Yikes

I played my heart out tonight. I ran 14 MTTs. They were:

$109, $11 1r1a, $3r, $27.50, $55 6max, $109 turbo, $162, $20r, $55, $10r, $55 6max, $27.50 turbo, $33, $77 6max turbo

It went as disastrously as possible. I mincashed the $10r and that was all she wrote. I was ahead when the money went in for virtually all of my bust hands. I couldn't hold when ahead and I couldn't suck out when behind. We've all been there. It feels like total shit. Welcome back my old friend Mr. Variance.

I ran 180s again and as usual it was complete hell. I'm now down a staggering $1,700 in the $12/180 mans over 385 games. I don't even know what to say about these things anymore. I wish I had never started playing them and just stuck to 18 and 45 mans.

I was curious about something. I decided to look at my SNG stats since I started this project for all my 18 man and 45 mans only. Then I decided to look at only my 180 man stats. The differences are unbelievable.

So in this project I've played 18 man, 45 man, and 180 man SNGs. This first graph is all my statistics in the 18 man and 45 man games combined:























This is a good looking graph. It shows the minor downswings and major downswings you'd expect from playing exclusively turbos but overall it shows the upward trend of a solid 3,000-game sample.

This next graph shows ONLY my 180 mans:























This is unreal to me. This is the kind of graph you expect to find from a seasoned fish or fresh-faced amateur. Yet its not. Its my disgusting graph.

I mean, from looking at my first graph of over 3,000 games its clear that I know how to beat these turbo multi-table SNGs. So whats going so horribly wrong in the 180 mans that I've never even been on the positive side of the graph?

I think there are multiple answers to this question. One problem alone wouldn't be keeping me down so long.

First off, there is a great deal of variance built into these turbo 180 mans. Its literally push/fold after 30 minutes and usually theres still about half the field left at this time. This fact alone makes these things very difficult and crapshooty.

Secondly, there are a lot of regs in these things. I see so many everyday players in the 180 mans its almost unreal. And of course these players are making very few mistakes, therefore decreasing your chances even further of having good results.

Thirdly, even the "average joes" who play these things almost all understand basic push/fold strategy by now. With all the free or inexpensive poker tools about proper turbo SNG strategy available to the online community, the pool of players making egregious mistakes is definitely getting smaller. Again, this further decreases your chances of having good results.

Lastly, sample size. I've only played 385 of these things. While this may sound like a lot it really isn't. Also, I've only final tabled 4.6% of all 385 I've played (18 final tables). And at those final tables I've ran really really awful. So awful, in fact, I have yet to have a single first place finish! However, my NEXT 18 final tables could very easily be a different story and I might post 5 or 6 first place finishes... this is how variance works and why having a large enough sample is very important.

In conclusion, there is no "one single factor" to why my numbers in the 180 mans are so horrible at this moment. Its a deadly combination of a poor structure, reasonably skilled opponents, lack of sample size, and variance.

I feel like after I have at least 700 games under my belt things will be different.

Ok so today was Day 98 and tomorrow is my last day to finish the project. Well not really ha. I mean, I feel like I need to clear something up about this project. Even if I don't reach 25K after tomorrow's session I'm NOT stopping this project. That was never part of the plan.

After I completed Phase One I set a lofty goal to get from 5K to 25K in 45 days. Tomorrow is the 45th day. But even if that doesn't happen I'm not going to stop. I'm going to play on until I climb over the 25K mark.

But who knows I could get it done tomorrow. The roll is at 12K right now and I should be in three tourneys tomorrow night where first place is 13K or more. Thats the $109/40K guarantee, the $162 Nightly Hundred Grand, and the $55 Nightly Seventy Grand. And then theres also the $10r but 1st place in that is usually about 12K. But no matter what, the possiblilty exists. It would be pretty sick if I did get it done on the 45th day ha.

Sooooooooooooo thats about it folks. glgl to all good ppl.