I haven't posted to this blog in nearly four years. My poker playing has been maintained, but I usually just play twice or three times a month in Weatherford. However, over the past 15-18 months I have made some tweaks to my game that have had some interesting and profitable results. What I've found out in that time period was in the past, while I was still profiting over the long term, I was folding too much. Hero folds are certainly a necessary tool for a winning poker player, but it turns out I was not making enough crying calls and sniffing out bluffs.
I went to WinStar last night and posted a very profitable night at the $1-3 game, cashing out a $770 profit. This was bolstered by raking the biggest pot I've ever won in my life. I had K-3 of clubs and was chip leader at the table after doubling up with pocket kings a few hands earlier. I wanted to splash around a little bit and the table was very reasonable for WinStar except one guy to my immediate left who was making pot-sized bets and not getting called to showdown.
I raised to $13 with my suited king in early position and got three callers (one being the big bettor to my left and another being a short stack to my immediate right). The flop came out A-7-3 with two clubs. The short stack to my right checked and I made a continuation bet of $25. The guy on my left called, the other opponent folded, and the short stack raised all in for another $35. I thought about my options and decided that if I ended up hitting my flush or another good card for trips or two pair I wanted the guy to my left to stick around. So after some delayed thinking to sell the idea that I had a decent enough hand to move forward with but not strong enough to make raise with I called. The guy to my left called as well. We went to the turn with a pot of $225 and one player all in.
The turn was the beautiful 8 of clubs, giving me the nut flush. I think I made a bet of about $75 just to keep the pace going because I wanted to make sure that our stacks got in by the river. After my $75 bet I was left with about $500 and my opponent had about $525 prior to my bet. The aggressive guy didn't disappoint and immediately went all in. I checked my cards one more time to very I had the nuts and called. The river was a blank and I scooped a $1,400 pot and was basking in how wonderful it was to be me at the moment. The aggressive guy to my left had 10-9 of clubs and needed the six or jack of clubs for a straight flush. The guy to my right didn't show, but said he had flopped a set. I faded a few cards on the river that could have hurt, but luck was on my side and I was up $1,100 for the session after only an hour of play.
I lost about $150 on a hand when I had jacks and turned a set, but it gave him a straight. I lost the minimum though as the river turned out to put a four-card straight on the board, so it went check-check.
For the year, I ended up playing the most hours and winning the most money I ever have since I started keeping formal records in 2009. My hourly rate is also the second highest it has ever been, with the highest having come on a very small sample size in 2009 that is an outlier.
I profited $6,150 this year and played 182.75 hours, resulting in an hourly rate of $33.65. I had two winning sessions of $1,145 and $1,015, but other than those the rest were a lot of winning nights. I also had the best year in the Weatherford tournament with 9 first place finishes, 9 second place finishes, and 1 third place finish. I didn't cash 11 times, so the probability of cashing in the tournament this year was 63%. The amount of players in the tournament was down this year and we mostly only had a single table going, but it was still really great to know that nearly a two out of three chance I would cash in the tournament.
My strategies this year seem to be paying off and I intend to keep the run going into 2023. I hope to play a little more and possibly get to 200 hours of play. I also am going to set a goal for myself to win $5,000. I know that is less than I won this year, but considering the next highest profit for a single year prior to this one was $2,355 I want to be sure 2022 wasn't an outlier.
