1st Quarter review.

I've joined my poker databases from my two work places, and for the first time in a while had a chance to look at my cash game results this year all together. The results are great looking as I expected them to be. While I have been extremely lucky in all-in situations this year so far, I have also been solidly beating the games otherwise.

Back in November and December I had a tumble with variance as I tried to move up from NL600 to NL1000, and promptly decided I might as well play NL2000. The end result was a small hit to my bank roll which was unfortunately followed by a long losing streak at NL600.

In January things started rolling again, and I booked a decent winning month. Since then I really have moved up, and I am now a solidly winning NL1000 player, with regular succesful exploits into NL2000. I am not ashamed to admit that statement gives me no little satisfaction. In my opinion, this is not just another step on the ladder, in some ways I feel I have passed the final examn of mid stakes cash games, and the major obstacle that stands between me and any high stakes game now is simply a lot of money. I may be kidding myself, and I may be influenced by my prolonged stay at NL600, but my feeling right now is that the difference between the play at NL200 and NL1000 is much greater than the difference between NL1000 and any high stakes cash game regularly played. I am confident I would get my ass wupped in the long run if I sat down in some of the big games, but I believe with some table selection and a substantially larger bank roll, I could do fine. That was certainly not how I felt about NL1000 back when i started on NL200.

The plan for the next couple of months is to keep up the good work ethics and hopefully also the good run, pad my IRL roll, and take more shots at bigger games if things continue to go well. I had a firm reminder to keep my feet on the ground this Saturday, where I lost $11k. Still, March gave me about $32k, so I could afford it. But not too many of those please, losing 5 figure in a day regularly is not something my roll or my confidence is quite ready for yet. Actually I have not felt like playing much since Saturday, so the experience left it's mark. That must change though, as I will surely have more 5 figure days both ways in the months to come.

I have registered 86k hands this year, for a profit of $89,475, and an hourly rate of $567. That number has been inflated by some really mind boggling all-in luck. I am up $23k in that department, but I still think with this sample size I am not too optimistic to expect $300/hr at this point. A number that I think obligates me to get in a lot of those work hours, and stop sitting around not playing!

My multitabling ratio is at about 5.5, which is a little less than the ideal number of tables for me at this point. I really think I can play 6 tables and still maintain a high level of play. I regularly play 8, and even then I often have a very good feeling that I am in complete control of all tables, and don't really want to leave any of them. It was my plan a few months ago to cut down the number of tables, but that is no longer a set goal as long as the results and the quality of play is to my satisfaction. Only on really tough tables do I feel the need to play fewer than 6 tables, and in that case I would just as soon give up playing if I can't find better.