Concluding Post: Monday, Sept. 5th
Final Results
Total Profit: $47,400
Total Hands: 51,000
Winning Days: 21
Losing Days: 6
High Day: $8,100
Low Day: -$1,800
The Limit Story
Profit: $48,800
Hands: 39,900
BB/100: 3.35
The No-Limit Story
Profit: -$1,400
Hands: 11,100
Concluding remarks:
Well, it was an experience, to be sure. Frankly, I'm just proud of myself for actually making it. When I set a $40,000 goal, I thought it was attainable, but wasn't sure that I'd be able to get in enough hands to make it, especially after the first few days, when I was really feeling the after-effects of the surgery: I found I couldn't concentrate for more than 20 minutes at a time. Maybe the fact that my profits took off in the second half was a result of my condition improving substantially -- good cards obviously had a lot to do with it as well. Perhaps prophetically, my profits during this challenge nearly exactly equalled the cost of my surgery -- now here's hoping insurance comes through like they said they would so that I can pocket some of this cash and buy myself something pretty.
I guess the obvious elephant in the room is the limit vs. NL thing. Here's the rub -- I had always been a limit specialist; hardly ever ventured near a NL game, simply because it wasn't my thing. A few months ago, though, I started playing a lot of NL using a short-stack strategy popularized in a recent book by Ed Miller. In a nutshell, it's basically a "NL for Dummies" all-in strategy that brought me a lot of success...so much so, that I actually played NL nearly exclusively for a couple of weeks before my surgery. Obviously it wasn't quite as successful during these few weeks. So feel free to deride my NL game -- I never held myself out as much of a NL player, and the short-stack strategy I use is about as unsophisticated as they come, and I'm sure would be ridiculed by most serious NL pro's. As a NL-for-Dummies approach, though, I'm not sure there's anything better out there.
This much is certain, though -- and let me step into the arrogance-booth here for a moment -- I've become one hell of a mid-stakes limit player. When I was determining what an appropriate $ goal would be for this experiment, I was basing my calculations on a projected BB/100 of around 1.5, which I secretly worried was too optimistic a projection, given that I had subsided largely within the 1.0 - 1.3 range in the previous months. Well over the 40,000 hands I played at 15/30 through 30/60 during these 27 days, I managed 3.35. Go ahead and tell me my sample size is too small or that I was obviously running exceptionally well. Some of that is true -- I doubt there are more than a handful of players sustaining 3+ at those stakes -- in fact, I used to tell myself that getting to 2.5 would be a real accomplishment. To be honest, none of that shit even matters. It's all just a number. Bottom line is that I've become the type of player I wouldn't ever want to be sitting in a game with, and I'm pretty happy with that.
Lastly, the experience as a whole -- to state the obvious, after a while, poker gets really really boring. This challenge was one of the ways I hoped to make things a little more interesting, knowing that I wasn't going to have much of a choice while recovering from surgery and confined to my little apartment. I don't think I could do this full-time...just too antisocial an exercise, but a big FU to those who doubted my ability to achieve the goals I laid out in my first few posts. Honestly, I never really understood the poker-jealousy thing -- it's like some people treat poker as some kind of big zero sum meta-game where if one person succeeds, it somehow detracts from their own abilities or results, so they feel the need to criticize as foolhardy lofty goals that others set -- after all, if you're unwilling to put in the work to make your own building the tallest in town, much easier to simply chop down every else's and achieve the same result, right? Anyway, I'm looking forward to taking a little break from poker now, and getting back to my real life, which had been pretty fun lately, surgery notwithstanding.
Contest: my actual tally: $47,400. Closest to the pin winner: Ruben DB with an impressive guess of $46,542 -- honorable mention to Subby ($43,000) and Jamey S. ($43,922). Random draw winner: Michael V. The two of you can send me an email and have either a poker chip set, or $50 donation to a charity of your choice.
EPILOGUE: So because my sleep cycles are so ungodly from keeping some fairly odd hours during this challenge, I tried to sleep the following night, only to find myself tossing and turning for over 3 hours, unable to fall asleep. So I got up and (what else), opened up a few tables. Long story short, I managed a tidy $3,000 during the wee hours that morning to put me over $50,000! So even while I guess I have to stand by officially ending the challenge yesterday, let $50,000 in 28 days be my legacy for this thing.
