Thank god April is over!!!  I had my worst month in over a year.  Made no money playing poker, and according to aiev, I was lucky to be flat.  April 2010 is a historical month because it commemorates the first time in the new DoubleFly poker era (started last spring) where I am officially a Rakeback Pro.  My rakeback is waaay greater than my poker winnings - I made 7K in rakeback.  I usually don't post my rake, but I paid almost 20K last month in rake (an personal all-time record), which is just absurd. 

Weird, but I lost 6K in full ring games and made 6K in 6max.  Go figure.  Probably just noise but I know for a fact a huge chunk of that was 6max playmastering that got annihilated by full ring nits.  When I'm tired, it's a little difficult for me to keep the games separate in my mind.  For example, AK is an instant stack-off in 6 max, but depending on the guy in full ring, you're only going to see KK+ when raised.  When I think back on the month, I'll remember it mostly as the Month of Spew.  I probably lost dozens of buy-ins on playmastering.  Like yesterday, I called a 3bet on the river on a 3 flush board with no flush!!!  I went all-in preflop with 77 and AT.  Playmastering bad.  Really bad.

On the bright side, it was a great learning month, and I think I now have most of the tools I need to be really successful at the games.  It's just a matter of putting it all together.  My latest epiphany is that I need to modify my bet sizing.  It was one thing to play small ball with a bunch of super-tight full ring players.  But when trying to get 3 streets of value, I only win 1/2 a stack when I barrel for value, but they win 3/4 of a stack when they do.  Not a good competitive situation - I just lost a quarter stack on every 3 ball exchange for value.  Also, I think my bets will get a lot more respect in general and make my bluffs more effective.

I'm going to add some Sit and Gos (single table tournaments) to the mix.  Last night, I got bored so I played in two and came in first and third.  If I had to pick a game that fit my current skill set, SNGs are the perfect fit - play nitty with deeper stacks and play the probability game with shorter stacks.  And considering I'm officially a Rakeback Pro now, the rakeback in SNGs is amazing!  The last time I gave this a go, my bubble play was atrocious.  The top 3 get paid 50%, 30%, and 20%.  I would regularly get to the top 4 waaay more than average, but I want to say like 35-40% of the time I came in 4th.  The big goose egg for that effort.  I was playing +ev cash game poker, but -ev when it comes to considering your expected payout in a tournament.  Anyway, I'll see how mixing in SNGs to my cash games goes - it couldn't get any worse than making no money!  Or can it?