Took the month off. Wrote a script :|. A complete script, no less (well, alright, it does need a re-write, but is HAS an ending :P). While fiddling around with, like, half a dozen other ideas... There once was a time not so long ago where I was deeply convinced I'd never ever do that ever again... So when I got some rhythm and all, I would be coming home after work, or waking up in the morning, and feeling kinda... obsessed... no, not that, 'obsessed' is not the right word... Occupied by my story... and the fact that every night or morning I spent screwing around with it made it all closer to being complete (not finished mind you, complete; ie, having all parts of the typical, overused 3 acts), I never really felt like playing cards... Except in pubs, with a couple pints down :P...

Anyway, I finally got back in the saddle, depositing on CD Poker to clear the bonus listed on Bonus Whores. Haven't yet played a thousand hands and I already cleared about 10$ of that 200$ bonus, alternating between NL20 and NL50... This bonus is just too easy to clear... And I have 3 months?!?!? Hell, I could probably take another month off and still pull this one ;-). CD's client is H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E though. I mean, who can really say they like this carpet, seriously?!?!?

I.so.wish.I.could.escape.writing.this.post.
But alas, I cannot; 'we do what we must do'. So here goes nothing.

2008 is no more... And, I curse through my teeth my only too common human nature and that stupid 2-hockey-period-timespan-memory of ours, which, at the end of the... year, puts me right in that famous spot: "I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it" (Mike McDermott, Rounders, 1998, John Dahl). Hehe. I also hear Knish's voice sometimes, going "It happens to everyone. Time to time, everyone goes bust" (ibidem). But that's the thing now, is it; I get myself all worked up like that and I haven't even gotten busto. What does that tell me about me, I wonder... Time to take a fscking hard look at meself in a mirror, I think... And what better than a quick wrap-up of 2008.

Maybe I'm focusing too much on the last few weeks, but I must say I feel I failed in 2008. Thing is, I always sucked big time at setting and reaching personal objectives... The irony is, of course, that I am nevertheless quite introspective... And thus, last January, I found myself caught up by the notion that I might had overgrown this flaw of mine, and overblew it a little with this humongous list of goals for 2008:

• Play at least 50,000 hands of online poker
• Play way more live, and find a personal comfort zone
• Settle at NL10, then NL25 and NL50 by the end of the year
• Develop a proficiency for another game (Razz, Stud or Omaha)
• Start dabbing at split games
• Win a tournament
• Pull a major stone-cold bluff
• Hustle some poor schlob in a pub or hustle myself a date :P
• Visit every Montreal poker room
• Take a week-end trip to Atlantic City
• Run a tight blog :P
• Keep the mailing list/discussion group alive
• Stay aggressive, uncompromising and unapologetic at the tables, while remaining affable, lighthearted and zen
• Create myself a slick avatar
• Create a Poker course
• Keep taking bad beats with the reverence and awe of a devout
• Write my Poker & Self-Enlightenment piece

I only managed to crush and achieve one, namely playing at least 50k hands. Actually played in little over 100k online cash game hands in 2008, which is pretty satisfying to me. Among the other numerous objectives, I think I can still say some of them are half-successes;

• I believe I kept a somewhat tight, entertaining blog;
• I probably pulled a very decent bluff, and probably much more, as a matter of fact, but must say I now consider this one the fruit of my Hollywood-based upbringing and that romantic notion that bluffs must be for all the marbles, in a life and death situation, or something... lol bluffaments :D!
• I did not play more than 40ish tournaments, mostly Sit'nGos, in which I kept a positive RoI%.
• The mailing list and poker course thingy might have taken a new bloggish form (to be continued)...
• And lastly, though I had to step back from NL50 at the stroke of midnight, almost, I did get to NL20 and then took a roughly half-decent shot at it, so I can't really rule that one as a total failure.

Still, lots and lots learned... hopefully ;-). And while I do remember I suck at setting up objectives and fighting to accomplish them, I will try and refine and mature from this last year, and manage to set better targets for 2009. I'm thinking: broader... And a lot less of them ;-).

"Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."

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 ;-).

