2007 Summary of Sorts

Warning...tl;dr

I may take off from work a couple hours early and may be able to log a few more hands this year, but probably not, so this is as good a time to wrap up 2007 as any (although I'll wait to do a December wrap-up just in case I do play a little bit more before starting the NYE celebrating). It's all one long session, but it seems like month ends and year ends are decent intervals to do some analysis. I certainly grew more as a player this year than last, mostly as a function of learning a new game, but also because I'm more serious about study and play now than prior.

I started off in 2005, and as usual when I decided that I was going to pursue this for more than a little bit, I dove in the best I knew how at the time. That was probably like April, and at that time I was reading the different limit hold'em strategy forums on 2p2 most every day, and going through a lot of LHE books. I think I read a dozen different books, most good...and read Small Stakes Hold'em and Theory of Poker each 3 times. So, just because I was starting from zero and was absorbing everything, I improved more in 2005 than I guess that I ever will.

2006 was a fairly stagnant year from a development standpoint. I was diligent, but just going through the same old motions. I did improve as a player, but not at the same rate, or at least it didn't feel like it. I did go from $1/$2 to $5/$10 that year on a 300BB per level bankroll. Not bad, considering I played very infrequently and also only on one table at a time. I don't have that DB, but my win rate was pretty sick, although probably not enough volume to be certain. But your win rate can definitely be higher if you are a disciplined one-table player (disciplined means not replacing other tables with distractions, and remaining focused on the table action).
But by the end of 2006, LHE was getting a little boring, the games were toughening up, and I didn't know what to expect as the UIGEA passed.

From latter 2006 through the first few months of 2007, I mainly just played live (a little) and started reading about other poker formats. People suggested Omaha-8 for low variance and NL because that's where all the new players were going. A number of successful LHE players I'd followed had already converted to NL, and very rarely were people converting *to* LHE or coming back. I learned the basics of O8 and just kind of kept thinking about NL, but didn't do anything about it.

O8 was OK, but I just didn't feel the spark that told me I would want to play it for a huge amount of time. In part because the only live games (which I considered more important then, and it still does matter to me some) were $4/$8, and usually only a single table at the card rooms. I didn't want to spend effort to master a game that I could only ever play online. At the time, I was a member of Stoxpoker. I finally decided to watch the couple NL videos he did. Made sense to me, and I started reading some of the NL forums on 2p2 even more.

So, somewhere around April, I decided to play on the .10/.25 tables at Stars where I still had like $600 that I didn't cash out. Still one table at a time. Did good, moved up to 50NL when I hit $1000. Moved through that pretty quickly (too quickly), and moved up to 100NL with $2000. At that point, I hit a wall, and lost like 5BI in 500 hands. I figured it was bound to happen because I knew I was running hot before, but I also felt a bit overmatched. This is now like June, probably.

Around this time, I also played spread limit for the first time live (the nearest card rooms to me are in a city that does not allow bets more than $200, so the rooms run a $5-$200 spread game that plays like a mix of LHE and NL, depending on how deep the stacks get, but since the max buy-in is also $200, stacks take a while to get deep...it sucks, but it's what's available). The players are pretty bad. The money is pretty easy. I stack a guy for his half stack with AA preflop. Next hand, I stack off 40BB with a weak overpair on a monotone board to a tricky player who is nonetheless pretty tight. She check/called me on the flop, checkraised me on the blank turn, and put me in on the blank river. I re-buy. A little later, I get AA again. The tightest guy on the table limps in EP and calls my raise. Flop is something like T44. He check/pushes the flop, I call, he shows 44. Yeah, the players are pretty bad. The money is pretty easy.

I was debating whether or how much I hated big bet games and what to do with poker in general...live only, back to LHE online, back to O8, keep up with NL...etc. I decided that a) I had gotten a somewhat expensive lesson at the card room; b) I thought I knew what my mistakes were, and they wouldn't happen as much again in the future; c) big bet games were still interesting after I'd finished fuming about my stupidity.

