April Is the Coolest Month

Spent a little time today looking over the April stats. Turned out to be a terrific month -- my third-best ever. My previous all-time best month was last April, actually. Something about the springtime, I suppose.

Ended up playing a lot of different games over the last thirty days. I could go back and check, but I probably played fewer hands of Hold ’em (a little under 400) during April than in any previous month since I started playing online poker.

Altogether I played about 8,200 hands of poker, not counting tournaments (of which I only played a couple, the only significant cash being last Saturday). Most of the hands were pot limit Omaha (61.1%), followed by Stud/8 (20.1%), H.O.R.S.E. (12.3%), and limit Hold ’em (4.6%). I played one short session of Stud Hi and PLO/8 (both times having accidentally sat down at those tables). Also played a few hands of five card stud on Bodog.

Essentially broke even in those Hold ’em hands. Won a little at H.O.R.S.E. and a little more at Stud/8. But by far most of my winnings for the month -- nearly 90% -- came at the PLO tables.

Why did April go so well? I ran well, I know. The biggest difference, though, had to be the fact that I rarely bought in short all month. I had been in the habit of buying in for $10 at the PLO25 tables, employing the short-stacker’s strategy of looking for spots to gamble and double up. Was mostly working, I suppose, but I had come to realize that once I did get a bigger stack I tended to make better decisions.

Finally I just started buying in for the max. every time, and while I did get stacked every once in a while, my overall swings were actually less dramatic than they were when I was primarily buying in short.

Of course, it helped to have hands like this one (from last night):



What a massacre! Bodies all over the stage. Doesn’t hurt to have a big stack, I suppose, when the cards come out so agreeably.

Let’s keep it goin’ in May, why don’t we?