Comeback Session and Updates (6.1.2010)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010 at 4:06PM 5/31/2010 Session Overview:
Duration: 4 hours
Bonus: +$100
Net Profit: +$250
Mood: Relatively stable
This was a much needed win. Last night I ended up putting in a 4-hour session for profit. The bonus for hitting 70k VPPs brought the session to +$250. Taking the last 25 hours of 12 tabling I was only down around $50. If I include FPPs I would be up during the last 25 hours, which is encouraging. I was going to put in another 2 hour session last night, but I was really in a mood to end on a good note. Also, I wanted to get more than 5 hours of sleep.
I’m really hoping to stabilize into somewhat of a normal win-rate. It’s funny I refer to it as “win-rate” when during the last 2 months it’s technically been a “loss-rate”. But I’m confident that I went through a horrific down-swing, and I’m a winning poker player (despite the variance) so I will keep using the term “win-rate”.
The EV Nightmare:
To put things in perspective, even by HEM standards I’ve ran around -$4700 in EV in during the last 200,000 hands or so. I remember talking to a regular a few weeks ago who was cursing his luck of having run -$5,000 in EV during A MILLION HANDS. I wonder what percentage of these regulars have gone through a real down-swing in their millions of hands played, it absolutely blows my mind.
The last 25 hours of play have shown some stabilization with regards to an EV skid, but by no means have I experienced anything close to an upswing. I again find myself thinking I can’t hit much of a worse variance spike than this. But then again, my signature move is finding a way run bad beyond anyone’s wildest nightmares. So I can’t 100% say, I COULD NEVER RUN THIS BAD AGAIN. But I will say with 90% certainty that I honestly expect to run at least 50% better from an EV standpoint during the next 200k hands, which should yield a rate that I can live off of.
Benefits of Down-Swinging Early:
Partially investing your livelihood and confidence in the likes of probability is a risky business, and such is the life of a poker player. I have confidence in my ability to make it a few hundred thousand more hands, even a few million. I hope I will one day look back and say “this was the worst I have ever ran”. In the long run it is probably better to have gone through the worst down-swing of my life NOW.
Why?
For starters, I’m in a financial position to handle it. I have a day job and limited expenses. But more importantly, it has caused me at times to seriously step back and break down every part of my game. Imagine if I ran like a God during the past two months and immediately quit my day-job. What if I ran the polar opposite and was up +$4,500 in EV instead of being down -$4,500 in EV? Then I would think I was better than I really was, and when I did hit the eventual down-swing it would have been that much harder to handle it and correct any problems. My pride would have also got in the way as I thought something like: “Well this is bs, I made X amount the last two months, this is obviously the worst down-swing anyone has ever experienced on planet Earth”. When in actuality, I was incredibly lucky the first two months, and I really had no business profiting like I did. And thanks to the nice upswing, I have forgotten to step back and deeply analyze my game. Also, I probably have some leaks that will ensure my continued demise, even with that bull-shit Supernova status.
But now thanks to the downswing I think I’m a worse player than I actually am. This is good because I’m constantly fighting to improve. When I run like a normal person I now think I’m having INCREDIBLE LUCK. In fact, if I have a session that reports in at break-even EV I feel really really lucky right now. As for positive EV sessions? Lol yeah right positive EV that’s a good one…….. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves…
Anyways, I’m continuing to put in time whenever possible on the tables. I may aim to log 3 hours tonight. I have a mandatory target of 5,000 VPPs to be cleared by the end of Sunday 6/6/2010.
Until next time!
-bag