Total Profit: $47,400
Total Hands: 51,000
Winning Days: 21
Losing Days: 6
High Day: $8,100
Low Day: -$1,800
The Limit Story
Profit: $48,800
Hands: 39,900
BB/100: 3.35
The No-Limit Story
Profit: -$1,400
Hands: 11,100
Concluding remarks:
Well, it was an experience, to be sure. Frankly, I'm just proud of myself for actually making it. When I set a $40,000 goal, I thought it was attainable, but wasn't sure that I'd be able to get in enough hands to make it, especially after the first few days, when I was really feeling the after-effects of the surgery: I found I couldn't concentrate for more than 20 minutes at a time. Maybe the fact that my profits took off in the second half was a result of my condition improving substantially -- good cards obviously had a lot to do with it as well. Perhaps prophetically, my profits during this challenge nearly exactly equalled the cost of my surgery -- now here's hoping insurance comes through like they said they would so that I can pocket some of this cash and buy myself something pretty.
I guess the obvious elephant in the room is the limit vs. NL thing. Here's the rub -- I had always been a limit specialist; hardly ever ventured near a NL game, simply because it wasn't my thing. A few months ago, though, I started playing a lot of NL using a short-stack strategy popularized in a recent book by Ed Miller. In a nutshell, it's basically a "NL for Dummies" all-in strategy that brought me a lot of success...so much so, that I actually played NL nearly exclusively for a couple of weeks before my surgery. Obviously it wasn't quite as successful during these few weeks. So feel free to deride my NL game -- I never held myself out as much of a NL player, and the short-stack strategy I use is about as unsophisticated as they come, and I'm sure would be ridiculed by most serious NL pro's. As a NL-for-Dummies approach, though, I'm not sure there's anything better out there.
This much is certain, though -- and let me step into the arrogance-booth here for a moment -- I've become one hell of a mid-stakes limit player. When I was determining what an appropriate $ goal would be for this experiment, I was basing my calculations on a projected BB/100 of around 1.5, which I secretly worried was too optimistic a projection, given that I had subsided largely within the 1.0 - 1.3 range in the previous months. Well over the 40,000 hands I played at 15/30 through 30/60 during these 27 days, I managed 3.35. Go ahead and tell me my sample size is too small or that I was obviously running exceptionally well. Some of that is true -- I doubt there are more than a handful of players sustaining 3+ at those stakes -- in fact, I used to tell myself that getting to 2.5 would be a real accomplishment. To be honest, none of that shit even matters. It's all just a number. Bottom line is that I've become the type of player I wouldn't ever want to be sitting in a game with, and I'm pretty happy with that.
Lastly, the experience as a whole -- to state the obvious, after a while, poker gets really really boring. This challenge was one of the ways I hoped to make things a little more interesting, knowing that I wasn't going to have much of a choice while recovering from surgery and confined to my little apartment. I don't think I could do this full-time...just too antisocial an exercise, but a big FU to those who doubted my ability to achieve the goals I laid out in my first few posts. Honestly, I never really understood the poker-jealousy thing -- it's like some people treat poker as some kind of big zero sum meta-game where if one person succeeds, it somehow detracts from their own abilities or results, so they feel the need to criticize as foolhardy lofty goals that others set -- after all, if you're unwilling to put in the work to make your own building the tallest in town, much easier to simply chop down every else's and achieve the same result, right? Anyway, I'm looking forward to taking a little break from poker now, and getting back to my real life, which had been pretty fun lately, surgery notwithstanding.
Contest: my actual tally: $47,400. Closest to the pin winner: Ruben DB with an impressive guess of $46,542 -- honorable mention to Subby ($43,000) and Jamey S. ($43,922). Random draw winner: Michael V. The two of you can send me an email and have either a poker chip set, or $50 donation to a charity of your choice.
EPILOGUE: So because my sleep cycles are so ungodly from keeping some fairly odd hours during this challenge, I tried to sleep the following night, only to find myself tossing and turning for over 3 hours, unable to fall asleep. So I got up and (what else), opened up a few tables. Long story short, I managed a tidy $3,000 during the wee hours that morning to put me over $50,000! So even while I guess I have to stand by officially ending the challenge yesterday, let $50,000 in 28 days be my legacy for this thing.
That's it; thanks for following along. Fin.
Here's a look at the final detailed chart:
