Bill Parcells once said your record is what it is. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re better than you really are, your record defines you. It’s absolute. There’s no way around it. I can lament about bad luck and bad beats but ultimately, I played those hands and whether they worked out or not is inconsequential. For that moment in time, I lost. Add up those little losses and you get big losses.
On the other hand, taking down small pots is a way of life for serious poker players. It’s those small pots that add to your bankroll on a consistent basis. Sure you get swings but if you play good consistent poker then you’ll get results. Add up those little wins and you get big wins.
You are what your record says you are. It’s that simple.
Which leads me to my July results. And I’ll admit that I’m doing pretty darn good for July (and for me) that is.
After wiping out all of my profits in a horrible stretch that ran from the middle of May until late June, I’m back with a vengence.
25NL:
Hands Played: 978
Plus/Minus: +$84.25
Earn Rate: $8.41 per 100 hands played.
BB/100 Hands: 17.23
I’m crushing the 25NL tables so far in July. I can probably multi table the 25NL games but I’m comfortable playing one table at a time. I think I can concentrate more when I’m playing one table. I get the feel for the players and I’ll act accordingly to the type of player I peg him/her as. I won’t win as much but I think my game is better when I’m concentrating on a small group of players rather than 20 players. 25NL is my comfort zone. I am confident I can win consistently at these levels. Most of my profits were won at this level. It took a long time but I won steadily so that gives me confidence boost.
50NL is another story. I wanted to test my game at a higher level and at first it was a disaster. I lost most of my winnings playing 50NL in June. It took me awhile to adjust to the higher stakes. The players at 50NL are better than the players at 25NL but not by much. It is a step up however.
My results for 50NL in July were:
Hands Played: 527
Plus/Minus: +$38.15
Earn Rate: $7.24 per 100 hands played
BB/100 Hands: 7.24
Pretty good numbers for July. It was a 360 degree turn around from the month before where I lost money playing 50NL, but it’s a start in the right direction. Last month I lost 2 buy-ins early on but made a nice comeback once I was used to the new level. I’m not 100% confident at this level but the recent results are encouraging and I’m going to continue to play 50NL more. It’s an mental adjustment for me at least. Most of those losses came because of poor play. At first I was playing a little too timidly afraid to lose my stack. Which caused me to lose my stack. Then I’d try and fix this leak and play aggressive. Too aggressive as a matter of fact….which caused me to lose my stack. So I’m stuck $100 in a couple of 50NL sessions right from the start. I then made an adjustment. It was a simple adjustment, I just tightened up my play and bet aggressively when I had good cards. Basically, I went back to solid ABC poker. I realized that I wasn’t going to win back my losses all at once. I had to win the small battles in order to win the war. So in late June I began to book small wins at 50NL. Add up those small wins and I’m down only about $10 overall at 50NL.
I also took a shot at the 100NL tables. After winning two short sessions at this level. I quickly lost it all back and wound up losing $50 at this level. It took me 222 hands to lose $50. It’s ok though as I only bought in for $50 so I guess that’s the price of my education at 100NL. I’m not ready to play at this level, I’m sure of it. My bankroll isn’t at the point where I should play at 100NL which probably has a subconscious effect on me. I should probably play more 50NL and win consistently there before I move up.
I’m also up $252 in my league games. This is both winnings from cash and tournaments I’ve played in.
So all in all, a very productive July after a horrible June. I wonder what August will bring?
July 31, 2008 at 9:14 am |
Good to hear you’re on track and feeling confident. As you posted your comment to me I was just starting a 6-handed tourney for the largest buy-in I’ve ever done. I won’t brag, but the results were “favorable”. I knocked out 2 people in the first 3 hands when I had AK vs A5 (known maniac with -74% ROI) and AK again vs AQ two hands later. That tee’d things up for me to ride to the finish pretty safely.
As for getting out checks from FullTilt – it’s not bad. You do need to send in a statement/bill of some kind and a photocopy of your drivers license. They’re VERY efficient at processing it after you email it. The checks don’t take too long to arrive and they arrive in a very plain envelope – so be careful that you don’t throw it out with the junk mail.
