12 Months 12k! I’ve always loved writing up statistical stories of my STT career. This is quite a big milestone for me. So I’m putting together a slightly more comprehensive analysis of my time grinding STTs on FTP since August 2009.
I’ll briefly talk about some of the major stepping stones in the past 12 months.
I started out playing the 1s and 2s with the $50 starting capital. I was reading all the bronze articles from ps.com and watching every video in the library. I felt I was better than the average fish on the limit, but I still made a lot of errors. Luckily, FTP had some major promotions at the time which allowed me to propel my bank-roll faster than usual with a meagre 4% roi (I ran 2% under ev though... i wasn’t that bad).
I always strived to adhere to strict bank-roll-management guidelines; I guess I am quite a NIT at heart. Once I reached my required 100BIs for the 5s, I quickly moved up. Normal speed SnG’s weren’t as fun for me. I found the slow structure frustrating, I just wanted to push my SB into some fish, but we were still 40BBs deep on the bubble. Luckily I ran well and during October 2009 I quickly escaped to the 6s. This would be my home for the next 2 months. I quickly figured out how to add a second monitor to my set-up and worked my way up to 12 tabling. I finished my time at the 6s with a 12% overall ROI and enough financial padding to move up again.
My welcome to the 12s in November 2009 was extremely harsh. I quickly dropped 50BIs whilst running about 40BIs under expectation. I was distraught; I had never lost that much money before. But, I was prepared for the variance, everyone told me it happens all the time, it’s a part of the game. I devoted more and more time to reviewing my game and improving. After a horrible November (my first ‘big’ losing month playing poker), my red line started to move in the right direction. By December I was sustaining 10% and felt the limit was mine for the taking.
For the next two months I experimented a lot with different table layouts and set structures. I tried continuous, semi-continuous, sets. I tried cascading, tiling and stacking. After many trials and errors I found my $/hr was always highest while tiling continuously. This allows me to constantly watch all the action, make concise notes and focus the largest proportion of my brainpower to the late game, when the number of tables starts to die down.
January wasn’t as good as December, but I still managed a respectable 6%. I had reached 100BIs for the 24s and felt I was ready... boy was I wrong. Filled with confidence, I quickly started playing small sets of 24s, usually 6-8 tables. I was, and still am, quite a diligent note taker. I saw my opponents stack off ridiculously light. I knew the limit was beatable but the cards just weren’t coming my way. A mixture of scared money, variance, computer problems and just not being good enough caused me to drop approximately 75BIs in 550 games. I was devastated.
I knew I wasn’t ready for the swings just yet. I had to retreat to the safety of the 12s, reload my guns and come back firing! I decided that it was time to grind for something I could be proud of, something to reward myself for almost 9 months of grinding. I wanted a computer upgrade! I spent a few weeks picking out what I wanted, and when it came I set out to slaughter the 12s. I fixed some major leaks, increased my tables to 16 with the help of my new equipment and bled the games dry for 12% and 14% respectively in March and April of this year, for a $/hr I am truly proud of (I obviously ran pretty hot).
It was May 2010. I was geared up with 200BIs, a better game and mindset. I was ready to hit the rake-back grinder territory that is the 24s. This month was a cautious step through the jungle. I table selected as best as I could. I didn’t run great, I earned less $/hr than I was at the 12s, but I had a green month at around 3%. My EV ROI was a solid 5.5% and I knew the struggle to hit the 24s was over. I was welcomed by spite calls and abuse, but quickly returned fire and held my ground.
This brings me to June 2010, I had my biggest winning month ever and highest $/hr ever. The transition was complete. July was even better, putting in decent volume and breaking more personal records whilst running way under expectation.
Statistics Games played: 9625
Avg Buyin: $15.93
Length: 732hrs played
Average duration: 30.2min
Winnings: $9099.37 + $3453.32 rakeback = +$12552.69 (plus about 1k in bonuses that I've lost track of)
Rake: $12818.70
$/hr: $17.15
ROI: 5.9%
EV$ Adjusted ROI: 5.8%
ITM: 38.6%
Most games played in 1 day: 129 (8.6hrs)
Biggest winning day: +$748.20
Biggest losing day: -$458.40
Graphs 
July 2010 wrap-up
July 2010 Graph 
Review of July Goals! 
] make iron man
] put together my resume and send out some graduate job applications (half done)
