Online poker update - Q1 2006

Up to this point, I have only posted about my live poker experiences...well, I just wanted to write a little something on my online play. The reason I don't focus on it is simple: I don't play very much online anymore, as I find I play a lot better live and more importantly, I take only a fraction of the enjoyment I get from poker from online play. It just isn't very fun. A lot of people play poker solely to make money and grind out profits, but not me - I play for both enjoyment and the expectation of profit. However, if poker playing was my profession, I would certainly re-evaluate this viewpoint!

Anyhow, I am a player who uses / relies on feel a lot when playing live, and I just can't translate this across to the online medium very well (unlike a lot of players I know, who have a knack of reading others across a virtual table). As a result, my online play in 2006 has been limited. I played 85 STTs during the first 3 months of 2006 (a little less than one a day!), just over a dozen tournaments and two $0.10/$0.25 cash game sessions (last of the big spenders!).

Most STTs have been $12+1 6-handed or $20+2 9-handed on Poker Stars. I am currently down just over $200 YTD - this is a reversal from last year, where I made a very tasty profit from my STT play. Including STTs from November and December 05, my current downswing is even greater, almost $400. I feel I am playing even better poker that last year, I just a 'surfing a wave of negative varience' into the rocks, to paraphrase the legendary DocFarrell! I am confident I will end the year in positive territory with regard STTs, they are the bread and butter of my online play.

With regard MTTs, I have only played an average of 3 a month so far this year! This is because after weighing up my online play last year, I realised that after making a $1200+ STT profit over the course of 2005, I plowed the entire amount back in MTTs (mainly different WSOP and EPT satellites) with little success. So I decided in 2006 to almost completely stop playing online MTTs and concentrate on STTs instead - I played a number of $5 rebuys on Vegas Baby Poker, which were fun but not something I will ever make money on. The main reason why I am currently not suited to online MTTs, other than the fact I cannot play by feel and as such go from being a semi-decent poker player to a poor poker player (at least that's how I feel), is that I don't have the patience for online MTTs, get bored easily, can't concentrate on the game and as a result make stupid moves.

Nothing much to save about cash games, I only played once or twice to pass the time, just about broke even. I know this is an area I should think about concentrating on for the future if I want to make more money from poker, but haven't been willing to give it a try so far. I don't think I would find it interesting to play at lower levels and don't think I am willing to lose the cash needed to play at higher levels! I am very interested in investments in equities and commodities and prefer to accept a lower level of risk by investing in these and earning rewards I am happy with. Plus investing in these requires a much lower time commitment!

So that's my online poker update for YTD 2006 - one target I have set myself for Q2 2006 is to play 10 STTs at the least per week. So expect a more substantial update in 3 months time! Plus I can't promise I won't try a WSOP satellite or two over the next few months :)