Variance

Well, it's been an up and down year so far, and we're only 2 months in. Here is my P&L chart:





Some stats: Worst day = -£999, Best day = +593, Low point = -£1,114, High point = +£253

I guess I feel pretty good that I got it back from over a grand down, certainly better than I would be feeling if I'd gone 1k up and then dropped it. Also I have spent over £1,000 in tournament entry fees and not had a single cash (great!) so it's not looking too shoddy.

Cardrunners $1k Challenge

There is a $1k challenge running on the cardrunner's forum which I'm going to have a crack at. Basically everyone starts March with a $1,000 bankroll and we see who can build it up the most over the month. Given I have a day job I doubt I'll get the hours in that some others might, and given how things have been going recently I'll be happy enough to end the month in profit (!).

My starting balance is actually $1,000.02 since I thought my Full Tilt account was empty but actually has 2 cents in it...so I have stolen a march already, which seems appropriate given the month of the challenge...

Playing above your bankroll....

Hmmm, what is the required bankroll to play at a given level? I have heard between 10 and 20 buy-ins is a minimum, so playing $5/10 NLHE and PLO probably isn't a good idea with a 5k bankroll! Ah well, it is exciting.

For example...sat down at a $3/6 PLO table with $600, a little while in holding JJxx saw a flop of J72 rainbow, and somehow(!) all the money goes in against someone with bottom set. River comes the case 2...eugh. Couple more like that and I'm $1,500 down, so I do the only sensible thing and join a $5/10 NLHE table for $1,000. 6th hand in on the BB I have 87 suited, so call a $35 button raise. Flop 872 rainbow. Raise, re-raise, all-in, call. He has AA. River an A. Ended the session "only" $500 down which was a result really all things considered. Still, it wasn't all bad luck...JJ in the big blind with a $650 stack, Dextsiegler raises from the SB and my notes say "goes all-in light pre-flop". Well, you can imagine the rest: raise, re-raise, re-re-raise, all-in, call and he has KK. Spiking a J on the flop did elicit some comments in the chat window...

Played the DreamTeam again last night. Having gone out early with AA vs. 77 on a 773 flop (not my best moment) the previous week I wanted to do well. 170 runners and I ended up coming 20th. The hand that did for me was TT vs AQ for 80% of my stack - the cut off had raised and I came over the top, only for the SB to push all-in. Winning that would put me in chip lead and until the river it was looking good...

Greetings from Philly

Greetings from the BA lounge where I am waiting for the 21:55 to London - and reading in the paper that they are expecting snow overnight so who knows, maybe we'll have to land in Manchester...wonder if the super casino will spread and decent games.

Anyway, no real update on the dreamteam - last week the tournament got cancelled after 15 minutes since it appears some people started with 1,500 chips whilst others started with 2,500! Nice one Betfair. I shall stick with it though - so I have just signed up for tomorrow's tournament and played some cash games to cover the buy-in. Been having a pretty good run on PLO recently, mostly on UB but also on BF. Trying both a big-stack and small-stack approach and it does seem that people will call you down incredibly light if you have the min buy-in. So on UB's $3/$6 game the min buy-in is $120 and it's not unusual to stack off once or twice but then spin it up to $500-$600 in a 3 or 4-way coup. At times the game is very lively to say the least.

On the live front went down to Brighton to play in their festival a couple of weekends ago. I thought there was a super satellite on the Friday for the £500 main event but they were only running £50 STT for it. Played a couple and came nowhere (getting KK all-in vs. AJ and A3 seemed a good move only for an A to come on the turn), entered the £200 on the Friday and came no-where, and then entered the main event anyway and...came nowhere. Fortunately the cash games were soft and I ended up leaving with exactly the same bankroll I went down with - and I mean exactly to the penny. Very strange.

Right - time to board I guess, let's hope I can get some sleep so I am at least half-awake for tomorrow's tourney.