So far this month has gone pretty well. II´m still winning at a good rate, and decided to try to maximize my earnings.
I started February playing 16 tables of 10NL as much as I could. After a few days I decided I had to mix mostly 10NL tables with some 5NL because it was just too difficult to keep 16 tables going at the $10 dollar tables without them either becoming too tight to be profitable, or filling with short stacks after a few minutes. I can play 16 tables fine as long as I can keep them open and play, but having to constantly jump from one table to another on top of it was really getting on my nerves.
So after a few days of that, I decided it would be easier overall, and most likely more profitable, if I cut my tables down to 10 and played all 10NL and just concentrated more on the game. After playing 16 tables for a couple weeks and then dropping back to 10, I was amazed at how slow and easy everything felt. Although I get a litle bored sometimes with just the 10 games going, I feel like I have forever to think about what I´m doing and I really get a lot more reads on the people I´m playing against. Not to mention, I take a lot more notes, which eventually helps even more later. I was right…my win rate improved a bit from what I was maintaining with 16 tables. Less hands over time, but higher win rate for hands played, so everything evens out.
I´ll wait for the end of the month to get into any profit numbers, since I´m trying very hard to look at monthly income, and not daily, in order to keep myself in the right state of mind to play well. However, with the ¨Stellar Rewards¨ that Poker Stars is issuing now, plus the bonus they offered for their ¨F40¨ promo (I wasn´t lucky enough to hit any milestone hands.), plus normal bonus money from my FPP´s, I´ll end up making something like $120 in just bonuses this month.
With the extra from those bonuses I find myself rolled for 25NL. I started taking shots at the twenty-fives yesterday. First I mixed a few $25 tables into my normal session of $10´s. That lasted about an hour. I got lucky fairly quickly and stacked someone in my first 500 or so hands of 25NL. That pretty much squashed all my doubts and nervousness. When I saw that $25 jump forward, I instantly wanted more. I wasn´t going to settle for $10 at a time now. So I started closing all the $10 tables and replacing them with 25NL until I had all 10 running at the new level.
I played about 1000 hands of 25NL in that first session and shut down for the night with a respectable win rate of about 3.5 BB/100. I played another 2100 hands today and came out ahead again. My win rate was not quite as high today, but I know exactly why. I made 1 terrible mistake that I realized as soon as I hit the call button, and that cost me 1 buy-in. Then I had 2 all-in hands where I had the nuts and it turned out that my opponent had the same hand, so two split pots instead of 1 or 2 buy-ins ahead. If I´d have realized I was making a mistake 1 second sooner, and 1 of those split pots went my way I would have finished 2 1/2 buy-ins up instead of the half buy-in that I actually ended up with.
I´m feeling 10 times more confident than I did on my previous attempt several months ago with 25NL. So hopefully the graph for the end of this month will be a happy one. I´m actually kind of anxious to get back into it tomorrow and see if I can keep it up. I´m already thinking about 50NL. I suppose that´s good…I´m thinking that I can´t wait to get there, not thinking it´s at all scary. I´m amazed with how my outlook has changed over the last few months.
I should be back in a few days with a (hopefully) positive graph for February.
May the fish be with you…