I was glad when May started because a new month always seems like a fresh start. I played just over 1,200 SnGs in April and ended up losing the most money I’ve ever lost in a single month of playing poker.
This seems strange considering I used to play MTTs and you would think that I would have had my biggest losses back then. It also seems strange because I moved to SnGs to avoid big downswings, and now I’ve lost more money than ever before!
On the other hand, my average buy-in is four times higher now. From my limited experience, it seems pretty common to see SnG swings of 80 to 100 buy-ins, so I can probably look forward to regular $10k ups and downs. I’ll still take it over the potential downswings of MTTs.
I have a couple things to work on in May. My goal is to play 1,300 games, which sounds easy in theory but actually difficult because I’m a terrible procrastinator. I really have to motivate myself to get going earlier in the day so that I can start playing poker while games are still plentiful. Otherwise I start too late and then games die around 4 hours into my session.
Volume Still a Concern
I had that prop bet in April which did the trick for motivation temporarily. The problem is that halfway into the prop bet my friend conceded and bought out, which left me with nothing to motivate me again. I estimate that I played around 200 fewer games due to the prop bet ending early, which is pretty terrible if you think about it.
(The good thing about the prop bet ending early is that I get chocolate cake for a year as part of the buy out agreement. This can’t be overlooked.)
I definitely have to do something about my motivation issues. My problem isn’t that I don’t want to play poker but the fact that I take forever to get going in the morning. I suppose it comes down to being lazy after I wake up, which seems pretty shameful now that I am writing it down here.
Rise and Grind by Noon PST
It would do me a lot of good to start playing by noon PST on a daily basis, so I’m gonna make it another goal to do that for 80% of my sessions this month. I’ll definitely be telling a couple of friends about this because it always helps to have people hold you accountable when it comes to goals.
Another reason to start sessions earlier is so that I can play some SCOOP events on PokerStars. I wasn’t planning on playing a ton of events this year, but last night I had a dream that I won $100k in an online MTT. My subconscious must be telling me something, so I should probably add a few in.
I haven’t been playing any live poker recently, but I’ll probably play some this month since Edgewater (in Vancouver) is hosting a series starting next week. They have a $1k 6-max event that I am looking forward to, and they also have a shootout event.
The Main Event of the series is a $1,650 buy-in, and I haven’t decided whether I’m playing it yet. I’ll almost certainly sell action if I do, however, which means that I’ll be using twitter for tournament updates (to update my backers).
Feel free to follow me @courtiebee if you are interested in knowing how I do.
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