Where's all the money gone?!

Unfortunately it's a fact that since the glorious Summer my bankroll has become quite depleted. A lot of this can be blamed on variance, although there are always measures to reduce this variance. On the other hand, it could be that I've been getting outplayed, and then there are always measures to combat this as well!

First let's start with what's been going well. Well I've been putting a lot more volume into the European sites which I've been doing very well in. Partly the smaller fields but also the weaker competition. So that's a bonus. However, a cycle seems to be emerging. Throughout the week I slowly make $1k-$2k on the euro sites and then on the Sunday I donate it all back, often with some more playing the higher buyin Sunday tournaments.

To prevent this, recently I've been selling some action occasionally or reducing the buyins of the tournaments I've been playing on Sundays (such as dropping off some of the majors). But they are SO juicy. For those who don't know, the Sunday tournaments each week attract huge fields on all the sites and are filled with weak satellite qualifiers and recreational players trying to hit it big. It really doesn't help that since the Summer I've had 5 final 2 tables in major tournaments where first place is typically $50k+ where I've bubbled the final table for around $2k. I guess I wouldn't be making this post right now if one of those times my hand held or I won that crucial coinflip.

Anyway, I didn't win that flip or my hand didn't hold, so I'm writing this blog post now. I think I've lost a lot on the Sundays and as a result for the meanwhile, unless it's a super juicy Sunday, I'll be stepping down from playing the Sunday majors. But the action is just too juicy. So instead, I will mark my bankroll from the start of the week and if I'm up for the week, then I can try my hand free rolling a few of the majors, whilst if I'm down I'll stick to the lower buyins and grind them out.

The other area where I've lost a significant amount of money over the past year and which has really been my downfall is the live arena. I still just can't seem to get any sort of a score going there. It's getting kind of ridiculous to watch as my aces get cracked once again on the bubble of a deepstack to some drooling idiot. Without going into too much detail, without my live tournament losses, I would now be in a better monetary shape than ever before. Alas, it's not to be just yet as the poker gods laugh on and I continue to brick every live tournament I play! To combat this, I'll be just trying to satellite into live tournaments and keep most of my volume in online as I can't afford to keep playing the £300 deepstacks without selling action despite how juicy the field is. I'll probably adopt a similar strategy on the month if I don't win a seat through online qualification by seeing how I'm doing for the month. If I'm +£2k or something, I could just buy myself in and freeroll it. I don't have too much problem with this as it's not as if I'm freerolling a tournament like the stars $100 rebuy where the field is very tough and I'm unlikely to be hugely profitable in the long-run.

Anyway! Onto the future. I aim to keep grinding out the euro sites until Easter. After that it's going to be quite a break from poker as my final exams at uni come along. I've got two live tournaments ahead of me; UKIPT coventry and the Irish Open to look forward to. After that it's a break and then vegas.

I still aim to have a $100k bankroll by the end of the year. After vegas I'm really going to get my head down and grind hard, getting in good volume. From August to the following August I am to get $500k worth of buyins to online tournaments by grinding 5-6 days a week registering from 5pm-11pm. If I can manage this with a 30% roi (which is more than achievable) I should be able to crack out $150k profit for the year. It's worth a shot at anyway even if it is for only one year. I'll have to make sure I'm staying alert throughout the period, exercising regularly and eating well as well as studying up on my game a lot.

I'll do a bit of that tonight as my horse Jon is coming over to review some hand histories then put in a sweat session together where we can hopefully go over some plays together and improve both our games.

It may not be looking too great at the moment, but there is certainly hope for the future.

Fuck downswings.

Gl all!


edit: pagehfan786 theorm in practice. Whine a load then bink a nice score :)