12/180s - dipping the toe in the realm of the pro

So, didn't blog again last month, or the month before either, but back at it now. So, what's been happening?

Well I didn't put in much effort at the tables in August. Soooooo fucking lazy. I know I was in Denmark at the start of the month, and at the cricket a lot in the second half of the month, but even so, in the second half of the month I managed a rather pathetic 227 games, and I ran pretty bad in them too, posting an overall loss, though the loss was less than $5. This basically means that the whole of the second half of August I didn't actually make any money at all. I just about clung on to Silver, and that was only salvaged because I finished up the month by playing 2.20 HUSNGs for some HU practice. They are pure torture. I played 73 of them, finishing with a 42-31 record, for an awesome profit of $7.40 (ROI ~5%). The standard of play was absolutely awful, including mine to be fair, but fortunately I was slightly less awful than the field. The 10% rake in them is sick. Also they're regular speed; Stars could really use some turbos in the nanostakes HUSNGs.

And then onto September. I started with all the usual good intentions – you know, good volume, discipline, and all that crap, but surprise, surprise I didn't put in the volume I intended. I did plan to play enough 2/180s to get to Gold by the end of the month, but although I got to Gold, I really did it by cheating a little.

On the 15th I decided that my 4,000 games sample was worthy of a move up to the 12s, but I wanted to insure myself a little against the massive variance that is continually being talked about in them, so I started a thread in the Marketplace where I offered to sell 50% of my action in the 12s (at no markup) selling and playing the tournaments in blocks of 100 games at a time. Although everyone was in the middle of WCOOP-fever in there, I was rather gratified that all the action was snapped up in 8 minutes flat, and I soon built up a lengthy list of standby backers too. Guess I undersold myself a little, but it was my first package, I didn't have a Marketplace reputation and I wanted to give myself the best chance of selling my action.

However, the games themselves went awfully. I genuinely believe that I have never run so bad in my entire poker career as I did for the 300 games I sold. KK was like my own private nemesis; the number of times I had that cracked was absurd, and usually deep in tournaments too, at times when there were large amounts of equity at stake in the pot. So, after 300 games I was down almost 75 BIs ($900), although I was "insured" for 50% of that by the action I sold. Grinding those games also helped me to clear the WCOOP reload bonus of $100, and I also collected about $30 worth of FPP so the whole ordeal only actually cost me around $320. The future benefit was that it also got me to Gold, and the FPP rate increase I got from that for October is now paying off as well. I expect to earn about an extra $50 in FPP in this month as a result of it. So anyway, I lost money in every single one of the three blocks I sold.

Thoroughly dejected and tearing my hair out in frustration at my epic runbad, I decided enough was enough, so I dropped back down to the 2s to grind out the remaining VPP I needed to make Gold while I considered my next move. The runbad continued to haunt me there though, and I dropped more money at a level I'd been crushing for three months.

I finally decided that despite my misfortune in the games, I am definitely +EV in 12/180s, and I have enough money offline that I can deposit if needed, so I'm going to go it alone in the 12s. If I'm profitable and can afford it why should I split my profits 50/50 with someone else, be it a single backer as part of a formal staking arrangement, or a group of players as part of a more ad hoc arrangement sellling shares in blocks of games. That's just wasting my own money and my own effort, letting others earn money off my sweat. I don't need to do that. So I've decided I'm going full time into the 12s on my own money, although for the time being I will continue to mix in 2s during quiet periods, simply for convenience to fill empty slots in the number of tables I play. I'll still earn money from them, and I'll still accrue VPP/FPP too. I can now afford to just dump them if a number of the 12s demand closer attention. But I'm looking to play more daylight friendly hours, like a normal person. So if I do that then at the start of my day at least the 12s will be loading very slowly indeed; adding a few 2s won't reduce my EV in the 12s by more than the money I'll earn from the 2s.

I've also decided to spend some time learning cash games to broaden my knowledge and experience. Obviously bankroll for this is a total non-issue, because in theory I have enough to play whatever level I want to start, but I'll start at the bottom and work my way up. This should help improve my deep stack play should I run deep in any of the scheduled tournaments I am going to be mixing in with my 180man grind. It will also be invaluable at some later point, when I (hopefully) move up the buyin levels again to play some of the daily, or even weekly, majors. Some of those play very deep and cash game skills will transfer nicely. I'm gonna start at 5NL or 10NL and work up from there, maybe with a bit of coaching.

So that's the plan. How's it going so far?

Well, it seems my decision to go it alone in the 12s has been generally rewarded by the RNG. In 162 games on my own coin I've shipped three, and FT'd plenty of others too, for a profit of around 1600 at an ROI of around 85%. Obviously this is a ludicrous swong in the other direction from the awful luck I endured through my first 300 games, and is probably about as unlikely to continue, but I'm happy to ride it while it lasts. It gives me a net OPR profit from 12s of $770, and an actual game profit (before rakeback) of around $1,200 because of the shares I sold. I'm currently sitting as a 99.3% player on OPR, ranked 6842 and still with my 8* rating.

So my goal for October is to play enough games for Platinum, which should give me an extra FPP boost for the rest of the year, and if I can do that and feel I can maintain that volume on a regular basis then I think that for a while I will finally be able to describe myself as a pro. I should be earning a decent amount and I will actually be playing full time. If it goes really well then I'll be able to make a solid push for Supernova next year just by playing 12/180s for less than 30hours per week plus whatever I decide to do with scheduled MTTs and cash games.

And away from the tables.....

I started my Danish classes three weeks ago, going OK so far. I think I'll be in the top half of the class and am looking forward to going to Denmark for a couple of days in early November for a bit of practice.

Also, bowling leagues have started again, and last Sunday at Tolworth I finished with a 278 game, my best game since my 299 about four years ago. So that was nice.

I'm feeling pretty buoyant right now, after a +700 day, but all in all I'd say things are looking up :-)