The month of June was more successful than the previous month because I changed a couple of things: I stopped chasing the Sit n Crush bonus and reduced my ABI, when needed. Then, I also played less tables on average and played with more focus. Focus on making better decisions and not trying to win every hand and “make money”.
I also started to listen to Maria Konnikova´s book “The Biggest Bluff” again and played my first live tournament in Ocean Shores where I used to live for about three years before to get a vibe on the field on the 50-100 AUD buy-in level. I figure that the equivalent of a online poker buy-ins is lower than in real life, meaning that if you can beat 6.60 – 11$ tournaments at the virtual tables, then you can most likely also beat 50-100$ live poker tournaments.
But this is only a subjective observation for now – my sample size is far to low so far. However, I do feel very comfortable playing tournaments in real life that have a buy-in of anything up to 300 AUD, and I would not be surprised to end up having +EV there.
On that note, my next bigger event will be at the APL Million in August, again in Southport. I will play a more turbo-like event, and definitely dealt, since having to deal myself is only taking away from my focus, and I am just not really good at doing the maths, when calculating the pots and distributions etc. pp.
At APL events, the dealt tournaments start at a 250 AUD buy-in or so which means that I will most likely prefer those events, eventually up to 500 or even 1000 AUD and more.
But in the meantime, I am going to build my bankroll and I will play online ABI tournaments around 10$. I feel very confident at the 6.60, 11, and 16.5$ tables, while I clearly notice a jump in skill levels at the 22 and 33$ tables. At the same time, there are still many players at 22 and 33$ tables that are massively losing.
I am always surprised to see that some of the players amassed losses of 30 – 50k$ and even more over the years. But maybe it is just a pastime for them, and they do not really (have to) care about it. My goal to get to 10000$ again still stands, and I am very confident to eventually reach this goal.
But I am not going to put myself under pressure, I will embrace the process and continue to learn. Being “back in the game” for a bit more than four months now, I have found my rhythm again and will keep poker as a great addition to my other important activities in my life, while clearly prioritizing work, personal development and sports (esp. triathlon training), and connecting to the people that are important to me.
Still, (online) poker has accompanied me for more than 20 years already, and I am glad to be part of the scene again. As a hobby player with ambitions to play successfully and most importantly having fun playing this beautiful game and trying to improve with every single hand!