Time to Stand Back

The start of my run at 10c/25c NL Holdem could not have started better. After 1000 hands I was up 4 buy-ins. Woohoo.

But for the first time in a while I have been running bad. And these are the times when you get tested. Only by playing a large number of hands do you get the experience of ‘what can happen’ during a bad run. Without that, you doubt yourself, you think that your game has deteriorated, or you think that players at this level are so much better than the lower level.

Since being up 4 buy-ins I am actually now below my starting point…..down $5.95, after over 8,000 hands!. That is, I am negative 1/5th of a buyin. I was down as much as $40 recently but recently went up a a buy-in after a run of pocket pairs that actually held up. So from my peak to the nadir I dropped almost 6 buy-ins.

It is times like these when you have to stand back and puts things in perspective. At the 5c/10c level I ended up winning 54 buy-ins over 54,000 hands. During that bad run at one stage I  dropped 9 buy-ins over 7,000 hands. So this current bad run is not as bad as that. Of course it may not be over, but I have to think that what is happening now is not uncharted territory for me. When I think about it, I am almost even and I have had 2 major suckouts recently which accounted for 2 buy-ins. If I had of won these 2 hands (out of > 8,000) I would actually be up that 4 buy-ins. In one hand I was a 95% chance to win the hand after the flop when we had all of our money in; then diamond, diamond for the suckout flush to beat my top set. And that is the nature of variance. The only antidote to variance is……………………………. play a lot of a hands!!!

Interestingly, I think there is a difference between the 2 levels, although this is only subjective. At this level, I think there is more reraising and I find myself folding more. I know at least a few times that I have been bluffed because they show. Unfortunately I do not seem to get the big hands when this happens. But I will eventually. Mind you there seem to be just as many fish here. Players seem more ready to go all in AK than I have seen before.

Anyway….time to push on. More updates later.

By the way, there is a great blog by one of my favourites player, Paul Wasicka, the guy who came second to Jamie Gold in the 2006 WSOP. So for those of you who dream of a great poker career, Paul provides some food for thought. I note that Jeff Madsen provides a nice followup.