Yesterday I’ve played the last session of February. After a horrible January I had the idea the worst was behind me. I couldn’t have been more wrong! I’ll start with the numbers and explain from there:
— February Recap—
Feb VPPs: 89.716
Feb Ahead of Pace: 12.996
Feb $ @ Tables: -$12.411,50
Feb $ FPP’s/Milestone: $7.624,10
Feb $: -$4.787,40
Feb # hands: 108.203
Feb # Hours: 85,97
Feb $/Hour @ Tables: -$144,37
Feb $/Hour: -$55,69
Feb Hands/Hour: 1.258
Feb VPPs/Hour: 1.043
As you can see even if I add all the FPP/Milestone money I’m still down $4.787,40. That means that it’s just impossible to continue at the stakes I started out with this year. Last week on Sunday I made the decision to drop down in stakes. I had given myself the time until the end of this month, but it just had to stop right there. I was playing my session and I can’t even tell what happened. I play my normal game, I won my pots but somehow I don’t win enough of them. The end result is one steady line that goes down and there is not one moment were I had a nice flow going. I think you could compare it the best with what would happen if you would fold every hand, so you only play the blinds every round. The real reason why I decided at that moment to drop down is that I just didn’t care anymore. I was down -$3.500 and I felt num. I refreshed PokerTracker and was like: “Oh, -$3.500 well that’s nothing new”. It just isn’t the state of mind you should be in. Sure you have your swings in the game but there should always be a positive spirit to grind that money back as soon as possible. I completely lost the spirit as I had the idea I couldn’t have done things any other way.
Now there will be plenty of players who know what my flaws are (feel free to comment/mail them) but the only wise thing I can do is dropping down to stakes I’m comfortable with. I will have to win some money again and most important, build up my confidence. I’ve dropped down to $3/$6 and since there are no 24 tables of $3/$6 running I play some $5/$10 along with them. I considered playing $2/$4 to get to 24 tables, but the VPP rate is really low there and I don’t even think I could play enough hours to get to SNE if I have to play to much $2/$4. Below a graph of what happened so far after I’ve dropped down in stakes:
It feels a lot better. In stead of losing money, which lately often were sums in the range of $1.500 – $4.000, I’ve actually won money! Sure it’s only 22.000 hands and only two days of playing but it feels good. I’m up 1.21 BB/100 at $3/$6 which I think is really good and I’m down a small bit at $5/$10, -0,28BB/100.
I don’t get why I do better now at the $3/$6 & $5/$10 as I was playing them as well when I was playing the $10/$20 & $15/$30. It could be because I focus more on the higher stake tables but if you would ask me I’m doing the exact same thing now. I’ll just have to drop the “why?” questions for the moment and focus on winning. If I look at my $3/$6 graph for 2010 I see hope!
I’ll grind back those $414 I’m still down and I hope to do the same with my $5/$10 graph but that will be a lot harder.
When both graphs show a good result I might consider going back to $10/$20 but I should forget about that for now and just have to face the fact I’ll have to play more hours to reach my goal.
I didn’t reach my VPP Goal for February, which was 100.000 VPP. I must say that the Olympics didn’t help at all. If I would run good I would have probably played poker and turned on my TV to watch all the Speed-Skating but since I didn’t want to risk losing even more money, most of the days I just watched the Speed-Skating and didn’t play any poker. I was easily distracted the 2nd half of this month, because I had lost most fun in playing poker and there were plenty of fun things to do. I hope to do better in March, the positive last two days should help with that and I’m planning to get at least 100.000 VPP in March, putting me again a good amount above pace.
This week starts pretty bad since I switched my work schedule a bit to have a bit of fun on Thursday evening. That means that this week I have one night less to play poker, so I will have to catch up in the evenings. I will actually drink alcohol again on Thursday, the first time after New Years Eve, so I expect to have a huge headache on Friday 🙁
Not only poker was really bad the last two weeks, also sport didn’t got its needed attention. Last week I hurt my back doing some biceps exercises and I couldn’t do anything for a couple of days. It seems to be over now, so I’m back in the gym tonight. Only 7 weeks until I have to cycle 100km and today is actually the first day it’s really good weather to cycle outside. To bad I have to work tomorrow and since I really wanted to type a new blog I’ll cycle in the gym tonight, hopefully for the last time.
Part of my normal distraction are TV-Series and I’ve actually started watching a new TV Serie which I really like.
Spartacus: Blood and Sand – Official Trailer
I watched all 6 episodes yesterday. It’s a mix between 300 and Gladiator and I’m a big fan of both! Check it out. Besides watching Spartacus I watched the new Episode of Caprica, which isn’t that good but I’m just still in love with Battlestar Galactica! Also I’m keeping up with Lost, but I don’t really like where it’s going. I’ll finish it since it’s the last season but I think the writers are really trying to put in as many weird things as possible and write a story around those things, in stead of focusing on writing a good story. I noticed that a lot of people still like Lost a lot, so maybe it’s just me.
February was my worst month ever, I dropped down in stakes and I’m actually down in money for the year. On the other side the Olympics were really good to watch and after dropping down stakes my last two sessions were hopeful so I can start March with a positive attitude. I’ll be back!
My year to date results below:
— Current Status —
2010 VPPs: 230.023
Ahead of Pace: 68.379
Total $ @ Tables: -$20.417,00
Total $ FPP’s/Milestone: $16.681,29
Total $: -$3.735,71
Total # hands: 272.406
Total # Hours: 215,35
Hands/Hour: 1.265
VPPs/Hour: 1.068
$/Hour @ Tables: -$94,80
$/Hour: -$17,35
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