October Update

Here's October's graph. As you can see I had a really awful spell, where I dropped 6 buy-ins in very quick succession, but I think in all honesty that it was my fault. I was playing poorly and started to tilt, and that's not a good combination. According to PokerEV, I should've also won about $115 more in the month, and so I obviously ran fairly badly too.

Overall I played just over 12,000 hands and made 2.8 BB/100. From this it should be obvious that I didn't reach my monthly target of $2200, but with rakeback and some bonuses I did get fairly close. I ended the month on about $2075. I am over $2k! Woohoo!

After the awful swing at 50NL 6-max, I dropped down to $20NL 6-max and made a bit of a killing, making nearly $100 in under 2000 hands. However, when I moved up it continued to frustrate me, with hands like this.

- I raise to $2 UTG and UTG+1 makes it $6. It's folded to me. UTG+1 had been very tight, he had only raised pre-flop once in about 80 hands, and had never 3-bet. I stupidly decided to trap. The flop was 2-3-Q. I check, he bets $10 and I push. He insta-calls with 23s and I don't catch up. Grrr, how the hell does he 3-bet my UTG raise after playing so tight?

Anyway after this, and reading a few other blogs etc, I decided to switch to full ring games. Before going travelling I only played full ring games, and although I ran at about the same BB/100 rate, the variance was wildly reduced. Reduced variance sounded very tempting! Also, you play many less hands, I can easily 6-table, and so actually see more hands per hour.

For rakeback I thought I would give FTP a go. Here's the results...

- very first hand starting back on FTP and playing full-ring and I get 44 in the BB. An MP player makes it $1.50 and only I call. The flop is Q-J-4. I bet out $3, MP makes it $9 and I push. He insta-calls with AA and misses. Full ring was meant to be! +$47.25

There have, however, also been some horrible hands...

- There are 2 limpers and I make it $2.75 on the button with QQ. The SB and both limpers call. The flop is an attractive A-Q-5. It checks to me, I bet $8 and just the SB calls. The turn is a K. I'm not really worried about J10, but a nasty river now could lose me the pot, so I bet big and the SB calls again. The river is a 6 and the SB again checks. I definitely can't put them on J10 now, and so I push. The SB thinks... and calls with KK. -$50.20

Overall though I am enjoying full ring. The decisions seem much easier and I am earning a good amount of rakeback. At the moment I am running at about 8BB/100 but that is over a very small sample.

My target for November is to keep playing $50NL full ring, to play over 10k hands and to get my bankroll to over $2500! Let's hope it happens!