A whole year of 6 max cash

I have been playing 6 max cash games for exactly one year so this is the story so far…..

I really can’t believe it is only a year ago that I decided to switch over from donkaments and give cash games some serious attention. I used a bit of my bankroll to buy the nuts of a computer and put some dollars on stars to use as my 6 max ‘roll’. My surplus bankroll was put into a separate savings account, not be used to top up my new bankroll.

I began at 50NL and started OK but was soon introduced to a thing called variance. Obvioulsy I had experienced variance in donkaments but suddenly everything was much more intense. My daily swings were pretty scary to begin with but I soon discovered Cardrunners and was comforted by similar stories in the forums. For the next few months I worked hard on the fundamentals, watched CR videos and browsed the forums a lot. I focused hard on my pre-flop game, probably too hard, and from some of my early blog entries it is clear that I was by no means a good player. The games were so bad however that I was crushing 50NL and ready to move up.

I found the move to 100NL very tough and was up and down between the levels for a while. There where many “F*** cash games” moments during these times and I was close to quitting on a number of occasions. Fortunately I always came back more determined than ever the next day.

I was now facing better opponents but my biggest problem was my play on later streets (if only I had known that at the time). I was still focusing too much on my pre-flop stats thinking ‘if I can play 21/18 I will crush 100NL’. Well to play 21/18 you need to be ready to play on the turn and river as well because people don’t fold to your cbets so much and this was a problem for me!

With good table selection, however, I managed to grind my roll up and in March 2008 I moved up to 200NL. After a longish breakeven stretch I got some coaching and it was made clear to me how bad my turn/river play actually was. Immediately things improved and this was my biggest ‘light bulb’ moment to date!

I have now played almost 100,000 at 200NL and am beating it for exactly 3PTBB/100. This includes all my pre-coaching numbers and since that ‘light bulb’ moment my 200NL winrate is higher.

Overall my first year of cash games has been great fun and I have enjoyed learning something new every day. I have made good progress, and will hopefully continue to do so, but the biggest lesson I have learned is that I will never stop learning.