April '08  

Wow. What a strange month, come to think of it. Started with almost no play, as is usually the case when I play a little more during a couple of weeks. I think I temporarily stop playing just because I am a tad scared of what could happen to my life if I went on playing everyday. Something like social alienation creeps the hell out of me for some reason... Which I always considered sort of odd since I am such a loner most of the time... Anyway, that's for some other, more philosophical post I guess.

So April '08 started slow. For a couple of reasons actually. Yes, I do play less after going on a rampage. But April in Montreal also means (usually) 2 very important things. First of, Spring; that one is a given, but we tend to go a little crazier when Spring finally hits, and this year was even worse since it was a record breaking winter in terms of snowfall. And second, and that one is HUMONGOUS, the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs! Indeed, we Canucks cannot get enough of our hockey, man!!! And this year was something very special for us Habs fans; we finish top-seed in the Eastern Conference and could thus hope for great things to come. Unfortunately, as I write these words, our beloved Habs have sunk to a 3-1 deficit against the Philadelphia Flyers in a best-of-seven second round series :(. Since they'll be golfing before the end of the week-end, I got my full attention back on poker now...LOL.

Around mid-April, I started thinking I might not make it to 10,000 hands in the month, so I got into the "logging hands" mode. Everything was going so well, I felt very confident I would hit the milestone again when, one April 23rd's morning, I spilled my whole coffee mug on my 21 days old laptop :@! Catastrophe and misery, yelling, screaming, kicking myself, etc. etc.... Long story short, I kinda life-tilted there and didn't feel like playing for a couple of days. I felt... heart-broken, really... Which got me realizing I am very easily shaken and 'taken of my game' so to speak... In poker as well as in life, that is... To be continued.
With my brand new laptop drying, I then went through setting up my old piece of crap to play a little before the end of the month. Got a couple thousands while waiting to finally try booting my new coffee-smelling PC. When I did boot it, it worked!!! W00t!!!! Happy dance and many thanks to Karma, God, the Poker Gods and/or the Universe!!!! This helped a lot to finish the month with a semi-bang, playing another couple thousands hands and getting my BR to 1 Buy-in short of moving up to NL25 :).

Now, the graphs, as usual :P.

On to a little analysis of my 7200 hands for the month (I know I know, I MUST show some more consistency :)... but... but... there was playoff hockey baby!!), something very interesting strikes me. Considering this PT overview:


NL$10 refers to play on PartyPoker while NL($0.10) is for PokerStars. Now, obviously, the first major difference is in the Net Amount Won; almost a mirror effect there, losing a little over 20 bucks on Stars while raking almost 30 from Party. Thus, one would start looking for other differences in the stats, relevant of my play on both sites. But, surprise surprise!! I am almost exactly the same player on both sites; 17.75/11.34/1.96 on Party, and 17.07/9.78/1.86 on Stars. Without delving into an analysis of my play based on these numbers, it's clear that I'm playing relatively similarly. Note I also win about 12% more showdowns on Party, but that's a testament to the poor quality of the field more than anything else, I think; bad players tend to have a harder time letting go of any hand that hit.

This relative resemblance is reinforced by a number of other minor similar stats, but quickly becomes fallacious under deep scrutiny, though, since one of the most important stats, Pre-Flop Raise %, is quite different (11.34 versus 9.78), which probably accounts for a little more success on Party. And then, there's also my Flop Aggression Factor, which is 3.73 on Party but 5.57 on Stars. Considering I do firmly believe players to be a little better, tougher and savvier, especially post-flop, on Stars, I think this also has to factor in my April results and the big gap between both sites.

A final difference which I also consider a factor is my Attempt To Steal Blinds % (39.32 on Party, 34.47 on Stars), since I might make most of my money with dead money :P. It does represent very small pots, but if they say Football/Hockey is a sport of inches, Poker might be a game of fractions... What am I saying?? Poker IS a game of probability, and what are probabilities if not fractions ;-)...