Variance or bad plays (or both)?

Things aren't going very well as I am down about 5 buyins at 5NL so far this month.
I am definately running bad: my EV stat tells me I should be up $5 instead of down $25. You know, just the usual bad beats. Also, I played some big combodraws, where I am 50%-40% to win the pot, very aggressive but then missed. Again, I didn't tilt as bad as I used to, but still made some mistakes I shouldn't have, making calls when that little voice in the back of my head told me not to.

In an effort to turn things around, I started playing a bit tighter post-flop even though I'm not all too happy with that, because now I sometimes feel I'm just weak-tight. I also disabled my own stats on the HUD as I noticed I sometimes make decisions based on my own stats, like "I should 3bet here because I haven't 3bet enough".

Even though I show a profit almost every month, I really need some kind of winning streak to build confidence. It's nice to see that bankroll grow slowly but steadily, but 3/4 of all my profits have come from bonusses and rakeback and that just doesn't make me feel like a winning poker player.

I guess I'll just have to keep trying...

What's the rake like?

Rake is kind of a weird thing (for me): if you loose the pot, you don't have to pay rake and if you win the pot, it's just a tiny peace of it so it doesn't really matter, right?

I had been reading on differences in rake structures across the sites and that you shouldn't play on Full Tilt at 10NL or below or in live games any game below 5-10 is pretty hard to beat because of the rake etc.

So I took a look at my rake and noticed a few interesting points. Anyway, for some of the levels I probably don't have a sufficient sample size, but here are a few numbers and conclusions (all 6max):

2NL: 12.8 bb/100
5NL: 13.2 bb/100
10NL: 15.5 bb/100

Everest Poker: 16.3 bb/100
Party Poker: 12.0 bb/100
Pokerstars: 9.1 bb/100
Full Tilt: 15.3 bb/100
Titan Poker: 15.9 bb/100

Overall: 14.9 bb/100

Obviously, the effective rake is affected by the play: loose tables = more and bigger pots = more rake. I guess that's why Everest has the highest number.
Full Tilt rake > Pokerstars rake: I don't think there's a big difference in looseness here, and you can see the result of a better rake structure at stars (for these levels). Also, and again pretty logical, rake at full ring is less than 6max.

I was surprised to see these numbers to say the least. Being only slightly better than your opponents clearly isn't going to be profitable. I guess this also means that every 100 hands almost and entire stack is taken off the table because of the rake. Hence the huge profits of Stars and company.

Sure, the rake in bb/100 drops down at higher stakes because of the cap, but achievable winrates probably drop down even faster.


Laterz.

September results

September results

Cash games
2NL: 2.2k hands and + $15.28 for 34.4bb/100
10NL: 6k hands and + $17.05 for 2.8bb/100

Bonusses and rakeback
Everest Poker: $50 bonus
Full Tilt Poker: $10 bonus
Full Tilt Poker: $4.56 rakeback

Total + $96

I also cleared the maximum bonus of Take2 at Full Tilt for another $50, which is a nice start for October.

So, result wise, September was a great month. Nevertheless, I'm not that thrilled about my play. I still kept stacking off in spots I should have known I was behind. It seems my mind gets clouded whenever the pot gets big. I didn't have any major tilt sessions though and I feel I have improved in that area at least a bit.

October goals

I'll be playing a mixture of 2NL, 5NL and some 10NL, mostly on Full Tilt to clear some more of my first deposit bonus. I have drawn a little schedule where my number of tables at a given level depends on my winrate at that level. This means I will limit the number of tables to 2 until I achieve my expected winrate. Once, I reach that winrate, I can increase the number of tables to a maximum of 4. Hopefully I'll have the discipline to stick to it and see some better results.

2NL: 1k hands 4-tabling
5NL: 4k hands starting with 2 tables
10NL: 1k hands 2-tabling

So, less volume for (I hope) a better winrate.


Bye!