Percentage Game

My stats for the year received an absolute battering during March. My live results - which had been positive in both cash and tournaments - dived into the red as a result of a complete blank in the tournaments at the London Poker Masters and a number of bad sessions at the associated cash games.

As far as the tournaments are concerned, that is not so surprising . Statistically one cannot expect to cash in any particular tournament in any case, and in this case the fields were pretty strong also. I thought karma might be going my way when I knocked a strong player out on my first hand in the HORSE tournament and then picked up Aces on the button in the first NLH tournament, but it didn't turn out like that!

Cash-wise, I expected to do better. On the plus side, I chalked up some really good experience playing in a very aggressive PLO game. I think it improved my game, and I can maybe reap the benefit another time !

One might have thought that with all the experience I have accumulated over the past 3 - 4 years, I ought to be able to be in the winning column.

The fact that I am not can be explained in a number of plausible ways, none of which can be proven. The simplest and probably most reasonable explanation is that, although I almost certainly am a better player than I was, I have also tended to play at higher stakes and harder games as I improved. Playing more has exacerbated the "problem".

When I was in Vegas in April 2008 with a very focused aim of beating the low-stakes cash games I found that, indeed, they were beatable and I did beat them. This was not any great achievement except insofar as setting a target and meeting it is a success.

When I went the next time, I went back up the stakes and lost. Although, to be sure, losing then had more to do with combining drinking and playing and not combining much sleep with either.

Winning money from playing is certainly not the primary reason I play. In that sense, it's not too problematic that I am still losing. On the other hand, I am not a big fan of constantly losing, especially as my confidence can take a knock from persistent failure to win.

It takes me a little while to recover mentally from a series of losses. However, till now, I have never failed to regain the urge to play. And, historically, there have always been wins around the next corner that restore my belief that I can win.

Overall, for me, it's a fairly simple equation. I play because I love playing.

What does seem clear is that my best results are in online MTTs. One target I had for this year was to improve my results in MTTs on one particular objective measure.

onlinepokerrankings.com (OPR) ranks all players of MTTs on a few of the big sites and assigns a %ile rating. I don't know their exact algorithm but it's certainly based on consistently doing well over a long run of tournaments.

50% is - de facto - the average rating but certainly average players are losing players. In fact, I think the break-even ranking is around 90%.

In 2007 and 2008 my rating for the full year was only just over 50%. Even though I do not consider myself to be an especially strong player, this is clearly awful. I did feel that it didn't reflect what I could have achieved.

This year, I have played with a bit more focus in the MTTs although, still, I often fall foul of impatience and reckless play.

This has shown up in my pokerstars ranking. At about 95 - 96% it's much improved. At that level I am (just) winning as on online MTT player. When I look at the other players at my table, I do not consider them to be especially good players unless they consistently are at the 99%+ level, so I still have a long way to go. However, I'm pleased with the improvement. Clearly it has to be a target for me to keep that up over the whole of 2009.

I've actually NEVER won a large MTT on pokerstars. My best results are probably 47th out of 26,364 in the $200K Guarantee back in Feb09 or 65th in a similar field back in May08. I have not - in fact - ever made the final table in one of these large field events. I was 11th out of 1,275 runners in a $9 MTT in January - and that's it !

I have cashed just twice in the Sunday Million - 383rd out of 7,133 being the best.

My record on gutshot.com is a bit better I think although OPR don't track that so I would have to refer to my own records - which I don't have in enough detail. But I do know that I have final tabled several times in those MTTs.

This is partly due to the softer play and also a result of the smaller fields (this is the main reason, one suspects).

MTTs on gutshot are tracked by Sharkscope and I was amazed the other day to find that my results so far had marked me as a "shark". The next day when I looked again, I had fallen below the "shark" threshold. However, my stats don't look too bad there (23% ROI) although the sample size is modest - about 100 tournaments.

I'll be aiming to regain my shark status - a couple of solid cashes should do the trick. Despite my multiple appearances at the final tables, I am still looking for my first outright win - that also needs to go on the "to do" list.