A Month End Review and Thoughts

Here are the numbers:

175 tournaments (target was at least 200)
28 cashes (16% cash rate - target was my historical rate of 20%)
$54,195 in entry fees/rake
$55,794.67 in cashes/swaps
$1,599.67 profit (a paltry 2.95% return)
327.17 buyins won
1.86 avg buyin won (essentially this shows I bombed out in the bigger buyin events)
1429.83 countable monthly pocket five pts - top 20 scores (1618.69pts in total)
ranked in the 70s for the month (peaked around 20th or so)

Interestingly, my overall rank for the site jumped from around 600th to around 250th during the month. I would like to get into the top 200 because you can then be ranked in the players poll (voted on by the top 200).

Noteworthy split stats (post my Turbo win on Sep 12th):

77 Tourneys
15 Cashes (19.5% cash rate)
$32,396 in entry fees/rake
$15,681.74 in cashes/swaps (-51.6% ROI) higher cashing rate but no cash over $1800
40.01 buyins won
0.46 avg buyin won

The irony is I thought my tourney game was better at the end of the month than at the beginning. I bluffed much more effectively, and was making some tough calls. At the end of the month, I could consistently build up my stack w/ or w/o cards. I plan on doing a synopsis of the WCOOP Main Event in the next couple days that illustrates this.

Various thoughts:

1) This was a very difficult month for me and my family (especially my wife). She put up with a lot (what is new for a poker player's wife right?). As such, I can't imagine doing an endeavor of this magnitude again for a long time.
2) How do some of these guys do this 24/7? Talk about having no life. I didn't even play nearly as much as many of the big name players. I estimate they play at a minimum 10 tourneys a day, and some are probably in the 25 neighborhood. I averaged less than 6.
3) Only a handful of the "top" online names are actually that good. Most are name players only through the sheer magnitude of tourneys they play (thus resulting in "good numbers" that are really average at best). Some of these players just gamble it up and occasionally catch fire, but I would venture to say many have slightly above average results at best. To illustrate this, I finished in the top 100 for the month and barely made any money. I think I ran pretty poorly too, and I played far fewer tournament than most of the guys that are known. I believe it would be entirely plausible to be a top 50 ranked player on pocket fives with an ROI under 5%. My ROI on the year is 42.15%, and unless you are over (bare minimum) 20% historically, I do not believe you can even be considered a good player. Adequate yes, but not good, and definitely not great.
4) In all probability, the unprobable is going to happen way more than you think.
5) I love where my tourney game is right now.
6) I love the fact I can play almost any game of tourney poker and have an edge.
7) Most players have no clue how to play any form of Stud. These tourneys are so soft its funny. I just wish more of these tournaments were played at major tourneys.
8) Post flop play is so weak among tourney players. This is due to most online events becoming shovefests by the mid way point.
9) Pre flop play is fairly strong (although this is my weakest area)
10) Online tourney structures continue to improve especially for big events. Unfortunately, live tournaments are getting worse especially for big events. Live events seem only to care about profits, while live sites truly seem to want to cater to their customers. Even the rake seems to get worse every year. Ultimately, this could kill the game. This may not change unless poker players finally get a strong tour/association together. The WSOP needs to be the leader here, but that is unlikely under current ownership (considering it is getting worse instead of better).

I am done with poker for some amount of time (to be determined). It won't be a ridiculous amount of time. I am glad it's October though.