/ Matthew Pitt / 01 March 2011 / Leave a Comment 
The 28 days that make up February have been and gone and my first month of playing NL50 is completed. I am pleased to report a pretty good winning month but one that could have been much better had it not been for my all in EV been all over the place, the fact I played under the influence a couple of times and my last 5,800 hands being breakeven!
As we poker players measure our success with money I'll get that bit out of the way. I won $423.74 at the tables from 9,203 hands and earned $224.61 from bonuses and the like, meaning I finished in the black to the tune of $648.35, not a bad result in anyone's book. My winrate, for anyone who is interested, was a sinister looking 6.66bb/100, which again is pretty good for my first month at these stakes, but should be higher in my opinion and it would have been if my hands held up preflop as my all-in EV adjusted statistic tells me that my playing profit in the long run would be $653.53, but I am trying to get away from the EV stat as it messes with your head and can mask poor play IMO.
My biggest winning session of the month topped the scales at $280.55 whilst at the other end of the spectrum I lost $257.07. In fact I had seven sessions where I lost three figures, which sounds awful if you think of it in terms of money but in reality it is only a couple of buyins, again I am still trying to get the monetary value of my chips out of my head whilst I am playing and so far I think I am doing pretty well on that front.
Overall I am pretty happy with my play this month though I have found a couple of areas that I need to work on during March. Firstly I need to double barrel more often and I need to ramp up the aggression on the river too because I am not only missing out on some value I am also losing a showdown to some hands that I could push out by making a bet. Don't get me wrong I'm not going to start betting every river like a nut job but I will be firing more barrels from now on so be warned!
As mentioned, the last 5,800 or so hands saw me essentially breakeven and although some of it was down to the dreaded variance catching up with me, some of it was down to my own play. I remember a number of occasions where I didn't trust my instincts or my read and ended up either folding when I should have continued and vice versa. I think this was down to me subconsciously thinking I was going to lose and again this is something that I need to work on. Some of my reads have been spot on this month and I need to focus on that fact.
My main observations of the stakes so far are that the majority of the regulars have solid preflop games but most are quite spewy post flop and more than beatable. Another is there are plenty of short-stacking f$%&*rs to contend with, presumably because of the increased bonus benefits but again every single one of these is awful. Overall, these stakes ate just a more expensive version of what I was playing previously!
Goals for March are to play around 15,000 hands (I'm still only playing two tables), to look at my balance only once or twice per week, try to avoid the all-in ev stat, trust my instincts and reads and be more aggressive on later streets. Secretly I would love to have a $1,000+ month but I no longer set money related goals, but it would be nice wouldn't it?
As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!
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