Curtains on 2008

So that'd be a year then.
A tale of 2 limits is really what it was for me. Yesterday, I decided I'd have another pop at 400nl as it was probably going to be fishy given the season. Unfortunately the curse continues. I had QQ lose to 56s in a 3bet pot, royal flush draw no good for a stack, QQ lose to AK, QQ lose AA and AK lose to TT all in preflop, and found myself down $2.5k after 1000 hands. I managed to recover it to -$1.5k but finished the session -$1.7k in all-in EV. You really dont need that shit when taking a shot :(
So that session leaves me down $5.5k lifetime at 400nl, and tbh I really havent played that bad. I was almost even, and that entire drop has happened in the last 5k hands. I'm pretty sure I'm a winner in the game, but that's gambling for ya. I'm still well rolled for it, but I think its back to 200nl for another while.
My 200nl graph is nice and I'm at 5.7ptbb over 84k hands. Anyone who compared the two would really think that there was a doomswitch activated for 400nl! I think there's no shame in staying at 200nl and grinding out 5ptbb. I was watching a video recently and the guy was making the point that so many people get caught up trying to be the next superstar, taking shots at higher limits, that they end up not making much money because they're a) passing money up the pyramid as they can't beat the higher games, or b) moving up and playing very few tables which doesn't maximise their hourly earn. Its pretty apparent to me that I'm not the next superstar, so I probably should accept my place in the poker ladder of taking $100/hr off the fishes and poor SSNL regulars.
All in all for the year, I made about $20k profit which isn't bad for my first year at it, but coulda been a lot better if I kept away from 400nl! I'm happy enough with my standard of play and though I obviously have a ton of leaks, I'm generally pretty solid and my dedication to watching videos, reviewing sessions and discussing hands is very good. The only thing I still have trouble with is dealing with variance. If I'm playing and down a bit, I keep trying to grind it back, despite knowing I'm not playing well, and then afterwards I let it weigh on my mind when I'm doing other things.
Next year I'll definitely keep it up and if I was to make some 'goals', they would be to play 250k hands of provisionally 200nl and make $50k but obviously over a 250k sample its hard to predict with much certainty.
Hope you all have a good year!

Rob

Nearly Settled Again

So I made it back without any major catastrophe, though it was a seriously annoying month and I won't be in a hurry to move country again. The trip itself went ok, apart from the van rental company putting the wrong fuel cap on the Transit, but it's nothing my mates boot and a wheel brace couldn't get the better of :-) Things nearly got ugly when we went to return the van though!
Also, if you're ever presented with opportunity to stay in one of those Forumla 1 hotels on the continent, DONT! What a nightmare. They're the Ryanair of hotels. You dont even get a toilet in your room, and ones in the hallway are like aeroplane toilets. They auto-lock when you're done and clean themselves. The dining facilities consist of a vending machine, and there's no staff on the premises between 6pm and 8am!
Eventually we made it to the boat, despite the French motorways which have absolutely no lighting or visual aids and are pretty lethal after dark imo. The new Irish Ferries ship is really nice, much better than the one that went before it. Much cleaner and smoother and the facilities on board are much better. We went for the 5 star suite cabin just to make the journey a bit more tolerable and it was sweet.
Back to poker, I only got settled in the new house last week and I'm currently just using a neighbour's wireless internet. NTL are coming tomorrow to install the 20MB package. I played about 1500 hands and I suppose I'm just using the rest of December to get back into things. I think the months break did me a lot of good, and I'm thinking much clearer now, but obviously I'm very rusty in certain spots. I've been posting a few hands on boards each day and I'll keep that up for a while until I'm on top of the basics again. Pretty annoying hand yesterday where I misclick opened 55 on the button to $46 and then the SB who's already gotten ATo in against me with no history shoved. It was obvious he was trying it on and I think I had to call it off but I had no luck vs his KQs! I should get one more update in before the year is out.