Grinding aint easy

Many thanks to the nice comments everyone left on my last post, 'tis truly appreciated, as it's something I actually feel I accomplished, other than you know, winning monies.

So after popping my grinder cherry this month, I've realized that maintaining grinder status is going to be a challenge in of itself. There hasn't been a day this month where I haven't experienced ridiculous 1k+ swings. Take yesterday for instance. I played 24 games in the afternoon and cashed a cool $800. Later on in the evening I played only 18 more and lost it all plus $400 more to end up losing. Not fun. Today I started nicely, grinding it up to the tune of $1100 over 30 games, all just to see it go down in flames over just 15 or so more games. But, being the grinder that I am, I pounded out 30 or more games and profited over $1500. It's so much fun.

I think playing continuous is the cause of this sick variance. When I played sets, I could keep a clear mind throughout each one, rather than the madness that ensues when playing continuous. All that confusion has to be messing with my mind at times, and I'm probably sacrificing some ROI to obtain the more efficient continuous method, but overall, since I'm playing more games per hour, it's worth it.

The month itself isn't really going as planned as far as my grandiose $20k goal goes. At the half way point here, I'm sitting at $5676, which, all things considered, is actually good, but only half of my actual goal. I knew a 20k month would be pretty much impossible, but I thought I'd start high, and see where I ended up.

The problem is, even with my hyper-increase of games/day, I'm still no where near the amount that that top player on Stars puts in a month. I've averaged about 65 games/day so far, which is just sick, but to obtain a $20k month, I'm going to need to be averaging at least 80 if not more a day, which at this point just seems like too much. I can only legitimately play for 3-4 hours at a time without losing my mind, at least for the moment.

I think what I'll need to do is increase the number of tables from 8 to 10, and eventually 12. I think I could handle it if I was playing just $60s, but when the $114s are mixed in, I think even 10 is pushing it at this point.

I'll leave with the limp-call of the day. A segment I'm hoping to turn into a daily post. Enjoy...

PokerStars Game #5940122920: Tournament #30080281, $55+$5 Hold'em No Limit - Level VI (100/200) - 2006/08/16 - 15:40:53 (ET)
Table '30080281 1' 9-max Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: jbotballs (2835 in chips)
Seat 2: bkfrem4ever (1775 in chips)
Seat 3: Basurero (3790 in chips)
Seat 6: asuna_11 (745 in chips)
Seat 7: RikkiDee (950 in chips)
Seat 8: beastiemiked (3405 in chips)
beastiemiked: posts small blind 100
jbotballs: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to RikkiDee [Th Ks]
bkfrem4ever: folds
Basurero: calls 200
asuna_11: folds
RikkiDee: raises 750 to 950 and is all-in
beastiemiked: folds
jbotballs: calls 750
Basurero: folds
*** FLOP *** [Kh Jd 2d]
*** TURN *** [Kh Jd 2d] [Qd]
*** RIVER *** [Kh Jd 2d Qd] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
jbotballs: shows [3s 2s] (a pair of Deuces)
RikkiDee: shows [Th Ks] (a pair of Kings)
RikkiDee collected 2200 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 2200 | Rake 0
Board [Kh Jd 2d Qd 8s]
Seat 1: jbotballs (big blind) showed [3s 2s] and lost with a pair of Deuces
Seat 2: bkfrem4ever folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Basurero folded before Flop
Seat 6: asuna_11 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 7: RikkiDee (button) showed [Th Ks] and won (2200) with a pair of Kings
Seat 8: beastiemiked (small blind) folded before Flop

Yes these are actually my opponents...

EDIT - Wow, I just realized that the hand I posted wasn't even a limp-call... it was just a stupid blind call and the limper folded. Still funny though.