January Recap

After my last blog there was only one more session to play in January. I started around 18:45, but already after 30minutes I had to quit, because PokerStars was bugged again. Players couldn’t join any tables so there was no reason for me to play. 45minutes later I pick up the play again and I’m ready for a long night. After 3 hours of play I’m down, but I’m not doing that bad and being down $1.200 should be nothing to worry about. An hour later I’m up again and extremely happy with my play. Since I was doing good at the tables I didn’t want to take a long break, after a small break I get back and lose $1.600 again. Wow, 30 minutes ago I was still up but well, swings! I keep playing and I’m motivated to finish the month strong. I go up, down again and then it takes me about 3 hours to get to almost break-even.

It’s 05:45, I’m almost up and I see most regulars leaving the tables. Most bad players are still sitting and I’m extremely awake, mainly because I’m fitter then ever. I decide to keep playing, because I had the feeling I could even end the day with some winnings, not just break-even. 06:30, doomswitch kicks in and I’m down almost $1.500 and really disappointed! I try to fight, I’m still playing decent poker and I still see a good opportunity to win money at the tables. Then I get AA, KK, JJ, AA and lose all 4 within 5 minutes at the $10/$20 or $15/$30. My positive spirit (even when I was down) completely broke…. Being down is fine, fighting back is good, being down again when I was almost break-even again feels shit, but not getting any “luck” to win money at the tables ends my motivation completely at 07:30. I’m used to beats, but sometimes it can still hurt your motivation. I played 15.875 hands and lost $2.185.

I don’t think I’ll have to do a recap of how my month went. I expected a though month, I aimed for 100.000 VPP, but hoped 125.000 VPP. I would have been satisfied with a break-even month on the tables, expected more because of my results the last quarter of 2009, but knew January was going to be though. You can read everything else in my previous blogs, so I’ll just stick to the numbers in this recap.

— January Recap—
Total VPPs: 140.307,29
Ahead of Pace: 55.367,29
Total $ @ Tables: -$8.005,50
Total $ FPP’s/Milestone: $9.057,20
Total $: 1.051,70
Total # hands: 164.203
Total # Hours: 129,38
$/Hour @ Tables: -$61,87
$/Hour: $8,12
Hands/Hour: 1.269
VPPs/Hour: 1.084

Let this be the worst month at the tables this year and I’m okay with it. I’m ahead of SNE pace, I’m ahead of my own SNE schedule. I had not much problems to play 130 hours in one month, next to working part-time and doing sports 4/5 times a week, while still having an active social life. In January I’ve proved myself I can make it to SNE. I do have to start winning money, this could be due to playing better myself or having more short term luck, but in February the tide will have to turn.

I’ll blog about my first sessions of February the next time. Tonight I will play the $1.000.000 VIP Freeroll with some friends who will come over here and play as well. I’ll play poker for pleasure tonight and I’m motivated to play tomorrow again and start the upswing to get break-even for the year!