FEBRUARY 2006 ANALYSIS

I began the month with great focus. Within two weeks I had made my nut and then some. Not much good happened after mid-month and I fell 25% off my peak before tally time.

TOURNAMENTS: NET PROFIT $10,525

I played heads-up only once. Our group, the Bustouts was challenged by a rival group, Boss Tactics in a single-elimination heads-up match with eight players from each team, for PokerRoom bragging rights. My initial match was against JoeyTheFish. We got into the match, trading coin, neither of us making any huge gain. We were just biding time until the limits increased. I'm not one to make excuses, but of all the lousy timing, it was during this match when my brother phoned me to inform me that my dad had a minor stroke. While I was on the phone, I flopped a straight. I got some money into the pot, and when he went all-in on the river, I called without thinking, not realizing that the board had paired, and he is only going to make that play if he filled up. So that cost me $50 and a little pride. Of the eight matches, six of them were won by Bustouts, and after round two, no Boss Tactics remained. So, JoeyTheFish is supposed to honor the challenge match rules and send me $100 for the Bustouts victory. I haven't collected yet, but maybe in March.

My single table touraments during the month were limited to five, with two of those coming in a home game. A fellow Bustout, our only female member, Pirate Booty, lives within walking distance from me. I have been to her house once before for a game, and I was invited back in early February. We played a $50 one-rebuy tourney with eight players. I was in for $100 after adding-on, and when it got heads-up, I chopped with ColdKegs2Go, both of us taking $300, since we were relatively even in chips. We played another seven-way tourney, but I left on the bubble. Of five STTs, I cashed in two and turned a $32 profit.

My MTT stats improved on the month and so did my profitability. In 49 tournaments, I cashed in 13 of them, and made my goal of a 25% cash rate. I also checked off another item from my 2006 to-do list: I won a $100 buy-in tournament. This win was extra sweet because it was a rebuy event. I lasted a long time with my initial buy-in, then after a brutal bad beat which took me back down to my starting stack size, I opted to rebuy and double my stack. I built that up, and with an eye towards the final table, I added-on at the break, for a $300 investment. I was determined to make the final nine to get to the payday. Once I got there, I managed to get some timely cards and in the end, I knocked off the final three players with coin flips that went my way. I won $9240, which is my biggest cash win since Monte Carlo last March.

That cash infusion allowed me to play in some high-roller events, which didn't work out and brought my monthly total down a bit, but there were some other smaller paydays as well. Two nights later, I won a $30 event with 124 runners for $1116. I also won a preliminary Monte Carlo qualifier, which got me to a winner-take-a-seat tourney at PokerStars. I wasn't able to win that one however. I won't be going to Monaco this year.

I bought into a $215 PokerStars event with 5506 runners and over $1.1 million in the prize pool. I was doing great, but got my AA and KK cracked and had to settle for a 109th finish and $1432. I made two more final tables in $30 events, finishing second, and sixth for $1080 and $367.

Lastly, I was invited to a neighbor's home game, a 14-player $80 multi-rebuy tournament. I coasted off my initial buy-in and wound up finishing second after going card dead heads-up. That paid $600.

In total, I finished in the top 20% in 17 of 49 events (35%) and the bottom half in 23 (47%). Those are some decent stats. I don't mind finishing early in nearly half the events if I can make the money in half of the others.

CASH GAMES: NET LOSS $1,920

Ring games are to me what the crap tables are to TJ - a sure way to donk off my profits. I began the month very conscientious of my cash game play. I was playing slow and patient and waiting for spots. By mid-month, I was up around $1,500. Then, I made some very unwise decisions to play late at night, looking for a quick buck. Well, playing after hours, I am finding, is recipe for disaster. There is no way to play patiently when I'm just looking for a quick double up so that I can go to bed. I play far too many hands and consistantly lose a bundle in this way. My $900 NLHE winnings turned into a $800 loss in the final week of the month, as I tried to win back the cash that I had donked off in the Omaha game. Granted, some of those losses came via bad beats, but those just got me steaming to where I began playing too speculatively.

Someday, I will learn that Omaha is not my game, but that day was not in February 2006. I went from $400 winner to $1350 loser in the back half of the month trying to conquer the HiLo tables. I even turned my small 7-Card Stud profit into a $50 loss in the waning hours of the month. Limit Hold'em is the only game at which I profited, and that is because I played it early while I was focused, then abandoned it during the donk-off stage. I managed to hold on to $325 in HE profits. But in the final tally, it was a fogettable month for cash gams. On the bright side, I did manage to secure a $100 bonus from PokerRoom by reaching my playing quota.

FEBRUARY NET PROFIT: $8,705
2006 NET PROFIT: $9,309