Valley girl, She's a Valley girl

Check out the 10 year treasury (from yahoo) over the last 3 months. This graph parallels the 30 year mortgage rates. Last Wednesday we saw a dip below 3.5% on the 10 year. That morning, 30 year fixed rates dropped to 4.875%. Yes, that is right! But it lasted only a couple of hours. Lock departments at lenders blew up and then shut down. By the end of the day, the rates had climbed back up to 5.375%.

We are still right at 5.375%, but what an amazing valley we are in for 30 year fixed rates. With more rate cuts coming, it is possible we will see the 4.x% rates again soon, but for longer than just a couple of hours.

I have been swamped with getting my house ready to go on the market. It got listed Friday, so now I just need to keep it clean. Rather than playing poker every night, I'm trying to read more (FTP Strategy Guide right now). I also need to get my laptop fixed and then get Pokertracker back up and running. I have no idea how bad my play has been, because at times, I know I've made very solid moves and other times, I know I've made extremely fishy moves. I need something to track and work on my gameplay. And to make it all more frustrating, I am on my 3rd DELL Laptop this year that the motherboard is going out. All 3 of them were just out of their warranty periods. I'm seriously considering an APPLE product next! Any suggestions are welcome.

If you haven't been reading these posts, you need to. Good drama about a normal kid who became a heroin addict and his journey through the 80's and 90's.

Don't forget:

Moving forward cautiously Part II

Thanks for the comments yesterday from WillWonka, OhCaptain and Riggs. Riggs was right in saying that I need to nail down the $5 level first and then move upwards. Same thing OhCaptain was getting at. I think another part of my problem is that I am more aggressive playing at the $5 levels (play my game). I play defensively more when I move up to the higher levels, just because it is out of my comfort zone. As Riggs pointed out: you can't play "defensively and with emotion". I've also been known to do the "aw-fawk-it" move and register for a $30 tourney to try to make a quick recoup of my losses at the $11 or $20 levels. That only increases the gravity pull on my bankroll even though I may occasionally cash in one of those.





This graph shows how drastically different my ROI is at the different levels. I think that says it all:








It seems the moral of the story is to play patient. Play my game, stay within my bankroll and get through the variance. There is a reason that AA is not 100% to win preflop against any other hand.





Part of my success in the blogger tournaments was my knowledge of how certain people play. Who was going to be aggressive and who was going to be tight. In the SNG's, there is a constant flow of new people. And, I think getting pokertracker back up and running will help somewhat when I do see the same opponents from time to time.





Any criticisms or suggestions are welcome.





Stay patient...





Oh and don't forget:




I doubt I make it out again tonight as I am feverishly working on getting my house ready to list for sale. Painting over writing on kids doors, patching holes kids put in walls, fixing screens dogs busted out, etc... Maybe I will be back in the blogger tourneys in within a couple of weeks. Good luck to everyone who makes it out there tonight.

Moving forward cautiously

First of all, thank you for the comments to my '07 recap. Every single comment made me feel really good. I hope to continue my learning this year and have a huge '08 recap.

Now let's get this over with. I am going to post something here that will make me feel like I am posting a picture of myself naked. Well, not that extreme, but almost as embarrassing. But I really need to look deep inside my poker game to find out what is wrong. Here are my SNG stats from Sharkscope:

First thing to notice is that I have not been consistent in either direction -well, until recently, consistently down. One of my problems I know of over the first 150 games was that I would build up from the $5 SNG's and then jump up to $11 or even $20 or $30 SNG's and lose back most of my profit quickly. Then I would settle back down and build up again from the $5 levels. I was not consistently winning enough at the $5 level to move up, but I would do it anyway and it always cost me.

But most alarming has been my stats over the last 70 games. I don't think you will see a graph like this posted anywhere else on a poker blog. Everyone wants to post how great they are doing and tell you why they run so goooot. But I need help. Serious help.

After about 25 games sliding downwards I usually tighten up and try to play ABC poker. After 50 games I become a rock. The last 20 games, I started limiting my plays to AA, KK, QQ and AK unless on the button or cutoff. And even in those positions, I played tight.

I could list all the hands I went out on, but what's the point? AK losing to 77. 77 losing to AK. Flush losing to boat. Could variance be this evil? I know I play aggressive at times, but lately have really tried to tighten up. My last 10 SNG's were all at the $2 buyin's 6 and 9 player tables. I did not cash 1 time. Really.

After finishing high in points over the BBT2 tournaments, I was starting to feel like I really progressed in 2007. But now I am beginning to wonder if I did luckbox my way into 4 final tables.

I mean, in 36% of the tournaments I played, I finished in the top 25% and half that time I made the final table. I only cashed 18% of the time, and managed to take 1st once. But wouldn't everyone like to cash in 18% of the tournaments they play in? Was I getting that lucky? My SNG stats are pointing to yes, the BBT2 was just luck. Or could variance be that strong. Granted, I have only logged 225 SNG's but now the last third of the games I have played has been a drastic downward spiral.

My goal now is to tighten up, play ABC poker and grind my way back to a profit and stay at the same level for awhile ($2 to start). Maybe then I can loosen up a bit. I don't know what else to do. Is there something else I am missing?

I need to get pokertracker set up on my new laptop. Maybe that will answer some questions. If you have any numbers on me that you could/would share from your stats, I would welcome them.

The nice thing is, I have a lot of room to improve this year. It surely can't get worse than the last 70 SNG's I have played.

Stay patient.....