A Wasted Month and Going Forward (9/2/2011)
Friday, September 2, 2011 at 4:51PM When I think about August I just consider it a “wasted month” when it comes to poker.
There was a lot going on and I failed to coordinate my schedule with the peak playing times. I went to St Martin for vacation which took up two entire weekends. Also, the hurricane pretty much destroyed one weekend. And there was a funeral earlier in the month.
Despite all that I still managed to play 124 hours in August (15 of this was on vacation, not even real 2/5 games). I finished up a disappointing +$240, not even half a buy in. I don’t have all of the answers on how it’s possible for me to put 125 hours in during a summer month and basically break even. It’s easy to forget how small of a sample size that really is. It’s even tougher when you see the most ABC regulars in the universe who seem to win 1k every night. This isn’t really happening, you just walk by at the wrong times. But some of them do seem to run that good indefinitely, EZ life. This is all b.s I can’t control, but yes it is very frustrating.
I’m looking forward to really putting in the volume this month, staying focused, and seeing what happens. I don’t want to have much of a life other than poker right now. I might go one night per week if things are going well. If I break even a week or lose I probably won’t go, I’m feeling somewhat pressured to get something going. If I break even or lose in 150+ hours this month it may be times to seriously re-evaluate what I’m doing. This may involve even dropping back to 1/2 for a while. Or maybe getting on some sketchy online poker site half the week. I’m not sure, but I can’t afford to break even or lose months that often. Ok maybe I can for a few, but it fucking sucks I’m not going to lie.
This month will be a massive grind. I’m also planning on playing two tournaments at the Borgata. The first event and the last event. The last is a WPT event, which has a buy-in of $3500. This will be the largest buy-in tournament I’ve ever played in. I haven’t really taken a shot since I’ve gone pro, and I feel like taking one now. I’m definitely looking at playing the main WPT event as a “shot” for me. Also, I have someone taking 50% of my action and putting up 50% of my buy-in so this is a good deal for me.
I have a lot of tournament study during the next two weeks as well. So that will replace a lot of my cash game study during the next week or so. The two tournaments shouldn’t really mess with my cash game grinding much. The first tournament is a Wednesday at 11a.m. And the main event is a Sunday at 11a.m (ok so it will mess up one Saturday night).
I’m getting ready to play tonight. I haven’t worked out or anything today, bad idea. Just wake woke up, ate a little, now getting ready to play. I think it’s generally a good idea to do some light exercise before playing a 8-10 hour session, but I don’t always do it. Sometimes I pretty much just only play poker a day. And during an off-day I’ll put in a full work-out.
I’m not expecting much tonight. It is a holiday weekend, but Fridays are one of the worst action nights of the week in my opinion. At first I thought this was a huge fluke, but it sort of makes sense. I think a lot of the weekend warrior types infest the tables during Friday night. They are pretty much break even players, but they aren’t losing a lot of money. It’s the typical wanna-be pro crowd, who enjoys nut peddling 8 hours on Friday night. I have a decent hourly advantage on them, but you still need at least two fish for a good table. In the upcoming months I might actually occasionally swap Friday out with another night.
-bag
Reader Comments (2)
Oh man... good luck in the Borgata $3500 event. I think it's gonna be a pretty stacked field but you never know with all these internet wizards moving to Cabo and Canada to play on Stars again.
FK,
Thanks. The main events are generally never stacked fields from my understanding. I've talked to other pros who play every tournament open and they recommend the first and last tournaments for value. Over a thousand people in the main event, there just aren't a over thousand great tournament players on the east coast.
If it is stacked that would suck, but should still be a good experience.
-bag