As a reminder, I created a new account on Full Tilt Poker and I am using it to build a poker bankroll starting with $50. My intention with this blog is to document my journey in the hopes that others will learn from the process.
In a nutshell, I have lost about 2/3rds of my bankroll (but only about 1/3rd of my profit). Not a good result you say? Actually, I am pleased with the result! I will explain below, but first my stats:- Games Played: 424
- Current ROI: 11%
- Current Profit: $190
Over the last 4 weeks I have experienced the worst run of cards I can remember. I spent some time last week reviewing my hand histories. I did find one leak in my game which I will talk about shortly. However, if I separate the hands related to the leak, about 80% of the hands where I was knocked out of a tournament were the result of a bad beat. By bad beat I mean that I was able to get my money in with the best hand and my opponent drew out to make a better hand by the river. Over the last month this has happened over and over again, and at a rate that is unusual mathematically.
Looking at the math, there is no starting hand that you are a 100% favorite to win by the river. AA is about an 80% favorite against another pocket pair, assuming two players. But being an 80% favorite means that you will loose the hand about 20% of the time, or 1 in 5 times. So I can expect to get beat pushing with AA. However, I have lost my all-ins with AA about 60% of the time over the last month. The good news is that the odds will play out over time. In theory if I am getting an unusual number of beats against the odds, I must be due for an unusual number of wins against the odds, because the odds must prove out and balance out over time. So that is why I am excited about the lost money--I am ready to be on the other side!
I guess the key message in this post is once again about the importance of bankroll management. I can honestly say I have become accustomed to the bad beats. They no longer tilt me. I almost expect my opponent to suck out on me. And when it happens, I review my play to ensure it was the "correct" play and then move on to the next game. But again, the key has been bankroll management. Even if my play was perfect, I still quit for the day if I loose 3 in a row. And I still adjust my buy-in based on my 25x rule. As a result, even through I have experienced an unusual number of bad beats over the last month, I have not gone broke, and I won't, as long as I keep following the rules and giving enough time for the odds to play out.
As far as the leak... I wrote about it a few posts back: calling off all my chips with top pair. I wrote about what I was observing with other players, but I had the same leak. It is a very different thing to push your chips in the middle with top pair compared to calling off all your chips with top pair. When you push all your chips in you have two ways to win: 1) everyone will fold to you, or 2) you have the best hand by the river. However, when you call off all your chips you lose the first option. I started running into this at the $20 buy-in level, where there are a few more good players. In each of the situations where I called a push with top pair (against a solid player), my opponent had at least 2 pair, and of course his hand held up by the river (no suck outs for me!). So I have stopped doing that and the results are improving (or at least my knock outs are not associated with calling with top pair!).
As to my $200 balance... I actually spent $100 of my previous $600 balance to purchase the Game Theory version of Sit n Go End Game Tools (SNGEGT-GT). I originally purchase the standard version ($50) which allows you to run ICM calculations while playing live. After testing it for a couple of weeks I upgraded to the GT version (Game Theory) for another $50. I paid for the licenses through a Full Tilt money transfer, so that accounts for $100 in the reduction of my balance. I will write a separate post on the GT version. But will say here quickly that I really like it.
OK, enough rambling for now. Again, I will start posting regular updates on my progress, including details about the things that I am learning as I pursue my quest to turn $50 into $5000 playing single table sit 'n go poker tournaments online.
Good luck at the tables!
