The Satellite Route

Following my 100-day break even run this year at the $100nl and $200nl cash games, I've come to realise that the online game is a lot tougher than it was a year ago. As players become more knowledgeable the playing field has evened out - so much so that, to my mind, the role of luck has become a bigger factor than ever. I think that luck plays an even higher role in the game than a lot of people would like to believe. 

To beat the game on a regular long-term basis you have to maximise your edge by putting in masses amounts of volume, playing extreme amounts of hands and games, and constantly reviewing and studying the game on a daily basis. For anyone with a full-time job, putting your heart and soul into the game in such a manner is just not possible - and as always winning a large sum of money will come in the form of a top 3 finish in a big one.

Taking all this on board, I've decided to stop breaking even at online cash games. I've had enough of sitting down to tables where over half the players are regulars and where it's so difficult to extract money form anybody. No, I've now decided to join the MTT brigade; at least for a little while. As I hinted at in my last post, I've decided to take the satellite route. This involves scouring about 4 sites and just sitting down to play satellites with the ultimate goal of going deep in a tournament where the money actually means something. Muckin' about in MTTs and freezeouts for $30-$50 a pop for the chance of winning a few hundred dollars can be a drag. NO, I've decided that my online game, for the moment, will be a satellite-heavy affair for the chance of playing in more meaty MTTs and the chance to win something significant.

I still intend to crack on with visits to The Empire and play the £1/£2 live cash games for sure, but my online game is now going to be taken up mainly with entries into $20-$50 satellites. Variance, of course, will kick in a lot more and huge slumps will be even greater than my cash game downswings - but I've come to realise that it's all lot more of a gamble than I originally thought anyway.

What does this mean for the blog?

Well, as I've realised that poker has a much higher gambling/luck element than when I first started the year, I'm more aware that the chance to increase my profits is more out of my control (particularly as I'm jumping into MTT territory). Let's come clean, one of the reasons I started the blog and thought that it was a good idea in the first place was because I "knew" I had an edge over my opponents and it was more likely that I'd make money than not. Now that I know online poker is more of a gamble (or I'm not as good as I thought I was) and that I'm now going to be playing a much higher variance game, I really don't know if I want to let all and sundry know how I'm getting on financially at the game.

What I'm going to do, therefore, is see how I get on short-term and then consider whether posting profits and losses is still a good idea come the end of the month. We'll see, we'll see. The sites I'll be playing on will be 888, Paddy Power, Party Poker and PKR.

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