Thursday, June 19, 2008

The past 2 days.

Since implementing the mid month emergency goal, I'm not over the moon with the results, overall I'm up and that is the main thing. I've not played more than 2 games at once, and I've not played for hours on end either.

Wednesday - 7 games - 3 cashes - net result - -$3.40.
Thursday - 6 games - 5 cashes - net result - $6.80.

Much happier with today's performance. Still just keeping it at a low pace & not chasing losses for the past, just concentrating on everything hand for hand.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

1 game 1 loss & quite happy.

Why would I be happy losing? Since I went to bed at 2am this morning after losing 5 games, all I could think about was "making it back" But chasing losses is not the way I want to play. So after a long long long day at work, I came home, had my dinner, and jumped om Pacific. Bought in for 1 game, after losing almost $10 last night/this morning, played 1 game as good as I could, got unlucky in a heads up situation and got knocked out 7th. So what did I do next?

I documented my loss, and stopped playing. Why am I quite happy?

1) I played 1 game at a time, like I said I would
2) I lost and didn't re-but into the next game with a losing mentality.

Lets see what tomorrow brings. Hopefully a better result.

Mid month emergency goal

So excited about playing some SnG's on Pacific and making some of my losses back, can you guess what just happened? Yup, you guessed right, played 7 at a time with 2 cashes.

Argh! Goal for June revised.

Playing on Pacific, I still have confidence there but playing 1 at a time. There's still 14 days left. I'm so upset right now it's not funny, I need sleep. Time to rest. Fresh start with a fresh mind tomorrow (today evening).

I don't know who said it originally but whoever did was dead right,

Playing poker is the hardest way to earn easy money!

Monday, June 16, 2008

The rest of the month will be one big grind.

It has been an absolute dismal result for June so far. I started the month with a bankroll of $227.17 and I'm currently on $195.15 which is a loss of $32.02. In my travels I've discovered a game which proves to have a rather large ITM rate. Pacific Poker offer SnG's that are "double or nothing". Buy-in is $2.20 - 10 players - top 5 get $4. Even though this game takes around 30 minutes to complete, and to be honest is utterly boring and very little skill involved, it's proving to be a bit of a cash cow. I'm off my game a little this month. I've been getting greedy, playing too many games at once and trying to hit unrealistic targets. I think last months result blew my head up a bit too much.

A comment left by a fellow poker player, Matthew Pitt - website made a very good comment. Matthew mentioned if I only focus on a monetary value, I will not be focused on playing A grade poker, which is exactly where my focus should be. Matthew, you were dead right and I thank you for your comments and feedback.

For the next 15 days, I'll be grinding it out on these SnG's over at pacific & also preparing my training on micro stakes FL NLHE with Munchrs. Will keep posting updates of results over at pacific.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Training to commence soon.

After conversations with a successful cash game player, I have been fortunate enough to be offered training in my ring games. Something I've gradually improved with over time, but still need some guidance and word of wisdom. Munchrs, has been generous enough to help me with my games.

This is a highly exciting part of my poker career. I can study as much as I can and ask as many questions as I can, but to have someone there to identify strengths and weaknesses will help immensely. There's a bit of work to do first, such as finally get PT3 activated, but I'm really looking forward to this.

To shout out to Munchrs, thank you! Looking forward to working with you and taking the game to the next stage. I'm looking forward to the first post after the first training session.

It's also important to mention that no one this would be possible without being a member of the greatest online poker community - cardschat If anyone is serious about poker and haven't joined this site, then stop reading this and sign up straight away!

See you all soon,
Custo

Monday, June 9, 2008

Miscalculated bankroll

After noticing a small glitch in my SnG tracking spreadsheet, I've since found out that the formulas haven't been working properly. After several hours of digging through sums, I've finally fixed it. I thought I ended on $217.57 last month but now that everything is working, I actually ended up on $227.17.

Because of this I'm editing my goal. In principal its still the same, 50% increase, but the new desired outcome for June is $340.76.

With 21 days left I need $4.72 per day, slightly lower than what I needed 3 days ago which is good.

Overall, I feel I've had much greater success last month, this month is really proving to be more of a challenge. As long as I keep focused, I'll achieve what I've set myself to do. There will be celebrations come June 30 when I hit this. If I hit it early may even take some time off aswell.

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Set over set baby

This hand got me jumping around for about 30 minutes, I just had to post it.

Friday, June 6, 2008

How could I forget that greed = failure!

Last night, for as long as I can remember I had my worst poker session ever, I'm not exaggerating. 12 $3.40 SnG's 11 losses & 1 2nd. I do not remember feeling worse than I felt last night, and honestly, still feel right now. I started with 4 tables at once, within the first 2 minutes I table drew my KK pre-flop, standard in a micro SnG game in level 1 there was like 6 limpers so I raised about 8bb to cut off the limpers and got re-raised. Paused for a few moments worried about AA, but, generally in the first few minutes of a micro SnG, you'll find that people re-raise with garbage, GENERALLY.

Flop came, 8 6 2 rainbow. I lead out with 50% of my remaining stack, opponent shoved in, I call instantly. Can you guess what he turned up? Yes, I should have trusted my instincts. To be honest, that really didn't even upset me that much. So I got knocked out of 1 game with KK vs AA, who cares, it happens. I went on to lose the other 3 games, which for me is odd as I've been averaging at least 2 cashes out of 4 tables. After a break i decided, I've had one unlucky run, it surely cant happen again. Booted up another 4 games and guess what happened. NO CASHES.

Left bewildered and scratching my head I said to myself, I'm not going to mess with my own head. I know I'm better than this. I wont focus on making back what I've lost, I'm going to play my A game and forget what just happened. So I booted up my final 4 games, win lose or draw, this was it for the night. 3 losses & 1 2nd.

So, where do I go from here. Is it time to pack it in and stop chasing such a crazy dream? HELL NO. I had a bad night, it happens, the main thing is to focus on the goal and let nothing deter me. How will I play tonight? Do i chase my losses from yesterday or do I concentrate on what I need to do tonight to contribute towards my month end goal?

CONCENTRATE! Given the shocking performance from last night, I have to make $5.06 per day, every day to hit my goal. This is definitely achievable. So rather than jumping online tonight and making back my $31 dollars I lost last night, this is a fresh session, and I'm going to do what I do best.

Sunday, June 1, 2008

Goals for June 2008.

This month, am setting 2 goals, both with heavy emphasis on money.

1. Bankroll at month end to equal - $326.36

Last month I set myself a goal of having a 50% increase on my total bankroll. Even though I achieved 105%, I’m by no means going to get greedy or cocky. I was happy with a target of 50% so I’m sticking with it. Having also recently readjusted my primary rule of buying into ring games for 2% as opposed to last months 5%, even though I’m playing with more cash, my limits to play will be going up slower.

Last month I profited $111.14, this month to hit 50% I need $108.79. So for me to hit 50% I still need to make around the same amount of money that I did last month and do this while playing the same games, maybe a couple higher ones.

2. Tighten up on my ring games.

Overall I played for 25.45 hours last month and ended up with a loss of $1.97 in ring games. Yes, I had some wins, but I also had some big losses. Even though I know my money is mainly in SnG’s I still need to work on my ring games. From the data that I have, I saw an average of 32.57 flops, this is far too high. I’m hoping to get this number down to around 25% and show a profit at the end of the month.

I’m also planning on recording some sessions and posting them on the web, hopefully some of my peers can take a look at my game play for analysis and offer their feedback & suggestions.

Once again, the aim of the goal is to have a clear focus with a determined outcome and not let the bad days get in the way of achieving something great at the end of the month.