So, I was going to stick with NL. The first thing is that I wanted a site with more videos than what Stox had at the time, and Cardrunners was the hands-down choice for NL cash. Signed up there and started going through the Taylor archives. I'd been watching videos in general for a bit, and was getting used to following 4 tables of action. I also wanted to start playing on Full Tilt, since I had a rakeback account there. But, I only had like $200 on the site. I never set up another funding mechanism besides Neteller, and didn't feel like doing so (I still don't), for a few reasons, probably all stupid. I kind of figured, "Let's start NL from scratch. Let's learn how to multitable, since Full Tilt has resizeable tables now. Let's build up the roll organically, and save the rest of the roll for live play. Let's play on an account that gives rakeback, like I used to."

Ran hot at 10NL for a few thousand hands (yay for heaters at microstakes). Got comfortable on 4 tables. Started playing 25NL, graph looks like a yo-yo. Some guy on the CR forums says let's start a bunch of guys who blog and we can comment on each others', maybe do some sweat sessions and what not. That guy actually disappears, but there is a decent little community forming into at least a couple different crews.

After playing close to 50k hands of 25NL (!!!!), I finally stop being too lame or running too bad, and have enough to move up to 50NL. I have yet to go back to Stars, and we're now like in October. October I run like a god, and move up to 100NL on Full Tilt in November. My roll there is now larger than my roll on Stars. I'm running too hot to sustain, but I'm also playing pretty decent. However, I still don't have the volume of hands to be confident I'm a winner statistically, and besides, I pretty much have one gear. Off and on, I'd thought about getting some coaching. From what I had read about poker coaching, and what I had experienced in sports, at some point I figured I would get coaching, and it was just a matter of finding the right entry point or cost point, or whatever.

The timing is good. Soon I would be at 100NL, so it's not like I would spend 8 buy-ins per session or something redic like that. I had a good enough grasp of the fundamentals that videos, strategy posts, and books were not contributing hugely to my development....all still important, but the point was I was now beyond the basics. In spite of having the basics down, I still knew (know) I made bad plays, and would be good to have a better player focus on me and let me know what blind spots I have. To me, this is ultimately the best benefit of coaching, whether poker or something else.

I find some coaching recommendations and some coaching sites. Rates are still pretty steep for a guy who only plays 10k hands/month at 100NL, but everything I've seen points to still proceeding. One of the guys who has been recommended on the Cardrunners forums as a great coach if you can get him is Verneer, and coincidentally, he soon thereafter is taking on additional students.

Rather than starting new 1 on 1 sessions with some new students, he wanted to run a workshop. The workshop format is not particularly what I was looking for, but since I try to be open minded in general, and because I am also looking for someone that knows what I need even before I know I need it, I go along with it. Plus, he's not doing any 1 on 1's until after the workshop is over. The workshop is pretty cool, especially at first. Some guest appearances by other guys like Hookem and Dice. And another crew that develops within the workshop with the some other participants. So, although no traditional coaching comes out of it, there are still some great benefits.

November is another yo-yo month, this time at 100NL. I finish the month up about a BI, making way more from rakeback than profit. December started off on the same downward momentum that November ended, and I'm another 4 BI down after a pretty small number of hands. My mental game is in a weird state. I know a bunch of stuff, I know there's way more I don't know yet. I feel better than most of the players I play against, yet the score doesn't reflect that. For a change of pace, I decide to go back to Stars, and also drop back to 50NL to get my Stars roll back up to 100NL-ready. It goes pretty well after a shaky first couple sessions. Then get slammed at 100NL again. Then build up again. Then finally a couple winning sessions in a row at 100NL.

In the meantime, I received a couple books, and have started one of them. I got them both for primarily the emotional side of poker, hoping to improve confidence as well as reduce any tilt-inspired poor play. Of course, those are related. The book I'm reading now is Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo. Very similar to (in fact part of it lifted from) his articles. If you've never heard of or read anything by Tommy, I would definitely check out his website: tommyangelo.com. I'll try to remember to write about it when I finish. I'm about half way through now, and I'll just say that it's a deceptively easy read.

So, that's where I stand right now. I am really looking forward to 2008. I wish that Verneer and I were able to start some 1 on 1 coaching...that lack is I think my biggest disappointment. In spite of that, I have a much bigger poker support system than ever before, and I am really grateful. I hope that I am helping you as much as you are helping me (well, for a couple of you, you'll have to give me some time to catch up, but I will certainly give that a go!).

A lot of you should already be in the midst of a celebration or even sleeping one off by now :). To all of you guys, Happy New Year, and here's to a fantastic 2008!