September 2008 Recap

Cash game net profit = -$926.40 (19.60 hours played)
Tournament net profit = $30.00
Total net profit = -$896.40

Online tournament results:

Tournaments played = 0 (0 MTTs; 0 SnGs)
ROI = 0.00% (0.00% in MTTs; 0.00% in SnGs)

I knew going into September that my poker hours would continue to be down, but the biggest reason for my nasty hourly cash game rate of -$47.27 is that I spent most of my time in a $1/$3 cash game that rotates both NLHE and PLO8. At $1/$3 blinds, all it takes is 2 or 3 bad beats in PLO8 to eat through a grand, and despite playing practically nothing but AA23 double-suited in a loose-aggressive game, I just couldn't seem to win any all-in confrontations. This trend has also continued into October, but I'll save those numbers for the next update.

Fortunately, it looks like my old $1/$2 Thursday game might be picking up steam, and I've also finally been able to eliminate the distractions that were preventing me from logging any significant hours online. The last few months have been incredibly frustrating, so regardless of what kind of success I have for the remainder of the year, I'll be f**king elated just to be able to play as much as I've been wanting to for a change.

Current skills assessment (Scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best):

Play fearlessly: 5 (no change)
As was the case in July and August, I simply didn't play enough to really notice any significant progress in my game play, but I'll go ahead and review the list anyway...

Play my 'A' game each and every hand: 7 (no change)

Plan my bet sizes: 3 (no change)

Assign hand ranges to my opponents: 3 (no change)

Keep track of pot size: 1 (no change)

Keep constant track of my 'M': 4 (no change)

Maintain constant awareness of my table image: 4 (no change)
In this new $1/$3 game that I've been playing, there is absolutely zero value in trying to bluff. Since the only real strategy is to just wait for big hands and then bet the holy hell out of them, it doesn't take much awareness to understand that every player at the table either knows that I'm playing a tight game or is too much of a mule to even recognize that I probably only enter 1 pot every 3 hours. If I could just get a friggin' hand to hold up once in awhile...

Minimize my tells: 6 (no change)

Keep an eye out for other players' tells: 7 (+1)
Despite my shitty run of cards for the last few months, I've actually been able to make some pretty ballsy river calls, even in PLO8. Though most were based on plain old hand reading, there were multiple instances where I used physical tells as a tiebreaker of sorts.

Maximize mental acuity/endurance through physical fitness: 4 (+2)
Getting much better at sticking to my workout schedule, and making smarter dietary choices is starting to feel like second nature. Next goal is to continue to expand the schedule.

August 2008 Recap

Cash game net profit = $125.00 (30.95 hours played)
Tournament net profit = -$137.60
Total net profit = -$12.60

Online tournament results:

Tournaments played = 15 (7 MTTs; 8 SnGs)
ROI = -39.10% (-100.00% in MTTs; 24.62% in SnGs)

As expected, August was highly uneventful due to limited play.

I'll resume the skills assessment in September's update.