5th 100 games - The end of the $1.50 stakes

I've just finished my 500th game at the $1.50 level. I feel it's been a good learning curve and the experience I've gained from playing 500 games in this structure will bode well for the progress I want to make. In this post I'm going to post my usual stats for the last 100 games and the 500 overall.

I have one really interesting talking point (in the form of a hand replay) that I will go through in depth, which I believe sums up Fifty50 games in a nutshell. I will 'boom' the hand (boom is a PokerStars site were you can send your hands too and you can replay them). I will also just talk through the hand for people who can't access 'boom'.

Okay, it's graph time!

This graph shows the total profit for the 5th block of 100 games, and in the bottom right corner shows keys stats:

As you can see, a very patchy 100 games, variance played a huge part. In the last 17 games, I bubbled 7! I won't bore on about bad beats though, I'm not naive enough to forget there's times where you win flip after flip too.

This graph shows my winning to losing days ratio through the 500 games:

You might look at this graph and think it's not of much importance. But as a grinder, I've always thought momentum and finishing day after day in profit just keeps me going. I'll have days where I've been around break-even or just down for most of the session, for say a 7-8 hour day. On them sort of days I get it in my mind that as soon as I get in to the profit I'll end the session and log out in profit, and come back fresh the following day. I just feel it helps tick things over if you're coming back to your computer every day and there's more money in there than there was, even if it's $0.01, mentally it helps me. Of course, now and then you'll strive to get in to the black for the day and fail, the key then is to walk away as soon as possible and maybe take a day off to ensure you have a clear head for the next session.

Graph to show finishing positions over the 500 games:

There's a few things to take from this graph that I need to take forward with me in to the $3.50 games. Firstly, getting to the bubble 70% of the time is a huge effort. Putting yourself in with a chance of cashing that often is key, and I even believe that can be upped by maybe 5%. I found myself playing more hands than other regs early on in games, which gave me more 1st and 2nd place finishes, so finding the right balance between making more cashes and making better cashes is vital, and to be fair I think I've found a good balance so far.
In my first post, I predicted I'd have a 58% ITM and out of the cashing positions 3rd place will be the lowest... And I was right on the mark! 500 games is probably far away from a big enough sample size, but I do stick with my theory about finishing 3rd place in these games. If you're chip leading with 6 or 7 left you should be pushing on to get the chips off players who are trying to fold to the cash. If you're 2nd or 3rd in chips, you can usually shut down to make a 4th or 5th placed cash without taking many risks. If your 4th, 5th or 6th in chips on the bubble, it's a battle as you would expect. Who knows, as I go up the stakes I may find I'm finishing 3rd a whole lot more due to players having more awareness of you exploiting them whilst being chip leader... We'll see.

This graph shows the total profit over the 500 games:

The graph just speaks for itself here really. Very consistent over the 500 games, only having one dip of note which was about 10 buy ins after about 100 games. Apart from that, very very happy with it as I think anyone would be. A bit sorry to have missed out on the $100 profit mark, that would have capped it off. But with a 12.7% ROI and a 59.6% ITM, there is absolutely no grumbling being made!

A table to show my progress in numbers for each 100 games:

The interesting thing from this is the 3rd and 4th blocks of 100 games. Identical profit and ROI, but a huge 7% gap in the ITM column! It just shows there's more than one way to make profit in these games, go for top 2 finishes galore, or grind it out when you have to. I distinctly remember the 4th block of 100. I knew my ITM must have been really high half way through as I could feel the momentum of cash after cash after cash. I felt better that way than in the 3rd block where I bulldozed a lot of the games around the bubble but also went out early a lot more. I feel I can perform both styles and adapt according to player styles and stack sizes in each game.

Right, I feel like I've wrote a lot now and I really want to get back playing. It's time to step up a level, I'm really interested to see if the quality will rise at the $3.50 level. I predict not too much, I feel quality will be noticeably higher from $7 upwards.

I know I mentioned I had a hand to talk about, and I'm looking forward to sharing it. But I'll do it in a separate post in the next few days, I'll do it before I make any update on the $3.50 games.

Liam.