Well, here we are over a month later, and I'm only up to 5167 hands of low-stakes No Limit Holdem. And, my game went to hell in a handbasket; my second 2600 hands almost exactly undid the gains of my first 2500. It's a bit depressing. But, it's important to be realistic about these things. Looking at the hard numbers, in those 5167 hands that I've played, my net profit is now -0.03 BB/100 hands. This means that I'm dead even. The numbers reported are, however, after the game host takes its cut, known as the rake, from each pot. In fact, if there were no rake, my profitability right now would be on the positive side to the tune of about 2 BB/100 hands. So, I sit here at the halfway point, feeling like I've accomplished nothing, and knowing that any winnings I make in the next 5000 hands will have only half the effect on my 10000 hand self-rating. But, these downswings happen, and you have to move past them. Now, it's not all bad news for me. The reason I've been so slow to complete my second set of 2500 hands is that I just couldn't stand to sit there and quad-table one game for hours a week. I started going stir crazy, and so I had to get back to playing some tournaments. I'll talk about that in a minute, but my tournament play over this month has been vastly more profitable than my cash game (a.k.a. ring game) play. In addition, I started playing some middle-stakes Limit Holdem. Limit and No Limit Holdem are vastly different games, but there is quite a lot that one game can teach you about the other. The relationship goes both ways. If you are a poker player and prefer one game to the exclusion of all others, then you are ultimately doing yourself a disservice. In truth, you might actually be more profitable than a generalist at your specialty game. But, I think that having a more well-rounded knowledge of the game will ultimately be to your overall benefit when you move up in stakes or begin entering large tournaments. So far, I've racked up 2000 hands at the Limit Holdem tables. My profitability there is running only 0.18 BB/100 hands (after rake, of course). That is a strong indicator that I might want to move down in stakes. At Limit Holdem online, a lot of names in the game recommend playing at a level of stakes where you can win about 1 BB/100 hands. Any more, they say, and you'll earn more in terms of actual cash by moving up to higher stakes. Significantly less, and you're playing a bit out of your league, and need to work on your skills where it's a bit cheaper to play. For my Limit play, I will report in 2500 hand increments on my profitability, and make an evaluation at 5000 hands of whether or not I want to drop down to lower stakes. Now, on to tournaments! My stats are showing that I've played 25 tournaments this month. 23 of those were multi-table tournaments, and the other two were single-table "sit and go" affairs. I've gotten into the money in four of the bigger tournaments, and had one "deep money" finish. These results are not surprising to me. I've known for about 18 months now that I tend to money about 15% of the time in large tournaments that pay the top 10% of the field, and tend to finish deep in the money about 20% of the time I make it to the money. My tournament play for the past year has been on the profitable side. Poker Tracker reports my Return on Investment for tournament play at 115%, meaning I'm winning back $2.15 for every $1.00 I invest in a tournament buyin. And that amount is after the game host's tournament fee (a.k.a. vigorigh, or vig for short). Generally, the fee is 10% of the buyin, but it is slightly less for higher buyin tournaments. That's the beauty of tournaments. When you play them, you don't win often. But when you do, you win a nice amount. These tournaments use sharply increasing payout scales, such that a first place finish often wins you back 100 times your buyin. You play for the big payday. So, that is where I stand at the halfway point of my cash game profitability check. I'm more profitable in tournaments, only passable at cash games. I need to work on my cash game skills, while continuing to rake in the occasional deep-money tournament finish. My next article will be an interesting discussion on a particular point of tournament strategy: Lately, I've fallen in love with the strategy of winning into larger tournaments by playing large multi-table satellites. They are an awesomely effective way to improve your ROI on even shallow-money finishes. Not to mention, I won my way to London through a large multi-table satellite... Stay tuned!

Source: Poker