(Quick note: I stopped going to Harrah's for their promotion after about 3 days. Having to play 8-10 hours a day was bad enough, but not being able to take a break or quit when I didn't feel like playing was absolutely horrendous emotionally and financially. I did not realize just how bad it would be, and thought I could tough it out, but boy was I wrong. It was terrible, and I'm not going back! It did at least serve to invigorate me about playing on my computer, and showed me that wasn't nearly as bad as I thought!!!)
Anyway, back to the story... An example of a variance reduction spot is being checked to in position on the river with a marginal hand that I feel is probably best but not certainly best. If I bet, I may get called by worse hands, which is good, but I may also be called by better hands (bad) or raised by both better and worse hands (also bad since I'm not calling). Usually in those spots I have leaned on betting because I feel my opponents aren't good enough to bluff raise with any reasonable frequency, and thus folding to a raise costs me very little because I would have lost anyway. Therefore, if they aren't bluff-raising, my folding to a raise is equal to them simply calling my bet with a better hand. Therefore, if I beat half of their hands which will call a bet, I should bet and get that bit of extra value.
However, I have been checking back in that spot (and done similar things in other spots) recently to reduce my variance and I have found that I am making more by not betting. This means my bets have been bad, which means I have misrepresented my opponents' range of hands on the river as being weaker than it actually is. With that knowledge I have been double barreling on the turn more often because I know that the range of hands they have when we get to the river is significantly stronger than I felt it was previously. The turn bet costs less and now gives me similar enough information by the river that I can save a big mistake on the last street.
Similarly, I have all but stopped 4-bet bluffing at my current limit but increased my 3-betting by a fair amount, mostly in position. I have found that the response to aggressive 3-betting at the stakes I play is not to raise less often or to 4-bet light, but to call 3-bets more often, and even out of position, which is just fucking terrible.
They are mostly playing to hit because they aren't used to playing 3-bet pots, and certainly not out of position. The most common scenario is for them to check-fold when they miss, or lead into me when they hit. This means I win about three quarters of the 3-bet pots. Add to that the times when a player who calls 3-bets light leads into me on a board they can rarely hit like K25 and then fold to a min-raise and 3-betting becomes insanely profitable.
So I've both reduced my variance and also used the consequences of my new plays to find very profitable spots in other areas that were simply unavailable to me when I was making the higher variance plays. In addition to that I've started playing on a different site than I normally do, which is much softer. I came for the sign-up bonus, but I stayed for the player pool! I expect and am hoping to be bankrolled for taking shots at 200NL within three or four months, at which point I will be able to make a very nice amount of money per month rather than just scraping by.
To illustrate the difference these changes have made, I have taken screen shots from a site which simulates poker outcomes. Prior to this month, let's say my winrate including rake back was about $3.50 per 100 hands, with a standard deviation of $55 per 100 hands. Now, my winrate with rake back is about $5.50 per 100 hands with a standard deviation of $34 per 100 hands. The following graphs illustrate the range of outcomes of 1000 fictional players over a 250,000 hand sample, which is between 4 and 11 months of play for me, depending on how much time I put in. The top graph is the potential outcomes prior to the changes I've been talking about, and the bottom one is with those changes. The thick red line is the average expected value. You see in the first one I could end up after 11 months of play (playing less than I should be if it takes 11 months to play 250K hands!) having made anywhere from $3,500 to $14,000 but in the second one it's between $10,500 and $17,000. That's about a 1/3 slash in the variance, as well as about an increase of $4K in average money made.
Of course it's highly likely that I am also running extremely well, and after reviewing my hands for the month, I'm sure that that is definitely the case, so I'm guessing that my realistic range for this new style over the given time period is between $7K and $15K centering around $9K. Here is my graph for the past month:
I am very hopeful that my luck will continue and that I will be able to move up to 200NL soon and make buttloads of money there. If I can just get there, I will be able to make a reasonable living without playing every second of every day, which will be very VERY nice.
Aside from poker, I am looking forward to going home to Seattle for Christmas and taking a long needed week and a half rest from poker (although my mom is letting me use her laptop and I will probably put in at least a few thousand hands while up there). I really enjoy the holidays and the whole Christmas spirit. While I am an theist and have no delusions about the divinity of Jesus, I do enjoy the fact that there is a designated time where we are supposed to get together with family and be good to one another. I think those reasons are excuse enough for a holiday. (Incidentally, I also think St. Patty's Day is a really well thought out holiday—wear a color you don't normally wear, and get drunk! It's really a perfect holiday—no pretext, just random dress code and lots of drinking.) I'm a big fan of tradition, repetition, and excuses to be with family, have fun, get drunk (though I don't drink much), and donate to charity. Any reason they want to come up with to designate a day to get off work and do these things is fine by me.
Anyway, as I was saying. I like Christmas, and I am looking forward to going to Seattle for a bit. My dad and step mom are in New Zealand, and I am looking forward to vising them there as well, although it will be a few months later. New Zealand sounds like a great place, and I am very excited to see it. (And maybe if I can move up to 1/2 eventually like I am hoping, I will be able to afford my own damn vacations!)
That's it for now...
-Max
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