I did have one time where they had a processing issue (it was published publicly), and what FullTilt did was put the $ I requested back in my account and gave me $200 in bonus that I could earn over a 30-day period. I earned it all in less than 2-weeks which wasn’t hard at the rate I’ve been playing. Offset the rake a bit I guess.
Anyway – I hope August rocks even better than July. What’s your first name by the way. You know mine is Ken, right?
July 31, 2008 at 10:32 am |
Congratulations on a good July!
Can I just clarify something? Your BB/100 are double what I would expect them to be. There is a huge amount of confusion about this online. Many think that the BB = Big Blind when in fact it = Big Bet which is double the big bet. Many use the term PTBB = pokertracker BB meaning the same thing.
If you win 10B/100 hands it means you win 2 buy-ins per 1000 hands. At $25NL you have won just over 3 buy-ins in just under 1,000 hands, which I would equate to a win-rate of ~16-17/100 hands (which is still fantastic btw).
How to you derive your figure? Maybe I am in the wrong!
July 31, 2008 at 11:14 am |
That’s a good question BlindTilt. I’m not even sure how to answer that. Since we’re playing NL then BB would equal the big bet. I think that’s more inline with LHE rather than NLHE (of course I could be wrong….If anybody can clarify clearly that would be appreciated).
I know PokerTracker uses the total blinds as their BB/100 hand win rate. So if I’m playing 25NL then I should using .35 cents as my standard when calculating BB/100 according to PokerTracker.
If anyone out there knows the standard I would love to know about it.
Also, please forgive me if my numbers are off.
July 31, 2008 at 11:17 am |
Here’s something I found on the web. Maybe this will clarify things:
Hourly rate refers to how much one wins or losses per hour. For example, suppose someone lost $100 playing poker over 20 hours of play. That person’s hourly rate is -$5. People also refer to hourly rate in terms of BB/hour. For example, if that person who lost $100 was playing $1-$2 limit, this means he or she lost 50 big blinds over 20 hours. Thus that person’s hourly rate could also be measured as -2.5 big bets an hour. Please note, that for no-limit games, BB/hour generally refers to big blinds per hour.
July 31, 2008 at 11:22 am |
Then again I found this nugget…..lol.
The standard calculation of profitability in cash games is “PTBB / 100” this stands for Poker Tracker Big Blinds and shows your average profit expectation as a figure of twice the big blind for each 100 hands. If the big blind is $1 and on average you win $10 per 100 hands your PTBB/100 score would be 5. Here are some examples of PTBB/100 expectations for different players:
August 1, 2008 at 7:30 am |
Yes, that last entry is consistent with my thinking. I always look at one thousand hand samples and say that if you win one buy-in, your PTBB/100 hand win rate is 5. The example given here is consistent with that. In a 50c/$1 game, a buy-in is $100. If you win $10 over 100 hands, that = $100 over 1,000 hands = PT BB/100 score of 5.
Therefore, in 25NL, your win-rate is 17 PT BB/100 hands (not 34). Btw, 17 is still unbelievably good and probably unsustainable.
August 1, 2008 at 7:54 am |
Thanks blind. I changed the BB/100 stat to fit the standard.
I agree that my win-rate was ridiculously high in July but hey I’m not complaining. I’ll take the hot streak anyway I can.
What’s a decent win-rate anyway? I’d guess anywhere between 5-10 PTBB/100 is considered good? Then again I only started to keep these stats recently so I’m not sure what is considered good or not.
Thanks for the comment Blind. I look forward to more in the future.
August 2, 2008 at 4:43 am |
Congrats.
I’m not even going to bother tallying up my July results, its been a very mediocre month, a few big up and down swings early on, and then a long succession of tiny movements both up and down.
Just hoping all the extra effort I’ve started to put in will start to come good for me this month.
August 5, 2008 at 9:09 pm |
Awesome stuff Koot!
I’m adding a link now, fantastic!
April 15, 2009 at 2:18 pm |
After reading through this article, I just feel that I really need more info. Could you share some resources please?