February 2017 is history! And what a month it was! It had his great Moments but also timeframes where nothing at all seemed to work (started by an encounter with Darth Vader)! I had to fight tilt and motivation problems and mess with a new Playerpool. Let's Sum it up with a few graphs and numbers first!
Just ignore that Winner-Poker is split in 2 graphs. One of them is specifically for coaching purposes. I played a few more hands without Tracking software. As far as I can tell those hands were breakeven. This might explain the higher rakeback than expected for Winner-Poker. All hands from bwin are tracked!
Winnings: -105.43 Winnings EV Adjusted : -131,89 Hans total: 76,399 Winrate: -1.4 bb/100 Winning Days: 10 Losing Days: 15 Tilt Ease Days: 3
I never had any really impressive Results for a single month so far, but this is my first losing month since I take poker seriously. (August 2016) I'm quite happy with the volume! It is less than in January but mostly due to the fact that in January I played Fast Forward only. The Month ended really really great (read below). But even with normal Rakeback, Promotions and Boni I cleared, I'm in a very nice in Plus. Still, when I look at my graphs, it sadens me and I hope I can do better, especially Winrate wise!
Bankroll Booster in February:
bwin Boni and Promotions 153.00 $
- 70 $ : 2/10 parts 350$ Bonus
- 5 $ : Friday Frenzy
- 30 $ : The Race
- 20 $ : Card Rush Leaderboard
- 3 $ : Poker Rally
- 25 $ : Rope-A-Dope Ticket in the Money
Winner Poker Rakeback 30.25 $
In Winner Poker I get just normal Rakeback without Boni or anything. For the few days I played I got 30.25 $
888Poker Treasure Quest Promotion for 65 $ profit
In February Treasure Quest went for another round. This time I got twice 10 $ (instead of 5 $) for completing rows/columns. I started with 30 $ in my Bankroll on 888Poker and ended up with 95 $. So I made 65 $ profit!
Tournaments with a friend on 888 Poker for 1,010.40 $ Winnings in total
In February me and my friend played 5 tournaments where each
of us bought 50% of the others guys starting stack
(so we would split any profit)
1. 2 x The 5,000 $ 8-8-8 (8.80 $ Buy-In) where both of us busted before
the money -17.60 $
2. 2 x The Dozen 3,000 $ (12 $ Buy-In) Which I cashed
once for 42 $ => +3 $
3. 1 x The 10,000 $ Swordfish (30 $ Buy-In) which my buddy won for
2080 $ => 1025 $ for me
Short story to my friends Tournament win:
It was the day the Treasure Quest Promotion ended. Both of us got 30 $
for the last 3 Chests that we couldn't withdraw since u have to clear
Bonus-Money first. So we decided to take a shot at a higher tournament
than we usually play (usually we only play up to 12 $ tournaments)
I'm glad he chose exactly that tournament to take it down with his
A-Game.
And for who happens to give a f**k, I busted within first 10 hands!
Noteworthy stuff that happened in February:
Coaching
I had my first Coaching-lesson ever. My coach is great, we had a good
time together and plan to continue working together!
Without talking specifics, it is nice when someone shows you your leaks
and a way to plug them.
It is also nice to just hear from someone else that the Spots I ran
into recently were not missplayed in general and that I am just on the
wrong side of Variance (unless my tilting hands)!
I am benefiting alot in those Coaching-Sessions!
Blog boosted by Nathan “Blackrain79” Williams
At this point I would love to express my appreciation Nathan. I thank
you so much for the little boost you gave my blog. It is a great honor
for me!
Keep up the great work you deliver every day for us
Micro-Stakes-Grinder!
And best of luck for your new book. I can't wait to get my hands on it!
Go check out Nathan's blog if you are not yet familiar with him.
Stopped playing on bwin completely
I withdrew my money from bwin right after clearing 2/10 of my Bonus because of personal differences with their Promotion-Support. I will only do a small tl;dr about what happened: I got an e-Mail promoting "Friday Frenzy" on the 4th of February. (a Single Day Rake Race) I went home from work, turned on the Computer immediately and dropped 13k hands with minimal breaks to get a top 3 spot. (probably would have won it) First place gets 200 $, 3rd still 150 $ (if i remember correct). I did not get a notification the next few days so I contacted the support. After e-mailing with them for a week, they (finally) told me they had technical difficulties and therefor resheduled "Friday Frenzy" to next week. "Sadly, we have to inform you, we cannot forward your points to that date." They offered me a R-A-D-Ticket (11$), "that's all we can do for you." I felt betrayed, so I only cleared the next part of my bonus and quit bwin. They just don't seem to be interested in keeping Customers and I guess it is my fault they had "technical difficulties". If I had gotten an e-Mail that day, that they will reshedule it, because of whatever reason, I would be completely fine with it, but promoting something that did not take place, without letting everyone know, just is a No-Go for me!