Had a very satisfying, hard worked, hard fought grinding weekend, and reached a 100,000 hands since I track my results in the process. Woohoo :P! Although it pales in comparison to the daunting task that lays ahead of me; clearing that Asia Poker bonus might not be that easy after all, lol. Played a little over 7k hands and got 3,844 Dragon Points, needing 60k, which means at this rate, I will definitely have to play about 110k hands before February 15th!!! Oh well, I'll do my best, and try not to lose every last shreds of my already iffy social life, lol.

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

Guess I have to post something... It's been a week after all... But since I haven't played much (actually starting to wonder what the hell I have been up to in that past week...lol), there's not much to say...

Well, yesterday, I got back in the grind of things, with a roller-coaster 700+ hand session, but it was my first decent session in days, so not much to say there either (yeah, I would be feeling I'm wasting paper right now, weren't this thing a blog ;-))... Hope to at least finish the year with a bang, but my last decent month volume-wise seems so long ago, I'm not entertaining too much illusions... Then again, our stupid, cold as a frozen hell Canadian winter is looming, so I might stay a little more home and thus play a little more... Was the case last year anyway... We'll have to wait and see...

Quick note: seems the 60 Minutes special on the Absolute Poker and UB scandal is going to air this Sunday. Pretty curious (and a tad worried, tbh) to see what this will do to the business...

Oh, and finally, to you Americans out there: Happy Thanksgiving!!! Taste that turkey :D!!!

Quick update after about 1000 hands at NL50: so far so good, but I have to admit my 2.5BIs upswing is mainly due to getting action when holding the nuts rather than my outplaying opponents... I mean, 4betting all-in preflop with rockets is a no-brainer and very, very easy, but when the 3bettor calls, it's sweeeeet. Especially when the rockets hold, ldo. So, basically so far so good, but not much to say. A tad more 3betting preflop I think... And loads of fscking shorties.... "We hatesss 'em, my presssiouss, we hatesss 'em." lol

Off to a fundraiser donkament tonite, for my nephew's hockey team. I have a feeling this is gonna be one hell of a poopshoot ;-)...

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.

♠♥♦♣

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

Slow Saturday night (too lazy to do anything, tbh :S), playing some online cards. I just cleared PokerStrategy's $50 credit, reaching over 2,500 Titan Points, and therefore, am entitled to cash it out if I so desire. Won't until I've cleared the bonus for sure though, which I'm currently 20% through right now. Glad unlocking that credit thing didn't take too long, and I can't help but feel for those who are playing >=NL20; must feel like crossing the desert ;-).

On the other hand, my latest 500-hand SSSing session didn't go that well. First losing short-stack session ever; drop 1,75 buy-ins, and know exactly why I did; didn't stick to the fscking rules!!! Like, played Queens AND Jacks from EP... They're just sooooo tempting to play, ya know... So, now, I'm taking a quick break, then sitting in a donkago and popping a couple more cash game tables... deep stacking maybe ;-)...

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!!!

♠♥♦♣

I don't know what's going on. Seriously. Don't really feel like doing anything these days. I get those episodes, for lack of a better word. Right in the middle of one these these days. It's been a long one, actually. Anyway, when I finally decide to play poker, it's more with the idea that I must log a couple of hands at least, keeping myself from rusting too much, you know. But, as you might imagine, I do not play my best poker... far from it. But I figured I could get by fine, even with sub-par play; this is µNL after all, for Jesus Ferguson's Sake!!! But it seems I need my focus on the game... Had a couple of rough breaks too, though, to be completely honest. A couple of lucky rivers for my opponent, flushing my sets, or hijacking my straights, or simply beating my slightly overplayed top/over pairs... All in all, stuff telling me I'm not playing that bad, and might actually be closer to my normal game than I think, but still being off of it somehow... Bored?!?!?! Not of poker per se, but rather with life. And not in any kind of suicidal fashion, not at all...Seriously. And not in a cynical, jaded, seen-it-all way either. Life's great, don't get me wrong :). It's just plain and simple boredom with my routine, I supposed... And I am such a routine guy :S... Just hoping for some changes, something extravagant to happen, I guess... Something in the vicinity of Grandness...

