I made the leap and got a statistical program for analyzing my hand histories. Lucky for me, the beta version was out for free. Now, I need to become familiar with it enough to make it useful. Anonymous, if you are out there, I'm ready for the tutorial. I can see that it is a truly amazing program that can tell virtually everything about one's play, as well as the opponents' play against you, and hopefully it will reveal holes in my play I can profit from fixing.
Today's title alludes to whether I'm really serious about making money at this, or just playing to play. Unfortunately, too often I'm playing just to play. Ironically, I seem to know exactly how to play, but I don't have the discipline or patience to follow through and do it.
Sort of a metaphor for the human condition, isn't it?
I'm really disappointed in my loosening play. The good news is that I'm not going broke and re-buying. In that sense, this exercise has improved my level of play. In fact, an analysis of my records shows that in the two months prior to this experiment, I deposited $60 (in $10 increments) to PokerStars. That means online poker (at that time) was costing me $30 per month; I have only deposited $30 in the last six months, and I have not made any deposits at all for three months. I suppose I should be happy about the $10,000 challenge to the extent that it seems to have saved me a lot of money and delivered on one of its promises: to escape the non-stop deposits to my PokerStars account. (I prefer not to discuss the significantly higher amounts of my several 2006 deposits. It kind of scares me to think about the kind of money I was using to play so "recreationally." I know that that same money would be worth a lot more if it were in my PokerStars account now. Tempting, isn't it, to just load up the online account and start with real bankroll? But I don't deserve it yet. For me, it must be earned.)
The fact remains that I am under $20, and only now (as in the last two days), seeming to take it seriously again. I have become too willing lately to take chances - playing desperate rather than smart; wanting to win fast instead of playing correctly.
It's funny how I always sit down for a very short blog that turns out to be an hour-long analysis of my play.
I'm not sure whether to celebrate going three months without a buy-in, or to berate myself for squandering 80% of my $50 high mark. April 2 will mark the end of the first six months of the challenge. Stay tuned.
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2 comments:
I think you need to celebrate the victories even when they seem hollow. Avoiding additional deposits is the very point of the $10,000 challenge. The purpose of the challenge is to develop the patience as a player to avoid large variances in your bankroll. Pushing too hard would seem to me as the number one contributor to large variances.
I look forward to reading your analysis of your play once you have logged 10,000 hands or so of play. It will be very revealing.
Additionally a wicked fun piece of software to use is one called Poker Stove. It helps determine the EV or percentage of victory hands have against one another. Google it and give it a try.
WWCD - What Would Chris Do?
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