Righto, blog time again. After the live session I went out for a drink with a few of the other Graders; myself and Dom stayed out for a while and ended up having a few more than was strictly necessary to keep ourselves adequately hydrated (to put it mildly). I stayed the night at Dom’s place in Greenwich, then at about 2pm woke up and set off on an hour long tube journey across London to Wembley Park to collect my car and drive the two hours back to my place in Nottingham, allowing me just enough time to get my six hours play in followed by some much needed recovery time from a terrible, terrible hangover.

However, as I stepped off the train in Wembley, I suddenly realised I didn’t have any keys on me at all. I made a quick phone call to Dom, he turned his flat over and the keys weren’t there so, lacking the ability to open doors using ‘The Force’, I had to call the RAC to come and let me into my car. Dom has since discovered the keys sitting in plain view on top of his kitchen counter, but to be fair, calling the RAC was actually quicker than the two trips across London I’d have had to make to pick them up. The RAC used the latest technology - a doorstop and a metal rod with a bend in it - to get my door open and fortunately I’d left the spare key to the car with all the documents in the glove box (not really that wise I guess, but hey, who’s laughing now?) so I could get it started and head home.

I didn’t get back until gone 8pm so I would have to play right through until 2am at least if I were to get my hours in. It turns out I don’t have the mental stamina for a six-hour session and I had to take a break after three hours, so didn’t end up finishing till 3.30 in the morning, sigh. Despite having to prop up my eyelids with matchsticks and running like a one-legged leper at times, I managed a small win overall. Meanwhile I also found time to trawl the Black Belt Poker website, read all the posts on the Graders’ wall and enter into a prop bet with Sida.

Entering into a win rate prop bet with the winningest player in the Grading so far, as well as probably the most qualified six-max cash grinder in the whole group, might not be the brightest idea I’ve ever had, but I consider it a statement of intent on my part. If you want to be the best, you’ve got to beat the best. Of course, I could be setting myself up for a fall here if I finish 30 buy-ins down at the end of the four weeks and I’ve bet one of the best six-max cash players in the UK that I could beat them. Never mind, with the odds I got I don’t think it’s that bad an investment. It’ll also act as yet another source of motivation for me to search out every little edge I can to maximise my win rate. I’ll share some of my thoughts on that now.

I data mined the six-max cash games at several levels before the Grading, so I could find out who the regulars were and table select more efficiently, but it also gave me an interesting little fact about the ‘beatability’ of the game at various levels. The average win rate at $0.25/0.50 for the 18,000 players for which I have data was -9.13bb/100. Since poker is a zero-sum game, this amount represents the rake, so in a six-handed game this means that roughly 55bb ($27.50) comes off the table every 100 hands, which sounds about right.

In a similar timeframe I tracked around 4,000 players at the $2/4 level, for whom the average win rate was only -3.56bb/100. In absolute terms more money is still being raked from the bigger game, roughly 21bb or $84 every 100 hands, but relatively the $2/4 game is cheaper and ‘easier’ to beat, i.e. a 1bb/100 loser at $0.25/0.50 would, against the same opposition, win 4.5bb/100 at $2/4. Obviously, ‘against the same opposition’ is a big caveat and our 1bb/100 loser would be very lucky indeed to find the same standard of game, with an open seat, at $2/4.

What I have to work out is, does the reduced quality of the opposition at $0.25/0.50 make up for the greatly increased rake? If I don’t feel it does, I’ll drop down to four tables at $0.25/0.50, then back up to 12 tables when we’re playing $1/2 to increase the weighting of my average win rate in favour of my $1/2 play, where I believe the chances are it’ll be higher.

I’ve not made this decision yet, I think I’ll keep it to myself for now, but if Nik follows through on his threat to reveal our usernames, just check up to see how many tables I’m playing to find out.

Right, it’s time for me to start today’s play. Inabit lads.