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 racks 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