As the title would suggest, my hot streak finally came to a close!
I played four days this week, but two of them were half days which is why my hours are pretty low.
The numbers:
# MTTs: 155
Hours: 24
Net result: -$3,397.94
It was a pretty bad week. My biggest problem was running bad in 180s.
Actually I haven’t been able to win (or even come close to winning) any 180s for weeks now, but my deep runs in regular tournaments have prevented me from noticing the problem.
Since I didn’t go deep in anything significant last week, I noticed my lack of success in 180 tournaments much more. I was concerned that I might be making some costly mistakes, so I decided to review a few of them with a turbo specialist. 180s are pretty basic, but missing +EV shoves or calls on a regular basis can be a huge problem.
The good thing is that I’m not really making any big mistakes and that I have mostly been running badly. There were definitely a couple missed shoves in the tournaments we reviewed, though, so I’ll be looking to correct those this week.
I think one of my problems is that I have been pushing myself to play more tables because I am trying to increase my volume. This has lead to me time out sometimes and also to miss spots in my hurry to get to other tables.
When you look at one week from the next in tournament poker, the swings are astounding. This past week was bad, but it wasn’t exactly out of the ordinary.
This means that a 100 buy-in loss when playing MTTs is perfectly normal and almost to be expected on a regular basis. I think that many casual players would be shocked to learn this because I sure was. I’ve only recently gotten used to it.
I was talking to a friend that stakes a number of players for tournaments. He has around 10 horses and they all play a mix of small and large fields.
He told me that he has gone on two 1,000+ buy-in downswings in his career so far, and I believe that he has been staking for less than two years. This blew my mind. It means that the bankroll necessary to play MTTs for a living is huge. It borders on ridiculous.
I’m not even sure what it is, but it is clearly over 1,000 buy-ins assuming that 1) you can’t afford to go bust, 2) you aren’t extraordinarily good at poker, and 3) you don’t want to have to drop down in stakes.
Some people exercise very aggressive bankroll management because they are willing to drop down in stakes if things don’t go their way. I think this is fine. Even with this strategy, I still wouldn’t be comfortable without a bankroll of at least 600 buy-ins. I’m a huge bankroll nit though :)
Hopefully I get back to my winning ways this week. I’m on pace to meet my volume goal of 650 tournaments this month, which is the most important thing for now.
Thanks for reading!
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