I've been playing a ton of poker lately, somewhere around 1000 to 1500 hands a day; the cash games have been going pretty well, I am up around $2100 after 60 hours, tournaments however have taken a huge turn towards a valley in variance. Haven’t cashed in my last 11 tournaments, due to some dirty bad beats, but I won’t get into those, I want to talk about a few other things. First thing I wanted to talk about was playing quantity not results. What I mean by this is, treat the game like a job, play a certain amount of hands or hours every day and don’t worry about the results. The more you play, the less variance involved, if you set yourself a realistic goal, (mine is 5 Big Bets per 100 hands) you’ll notice that the more you play, the closer you’ll always be to that number or higher by the end of the month. So, if you’re in a valley of variance, play through it, only if you are disciplined enough to stay off tilt, and if you’re on a peak of variance, just know that a valley will be coming soon to even it out.

Next thing I wanted to talk about is how to not be a retard when picking tournaments to play. I’ve been this retard this week, I played SIX satellites trying to get into the GRAND tourney on pokerroom, didn’t win one, I played the $50K guaranteed twice and didn’t cash once. You are all probably thinking, “big deal, so you played some tourneys and lost?” Here’s my point, those tourneys I played had bad structures and the buy-ins were higher than I normally play. It’s ok to play a higher buy-in tournament every once in a while, but I did eight in two days, and netted a hit of $850 to the bankroll.

Last but not least, I have a ton of friends coming for spring break so Mike and I will be brushing up on our drinking game skills so they don’t come into our house and dominate. One other note, My grandpa and I are planning on going to the Big Smoke Event here in Vegas next November, so hopefully we can get my uncle Eric (bakdraft.blogspot.com) and my dad Whiffy to come down for that. Time for me to go buy some cereal as I have been plowing through a box every two days; see ya in the spring!

-Bakken