Writing these last two sentences, I was imagining all the positive stuff that could fit into that category; wining a big cash prize in some poker tourney, falling in love, getting a great new job, the Habs claiming the Cup next year, catching a jaw-dropping, fist-clenching, personal moral threatening movie, random good news from friends or family members... Not in any order, by the way, lol... But re-reading those lines, I envision all the tragic stuff that could, in its own right, fall under the Grandness label; sickness (mine, or any of my relatives), death (ditto), accidents, heartbreaks, unemployment... Guess that's at least a bit part of my being unfocused... out of focus, one might even say (wink@Woody Allen for his Deconstructing Harry :P)... Guess the status quo is good enough, after all ;-).

Anywho, back to the poker side of things, and enough with those babblings. Living on a very tight bankroll can be exhausting. At first, I managed to get about 2 buy-ins above my 10 BIs threshold at NL25, but then got into that unfocused period I'm still in, and dropped about 3 buy-ins before deciding to step down. Sniff sniff, but it felt comfy knowing I could shove when a slight favorite without breaking a sweat at the amount of money in the pot :P (exaggerating a tad here, but you get the drift). But, I also started overplaying borderline hands again, and now find myself still stuck for June and going down... I'm also way off pace for my handlogging target. All in all, still figuring why I don't really feel like playing... I know I had a 'live play' rush kinda thing when I played 3-handed poker on some Friday night and then got a very decent 8-handed homegame on the following Tuesday, but those usually translate into renewed enthusiasm around the virtual felt... To be continued, I guess...

Not playing a lot so far this June. Close to 3000 hands in 13 days, waaaaaay off pace for my 12K objective, but hey, I can have crazy sick weekends (in terms of logging hands at least :P), and, for my defense, it IS beautiful June over here, in my O so very northern and cold country... Truth be told though, it's a pattern of mine; strong hand-logging months are always followed by a week or two of very light play...

On the other hand, these slow periods often tend to make me dwell back on theory and analysis, which I definitely should do way more frequently. It should actually be part of some regimented, disciplined routine or warm-up or something... I have been considering this for while now, but I must still admit I feel time flying by in my life, and lean towards more of a bohemian lifestyle... Anywho, this rekindling brought me to fiddle around my PT and, lo and behold, I made a tremendous discovery. Ok, ok, it's very personal and it has nothing to do with the software's features and what not; it's just that I always thought I'd be stuck with a red line for my disastrous bout at NL5(2? Whatever!!!! LOL. That lowest of stakes on Stars, blinds a penny/two pennies and a fiver buy-in), but to my astonished eyes and low jaw, I am green at that limit also :D!!! Which brings me to this post's title; my PT has now only one of those dreaded red lines (which, for the record, means you are losing money at this limit), for 6-handed NL10... And this my friend(s), has awaken my pride, my male ego requiring, nay, demanding that every single one of those lines be green as the meadow of a summer park! lol. Seriously, LOL! But, as always, there is an ulterior motive here, a very simple one, which is forcing me to dab at shorthanded play, cause, well, lets face it, the higher the stakes, the smaller the fields. Plus, it's always good to... darn, looking for a translation for ajouter des cordes à son arc... Bah, screw it :P!

Random thought: taking a shot at making a living of poker would certainly means drastic lifestyle changes. Ldo. But the real newsflash here (well, sorta... and for me... Epiphanies are always so... obvious... lol) is the complete shift in the "work" schedule (still can't bring myself to seeing poker-for-a-living as "real work", although every single 5h+ session I ever played drained me as much if not more than a day's work, and I do realize it would be real work...). I mean, I'm a pretty early bird, used to arise between 6 and 8 am, oversleeping until nine maybe and later than that only when I'm hungover :P. But, reading this WCG|Rider's reasons for his NL25 challenge failure:

2) I played during the day a bunch. Sort of retarded on my end, but the games can be ab[s]olutely so nitty during the day that it is very difficult to even beat them for very much. Playing at night is defin[i]tely the way to go when you do something like this.

