So I started 2008 with a lot of doubt as to whether or not I could control myself and avoid making bad decisions with my bankroll. To this end, I decided to "start over" in some senses with a $1000 bankroll and play 3/6 at a local casino. This helped me get back to the basics of limit holdem and start the year off slowly. It was going well and I was regaining my confidence in my limit holdem game. By the end of January, I decided to take a couple shots at the 20/40 game. I had played in this game a few times in '07 with mixed results.
My first 20/40 session in '08 was quite a wild ride. There was a borderline maniac on my right who would do weird things like limp in after a few limpers and then if there was a raise behind him, he would just decide to three-bet randomly to "gamble." I managed to get into 3 different multiway capped pots preflop with AK because of this. The first one I had AhKh and the flop came QhJh8d. Me and one other player were driving the action on the flop with 3 others along for the ride. The turn was a 4c and the river was a Js so I missed everything. The second one, I flopped AK3. The turn was a J and I managed to lose to QT. The third one, I flopped AQ4. The river was a Q and I lost to QJ. Each of these pots was near $1000 because of the preflop spazzing of the guy to my right. Amazingly enough, even after losing all of these huge pots, the game was so good that I only ended the session down $400-$500.
That session opened my eyes to how profitable the 20/40 game was as long as I could control my emotions and play as well as possible at all times. There were hands where I played badly because I was still thinking about the previous hand, but overall, I controlled my tilt better than I had in '07. I decided to commit $10,000 to a bankroll for this 20/40 game and play it pretty much exclusively over the next few months and see what happens.
Thus began the best month of poker I have ever had. It was as if I could do no wrong. Every bluff I made was working and every time I had the best hand I was called down. While I was definitely running well (re: really lucky), I was also playing my best poker. By the end of the month I had made a little over $16,000 which was (and still is) the only time I've ever made over $10,000 in one month. I knew that a win rate like this (~$110/hr or 2.75 BB/hr) was unsustainable, but I was confident that I could beat the game over the long run for at least 1 BB/hr.
March was another great month for me helped by a marathon session that spanned two different casinos and over 28 hours. It started at the normal 20/40 spot with a rather frustrating break even session. Then, a few of the players were talking about moving the game to a nearby casino that was open all night (the one I was playing at closed at 6am). They talked me into coming along. Long story short, by 11-12am, I was up between $2000 and $3000! As if that wasn't enough poker, I drove back to the original 20/40 casino and played another 5-6 hours before finally leaving around 5pm. Needless to say I slept for about 12 hours after that. By the end of March I had made around $9000 which was my 3rd best month ever (My 2nd best month was June of '06 which was my first month in Seattle and included two jackpots and a big win in the $150/$300 game which is a story for another blog post).
In April and May, I didn't play the 20/40 much (I had a bad session near the end of April and was irrationally scared of losing back all the profit that I had made in February and March). I went down to Pendleton for the Spring Roundup and managed to place 11th in the $315 NL Holdem tournament which was kind of frustrating because I was one of the chip leaders with around 30 left and ran KK into AK all in preflop for a large amount of chips and an Ace flopped. But I did well to survive to 11th with the chips I had after that hand.
In June I went down to the WSOP for a week with JD. I played in a lot of satellites and made enough in those to pay for all of the big events that I entered. I got to the 2nd day in the $2000 LHE WSOP event and the $2500 NL Holdem event at the Venetian but finished short of the money in both of them. All in all it was a confidence boost that I was able to do so well in the satellites but was also frustrating that I came close to a big score but finished just short.
In July and August I played a bit of the 20/40 with a few big wins and big losses that roughly evened out. It was over this time that JD, Le, and I started talking about becoming professional poker players. We finally decided to go for it and I left my job on September 12th and, as I have already blogged about, it has been going really well ever since. I have become very confident in my ability to play $20/$40 and am pleased with my efforts to avoid tilt and shore up my C-game. There are still occasions where I feel like I have played badly, but they are happening less and less frequently.
2008 was my best poker year so far (almost +$40,000) and hopefully the good fortune and good play will continue into 2009!
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