Poker: Financial results for March 2012

I am  bit annoyed with myself this month..... Why?........ All will be revealed :)

Plan

My monthly targets are:
- Play 600 hands of cash on NLHE $0.50 Full Ring, 700 cash hands on PLO $0.50 6-max, all with target of breaking even
- Play 20 NLHE STT hoping for +10% ROI

Monitor

Overall results for the month:-

Pokerstars      :   +$6.56 (plus +$10 bonus)
Black Belt Poker: -$382.20 (-£247.90)
Live play       :  -£90.00

My Pokerstars results consisted of 1x STT of 8 game. coming 2nd for profit of $6.60.  Also played ten cash sessions of 8 game.  This month I had 8 sessions of my normal $1/$2 limit and had 2 negative sessions with overall profit of $39.  I also had one session at $2/$4 which is the maximum I normally consider playing, with $105 profit.  Sadly got tempted to try out $4/$8 and lost $144   This is one reason I am a bit annoyed with myself as was going above my normal bankroll level, although might have forgiven myself if I'd done well :)    Total cash loss was only -$0.04 in the end, so kind of OK overall.

Rolling 3 month total for 8 game cash is +$53.63

Live play was -£65 MTT and £-25 cash at the Farnborough club

My BBP results break down as follows:

Cash results (-£245.91 loss overall)
 
NL Hold' em ($0.50)  1092 hands   +£  53.74
PL Omaha    ($0.50)  1584 hands   +£ 130.67
PL Omaha HU ($0.50)   757 hands   -£ 362.92
PL Omaha HU ($0.20)    56 hands   -£  67.40

For the last three months, my cash results are:
NLHE 50    -£0.004 per hand
PLO 50     -£0.030 per hand
PLO HU 50  -£0.479 per hand  ** 1 month
PLO HU 20  -£1.204 per hand  ** 1 month

Tournament Results (-£1.99 loss overall)

4x MTT          -£ 10.45
4x 2 seat STT   +£ 11.40 (+43% ROI)
1x 9 seat STT   -£ 17.34  ** BBP Live Sat
5x 10 seat STT  +£ 14.40 (+30% ROI)

Reflect

The first reason I was unhappy with myself was for being impatient and playing above my bankroll in PokerStars 8 game.   I kind of held my own but dropped 0.75 buy-in, but the buy-in being $200 makes a significant dent in my results.

The second and main reason for being annoyed with myself was taking on the Purple Belt challenge without really understanding the volume of hands I needed to put in.  It was kind of like a self imposed grading processes (which I swore I would avoid :) ) and ended up playing PLO HU for the first time, in order to generate the volume of playing points needed.   This of course resulted in huge losses and I didn't even get close to Purple belt either !    My normal cash results were actually pretty good, with my 6-max PLO recovering particularly well.  The good thing about my playing PLO HU is that it has probably helped my 6-max game quite a bit.  Just a bit disappointing how much it cost me to get that education.

My other adventure in March was to try and earn a satellite seat for BBP EEL.   I tried twice and bubbled a seat both times.  Whilst it is very frustrating (particularly as I was big chip leader on the bubble both times) I feel my tournament game is overall pretty good and will try once more before giving up and accepting I'll have to pay full price for my seat.   I've played a total of 4 Sats... twice buying in with tokens (and my final attempt will also be a token), so it isn't costing me too much to try.

Adjust

OK so I keep telling myself off for going "off-piste" so for the rest of this year am going to stick to my Poker Plan and aim at my year targets more closely.   I have updated my Poker Plan to allow myself a little slack, but need to be sure any new games are micro stakes levels to ensure learning new stuff doesn't impact my results overall.

Looking at April, I need to change my focus away from cash a bit, as am playing BBP EEL  this month and want to fine tune my MTT performance.   I also want to have a crack at the WSOP Executive Jackpot SNGS tournaments as am comfortable in this format already and feel I can have a good run.

Performance against 2012 targets

* Keep to my revised Poker Plan
Achieved hand targets for cash and STT numbers

* Play BBP London Live and UKIPT Brighton tournaments
I've decided to abandon UKIPT this year and instead change the money into my Vegas 2013 fund :)    It's my 50th Birthday next year (in May) so am planning a once in a lifetime trip, so will need some playing funds for sure.   It's a bit sad as was really looking forward to another UKIPT Brighton, but going to Vegas instead is something nice to look forward to :)

I am going to BBP Live in April, and am also planning to go to DTD and possibly the Vic events later in the year

* Aim for break even month on month on all cash tables
NLHE yes, PLO almost, PLO8 definitely no !

* Use learning tools and resources to learn and improve my NLHE, Omaha and PLO8 cash and tournament play
Am putting in the effort to do some learning, PLO8 is the main worry at the moment but also need to improve PLO as well.

* Avoid entering any BBP grading process !
Hmmm, kind of

* Win a BBP league :-)
Not doing great in League XIV after three legs... 48th at the moment and 117 points off the lead

References
January 2012 results http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/poker-financial-results-for-january.html
February 2012 results http://sceaga.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/poker-financial-results-for-february.html