So, long time no see 
In my last posts I have written about thinking about creating a challenge and grind up a small bankroll, however I have withdrawn this idea. It just is not worth it grinding Microstakes to be back at my normal Stakes at some point. Also I kind of have found my passion for the grind again.
Let me start straight off with results since 11may when life got back to (more) normal in France, and, to say in advance, games and traffic got a lot worse again:
Some wrong games are added (MTTs, not sure how to remove them) and some SNGs are missing. According to Sharkscope like 160 Games are missing and total profit is 760€. Well, whatever, it’s a better indicator than nothing.
Overall of course I am satisfied with this overall result so far, everything over 0.20€/game in EV pre rakeback I am very happy about, makes a hourly of over 10€ + Rakeback in my case.
5€ 6max have been a lot worse (even at night time you sometimes see 2-3 of the same Regs in every game, which definitely makes it hard but some study in overall game theory + the former good 6max Regs like Akerman16 and Winfilberte leaving the games have made up for it. Surprisingly the result is really good in these games even playing quite many 5€ 6max Deglingos DoNs, where edges are of course pretty thin.
MTTs I also had a few good results, 2nd in Hara-Kiri, won a 180max, it seems like it’s getting better and that some studying has helped. I feel a lot more confident in several Spots too.
During this timeframe I had a break of 10 days so effectively this graph shows only 9 days of play. Since re-starting last friday, with rakeback I profited a little bit over 1K (won daily Leaderboard 3 times and Diamond3 Rakeback), which of course is great, but I expect not to be able to keep it up like this of course.
As a part-time player (although I put in quite many hours for someone having a job alongside) I am happy with any month I make over 1K after rakeback.
What originally got me motivated to give the poker grind more power again:
The day before I started (fathers day, not sure if you have that too at the same date) usually involves a lot of drinking here. I started with chilling in the garden with my grandfather and drinking some beers, later went to a house party. I stayed on good alcohol-level all evening, not too much, just fine… and met a girl there, 18 years old (the dream, for an « old guy » like me, although she first said she thinks I’m ~20 (I do look younger than 27 though, to be fair, and definitely like girls younger than me more than of my age)), we talked loads, she did all the stuff as if she was attracted (played in her hair the whole time when we talked and whatever, all the stuff) and we « connected well » so to say. When suddenly at 3am I wanted to make my last drink (Vodka+Red Bull, just love it) and just smashed the whole rest of the bottle of Vodka by accident in my glass and drunk it anyway. First the pure vodka, then mixed with some energy, but it definitely had to be ~300ml of Vodka. Next thing I know is I woke up in my bed the next morning, not sure what happened inbetween. Whatever shit I must have done, definitely nothing good, because I have since received 1 message from her, saying I am too old (she thought I am 20, wtf?!) and that is it
Is age like this really a problem for women?
Anyway, from this expirience I learned « Women are the Rake » (I heard this quote somewhere at least, and makes sense). I had a 6-year-relationship until ~1 year ago, sort of on and off, and it has always prevented me to fullfil my full potential in all aspects anyways. This all showed me I should focus on myself the most and the things that are important to me, and Poker is definitely one of the important things to me.
Sorry for this little off-topic, but this kind of was a little mindset-lesson for myself at least.
Anyway, I certainly should increase my average buy in overall, I do not know why I still stuck with high volume on 5€ DoNs, I am a little scared, while my bankroll would allow me to play much, much higher (I do not cash out often because I simply do not need it, I usually just grind up and then cash out like half of my bankroll when it becomes stupid much for my buy ins). This year I have so far not made one cash-out below 4-digits, for instance. Cashing out small amounts over and over would just lower my motivation because I want to win back this amount as quick as possible.
What might kind of keep me away from moving up is probably my results in 10€ 6max so far. This is how this year went so far in them:
As you can see, I once peaked 80BuyIn under EV at one point. Of course the overall result with just 1% EV ROI is not satisfying too, but probably I have to accept that playing as many tables as I do. With VIP Rakeback this would still be ~0.25€ per game. Being stuck at just 5€ 6max is definitely not what I want to do forever and I should get out of my comfort-zone at some point. I will also try to mix in some 20€ 6max during night time when traffic becomes low. Games are just too good to miss them out and like I said, bankroll allows it. Hell, I mean, 100% I have a bigger bankroll than some of the Regs playing 20€-50€ mixed all day. But I will take it step by step.
Fullring DoNs: Varies quite a lot. Some days games are just horrible with 6-7 Regs per game (and I still do not understand why Regs register for Games where they already see 6 Regs in, but normally the Regs that do this are the worst Regs of the games anyways), some days it is pretty good but volume is not so good in them because of less Regs. But I would take softer games for lower volume anytime, a lot more profitable, that’s simply the truth. We will have to see how these games evolve over the next weeks.
But the same problem applies in the 6max DoNs as well at specific times:
One Reg worse than the next and still they register into the same games (Reg Man probably being somewhat decent but still he will 100% lose money in a game like this too). I just do not understand, during a hard grind session I always register all games first and hope they will wake up, but I probably should just accept almost none of all Regs will wake up in this sense and act accordingly (start game-selecting again).
Next 2 days I will visit my family in another City (have not seen my siblings and my mother for like 6 months already) but play some games on laptop, to make the last miles I need for my Diamond3 Bonus.
Anyways, as I see I have already written quite a wall of text, these are my goals for June:
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5K Games/120+ hours grind (hitting one of these is enough, but should be roughly the same anyways, I plan to decrease my table count a little, but knowing myself I probably will not lol)
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Play at least 300+ MTTs
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Average buy in of 6€+ (would mean I have to play more 10€ and 20€ DoNs slowly, which is much needed)
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700€+ Rakeback (Daily Challenge, Miles and VIP Bonuses all count)
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Maintain 0.20€/Game+ in EV pre rakeback (this will probably be the hardest of all, to be fair)
I will wrap it up here,
Good luck at the tables!
I actually like making such posts, it helps me to reflect myself in terms of poker and get a better view about things, which is a very important skill in my opinion (in both, poker and life overall of course)