low volume

This month i've played only around 14 hours. It's been quite a struggle with the new job. Even though i've only been working 4 days a week, the adjustment has been a lot harder than I originally thought. A lot of it is due to the long commute, since we haven't quite moved out of the apartment yet. Also, the new job is a little more involved, so mentally it's been draining. However, I feel like i'm settling in, and am once again enjoying work and playing poker again.

Overall I think i'm up around 600-700 in table winnings, but my low volume has put me in danger of being bumped down to gold star. So i'm away this weekend, but will have monday to try to keep platinum status.

For those that are wondering why one would play so many tables at once, the answer is twofold. First, just like at any casino (or restaurants, stores, etc with a frequent diners/shoppers club) one gets bonus points for the volume played. They have labels such as gold star, platinum star (which I am now), then supernova and supernova elite. The difference between platinum star and gold star for instance, is that I in effect earn more bonus for the same amount of play. So when I play 18 tables, that's a decent amount of bonus I can earn. At my current level, I would guess my rakeback is around $12-15/hr. This is kind of my "base salary," and is a nice cushion in case I am running poorly or playing bad.

Second, multi-tabling reduces my risk. if I have 18 tables with 100 dollars each going, as opposed to two tables with 1000 each, my risk of going broke is virtually impossible during that session. Plus, the competition is lesser at the $100 table. If I were ever to try and make a career out of this, I would certainly just try to play 24 tables, and try to cut variance out as much as possible. I think it would be possible to get 4k/month in bonuses alone, doing this roughly 32 hrs/week. But that's really grinding!