Ouch. Been mostly too depressed (and yes, busy trying to stop the bleeding... can't really say that I have either... nerf that start of '09 :-P) to post my monthly report for December. While I don't feel like going into details, not yet anyway, I think I fell, very big this time, for my oldest archenemy again, ie, me; overplaying pocket and top pairs, forgetting to think AND act accordingly, not even using stats, even though they're there, staring me in the face, and when using them, doing it just badly, plain and simple. Oh, and yes, combined to all that bad play, and I did play like a dumb fsck, I did run into the coldest mstherfscking streak of my life... (Resigned I am, and blaming it all on luck, I am not...;-))

Anyway, though I do feel embarrassed by it, and not because of volume woes this time (funny how those are easier to cope with at the end of the day... Nerf the result-oriented paradigm I guess :-P), I do have to post the usual graph :-S...


On the positive side of things, since I haven't (yet) decided to call it quits, volume was excellent in December, while keeping my social life pretty active as well. Great. Cinema took the blow though, but hey, it's a juggling act really :-P! And to grant myself kind of perspective, this is actually the first negative month in quite some time... I just have to manage to ignore the voice in my head that goes "Yeah, but what a loss!!!"... lol

Stay tuned for a painstaking wrap-up of 2008, as soon as I muster to courage, cause I'm guessing it's going to be a long one ;-).

Ok, there's no 2 ways about it: November was a definite, rock-solid, epic FAIL. I'll say it again: EPIC.FAIL.

3, 381 hands played is by no means relevant. And I don't really know what happened, except what I said in my latest post.

Although, on the bright side, November marked my first shot at NL50, which I'm currently still riding. Hopefully, I'll stick around, especially since I laboriously started grinding at The Asia Poker First Deposit Bonus...

To make things right, the graphs, even though a pretty irrelevant sample :(.

November 2008 - BB Won
November 2008 - Showdown

It is that time of the year over here, and the feel of Old Man Winter in the air is kinda depressing to say the least... Combined with my newly found... confusion (see switcheroo), October was, all in all, a very ordinary month in terms of poker satisfaction. Still managed to keep it a very decent winner, bringing me closer to my ultimate goal of 2008, ie grinding my way to a steady NL50 roll. But I failed again half way through my volume objective, with a definitely lousy and most pathetic 6,022 hands played.


Here are the usual graphs:

October 2008 - By Money Won
October 2008 - By BigBlind Won
October 2008 - Showdown

Which brings us to a very serious new objective of mine: bring that money won without showdown (red line) as close as possible to par. I think this is pretty important for any aspiring poker player, and a huge, unforgivable leak in my game, and shall thusly consider it quite more in the future ;-).

Edit: After the daily Coffee Machine Poker Talk with my buddy ncaron, I feel the need to be a tad clearer about this new objective: I should say that I'll keep an eye on that line and try to bring it to par without losing the main focus of it all, which is keeping a ptbb/100 hands above 3.0... :D

Just skimmed through my old "monthly analysis" posts and saw the Epic Fail one for last June. Funny how things are all relative. Like position, lol. Just saying cause, this time around, I'm choosing leniency towards myself, since I "only played" 5,233 hands in the month. Thing is I just came back from a month of almost no play that clearly questioned my commitment to the game, so let's be realistic here :). And I'm pretty happy to go pheww! and reiterate: I.Love.This.Game. :D

And glad to be back. With a very decent month of September money-wise but quite flimsy on the volume side. Which is now my new old objective: 12k hands a month for the rest of the year. With the fall and the cold and the rain/snow just around the corner (I hate you!), I feel pretty confident about achieve this. Not sure it'll be enough to win me a volume bet with Nic, but hey, let's hope it snowballs! Especially since I kinda found myself another hobby, grinding at my grinding time like a sour blister. I am speaking of comics, of course. Combined with work, cards, cinema, sports (hockey's about to be back - damn I hope this is the year :P! Oh... but Go Sox Go... Red Sox, that is - lousy Black Sox snuck in, lol), books, although comics have pretty much took their spot, except for poker books (I'm a bit behind, currently finishing PNL1... For reviews, skim through 2+2 :)), and a somewhat existing social life, I feel I need more than 168 hours a week... Ok. This whiny bid was brought to you by AlLaf Inc., AlLaf Inc., the dream is here!! ROFL

In any case, I'm off to a good start in October... We shall see, won't we... Here are the graphs for September.

