The land of the fives

Last night, in the only tournament I entered, I finished 28th of 63. That means I hit the 55th percentile. To be precise, the percentile was 55.55... . In other words, the land of the fives :-) That statistical oddity was the only bright spot of the session. I exited the tournament in a painful way, getting 5 outed on the river. My blue distance is fast approaching $11,000,000. I'm still putting even money on finishing 2018 in the black, however.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    50      63   15    28        0

delta: $-300,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $31,498,500
2018 balance: $-1,883,000
balance: $43,630,260

Double seventy-five

Last night, I played about as well as you can play without making a profit. In the one tournament I entered, I played 75 hands, and did better than 76.19% of the entrants. There were two cruel features of the session:

1. I missed the money by a narrow margin
2. on the final hand of the night, I was a 68.18% favorite after the turn, but it wasn't meant to be

The good news is that I'm playing well.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    75      84   18    20        0

delta: $-350,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $31,798,500
2018 balance: $-1,583,000
balance: $43,930,260

Double double sixty

When you're in a poker slump, as I now am, it helps to know that you've actually been playing well. I have various ways of determining this. One of the most reliable is looking at the percentile I reached in a tournament; whenever I finish at or above the 60th percentile, I know I was playing well. Another good indicator is lasting for a long time. Of course, that begs the question: what's a good definition of long time? :-) I'm picking 60 again. Any time I last 60 or more hands, I feel I must have been doing something right.

Last night, I achieved both of these goals in both tournaments I entered. You could call that a double double sixty :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    60      60   12    22        0
MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    63      57   12    15        0

delta: $-350,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $32,148,500
2018 balance: $-1,233,000
balance: $44,280,260

Loss portfolio

Lately, I've been padding my loss portfolio. That isn't as bad as it sounds :-) As I've remarked before, weathering downswings makes you a more resilient player. I've now lost 7 sessions in a row, which is a far cry from my personal worst of 12, but is still nothing to sneeze at. In that interval, I've lost an aggregate of $1,619,000, good for 27th place on my career list of losingest 7 session stretches. My blue distance is within whispering distance of $10,000,000 once again.

I just realized I've achieved a blog first - I've written a blog post without playing again after already blogging about my most recent session. The reason I didn't play online poker last night was that I was too busy playing online chess :-)

yaw

This is the second time I've used this blog post title. The first was on April 6 of this year; here's what I had to say:

Last night, I had yaw - yet another whaleback. I missed the money by three places. I played well, had fun, and outlasted a bunch of the usual suspects. I feel a big payday heading my way :-)

Almost everything applies equally well to last night's session; the only difference is that I finished well out of the money this time.

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    53      56   12    27        0

delta: $-150,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $32,498,500
2018 balance: $-883,000
balance: $44,630,260

yafftp

On Monday night, I suffered yafftp - yet another freefall from the peak. The rate this happens remains remarkably consistent over time, hovering around 32%. As I've mentioned before, this statistic has no correlation with making or missing the money, so it's actually a pretty silly one to look at. It's one of the standbys I use when I can't figure out what else to write about a session :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    29      65   15    40        0

delta: $-100,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $32,648,500
2018 balance: $-733,000
balance: $44,780,260

First hand foldfest

Last night's session had only one interesting feature -  a foldfest on the first hand. I was in the big blind, and there were five other players at the table. All five of them folded, so I picked up the smallest pot possible, making a profit of one small blind (10 chips). It felt like a phantom hand, since I didn't have to act at all. Unfortunately, that was the highlight of the session :-)

style flavor buy_in entry players hands entries paid place winnings

MTT-R NLHE    43500  6500       9    42      75   15    33        0

delta: $-200,000
MTT with rebuys NLHE balance: $32,748,500
2018 balance: $-633,000
balance: $44,880,260