January Recap

Finally this month is over, what a month! Profit wise wasn't that good, still ended on the profit zone but I am disappointed with the 9 man results.

I played a total of 386 games this month (good volume) and 277 games of 9 man with a very small profit on them. The other games was 6 man (break even but a very small sample), 45/18 Man turbos and heads-up. I had my best results on the heads-up sng but i played just a few of them.

Yesterday I defined some ambitious goals for this year but I will not write right now. I want to see how february goes on my sng grind. If I make my profit goal for next month, I will be prepared to accomplish some ambitious goals.

Finally I renewed my Silverstar status for February by playing, most of the time, the $3.40 SNGs. If you play 12 of these games per day, on 30 days you are Silverstar.

Mid Month Feedback

There isn't much to say about this month, I have been playing a lot of 9 Man SNG ($3.40 stakes for the majority of the time), a touch here and there at 6 Man. All of them at regular speed blinds. According to my spreadsheet, I played about 292 games this month (and year), so I am satisfied with the volume but still not perfect volume (if I had about 600 at this point, I would be very satisfied).
Anyway, it's the 1st time that I put this kind of volume. I am positive in terms of profit but still did not reach the 3 digits profit for the month, so I am disappointed in terms of my ROI (about 3%).
So, this has been a volume month but not so profitable has I would like to be.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Career Graph (SNG Only) and more...

A picture from my career path until the end of the last year. This graph only shows the SNG, I have some good results on MTT's that are not represented here. This is from the popular Sharkscope.



2009 was my first year on Poker, more exactly the No Limit Texas Holdem. Was a year to learn the game, to have fun, make some good friends (Paulo Mesquita from Braga, if you are reading this, you are one of them!). I got my first poker book on August and started to post hands on Forums.

I started to take Poker more seriously on 2010, starting to grind 9 Man SNG (regular blinds), and I managed to get positive by grinding these type of game. I reeded more new books on 2010, watch some videos and have some long remote sessions with a friend from England that unfortunately I lost his contact a few months ago, (yes Bruce, it's you, you are a great SNG player, give some news!).

2010 was a year to try different SNG formats, and you can see that the graph was a roller coaster due to that but I manage to be positive and learn fundamentals things during the process. I also decided to built my SNG career path on the only and only Pokerstars.

2011 it's going to be different, I am more mature but still always leaning and improving the game. 2011 it's going to be a volume and dedication year, I am going to grind one type of SNG and play some MTT's.

I will post updates very soon, but just to let you know that I already played 89 games this year on 9 players SNG.

Stay tuned.

2010 Review and 2011 Plan

2010 Performance Review

Poker is such an evolving game that we are always learning new concepts, studying others concepts that are more familiar and taking each and every new concept one by one.

For example, last year I learn the basic rules of No Limit Holdem. I also learn how to play in position, one very important and misunderstood concept by the way. But you know what, even this year I must reinforce to myself the importance of position when reviewing my sessions.

I am suspecting that next year I will study some concepts like ICM and bubble factors. Yes, I read the basic theory behind but that is not enough to win consistently at the poker tables, reading is one thing, studying, analysing and applying are very different things.

One of the things that I learn this year is about volume and skill.

Volume and Skill are co-related

One very important thing I learn is that volume and skill are co-related. Beginners and recreational players play much less volume than more dedicated or professional players. Skill is present, it may not be seen at first glance, but is there. The only way to bring the skill out of the game is to put volume. Luck is also present on the game, on the short run you can lose to a bad beat, a cooler but those things have a minor probability to happen, (ironically they happen much more times when you play more hands, but it is compensated by the other times when you make good decisions). I played in a year what some Pro’s play in a month or less, so you can see how volume is important.

Multitabling

Yesterday I had one of my best sessions at 9 Man SNG grind and was the session that I played more tables: 16 tables at the same time! I made almost $60 in profit games plus $50 on VIP stellar rewards and it was more than $100 in profit for a single day. I am much better at handling more than 10 tables at the same time. I started playing 2/3 tables at the same time on January of 2010, increasing the number of tables slowly. There was a time when I was comfortable with 4 tables in title format. I increased to 6 tables in cascade format and on the last 3 months I made the switch to 8 tables ending at 10 tables on average during the last days.

Multitabling 16 tables at the same time is though, specially when you are deep in the SNG. For example when you are approaching the bubble it becomes a very mathematical game. You have to pay attention to you stack and other players stack, your position, bubble factors become important and ICM is always present and finally, the strength of the cards that you hold. When you are ITM, 3 players playing or heads-up is very though but also very exciting!

2011 Milestones

This year I will do my best to stay consistent in one SNG format and put much more volume. I will also play more MTT's online. I am not going to put here some profit numbers, just say that I will put volume on the 9 Man SNG (regular blinds). I will start to grind the $3.40 buy in (like I have been grinding) and mixing with the $5.50 buy in. I wish to end the 1st Semester grinding the $11 buy in and already have some very good months with more than 500 games per month.

I will keep you guys in touch, by the way, if I want to share some quick update I will post on Twitter on: http://twitter.com/lmagalhaes78.

Cheers.