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Well, August's gone. My favorite month of the year, no doubt about it. And I did enjoy it this year; one of the best August in years to be quite frank :). But that somehow, and somewhat surprisingly, meant being off poker. As in out of the game almost entirely... Kinda weird... Enough to trigger some doubtful questioning, anyway... Turns out I went on vacation, and ended playing something like 200 hands tops during those two weeks... Plus 2 very nice, drunk, friendly sessions with old buddies... And that's all the poker I saw. Thing is, I work with computers, and the last year has tended to be all about me sitting in front a computer, be it at work, or at home, grinding my online poker bankroll with more and more enthusiasm... And when I finally hit my summer vacations, I just didn't feel like sitting at my PC... Not. At. All. Even when roaming inside cause of some stupid rain or last minute change of plans, I always opted for my couch, the Olympics, a comic or book, or some movie. I did catch up on stuff I wanted to read or watch or re-watch :). That Dune extended version is one piece of crap of editing, even though it shows some pretty interesting added scenes :P. Anywho, not much poker, to say the least. Thus, I can now say it's all my vacations' fault :P!

Still, returning from vacation tends to slow one's pace down quite a bit, at work for sure, but also everywhere else, just a little bid. The whole sit back groove, basically... And coming home from the office the first couple of days, one feels a tad more tired then used to. Thus, I decided to sacrifice August 2008, so to speak. I played a whooping 1,416 hands :|!!!! And while not being the slowest month ever, it is the lowest amount of poker played since I took it a tad more seriously, about a year ago... Check this out:


Crazy. But, then again, as much as I love the game, it felt like I needed this vacation. Time will tell...

In the meantime, for the sake of continuity, here's one of the 3 usual graphs (I figure it's not that relevant a month anyhow :P).

For the record, I have started September with a very nice 400 hand session, combined with a 1st place finish in a Donkago, so I now think it's fair to assume I'm back and can once more wear my poker gear without shame ;-).

Roughly set myself to collecting a decent sample of Short-Stack play in July, in order to better define what can be expected from this strategy. Got to a little over 11k hands, which is something of a baseline. For the record, I ran at 9.91/7.96/5.56, for a 1.13 ptbb/100hands, which is basically what is to be expected when Short-Stacking. My lifetime short-stacking BB/100 is a little bigger than the one for July, but it does also make a hell of a lot more sense than it did after 5k hands (whooping, unsustainable 5+BB/100 :D!).

Now that I have a half-decent sample of SSS, I can get back to deep-stacking, at least for August, since the whole idea behind me getting into it was to clear to PokerStrategy First Deposit bonus, which I'll do come September. Thus, 40% rakeback being 40% rakeback at any stakes, I'm moving back to real poker in August that's for sure. Not sure if I'll manage to keep the pace and get the minimally satisfying 10k hands in the month since I am on vacations and will most probably get out of town for a couple days at least; if I'm lucky, I'll get to find some live play where I'll end up :).

In any case, a word to the wise; short-stacking is definitely boring as hell, and therefore should NOT be considered poker in any way. But, it can be very, very effective for bonus whoring :).

Anyway, don't wanna babble too long this time around; it's vacation time (I feel like a margarita right now lol). Still, as usual, the graphs. Note those include a single deep-stack session of about 215 hands, mid-month (of course, last hand of said session, I got rockets UTG, raised, got called by a blind with a lousy suited trash hand and we ended up all-in on the flop for the guy to make is mofoin' runner-runner flush. Decided it was karmic retribution for having hacked into poker with this whole Short-Stacking bout ;-)).

July 2008 - By Hands
July 2008 - By Big Blinds
July 2008 - Showdown/Non-Showdown

Not much more to say than short-stacking's a bitch, but an efficient bitch...
But I do have to say: FAIL! 7,575 hands?!?!?!?! WTF!?!?!? Seriously. Not hitting 10K hands a month is un-fscking-acceptable!!! Definitely warrants an EPIC FAIL!!!!

I now see I follow something of a pattern: big month followed by FAIL-month followed by big month, and so on... Enough already!!! Taking a day off or two is fine, but a week is intolerable, and I will try not to let it happen again, unless I'm out of town. Sole objective for July, besides working on clearing my Titan bonus, of course, is to pace myself and try to find a course.

The graphs, and a happy July to all!!!

