Excessive Variance

This month I’ve made a conscious effort to put in more play time online.  I’ve been playing 5/10 up to 15/30 short handed limit on Pokerstars because the games are generally pretty juicy and my bankroll has been on a nice steady incline.  I’ve also jumped from bronzestar to goldstar in the bonus program and am well on my way to the next level.  I’ve and cleared a decent chunk of bonus cash in the process which is nice too.

I was sharing some stats from the last 6000 or so hands I had played out of my poker database with Shiva and he wanted to make a side bet on what my win rate ($/hr) would be over my next 6000 hands using my current stats as a baseline.  So we made a bet that over the next 6000 hands I couldn’t maintain a win rate of over $50 dollars an hour.  The bet is only for $200, but it’s fun that I have a goal now to work toward.  Unfortunately for me my first session of the challenge I ran horribly and am way below where I need to be after about 300 hands.  Glad I have enough time to hopefully tip it back in my favor.

I actually won’t get many hands in over the next two weeks though, since this Friday we are taking off to spend a week in LA.  Not sure exactly what we are going to do while we are there besides play cards, but it will be nice to not have an agenda for the week.

Live poker was pretty good for me last week, I had a couple really nice back to back wins on Thursday and Friday.  It’s a little gross when I realize that in 18 hours of live poker I made as much as I do in two months at my job.  If it wasn’t for variance, I’d already be playing for a living.

Fun hand from my live session Sunday.  Playing 2/5 in a pretty soft game.  I just built my stack up to 1200 when I got all in with AA vs TT, and it held up.  The very next hand I get KK, and this kid who I’ll just call Tard (trust me, it’s appropriate) opens to $35.  Tard is kind of an obnoxious little asshole who has horrible poker fundamentals and comments about how everyone plays every hand, he also has some of the worst eddiquette ever which makes him annoying.  Tard started the hand with $659 in his stack.  I flat call call with my KK (I was setting a trap for him, been trying to for a while because the way he over bets everything post flop) and ODB behind me makes it $130 to go.  ODB started the hand with just over $300.  Tard tanks, and flats the raise, I reraise to $400 which is instantly called by ODB and Tard goes into the tank.  I was trying to imagine his though process, I’m sure it was something like “I bet he is just isolating ODB with something like AJ off suit so I better commit 2/3rds of my chips here and see what happens.”  The flop comes 9 high with 3 clubs, and Tard has a money spaz moment trying to shove in his last $259.  I isnta call and the dealer tosses out the next two cards.  Turn was a J, river was a club, and Tard shows AcKd for the nut flush he finally hit.  One of the other players and I share a pretty good laugh about how poorly he played AK and Tard got all defensive about it saying “I never do that with that hand”… really?  You just did.  Even better the game losses a player or two and now he won’t play 6 handed and he wants to go down to a 1/2 game.  SO a little later at the 1/2 game he check raises the tightest player in the game with a flush draw and gets shoved on, giving himself about 5 to 1 to call, and he sits there and says how he shouldn’t and its a bad call while me and the other player start laughing at him again.  In the spot where he should be snap calling he hesitates, and in the spot where he should clearly be throwing his hand away he commits 2/3rds of his stack without a pair and then shoves it in bad like he has some sort of fold equity.  It’s people like this that make the game profitable.  Even with a big loss to one of the worst players I know, I still booked a win for the day and one of my better live weeks in recent memory.

Hopefully things continue to go pretty well, and on that note here is my obligatory pic of Christina Hendricks…

Side note, shes a natural blond, but I’m okay with that…

Yes please...