Was never built for shock,
You could blow it down in any kind of weather Dire Straits
Now that we're into December I've had a chance to take a look at my poker stats for the past year, and it makes interesting reading. Without going into too much detail, what it boils down to is this:
I've had a profitable year over-all, clocking up a 16% return on investment (ROI);
I've done very well in live games, and especially in live tournaments where I've come close to doubling my money;
despite having a poor few months recently, online Texas Holdem ring games are showing a decent profit;
other online games continue to be a problem, with the biggest loss coming from 9 player SitnGos.
So in line with my recent decision to concentrate my efforts on one game type (see 'Fish finder', 29th September) I've been weighing up my options for the coming year. Live games are not a problem; I'll just keep playing in my current games and keep looking for more of the same. You don't fix it if it ain't broke.
As for online poker, it should be blindingly obvious that I need to concentrate on my most successful game: No limit Texas Holdem ring games. But I've been having some doubts about this. For starters, although I'm in profit over-all, my recent results in this game type have been pretty poor. I've only come out ahead in two of the last six sessions and my ROI has gone from positive in the first quarter to slightly negative in the second quarter to a significant loss in the third. In other words, my results in this game type have been getting worse. The problem is I haven't played enough sessions to know whether my early good results were a lucky streak or whether the over-all profit is a true measure of my ability in this game.
On the other hand, SitNGos have been pretty consistently bad, although I almost scraped into positive territory in the last three months. The thing is, I really enjoy playing in this game type and I can't help the feeling that I'm on the edge of figuring out how to play them successfully. What's more, I've had reasonable success with these games in the past but somehow I've lost my SitNGo mojo in the last year or so. The other favourable aspect of these games is that they are so convenient. They are available at almost any time and typically take an hour to play if you make it to the end. The other online game type that I might consider pursuing is multi-table tournaments. Although I haven't played these much recently, I have had moderate success in past seasons. Unfortunately I've had some pretty bad results playing in on-demand (27 player) tournaments, which are the most convenient type to play. So if I did play tournaments this year it would have to be the regular multi-table tourneys, which are not necessarily available at the most convenient times. But I can't really justify playing in a game type that I've hardly played in and not done well in recently.
In the final analysis, I need to play to my strengths. This means persevering with the online ring games. But I only want to play in 'cashies' if I have a reasonable amount of time available. I wouldn't normally play in one of these games unless I was able to play for at least four hours, preferably five. The whole point of ring games is that you have time to wait for the good spots, so playing them for an hour two defeats the purpose. I guess that means that I'll be continuing to play in at least one ring game session each week, on my regular poker night. I'll keep plugging away at the same level and I guess by this time next year I'll have a pretty good idea of my ability in online cashies.
Meanwhile, I'll continue playing SitNGos when I have a few hours to spare here and there. I think I need to stick to one site and stay at the same level all year. If at the end of the year I'm still in the red, then I'll know for sure that my SitNGo mojo has gone forever. So it's goodbye to my mission to try every possible poker variant and back to the basics. It's time to stick to the KISS principal: Keep It Simple, Stupid!
No comments:
Post a Comment