I came to realize the money is way easier to get at night with poker, which would mean, you guessed it, having to change my very, very old habit (basically potty-trained by 5 years of newspaper routes when in my teens... lol)... I know I could do that, and probably easily enough, but, well, it kinda just struck me... To paraphrase Rider, sort of retarded of me :P, but still...

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)!  

So I finally took my first shot at NL25 yesterday... Played a little more than 200 hands and... broke DEAD EVEN! And I really mean dead even... Funny.

After that, I still felt like playing but wanted to take it slow, since I was watching the game (finally a series... Talking Stanley Cup Finals here. Go Pens Go!!!! :P), so I decided to play a little Sit'n Go on Stars. Donkaments are getting my interest back these days, and I did registered into a SnG last week, busting out first :P!!! Been a while, crocodile, lol. Considering this result, and the fact that this last week Sit'n Go was the first tourney I played in months, I opted for the smallish, donkier, and all in all, easier 1$ SnG instead of the 5$ one for which I am now rolled. I think I demonstrated good skills, finishing 3rd while being mostly card dead as my right hand neighbor was red hot, getting rockets thrice that we know of :P. I had cowboys twice but didn't get much action :). The rest was mostly pure and simple power poker 101 :P...

Woke up this morning with one ginormous migraine, so I called in sick, got back to bed, slept like a baby until like 3 pm and then, armed with a big, fresh pot of coffee, I managed to play a little over 200 hands on PartyPoker, the client being all messed up by the latest patch (basically, every opened seat is marked Reserved and cannot be sat in in any way, while the waiting list simply does not work... nice, huh?!? lol). I think the peeps over there might have been a little tilted by the software's problems, because I doubled-up twice very quickly. But then again, I do not usually play during daytime on weekdays :P. Anyway, when I opted for a shower break, my tables rapidly drying up, I was ahead about 2.25 buy-ins, knocking, yet again, at the NL25 door :D. After my break, I tried sitting back again somewhere on Party, but to no avail. I just read from a Party dude on 2+2 that they're finally working on it :)! Here for the whole thread.

Anyway, feeling so close again to moving up, after what, five, six times... I lost count :P... I remembered I thankfully never moved my whole BR to Party, and thus still have about a hundred on Stars! Woohoo! Went back to that old slipper that is Stars' client, and managed to grind my last half a buy-in to get a big enough bankroll to finally (/sigh) take my very first shot at NL25, after a very long, twisted, roller-coaster of a labor...

Now, let's hit those tables :)! Will, of course, post about it soon ;-).

Ok. So I didn't quit... Yet... Simply couldn't set myself to giving it up just yet :). Took the week off, so to speak. Only played cards at the homegame and kept occupied with Y The Last Man, an awesome graphic novel some friends of mine had been raving about. And with movies, of course. The homegame was a +EV nite, but a very interesting hand arose in which I might have made a huge mistake recovered by a very tricky laydown. Mega-poker godlike irony, it all came down when I open-limped, which I might have done 0.012% of the time, with the jack-nine of spades. True, a live straddle was on, but it is still open-terry-fscking-foxing!!!

Anyways, I have played about 2500 hands last weekend and managed to get about three quarters of what I lost the previous weekend.

And two days later, I am back with my head above water, with a whooping 6+ over for May... Holy cow, nine days away from the end of the month and I'm in the positive!?!?!?! I didn't think it would take me so little time to wipe this unpleasant memory, but it seem it did... Still, I kept, learned, and will remember that rough weekend... Don't brag, don't be overconfident and/or overimpatient, don't grow bored; if you can't concentrate, do something else. If you can't lay a beaten hand down, dont' play. And so on and so forth :).

On a side note: I received my 5 2+2 books from my PartyPoker bonus only to find out the package was erroneous; instead of Harrington on Holdem Volume 1, I got Volume 3, which, ironically enough, I already own...

On one last side note, which is making me a very unhappy camper right now: it seems someone or something managed to deposit 298$ on some gambling site not yet known with my credit card. Me not likey... And of course, MasterCard can't do squat for now, cause I spotted the deed a tad too early; the transaction is not yet confirmed so it might simply be some billing error or something... So the peeps at MasterCard told me... :S.

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 ;-)...