Okay So I Unquit Poker

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jan 23, 2010 in icemonkey9 | 3 comments

In news that will shock nobody, I didn't quit poker and this blog after all.

So I took off poker for a week completely following my meltdown.  I did some serious reflecting on whether I wanted to really quit and just unload my money and move on in life.  Basically, one thing stood out in my mind that I read in Dusty's book AND that Taylor kept drilling in my head - you have to play your way through variance.  You simply cannot look at 10, 20 or even 50k hands and say "okay that's a regular sample" because its just not true.  Given my level of tolerance to swings and ability to make time for poker plus the amount of 6max tables I am able to play at once, I really began to think that playing 4-6 tables of 6max was a bad idea for me.  Why?

• I simply don't get enough hands per hour.  5-tabling 6max is about 500-550 hands per hour.
• By not playing enough and getting so "few" hands per hour, I'm not able to put in the hands required to get me through swings
• Over the course of my life, I simply have never shown any success playing 6max despite two solid attempts

Assuming that I simply couldn't go back to 100nl 6max (which to this day is a repulsive idea to me), the thought was, well, is that it (I actually do quit) or is there something else I can do?  One thing I had never tried is playing more than 9 tables at once of any game ... and playing 14+ tables at once could get me all the way to 1k hands per hour.  That would let me "play through it a lot better" in theory.  So, I experimented back at PokerStars 15-tabling full ring at 25nl.  I gave myself 20k hands to just feel it out, see if I could process and think through hands in that scenario.  TBH, I didn't know what to expect, but I dove right in.  The goal was to simply assess my abilities while 15-tabling and to see if it was fun.

Fortunately, I didn't run terrible and got a fair shake.  Playing such a low stake level plus so many hands per hour also helped me greatly understand the swings and pings of variance.  The data started making sense and I could see where certain villain phenomenons would take place (for example I would have W$SD consistently at 60-65% for 90% of sessions, then 35-40% for 10% of sessions).  Playing so many hands also forced me to not look at the results hand-to-hand and get caught up in bad beats and coolers because it was constantly the next hand that required my attention.

I completed my 20k test run ... and it went well.  I enjoyed playing 15-tables, I felt I had a great grasp of what was going on, and stomping the competition's face in was fun too (I won 4.6 BB/100).  I'm well rolled for 50nl on stars and to a degree 100nl even if I so choose (note that I had a bit of a bankroll on Stars).  The graph is below:

The issue I face now is, "what now"?  I posed a bunch of questions over to Taylor and am awaiting his response since I take his opinion very seriously ... What do I do with my roll at Full Tilt Poker, where I am really disgusted to ever play at anymore?  What do I do in terms of 6max ... or do I go with what is working and to a degree historically worked for me?  What does this all mean for coaching, as I LOVE the fact that my "Poker IQ" has increased since sessions began with Taylor and I want to keep that going?

Stay tuned.