Well so much for managing to update this blog regularly. With that said, this month has been pretty hectic for me. I spent eight days in Oklahoma helping my dad prepare for an upcoming child custody hearing and then another four days away from my pc with different commitments that only come around once or twice, weddings, funerals etc. All in all however the time that I did spend at the virtual felt went extremely well. I managed to win at 4.4 ptbb/100 over 70k hands, which is certainly a win rate that I would be overjoyed with if I could maintain it over the course of the year.
Link to results for the month: http://i46.tinypic.com/2itftiq.jpg
I also have to say that I am really happy that Full Tilt has changed the rules regarding short stackers. The games became increasingly better over night and it seems that more fish are out playing the tables as a result of this. I’ve never seen so many 70+vpipers in my life littering the tables. It seems that even fish don’t like to play with ratholers. There also seems to be some confusion from the fish what 35bbs means, it seems that rather than buying in for 35bbs they are buying in for 70bbs. Not really sure why this is, but then again I don’t really care, just happy to see it as it means that they are donking off money a lot quicker and in bigger amounts.
Also experimented with RUSH poker when it was introduced during the middle of the month and I must say that I am not a fan of the game in its present format. From a Full Tilt standpoint, it is a dream come true, they turn a 1 tabling fish into a 5 tabling fish instantly and the fish loves it as he can instantly fold his 72o without having to wait for the hand to finish and is instantly dealt another hand. I do think however, that some fish will leave the RUSH player pool due to the fact that they will be losing money faster and in the end fish put money on an online poker site for enjoyment and if they are not getting this from losing their buy in almost instantly, we might see a gravitation of these fish back to the normal games. I will be waiting. 
From a regular ‘pro’ standpoint RUSH is everything that a full time grinder hates. You effectively have to play every hand blind as both HEM and PT3 are unable to make a HUD that will display information quick enough (HEM has since come up with an update that always for stats to be entered into the notes field on a player). So not only are you HUDless against a player but you also are forced to play super deep against better players with a limited time bank. Most will argue that it is on the ‘pro’ to adapt and change the way he plays but as every player is a virtual unknown it’s like you have to decide a predetermined stacking off range, say TPTK, and just go with it if you flop it or better. Doesn’t sound like fun to me and I think that it takes away from the edge I use to make money from this game.
One and only brag for the month, I started a diet last Monday and managed to lose 5.7lbs in a week, almost half a stone for all my English friends.
My February Goals:
- Play 100k+ hands
- Continue to improve in all aspects of my game, especially double barrelling
- Final Table an MTT
- Continue to lose weight and make progress
See you at the tables,
Gary.
