Mastering the Micros

(Guest post by Glenn)



Felicia asked me to guest post again. Kind of funny,

since I have my own blog.



I just never post anymore.

Just haven't been into it too much lately. I feel like

I'd be just talking mostly about hands; have the

desire to post Hand Histories (which she hates, lol...

can you tell I'm my wife's husband--or is that

redundant??--since I have the "lol" fever).



However, I just got through with doing the max reload

bonus on Eurobet on micro-limits. Originally, I

thought that I'd be playing primarily Draw Poker. I

have 700 hours on that game at the $1/$2 level and,

prior to the last 100 or so hours, had earned an

average of about 3BB/hr, or $6/hr. I had been

3-tabling and was looking to go through the bonus

quickly and earn a bunch at the same time.



Talk about best laid plans... Last 100 hours I'm

under 2BB's/hr.. on the last 50, just over 1BB/hr.

There was a month that I didn't have one winning

session. Month! I have never had a full month that I

didn't win at Draw before.



This really got me. I was used to NO variance.

"Security" at Draw was a big point for me. One of the

reasons that I quit dealing poker. I figured, jeez, I have

60,000 hands on this game and am beating it at $6/hr

per table and can 3-table it.. so that's $18/hr! I'll

be making almost as much as I do at work without having

to drive a half an hour each way; which of course will

save on gas and it will be like making more. I didn't

have to 'worry' about what I was missing from health

insurance, since they never gave me enough hours to

get health insurance in the first place. My own hours,

blah, blah, blah.



So I took the plunge and what happened? The big

Variance hit (note the capital "v" -grin-). Boy did

that make me nervous!



Live play was the same thing. I had almost 100 hours

playing NLHE at $2/$5 blind level, making close to

$20/hr. Suddenly I was losing, losing, losing. Lost

playing mixed games. Lost at Omaha 8-or-better from

$10/$20 down to the low $2-$6 spread limit game they

spread here in Laughlin.



What the heck was I going to do?



I started playing all different games online. I

wasn't comfortable playing $1/$2 or higher on any of

the games since I don't have the hours in on them like

I did with Draw; plus with my current down-swing, I

wasn't comfortable trying higher. So I started playing

the different games at the micro limits: $0.25/$0.5

and $0.5/$1 levels.



I tried Stud and Stud 8-or-better; talk about

variance. There'd be times that I hit-and-run for $8-15

on the $0.5/$1 tables; and times that I'd lose

that same amount. I have a $0.42/hr win rate for the

40hrs that I've played Stud 8-or-better at $0.5/$1

levels. LOL

Stud I'm a loser (only played 6 hours though); Razz,

I'm pretty much break even too ($0.2/hr).



Omaha 8-or-better? $0.76/hr at $0.5/$1 levels; but

twice that at $0.25/$0.5!



Hold'em? $0.47/hr at $0.5/$1 levels; but again, more,

even 3 times that at $0.25/$0.5. At two different

sites, I currently have a 3BB/hr (per table) win rate

for $1.5/hr per table.



So what did I do? You guessed it! I have, and

currently am, multitabling $0.25/$0.5 Hold'em (O8

tables are slower and take more brain power). On one

of the sites I can get up to (and actually handle) 9

tables at a time. Though normally I sanely run 6

tables at a time. Therefore, I can make about $10/hr.



Now I just have to stop hitting and running... after

playing 6 tables for an hour, I get a little mentally

exhusted.



I just thought that was indicative of Draw before when

I was doing that. I figured that it was just so taxing

playing 3 5-handed tables. After an hour of that, I'll

have played a fast 300 hands at short-handed tables.

Geez, now, after about an hour, I can get in 400-500

HE hands!



I did have to force myself to play several times a day

to work off the one bonus though. I needed 6000

points, and ended up having to get over 100 points a

day. Just think of all the hours that I had to put in

in order to generate enough rake to build up 100

points a day at $0.25/$0.5! (This is why, to me, the

current Party reload bonuses are a such big joke;

there's no way I want to have to do a timed bonus

again--and they want you to work off the bonus in just

a week! No offense, but blow me!)



Therefore, once again, I'm taking my tag-line of

"bilking the internet poker machine, six dollars at a

time" to heart once again!



Don't worry, though! This hero is building his

confidence back up ;) I'm just currently sticking to

ye' olde Limit Holdumb for the time being. I even

currently have a good 2BB/hr average going at $4/$8 HE

for my last 40 odd hours of live play. (OMG, it was

SUCH a good feeling racking up 5 rackes of chips at the

Orleans one night!!)



So there's life yet in this playa!



Hope everyone had a good holiday weekend and are doing

well.



God Bless :)

Glenn

Read The Full Article:
http://felicialee.blogspot.com/2006/04/mastering-micros.html

Add to del.icio.us

Digg this

Post to Furl

Add to reddit

Add to myYahoo!