.67 (1259 of 3021)

Feeling like Conan

The movie "Conan the Barbarian" came out in 1982, thirty-seven years ago. I went to see it when it came out, and one particular montage has stuck with me all these years. Conan begins the movie as a small boy, who has become enslaved after the murder of his parents. He is set to work in a flour mill, which is manned by many slaves who push the spokes of a huge wheel which powers the grindstone. To show the passage of time, and also to show how big and strong Conan becomes, you see less and less slaves pushing the spokes over the years, until finally it's just Conan pushing, powering the mill all by himself.

I find this an apt metaphor for making a deep run in a poker tournament. When it begins, you're just one of many players, with a tiny stack. As time goes by, your stack grows and the number of remaining players shrinks. If you make it all the way, there's only you left, and you have all the chips :-)

This is an excerpt from my June 12, 2019 post. Yesterday, I felt like Conan again :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     250   63    69        0
MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     365   99     5   472000

delta: $372,000
2024 balance: $3,560,000
2024 blue distance: $0
balance: $16,369,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.66 (1258 of 3020)

The best time to join a tournament

I disagree with my earlier self. The best time to join a tournament is not "any time at all". I now firmly believe the best time is as late as possible.

This is an excerpt from my September 29, 2024 post. I haven't changed my mind since then. Moreover, this understanding has caused me to be more specific about my tournament selection criteria. I will only enter tournaments whose late registration periods contain a break in their final minutes. That way, I can join during the break, which guarantees that when the break ends, I'll have the full complement of starting chips to play with. The ironic thing about this is that if everyone followed my lead, the number of entries per tournament would be considerably smaller, and the payouts therefore considerably less. Thankfully, there are always plenty of players who are unwilling to wait that late before joining :-)

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     270   72    70    77000

delta: $27,000
2024 balance: $3,188,000
2024 blue distance: $107,000
balance: $15,997,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.65 (1257 of 3018)

(Don't Go Back To) Showdown

The title of this post riffs on "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville", an R.E.M. song I like.

This is an excerpt from my February 18, 2013 post. Those were the days when I was playing cash games exclusively. Deciding whether to go to showdown in a tournament is quite different from deciding in a cash game. I've found that you can do quite well in tournaments going to showdown only sparingly. Yesterday, in the one tournament I played, at one point I'd only gone to showdown once (losing that pot), but had won five pots without going to showdown. I'm pretty sure that at the time the money bubble burst, I hadn't won a single pot at showdown.

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     298   72    56    98000

delta: $48,000
2024 balance: $3,161,000
2024 blue distance: $134,000
balance: $15,970,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.63 (1256 of 3017)

A week away from the lake

Poker is the most relaxing thing I know how to do. Whenever I play it, I'm on vacation. I feel like I'm sitting in an Adirondack chair, with a beer on a table beside me and a novel in my hands, on the shore of a beautiful lake. I just want to stay there and never leave :-)

This is an excerpt from my November 14, 2019 post. I haven't played poker since last Tuesday. As today is Tuesday, that means I've been away from the lake for a week. This was due to having a surgical procedure last Wednesday, and recuperating from it. I'm happy to be back! I don't remember any salient details of last Tuesday's session, so I'll just report on the numbers.

style flavor buy_in  entry players entries paid place winnings

MTT   NLHE    44000   6000       9     346   81    58   106000

delta: $56,000
2024 balance: $3,113,000
2024 blue distance: $182,000
balance: $15,922,303
MTT NLHE ITM pct: 41.61 (1255 of 3016)