I fought the law and the law won...

I took my shot at 1/2 over the last couple days. It did not go well. Overall I lost about $125 on the little adventure. So as of this morning I’m sitting at $316 with probably $20 in rakeback on the way. So really I’m up from my initial investment, this is just a significant setback.

That said, I’m going to take a couple steps back to re-evaluate things. I’ve spent over 6,000 hands playing 6-max tables of various levels with pretty awful results overall. That’s really not that many hands, but at the rate I’ve lost money I need to step back down to .50/1.00 and go back to full ring tables. This will do several things for me:

i) full ring allows one to avoid marginal decisions, and wait for easier decisions, thus reducing expected variance

ii) full ring allows one to play against fewer aggressive opponents, on average, thus reducing expected variance

iii) an equally skilled player will generally make less money at full ring, but if it’s the difference between me being a winner at full ring and a loser at 6-max I’ll take the former.

iv) Rakeback will be less. I will play fewer hands per hour AND the rake is divided amongst more players, so I would expect rakeback to be cut roughly in half for a given table’s hour of play.

So what does this all mean for me? Really nothing. Moving up and down and back again is all part of the game. One of the differences between people who can put in the long haul and those that burn out is the capacity to adjust to changes, especially when it comes to bankroll management. One of the hallmark principles of bankroll management is moving down when things go bad, before they get so bad that it’s all gone.

The good news in all of this is that I’ve been meeting (this week exceeding) my goals for hours played. This was always the hardest part for me given my schedule, so at least I have that to stand on. I still believe I’m a winning player at these limits, so all it takes now is letting the long run kick in. To do that, I need to keep plodding on, making the best decisions I can at the tables, and not letting myself drift away during these downturns.

Based on my web traffic data, it appears that I’ve developed a (very) small following of regular visitors. Feel free to make yourself known by commenting. I’d love to respond to what the readers want to hear. So fire off any questions you may have, and let me know your situation. Are you working your way though the micro limits? Are you thinking of learning poker and want to know what it takes? Are you just some random long-lost friend of mine who stumbled upon the blog? Let me know. For the meantime, I’ve got some more hands to play.