The Last Three Months

A lot has happened in the past few months.

To clear the bonus in January, I played in NL 25 and PL 25 - which is way above my BR level. I was successful, pulling off the bonus, and getting my BR up to the lofty peak of $330. But this was to be short-lived.

I went back to playing $3.4 SnG's over the next few months; but, I continued to play a smattering of NL 25 and PL 25 as well. Unfortunately, I hit a downturn in the $3.4's. At the same time, my luck changed in NL 25 as well - and unfortunately, a $330 bankroll does not whether a downturn all that well. What makes things worse is when you can't seem to win the game you've consistently made money at!

It took exactly one month - from late January to late February - for my bankroll to fall off a cliff. $79.97 was the bottom of the chasm. Since then, it has been a jagged up and down struggle in an attempt to achieve some degree of respectability.

Currently, I stand at $123.33 clear. I had lowered the stakes on the cash tables to an appropriate level, and I started winning at the $3.4 SnG's.

Now, all of a sudden Pokerstars makes two important changes to me.

The first is a change to the cash tables. Short stacks cannot Buy-In to the same games as medium or deep Buy-In's. This is mostly positive. There are far too many short stacks at some of these tables, simply waiting for 77+ so that they can shove. It hasn't been very long, but already, I feel the poker feels a bit easier, as everyone at the table is playing the same game.

The second change is a new format called a Knockout Sit and Go. Basically, it’s a standard Sit and Go, but every player stakes a bounty. If you eliminate someone, you get to claim their bounty. The fee structure for a $3 Buy-In Knockout SnG is $3 + $0.35 in rake + $0.75 in bounty. From a rake perspective, this are a far superior game for me than the $3 + $0.40 in rake Turbo SnG's I'm playing currently. I'll get to why this makes so much more sense during my next post.

In the meantime, there is another hiccup to deal with. My old computer went on the fritz. A new computer has arrived, and I've got to decide whether to try to import my Hold'em Manager hand histories. But maybe it's just too much hassle, and I should simply start afresh! Considering my play now is dramatically different than when I started out, there is much to be said for starting out new in terms of the management portion of the app (ROI, ITM%, BI type of numbers). The only thing I would be missing would be the hand histories of players I've played with… but to be honest, its rare to see the same people over and over again at my level. And when it happens, it won't take long to figure out where they are coming and get them back in the DB. So I'm more or less leaning to starting again from scratch.