Looking Back: A Little bw07507 History & A Brag

Was just screwing around with HEM and looking at different graphs of my play and decided to look at my FR career. As some of you know, I started out as a S&G player. I played quite a few S&Gs over the last couple years and had only dabbled in cash games up until March of 2008. In that month, I cashed in a big tourney, giving me a BR for 25NL.

I started playing 25NL 6max and ran super hot for ~30k hands. Given that I was only playing at max 4 tables, this is a large sampling of hands. I would constantly bring my BR above $1000, try out 50NL 6max, either run terrible or tilt crazily and freak out and withdraw half my money so I would go back to 25NL. After one particularly bad run at 25NL, ChuckTs got me to try out a little FR. This happened in early/mid July and since then I have played very little 6max (under 7k hands to be exact). I started 6 tabling FR and am now 12 tabling very comfortably and occasionally 14 tabling. As soon as I started playing FR, I hit another heater and my roll skyrocketed. I was playing 25NL at the time and quickly decided that it was time for 50NL again, but this time FR, not 6max. Again, downswing ensued and I withdrew in a panic, afraid I wasn't good enough to win anymore.

After this incident, I decided, enough is enough. I've withdrawn a healthy amount from my BR (way way way more than I deposited) so I need to take the next downswing in stride and not flip out and withdraw most my roll. So from then on, any time I hit a downswing I didn't withdraw. I have withdrawn since then, but it has mostly been for purchases/spending money. I have vowed to never withdraw so much that I will not be fully rolled for 50NL (40 BIs) and now that I am fairly comfortably at 100NL, it would be great never to go back below those stakes. I'd have to say that my switch to FR has been one of the most pivotal points in my poker career. It has taught me to heavily multi-table effectively and to handle swings better. Since I'm playing so many hands at once, one or two or even a string of bad beats doesn't set me off like it used to since I know I can make it all back easily. Although I'll probably be moving back to 6max at some point in the future, I can't see myself totally giving up FR any time soon.

Anyways, here's the brag portion of the post. Here is a graph of my FR profits since I started playing heavily in early/mid July. I really can't thank ChuckTs enough for introducing me to FR and getting me on track after that one horrendous downswing at 6max. Some words of wisdom to anyone who is trying to get really good at poker and make some decent money. Just try to learn everything you can and just keep at it. I've been playing for years and its seriously just starting to pay off now. I spent a good year single tabling S&Gs and doing ok, winning a few bucks here and there, but now, playing cash feels so much better. Alright well I'm slightly drunk and I've got to go to bed. Sorry I rambled on for so long, here's my FR graph.