I realise that I haven’t been posting much lately but I haven’t been playing much poker either. I really think that the days are gone when I play poker full time and I simply do not want to do that anymore. What I have noticed though is in how the NL100 level that I have been playing has become a lot tougher over the past year or so. I have been having numerous discussions with fellow pro’s who are all saying that their earn rates have fallen over the past year by around 2ptbb/100.
I really don’t think I want to be making around 5ptbb/100 to be quite frank as this isn’t enough to warrant me staring at a computer all day. But I am a poker player and so I need to be playing poker. However I do need to say that I have been trading more and this is why I haven’t been posting as often. Trading has become my new passion and there is simply far less variance than poker. Even so though I played some PLO this week and short stacked. You need to devise strategies these days because the minimum buy-in has risen on most sites. I have a good short stack strategy in place but the variance is significant……..I have always hated variance as you can tell.
But for me then the key is to be playing as close to free poker as you possibly can. This means getting rake deals that are non-standard, getting sponsored, stakes…..anything that reduces the cost of playing poker. This process has served me well for the past 3 years since my dodgy 2008 and for me then this is the best way to ensure long term longevity. I will be playing $2-$4 NLHE single tabling this week in an effort to play differently to what everyone else is doing….this is multi-tabling the same levels using PT…..there is no future for players doing the same as everyone else. So I am hoping that I can maybe find value playing against players higher up who are multi-tabling but NL400 will be more of an entertainment these days than anything serious. But 4-5 hours per day trading is taking up my time and and so a poker player/trader is now what I am……weird.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk
