My poker history 2009--Part 3

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After a bout with shingles, being a new parent of twin boys and being utterly exhausted, I decided to take the rest of July off. In fact, I hadn't really known whether or not I would return to playing online poker with the same interest or focus as I had before. As August rolled around, I started to feel the itch to get back into playing some poker. My wife and I had a night nurse 3 to 4 days a week so that we could have some sleep which was crucial now that we had 3 children all under the age of 3 years old.
Most of my sessions were around 11 PM after everyone had gone to sleep and I had an hour to myself. I moved back down to .50-1 so that I could feel a bit more comfortable and 3.27 BB/100 winner over the course of 5,100 hands which gave me a nice ego boost.
 September wouldn't fair as well although I still ended up a winner with a disappointing .78BB/100 after playing 7,500 hands. I had attempted to stay on the LAGier side of TAG, but not to go crazy postflop. I was also trying to use seat selection much more carefully than before. I started off October doing fairly well and by mid month, saw some opportunities to move up and play a few 1-2 FR tables with some immediate rungood. I limited the amount of tables I played when at 1-2 to no more than 3 at a time and usually only playing 2. I finished that month at 2.58BB/100 over 4,900 hands. It was obviously a more successful strategy at the time than playing nearly 10,000 hands like the previous month. Even though that plan seems to be rather obvious in hindsight, I was still expecting a lot more out of myself which was one way for disaster.
November began much like October in that I was mostly playing .50-1 with a little dabbling in 1-2. That quickly changed as once again I saw myself as shark ready to feed. Much like June and July, I was terribly wrong. Near the end of the month I saw a lot of losing sessions without many winning ones. I finished the month down money wise, but technically up as far as BB/100 goes with my .50-1 sessions helping to stave off the big losses at 1-2. You can probably see where this road is headed can't you?
December was basically my first all 1-2 month, which was most definitely a mistake given the circumstances. Surprisingly enough I had a very good month with the exception of one day in the middle when  had a 60 BB downer which hurt my BB/100. All in all I ended up at 1.02BB/100 which is ok, especially taking into consideration that I was not playing A game poker.
Much like the beginning of the year I had some other high notes in poker during this time that were not attributed to cash games. In August I finished 2nd in a 180-man SNG which brought in $144 and then in late December I netted my first 180-man SNG win in NLHE which brought in $108. I finished the year with $522 in tournament winnings and $1,433 in cash game winnings, which includes all of the holdem variants. It was a roller coaster ride at times, but I learned quite a bit. Not that I would apply all that I learned right away, but at least it was stored up for the next go around.
All in all I knew that I had a strong love for poker and wanted to learn a lot more. I learned that when I stayed in my game that I could reduce my risk and pick up the skills that were needed in order to move up. I was beginning to learn that moving out one's comfort zone didn't mean becoming a crazy aggressive player overnight, but that's another story for another post.
Thanks.

My poker history 2009 Part 1

2009 was the first year that I felt more confident in my poker game, especially when it came to LHE. I had been playing .50-1 online and knew that I was a winning player over a long enough sample size. I had built my online bankroll up to the point where I had a good amount of cushion for the next level up at 1-2 if I felt confident in the jump. Normally you want between 250-500 BBs at the stake you're normally at, depending on your winrate, your standard deviation, as well as your playing styles (and how it may effect the first 2 factors). I knew that moving up in limits would be obligatory as I had been playing .50-1 for 6 months with some success. My plan was to see how the first few months of 2009 went at .50-1 and then re access in March. That quickly went out the window as basically had a winrate of about 1 BB/100 over the course of 17,000 hands. I had opened up my preflop game a little, but wasn't totally confident in the adjustment to a hyper aggressive stake like 1-2 was in 2009. I had gotten to know quite a few of the regular .50-1 FR grinders on Pokerstars over the last 6 months and many of them were MMTers (a.k.a Mass Multi tables). When I would normally be playing 3-5 tables at once, they were playing anywhere from 16 all the way up to 30 tables. In addition to using Poker Tracker 3 (PT3) or HEM (Holdem Manager) poker software, they also had programs like Table Ninja(tm) and Hot keys so that they could play each table and not time out during a hand. There were alot of MMTers playing 1-2 FR LHE on Pokerstars at this time. The main reason was a thing called Supernova status. It has changed since 2009, but MMTers were basically looking to make a small profit if possible playing LHE, but accruing VPPs to use for cash back bonuses. If they hit their goals and maintained their Supernova status, they could make over $100,000 dollars, unless of course they lost a ton actually playing. One player that I had a lot of experience with posted a thread for this in the uLHE forums on 2+2.
Do you know Tyler Durden?

 This strong competition was a big concern to me with regard to moving up in limits. Many veteran 2+2 posters like playing against MMTers because they had flaws in their game due to the fact that they were playing so many tables at once and you could see a pattern of play over and over again. I actually had some success against Mr. Durden when I played against him in 2009 because his strategy became so apparent and once could sit on his immediate left and exploit him. Anyways...
 I had was playing alot of hands early in the year which was a luxury given to me for 2 main reasons. My son who was 1 1/2 years old at the time, was taking long afternoon naps which would give me 2-3 hours of free time which I used primarily to play poker. 2 hours of 4 tables at 60 hands an hour would be 450-500 hands a day which was twice as much per day as a live poker grinder in the casinos. The other big reason, or I should say reasons was the fact that my wife was pregnant with twin boys. Once they were born, I knew that my time would evaporate for at least 2 months if not longer. It would take a while for all 3 kids to be in a sleeping pattern that may allow me some time to play poker once again and even then it may not be my A game. Possibly not even my C game.
 As I said before, the first 2 months of 2009 didn't go exactly as I had hoped, results wise. That was until March rolled in like a lion, but in my case, a good roaring lion. Perhaps, I was the lion, roaring and marching into March...oh never mind, it went fucking good ok?
 I one $337 in that month and had a winrate of 3.10 BB/100 over the course of 11,000ish hands. I was stoked to say the least. Another moneymaker in that month was some 180 man SNG (sit N gos) that I played. I won another $310 playing those with a 3rd place finish and a 2nd which was quite profitable.
March '09 had been the most profitable tournament month for me in my online poker playing up to that time. At the end of 2008  I had discovered these multi table SNGs which didn't have a 3,000+ player pool and could be much easier to make money while not risking anything due to the fact that Pokerstars allowed you to earn Tournament dollars that you could use instead of your bankroll. There was really no downside.
After having such a huge month, dollar wise, I decided that April would be the time to take the plunge into the waters of 1-2 FR LHE on Stars. It's funny when something like "run good" follows along with you as things become more difficult, but leaves your side in the times when it seems most simple. I crushed the 1-2 tables (when I played them) in April '09 running over 3.0BB/100, but was almost breakeven at .50-1 at the same time. I took in over $500 in cash game play and added another $50 in the one SNG that I placed in that month. In March, my profits were enough to have 300 BBs at 1-2 and added to my April profits I was rolled for 2/4 if I wanted to take a shot. Of course I didn't as I am a curmedgeon at heart and would not want to risk losing what I had worked so hard for...