One Year; 100K

Well, 2019 is almost done, and I've completed my goal on playing 100K hands on PokerSnowie.

Here's some stats:

	Cumulative Average	# of Hands	20K Average
After 20K	16.51	20,567	16.65
After 40K	15.31	40,939	13.71
After 60K	15.07	61,098	14.63
After 80K	14.10	81,123	11.25
After 100K	13.48	101,137	11.00

As the table above shows, I improved with each block of 20K of hands (unweighted averages).  I started with a score of about 16.65 (the unweighted average for the first 20K hands).  That would earn me an 'intermediate' rating.  A score of around 11 puts me at 'expert'.  (8 is the dividing line between expert and world class. Better than 4 gives you an extra-terrestrial rating.)

I do feel I've improved this year.  I don't think I'd call myself an expert, though.

My account expires in early January, and I'm debating whether to renew.

Pros:

• It lets you put in unlimited volume against serious competition at a relatively low buy in.
• Errors get flagged immediately during play for reinforcement. 
• Preflop skills get polished pretty quickly.

Cons:

• It's sometimes tough to understand what the error was, and so hard to visualize how to improve.  PokerSnowe tells you that you've lost EV (expected value) but it's not clear sometimes what lesson should be learned.
• It does seem clear that I did improve so some of these lessons have been internalized.  Improvement looks to have slowed over time.
• My account froze inexplicably in some of the early months due to how their system is set up.  Customer support refused to credit me for the lost usage.  An extra couple of days tacked on my account would seem to be fair for being locked out of my account.
• It can be tough to grind out the volume, as playing for actual cash is more enjoyable.

At this point, I'm leaning toward renewal along with some type of volume goal for 2020.  Not sure if I'd be able to hit 100K again...  I should also learn how to use the scenarios, as I never took advantage of that feature.