On Feb 29th, PokerStars ran a promotion where you earned twice as many points as usual for your play. I heard about it late in the day, but realized that it would be a great opportunity to boost the old point total. In response, I played one table for about 20 minutes. I doubt there are many grinders who can beat that. There are just so many different things pulling me in so many different directions that I had no time for poker.
It was not my best month. I had up and down results for most of the month and there were definitely stretches where I wasn’t playing my best. On the upside, I think I have put in the effort I needed to study my game and identify some of the flaws. In the latter part of the month I am pretty sure I was playing much better than I was at the outset. Once all was said and done, I ended the month with a net loss of $77.90 overall. Technically, I was actually up a little bit, but that includes my brief experiment at Cake, which doesn’t count because PokerTracker won’t import it. If you include that, I’m actually up about $200. They say a picture tells a thousand words, so here is mine for February:
As you can see, there were a couple of fairly ugly stretches in that graph. It is a long way from the beautiful upward diagonal of the January graph.
Let’s review some of the numbers in detail. We’ll start with the key performance metrics from my original goals.
[TABLE=2]
I’m pleased to see that I am well ahead of pace in terms of my hands played and points earned. Given how many hands I’ve played, I think I’m actually earning less than predicted, but under the circumstances I’m happy to just focus on the bottom line. 82% of the hands I played this month were limit hands and 18% were no limit. I won $164.60 playing no limit and lost $242.50 playing limit. Here are the results broken down by game type:
| Limit | Amount Won |
| $50/$100 | $190.00 |
| $30/$60 | $1,163.50 |
| $15/$30 | ($650.00) |
| $10/$20 | ($681.00) |
| $600 NL | $673.65 |
| $5/$10 | ($265.00) |
| $400 NL | ($509.05) |
Once again, I have better results at higher limits. I think there are multiple factors affecting that. One is that my table selection is better at higher limits. I don’t feel that my edge is that large at $30/$60 and I’m even less sure at $50/$100, so I sometimes pass on games that run at those limits. I usually play the $30/$60 no matter who is sitting, but I will not always do so. I only play $50/$100 when I like the line-up. So table selection is one factor in the results. Another is the degree to which I multi-table. I almost always play 4 tables at 10/20 and below and I usually play 2 tables at 15/30 and up. This allows me to concentrate more and make better decisions. Finally, I tend to avoid short-handed games at the higher levels and I’m still erratic at short-handed tables.
| Full ring | $550.00 |
| short handed | ($793) |
| NL | $165 |
After last month, I avoided playing heads-up. I actually did have 5 hands of heads-up, but I included it in short-handed. All in all, it wasn’t such a hot month, but I’m continuing to get plenty of hands in, which will be good when I have more distractions later. I also am actually pretty happy with my game right now. Let’s hope March works out better!
