Week 4 - Understanding profitability in SNG's

Hey Guys

Week 4 has been a bit of an emotional roller coaster. It all started so well winnin a few tournies and then bang the deck hit me, probably the coldest ever if I am being totally honest. I am finally starting to understand how this game works after reading a great post from one of the students that nick posted on his blog recently an it can be read here: http://chip210sng.blogspot.com/2010/01/starting-to-get-it.html

Now I havent played enough games to come close to knowing my true ROI or winrate and tbh I dont want to be hanging around the $2.20's long enough to find out what this figure will be. So lets say for arguments sake I can beat them for $1 per game its important to remember that everytime I sit down an play I earn exactly that. So doesnt matter if I am on a heater and I take 10 down out of a set of 50, I have only won $50. It's something my coach is drilling into me and I am starting to undertsand it more. My coach has been supporting me through the bad beats on skype an giving little enouraging messages. It doesnt matter how many times top set gets beat by runner runner quads or AK gets beat by Ax orf my JJ is beaten by 88 and the reason it doesnt matter is because we cant control the cards once all the chips are in the middle. We can however control other aspects. Gettin them in ahead or behind as long as its the correct decision in an optimnal spot, managing our stacks correctly at different stages of a tournament, putting in the volume required, studying accordingly etc are all things we can control an the rest will fall into place regardless of short term swings or how cold/hot the deck is running for you. One of the main things that was frustrating me is I believe I am playing better and more now than in weeks 1,2,3 but had worse results but after undertsanding eveyrthing I am learning it just doesnt matter an I just need to keep playing. I have compiled a note pad of calls shoves, folds etc over the last week and sent them over to my coach for a lesson early next week so lookin forward to seeing the results of that. We have also been given a buddy and mine is a young lad from america called paul who i chat with on skype and I am going to try an set up a sweat session with him over next week to. He's a cool lad who seems a nice person. Just like me really, cant be arsed with rat race and wants to learn to beat this game so I think that was a good idea and we can start to bounce decisions of on each other an hopefully learn more.

The reviews with Nick really are starting to get better everytime. Maybe the more its drilled into you the more you understand I dont know but I find they're helping more and more each time. Also he has moved from using skype and now does it using some sort of VPN programme called wbinar and I find it alot better and easier to follow. He has even been doing earlie ones for us european students to and they will be recorded from now on which will make life so much easier for me. The programme were on is just immense and I have looked around out of curiosity and there simply isnt anything like it about so I do feel amazingly lucky. I mean last night we got to live sweat on the VPN, nick an BFizz11 multi tablin MTTs with a rationale behind everything, I mean were the hell would ya get that for nothing anywere esle????? It was interesting to see the way they position tables, note take etc as all these things help. I will have a new 24 inch monitor and the exact same set up as nick table wise. I will be purchasing table ninja on monday for when my new monitor comes. Online poker tools are invaluable and if you are multi tablin on stars without table ninja, PT3 and pokerstove your wasting your time these 3 are just the minumum. Check out Daleroxxus post for more info on each one an get using them http://daleroxxu.blogspot.com/2010/01/pokerstars-multi-tabling-guide.html

I feel I have learned and know enough to hit this game an beat these 180s its just a case of sittin back, putting in the vloume and making the right decisions and am sure, even after a horrible horrible dirty disgusting week at the tables, I will love the results. I have been given a goal by nick to play 500 games in february and I will aim to sufficiently surpass that and be on the $7s (need to earn $1k on the $2s) by march. Here's my figure to date on the programme which btw I started on 7/1/10

played: 592
av prof £1
ROI 30%
Total Prof $391

Here's my graph and I will probably stop the whole week 1, week 2 thing an start making more posts. I will just post my results on a weekly (fri-fri) basis as then when I need to provide them to my coach


Gl at the tables fishes