Tournaments continue to be blah blah blah - though I did finally Final Table and cash in the latest Moose regular league tourney last Sunday. Up until then I had logged a big fat GOOSE EGG in Moose play outside of the WSOP series and the Monday night cash game...
Oh yeah, that's right - the Moose Monday night cash game! It's now, and has been for awhile, a weekly thing and I've been LOVING it. And it's been loving me as well.
I did torch $280 two weeks ago, but outside of that, my time on Monday nights at le' Moose has been well spent. My results tracker app has been all green for the last six months.
The stakes are Micro, to say the least. A capped $80 buy-in with options to top off at any time or reload to $100 if felted. My win rate at the Moose for the last year is just under 20 bbs an hour, which is only $10 an hour - BUT, it's pretty darn massive considering the big blind is .50¢.
It may seem silly for me to get so excited over what amounts to a very small amount of money, especially compared to even small stakes vloggers who routinely post videos of thousands of dollars being dragged in or lost in a single hand - but for me this game has never been about supplementing or generating my income - I have a real job for that and I do just fine. No, the money is really just how we keep score, and I'm worked up in a good way that my score just keeps going up lately.
Plus, truthfully win or lose, it's always a fun evening, and I guess I'm a lightweight because I typically last from 7 to about 1130 or midnight - but the game almost always keeps going to 2am and beyond. Yes, it is, all things considered, not a big sample nor is it any real volume. Hey, I'm a recreational player, whaddaya want?
A few weeks ago I again failed to cash in a Moose regular league poker tournament - BUT this time there was a cash game after. NLHE only, tiny stakes, but I managed to earn back almost 3 full tournament buy-ins in under 3 hours. Why have I been so obsessed with tournaments for the past decade? Cash game poker certainly isn't easy, but it really looks to be a lot less painful than tourneys.
And then there has been my cash game at home - we have only in the last half year or so started playing regularly twice a month. One game a Dealer's Choice Mix, very similar to the stakes and format of the Moose - and the other game exclusively NLHE.
The volume here is even smaller, but my hourly is comparable. I haven't had any $280 torch sessions in the past couple of years, mostly, I've been up a decent amount. Last week was crazy, I was in for $120 and out for $530. Madness I tell you.
And finally - there is online. As I likely mentioned in the blog awhile back, the pandemic brought about the resurrection of my friends online league for tournaments. When we switched from Poker Stars Home Games to Poker Mavens software, we also started a weekly cash game. Again it's Dealer's Choice Mix, again it's the same micro stakes.
While I am up four figures in profit at both the Moose and in my garage, approximately $1200+ each, online I am up well over $3000 in profit, with a lot of that coming in the last six months.
It has been very gratifying to be playing weekly and to see with my own eyes my results grow. I've taken online to withdrawing $500 every time my account reaches 1K. I've done that 3 times in the past half year. The money goes right into my separate checking account which is for poker only. Very happy to have my poker monies finally truly separated from my life money, and happy to see that it's not a tiny amount.
So the takeaway for me, after the past couple of years especially, has been that cash is pretty much where it's at. At least when it comes to some semblance of guaranteed results. I know if I'm focused and present, and go street by street, I can make better decisions than most of my opponents most of the time. And in a cash game, unlike a tournament, there's no rush or ticking clock and a lot less pressure to get moving. This means I'm calmer and more patient, and more likely to make the right decision more often.
I've said it before, but know I really know it to be true. If someone held a gun to my head and said "You have to make a living at poker" I"m pretty sure I could do it, playing cash. I wouldn't want to, as I love the game too much - and poker tournaments are quite a bit more exciting and gratifying when I do score - but it's nice to know that I'm an above average recreational player and when and if I retire, I have a very decent shot at at least breaking even. IF, and who am I kidding, WHEN I decide to play poker every day.
No comments:
Post a Comment