2012 Poker Year in Review

As we near the end of 2012, I thought it was a good time to take stock of my poker play, look for trends, and develop some goals for next year.  As an aside, almost all of the calculations in here are automated, with very little setup required.  If anyone would like a template of my record keeping spreadsheet, I will be happy to provide, just drop your e-mail in the comments.

2012 began much like 2011 with a downswing.  This one was a quick 1K downswing while out in Vegas for a work convention.   I played 3 sessions of 2/5, losing about 1100.  Most of that trip report can be read about here and here.   I undid the damage in February, and got things into the black for good for the year in April.  May and June were my best months of the year, and after a loss in July, my play significantly dipped due to Marissa being born, as I have 9 sessions totaling 42 hours since.  Here are the graphs of my profit vs hours, and profit vs date.

      

Also, below you can see the graph of hours played by month.

I've found when I analyze my play, it helps to parse my results by a lot of different categories.

Different limits:

The first thing to look at is my results at different limits.  For the year I played mostly 1/2, and a smattering of 1/3 and 2/5.  Below are the results.

1/2:  $25/hr  (down from $30/hr in 2011 in a similar # of hours)

1/3:  Not even worth looking at as I only have 17 hours in 2 years

2/5:  -$212/hr (in 11 hours of play - down from $32/hr in 2011 in 20 hours)

Obviously the 2/5 results are horrible, though the sample size is laughably small.  Looking back at the results, in session #1 I ran QQ into KK in a big pot at the Venetian in a marginal spot, where I believe I probably could have folded to the 3 bet.  It could be considered a minor cooler.  My 2nd and 3rd session was also at the Venetian where I dropped close to a buy-in, and my only real notes say that I played weak tight.  

I played again at 2/5 at Motor City where I ran something awful, losing 2 buy-ins.  That session is chronicled here.  The 1st hand of significance involved me getting it in with top two pair on a JT5 board, only to run into a set of 5's.  The 2nd had of significance involved me getting it in with AK v a short stacks AQ, and a frustrated player's larger stack of JT, and I managed to lose both the main pot and the side pot.  

I didn't play 2/5 again until the Michigan Poker Monster March Madness party, where I started out hot, but ended up dropping a little over $100, mostly due to losing a big pot where I got all-in on the flop against an open ended straight draw where I held top set and lost on the river.  

After that session, I just never really got a chance to play 2/5 again, only going downtown twice since March, and both times sitting at 1/2.  

While the overall results are horrible, I think that these results were mostly just the bad side of variance.  Could I have played better in a few spots?  Maybe, but I think there was no way I was going to come close to breaking even with the luck that I had there. 

Conclusions?  Obviously I can kill 1/2, and I believe I can beat 2/5 pretty badly as well, but I haven't given myself enough of a shot to do it.

Different rooms: 

My play has been primarily spent at Northville Downs, with the rest of the hours being in a smattering of other rooms.

Northville Downs (48.6% of my play): $31/hr (up from $28/hr in 2011, in a similar # of hours)

Docs (20.4% of my play):  $34/hr (down from $58/hr in 2011, in a similar # of hours)

Motor City (7.5% of my play):  -$85/hr (down from $92/hr in 2011, the aforementioned 2/5 results badly skew this one)

The rest of the rooms each represent less than 5% of my play for the year, and I got time in 12 different rooms this year (last year I played in 13 different rooms).  

Obviously I need to play more at Docs as I am just killing the players there.  The problem is that the player base is smaller, and you tend to have to wait longer than I would like when I go there.  The plus side of the room is the beer selection, free food that they routinely put out, attractive servers, and of course a high win rate. 

Session length:  

This one tends to be mis-leading, as the longer sessions are usually when I have fallen behind and am trying to make a comeback, hence the lower win rate, but since my data can be parsed that way, here it is.  But I am happy to say that these results for this year are much more consistent and flat, which leads me to believe I chased a lot less this year.  This is regardless of limit, game, etc...

Less than 2 hours (24.6% of sessions):  $26/hr

2-4 hrs (37.7%):  $11/hr

4-6 hours (24.6%):  $13/hr

6-8 hours (8.2%):  $28/hr

8+ hours (6.6%):  $11/hr

Day of the week:

I have been charting this for a while, and the results for 2012 aren't really meaningful as the sample size is too small.  My lifetime records though indicate my most profitable days of the week as Thursday, then Sunday, then Monday, then Wednesday.  It's interesting to note that on Friday and Saturday, which one would think would be a players best days due to the increased recreational element, that I am barely better than break even.  I don't really have any conclusions from this, but find it interesting. 

2013 Goals: 

I believe I created one of these in draft form a year or two ago, but never sent it out.  Here's a few loose goals.  None of them are going to be associated with a win rate.  I believe I am a winning player, and if I put in the hours and play my game, while being smart and disciplined, the win rate will take care of itself.

Half of the goals will be evaluated subjectively, but unfortunately that is the nature of the beast when dealing with some of the goals that I put together.

Goal #1:  Play 200 hours in 2013.:  I need to average 17 hours per month, which is hopefully doable, as the baby gets older.  The winter should allow me to get a head start as I don't have any responsibilities such as softball or coaching Abby's teams taking up my time, and I also don't have golf competing for my free time for the first few months of the year.

Goal #2:  Play 40 hours of 2/5 or higher in 2013.  This should be a doable, as long as I am smart about bankroll, don't run awful, and make sure to visit rooms that have this limit available.  

Goal #3:  Continue to find profitable spots to 3 bet.  I wrote an article on it in 2+2 magazine, which was generally well received.  Players tend to hate it, and don't properly combat it, and just generally allow themselves to be walked all over.

Goal #4:  Continue to find ways to exploit my position.  This is kind of related to #3, in that I want to generally 3 bet in position.  But I believe my goal should be to make the player or 2 directly to my right very uncomfortable.  If I am not doing that, I am not doing my job well enough.

Goal #5:   Once I get a big stack, aggressively target other big stacks.  This is one where I feel I could definitely improve.  I try to be keenly aware of all stack sizes at the table, and am especially aware of my potential exposure every time I play a hand.  What I need to do though is to exploit players who are also aware of their exposure, especially ones who are fearful of playing deep. 

Goal #6:  I had one article published in 2012 (Low Stakes Live Light 3 Betting) which was published by 2+2 internet magazine, and that I was compensated for.  The article remains on the site for 6 months, and is no longer available there.  I'm going to start small this year and set a modest goal of 2 articles for 2013.

 

Hopefully in 12 months time I will be able to re-examine this post to see how I did about attaining my goals.