My Test-Run

So for the last two weeks I decided to take a real run at the 15-30 tables on PartyPoker and see how well I could fare as a full-time player. Why? Well, as I posted before, I wanted a way to run up my bankroll going into next years WSOP, I was also feeling good about my poker game and had felt I wasn't making a lot of the mistakes that made me such a swingish player the past few years. But also because I was bored with work and seemed to have a lot of time on my hands lately.

I downloaded PokerTracker, so there would be no guesswork about my game. I'll post the results of my two weeks here, and then some commentary.

5,941 hands played
90.75 hours
Voluntarily put $ in the pot: 30.8%
Won $ when seeing flop: 28.97%
Went to showdown: 30.36%
Won $ at showdown: 55.3%
Preflop raise: 5.96%
Amount won: $2,503.30
Big Bets/100 hands: 1.48

5 Most Profitable Hands: AA, QQ, JJ, QJs, KK (+$7,342.50)
5 Least Profitable Hands: AKo, QTo, J8o, AJo, T9o (-$3,670)

As you can see, these stats aren't too bad. $45/hr isn't too bad at all. And even my bad hands are still pretty decent hands. 30.8% may seem high to some of you purists, but it is still lower than a lot of my competition on Party, who, according to my database, play in the 35-40% range.

What's distressing is that these numbers are so much worse than at the end of my first week, when I was contemplating quitting my job. At the end of week one I was up almost six grand, was winning 85% of my showdowns, and was playing less than 30% of my hands. The first week I never had a losing session, and thought PartyPoker was a money factory.

The second week was almost all downhill. I had cashed out a lot of the money (about 3K) and kept playing. I seemed to go up and down and up and down each day, usually finishing about where I started. These kind of days were hard on me. They altered how I played. The farther down I went, I played looser and more carelessly, trying to get in as many of the big pots as I could. This was tiltage, bigtime. If I won a few pots and got into my comfort zone again, Id tighten back up, and the whole cycle would start over again once I lost a few hands.

Somehow the week kept going becuasuse of some well-timed gift pots that kept me alive when death was certain. My stack went from its high of 3k down to 1000, back up to almost 3k, down to 300, up to 1500, down to 300, up to 1000, then steadily down until I was empty. All in one week.

Some of the beats were excruciating. But then again, some of the beats I pulled off on people were excruciating for them.

The thing I learned most about my play was that even at its best and most disciplined, it still isn't disciplined enough to hang on to the money when it matters. When your stack goes from 3k to 300, that $300 seems like nickels and dimes. I became much looser when I was losing bad. That is a recipe for disaster.

I also learned which hands get me into trouble. Namely AKo and AJo. Q-10 (the pope) was a big loser for me but mostly because of one huge hand where I had the nut straight and the nut flush draw and a set really pushed it to the limit on every street. The board paired with a fush card on the end, and I got caught in the middle of a raising war and couldn't bring myself to fold my straight in such a huge pot. Stupid. Costly. But AKo was my worst hand of all. I never seemed to hit, and when I did, I was usually up against some fucked up two pair or some draw that made it. The hand cost me tons. Same with AJo, which seemed to always be up against AK.

I learned a lot about my fellow online (semi)pros. The majority of them are rude, whiny, and stupid. They play good poker, but have bad attitudes. They like to press their second pair hands when they think AK or two overs missed the flop, and that both won me and cost me a lot of money. They also like to steal blinds.

I guess in the final analysis, even though I made as much at this job as I did at my real job, I don't believe I could or would want to play poker for a living. Some days when I had gone on a big downswing, I really could feel it in my gut. It made me not want to go out or do anything at all. I felt bad all day. I thought about it at night as I went to sleep. Most of all I was anxious to get back to the game and get it back. And the days when I won, I felt good and wanted to celebrate and spend money. These are both immature reactions to what are essentially pointless results. Being a good pro requires a constant focus on data and consistent play, and not emotional reaction to money won or lost in a given day.

I also realize that part of why I was up so big at the end of the first week, after going back into Poker Tracker and looking at the sessions, was a couple of key huge hands I happened to win. Most pots during the two weeks were around $175. But at the end of the first week, I pulled a few $500+ pots, and it jacked up my bankroll. Those were results that would have been impossible to sustain over time, and if I payed closer attention to the database, I would have realized that at the time.

My second week losing streak was still instructive, and showed me that my game has a leak that I need to fix. Or maybe not, depending on whether or not I want to play this game for forty hours a week anymore. My guess is that I don't, and that I'd much rather take my $2500 down to the pot limit omaha game and gamble a little with it.

After all, not only is gambling much more fun than poker... I think I might be better at it.