Kamrann's Poker Experiment:
Experiment Goals - (Oct 28th - Nov 8th)

Cash games: 22 hours, -$404, -$18/hr
Online: NLHE $0.10/0.25 - $0.25/0.50; PLO $0.10/0.25;
Live: PLHE £1/2

SNGs: 30 hours, 285 played, +$511, $17/hr
$20+2 - $50+5

MTTs: 18 hours, 18 played, -$273, -$15/hr
$5 - $215 (Larger ones by satellite)

Total: 70 hours, -$166, -$2/hr

As can be seen from the above results, it didn't take long for me to hit my first minor slump. Nothing too severe, just a small drop over a 12 day period. It's definitely true though, that you feel it more when you're playing for a living, even if it's just an insignificant hiccup. Rather than just shrug it off as I would have any other losing streak previously, instead I find myself being annoyed about its effect on my overall hourly rate, or demoralized because instead of getting closer to being able to play in decent sized games again, my bankroll is heading in the other direction and I know I just have further to go. I realize all this sort of thinking is stupid, especially so early on, I'm just trying to get across some of the psychological aspects I'm experiencing from depending on poker for my income.

There isn't much to talk about regarding the poker during this last spell. Two small cashes weren't enough to save me from being in the red in MTTs. I toned down the number of these played due to the inherent high variance which I could do without at this stage, and intend to play even less over the next couple of weeks. I also didn't play much cash apart from two long sessions in the live �1-2 PL game I discussed in the last article. I booked a reasonable win in the first, then a marginally bigger loss in the second. The loss was all down to my final hand, where I was all in on the turn with AQ v KQ on a Q high board and lost to the river 3 outer. Avoiding this outdraw would have put me comfortably in profit for all games over these last couple of weeks, but it wasn't to be. Along with many other outdraws and such that I suffered though, it does at least suggest that I've not done anything wrong and that it's just a cold spell I have to ride out. However, after that session I made the decision not to play in the game again until my bankroll is up to at least $8000. It's almost certainly the best value game available to me right now, but hands such as the one I lost prove that it's potential swings are too big for my current bankroll, so I don't want to risk it. The fact that a friend of mine, an excellent player, dropped an amount roughly equal to my roll in the space of 3 days in that game, also affected my decision.

That leaves the SNGs, which I had planned to start concentrating on more than the other games. I did so to an extent, although a small case of burnout led to me not playing as many hours of poker in general as I had intended. The vast majority were Party $22s, and I sustained a small but reasonable hourly rate 8-tabling these. I plan to step this up and hopefully get in about 500 of these before my next update in an attempt to get my bankroll moving in the right direction again with minimal risk.

The burnout I mentioned was probably to be expected given the number of hours I'd played online up to this point. Combined with the bad run, I decided it was a good time to take a short break, and so have spent the last week in the countryside, hence the results only going up to November 8th. I think it was a good choice, I feel refreshed and ready to set about putting in the hours again and hopefully posting a profit in a couple of weeks time.

With a lack of any more interesting poker to content to discuss this time then, I thought I'd take the opportunity to say a thing or two about my specific goals in this endeavor, where I want to get to get to and when. Here's a rough breakdown.

Primary goals:

1. Earn enough through playing to live on.
2. Build the bankroll and move up in limits as and when I see fit.
3. Improve myself as a poker player, in all aspects.

Secondary goals:

1. Become accomplished at types of poker I haven't played much. Specifically, Limit Holdem, short handed NL Holdem cash games, heads up play and 7 Stud & Omaha, including the high/low varieties.
2. Eventually concentrate on playing more large live tournaments and less online poker.

Now, I should point out that merely achieving my #1 primary goal would not be sufficient for me to want to continue doing this for a living for a long time. Getting stuck in the low-limit online grind for a substantial period most definitely does not appeal to me. To keep me interested I'm going to have to achieve my other goals too, otherwise there will come a point where I'll bring the experiment to an end without necessarily having lost the bankroll. As such, the secondary goals are only really secondary in the sense that they cannot be tackled for a while yet. I can't afford to learn new games with such a small bankroll, either by risking it in games where I'm not as confident, or even simply playing them at tiny limits since this would take up hours in which I could be earning more playing games I'm accustomed to. So both of these goals are for when my bankroll has already grown considerably, and I have the luxury of throwing time and money at them without risking my rent money. Limit Holdem is the one I really want to concentrate on when I do get the chance. Being UK based none of the people I've met through live poker have an interest in it, and online it didn't appeal to me as a game, I think mostly because when I started out it was at very small limits, and I find small limit holdem games very boring and frustrating. Played at higher limits however, it looks like it gets very interesting and takes a lot of skill, so this is a challenge I want to set myself when I am in the situation to give it a go.

As for live tournaments, currently my long term aim is to regularly attend big tournament festivals, both in Europe and the USA, and concentrate on playing the single table satellites for all the preliminary events. I did this to an extent at the end of last year and the beginning of this year, however at no point was I even close to being sufficiently bankrolled to seriously think I could continue. Of course, getting to this point will require an enormous increase in bankroll, so it's at the very least a long way off.

Results to date: Oct 12th - Nov 8th

Cash games: 77 hours, +$1710, $22/hr
SNGs: 49 hours, 456 played, +$1090, $22/hr
MTTs: 82 hours, 73 played, +$161, $2/hr

Total: 208 hours, +$2961, $14/hr

Bankroll: $4,878

© The Poker Forum.com, all rights reserved