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Alright, May is over, which means June's here, which in turn means Sun, Summertime, girls, booze, WSOP and vacations :D!!!! Woohoo! ROFL!

More importantly, May 2008 might (and I cannot stress the word enough :P) have been the most significant month pokerwise so far, since I finally (/sigh) managed to rake enough to climb one measly level... which, as lame as the stakes may be, feels very good... Especially since mid-month, I hit one of my worst downswing ever, which quickly became my biggest poker down ever. I thought about simply quitting those stupid objectives-fantasies I entertain about poker (see May 12th post)... I did take a week off, came back, played a lot considering I am trying to live a fulfilled life (lmao), and managed to get my money back in much less time than I had first expected, and which got me so depressed in the first place, seeing all that mountainside I had to climb back yet again... Took me about 25 hundreds hands, basically covering the span of a weekend.

In any case, I am now rolled, barely (11 buy-ins now... w00t!), for NL25, and make it my single goal for June to settle there, and get grinding that level. Funny how moving up stakes, even at those micro-stakes I play, always makes the new game more exciting, the pots being bigger and starting to be more... relevant, the total amount of money involved getting closer to... puzzling... Mind you, NL25 is still a level I could afford to play and lose (not that this is the objective, ldo), but this odd feeling I still get when betting 7 bucks in a 10$ pot makes me wonder what's it gonna be if and when I get to play levels I could not afford where I a losing or casual or touristic player...

And now, for something completely different, the monthly graphs (out of PT3 this month, and from now on, until PokerEV supports PT3's db format or PT3 implements new graph features :P)!  

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 ;-)...

Ok. March was one hell of a roller-coaster ride!!!! It all started very badly, and I never got back in pace... The 2 first weeks, I admit I didnt make much of it, blaming variance, bad beats and a short bleed from weak play (basically not as aggro as I should be). At the end of week 2, I was starting to wonder whether I had simply been lucky so far and this was how my results should have been... That kinda took its toll on me, but I try to convince myself I only needed to log hands to back on track. Which I did. Ended up putting 13 000 hands this month!!!! And that is the most important thing from this March '08; I've put up my biggest month in terms of hands played, enough to get very close to upgrading my PokerStars status, which would be so cool :)! And my BB/100hands is still roughly around 3, so if I can keep logging between 10 and 12 thousand hands a month, I should rake a very decent profit by the end of 2008 :P...

In the meantime, here are my graphs, including a cumulative 2008 graph.

Best month eva!!!!!

Well, I made a net profit of a little more than 70$ playing in about 8.5K hands of online NL10 on PokerStars in February. Which is without a doubt my best month ever of online poker. And this has to be feeling very nice since I got down to a measle 5-dollar bankroll (I know I'm repeating myself but hey, I was down to the mat mate :P!).

Still a long way to go before moving up; I estimate I still need between 10,000 to 30,000 hands before reaching the proper bankroll for the next step. Oh well... ;-).

In any case, here are my PokerTracker graphs:






And from Poker EV (very very nice software, btw :P):

Well, January is over and among other things not related to poker, I turned 30 on the 17th. As much as I hate those milestones, I can't really say it depressed me. I just choose to ignore it as much as possible :P.

On the poker side of things, well, let's start with a bunch of graphs :).

Well, since it's late on January 1st and I'm too lazy/tired to start a summary of my first year playing poker, here's at least my poker graph for the year :P.

Ok. I'm starting to think I suck at poker. Looking at these, one could also argue I kinda lost my mojo after hand #5,989 or so... Was there ever two graphs more dissimilar, seriously???? And off course, my old male ego thing is getting owned these days, as my buddy Nic is running great these last 3 months, reaching each and everyone of his goals in the expected amount of time... Just now, chatting with him while at work ;o), he's telling me how good he's running, finally playing NL10 and being up by a buy-in and a half... While being absolutely thrilled for him and his successes (which come with their lot of hard work, believe me, even at our small scale), I come to realize the last time I doubled-up in a cash game is... probably the last time I played Play Money games... Am I supposed to double-up in cash games is now a very decent and relevant question...

After futher investigation, it turns out Nic doubled-up 8 times since September, out of about 250 sessions, for a wooping 0.03 %... Doesn't tell me much; is this a must? Can one rake in great profit while never doubling-up?

The thing is I wanna be the best that I can, and I know I tend to be result-oriented, which is just wrong with poker...

Oh well, looks like this is going to be one hell of an introspective Holiday Season :P...