Went down to NL4
This decision was made due to more than 1 reason. My Main-Goal for February was actually to stay on NL10. While I have a really really really healthy bankroll to work with and am still in the green on NL10, I still decided, after talking to my coach, that it will be better to begin on NL4 at Winner-Poker. It is a complete different playerpool I have to get used to first. Second Reason is, I am in the middle of a huge downswing, playing a lower limit will ease my mind faster and make me regain confidence quicker!
March Goals and approaches
Learn more
February was just a really big grind. First half of the month was bwin only to clear as much as possible of my bonus. I expected beforehand already to not learn to much. The 2nd half of the month I had to make some thoughts about how to approach Poker after I left bwin. It took alot of time to figure out and to set up so everything works as I want it to work. In March I will go back to the 80-20 Approach. Play 80% of time and learn 20%. I will make sure that it is part of my Daily Goals every single day. Learning more than 20% of the time is overwhelming and suboptimal in my eyes.
Relax more (efficient)
In February I only stopped the grind whenever I already felt bad and was angry. (Tilt-Stop) This was good to prevent me from further losings. It also made me not open poker for 3 complete days, while still feeling horrible about the game! In March I will try to be more efficient with my Poker-Breaks. The very next weekend I will be gone relaxing for 2 complete days. Hell am I looking forward to that! In general I will try to find better spots for recovery than only Tilt-Stops!
Withdraw everything but 300 $ from Winner-Poker
One of the main things bothering me is my Huge bankroll (no I don't hate money). Even before the Tournament-Victory of my buddy I had a number close to 4 digits of dollares spread across my Accounts. But what is it worth when you struggle to beat NL4/NL10 yet? I will not go up in Limits and risk it just because my bankroll tells me to do so. I will move up when my Winrate dicdates it. Therefor I will withdraw everything but 300 $ from Winner-Poker and go my way from there. Every money I will win that is not because of my Winrate (Rakeback, Promos, Tournaments) from now on will be saved ether for going broke or for a nice Holiday/WSOP-Appearance/Trip to King's Casino Razvadov. To be clear, I will have some money on other Pokersites for some enjoyable Tournaments (this is just fun to me, I love tournaments but due to my work I can't grind them regularly) The feeling to withdraw ~1700 $ was amazing <3
Bankroll Management: Go up to NL10 (again)
This time it doesn't feel like I failed my shot at NL10. I found good reasons to go down to NL4 for the time being. So my main goal for March will be to arise again, stronger than ever, and work my way up to NL10 (for the 5th time) yet again. Since I withdrew all my Cash but 300 $ I will just use conservative Bankroll-Management from now on. I only see positive things to that approach. I can't find excuses to not go up in Limits when I have the Bankroll for it and I have strict rules for when I have to go down. I think that will help me mentally! 40 Buy-Ins of the new Limit to go up, less than 30 Buy-Ins to go down again. Simple!
Proper Use of Tilt-Stop
In February I sometimes just ignored Tilt-Stop. In March I will not ignore the rules I set up! I will stick with every single Tilt-Stop. Chasing losses never went well for me! (nor for anyone else I guess)
Other Goals for March
- Go to gym 3 times a week
- finish 2 Pokerbooks (The Mental Game of Poker and FTP-Tips from the Pros)
- write 2 Blog entries with strategical aspects
- Play 60,000 Hands 6-tabling Reg Tables
- Read alot about the Mental game
- Post 3 Hands about difficult spots I had to face each week
- Find a bigger apartment for my girlfriend, me and our 3 ferrets ❤
Final Statement
Let's make March great again! Thank you so much for reading. I apprechiate every single Person who found his way here. Feel free to subscribe to my blog to stay up to date. You can also follow me on twitter here. Comments are much apprechiated.
2 thoughts on “February 2017 Recap”