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.

Revision of May goals.

So, how did I do?

Goal #1 - Don't abuse any player under any circumstances.

DONE. As tempting as it was, or as frustrated as I got against people calling with K high or hitting their 2 outer on the river, I didn't abuse a single player or hand. Looking back, I'm still convinced when I did it, it only made matters worse for my own state of mind. So someone makes an unbelievably shocking call and wins, how does me abusing them help me achieve what I'm after? It doesn't! Last month I just bit my tongue, and stayed focused on what I had to do.


Goal #2 - Play with discipline - walk away when going down NOT going broke.

DONE. (but can always get a little better at it). My personal biggest challenge by far. That undesirable need to 'make it back' after a losing session can send even the best in the world broke. So many times I would lose 50% or 70% and refuse to leave the table or call it quits, I had to get it back before I called it a day. More often than not, I would not only lose, I would re-buy and lose again. Anyone that plays enough poker can relate to this. Without discipline, I can forget taking this game seriously. I am happy with results for this goal, but I can always get better.


Goal #3 - Start to Multi-Table cash games - starting with 4 tables - aim for $5/hour on .01-.02.

FAIL. Failure for what I feel is a good reason. May 11th, I transferred to Noble poker to exclusively play SnG's. After such success in SnG's, and the odd MTT, I re-evaluated my options and decided that I am more profitable on SnG's. I failed in this goal because I didn't feel I would gain much. At this stage I still have a lot to learn with ring games, especially multi tabling ring games. I feel I will re-visit this goal, or one very similar, in the next coming months.


Goal #4 - Bankroll at month end to equal - $159.20.

DONE. My proudest achievement. I can't explain how happy I am with my financial month end results. Even though I ended far beyond what I'd hope for, even if I had ended with $159.20, I'd still be ecstatic, the fact that I ended with $217.57, makes that so much better. I hit this part on May 15, re-set the goal to achieve $200, and hit that May 24, went on a little tilt playing ring games which put mt under, then got it back over on May 28 and didn't look back.

Overall? I couldn't be happier with a better month. I still find it hard to be playing such small stakes, but I just remind myself of the following which helps me keep focused. "The journey of 1000 miles begins with 1 step".

May 1st 2008 - Bankroll = $106.13
May 31st 2008 - Bankroll = $217.57

Going back to Poker Stars.

With the current bankroll just over $200, following my rules, I am now positioned to move up a level. When I first started SnG’s on Poker Stars, I was grinding away on the 9 players, $1.20. These games completely did my head in! It wasn’t really the stakes that upset me; it was the fact that these games are non-turbo. With blinds being increased every 10 minutes I was frustrated with the pace of play. Online SnG’s typically are finished with 45 minutes, with non-turbo games going for up to 1 hour & 20 minutes it was doing my head in.

Once I’d moved over to Noble and was properly cashed up, I was playing 12 players, $2.40 buy-ins. After 71 games in 16 days I had a ‘in the money’ rate of 49.3% and ‘return on investment’ of 46.5% I was missing Poker Stars, primarily because the interface and variety of games, in my opinion, is the greatest offered in the online poker world.

So tonight, transferred some funds into Poker stars and played 2 games. First game finished 7th and, yes, 1st in the second game. My bankroll as of tonight supports 61 buy-ins. should I have a bad run and drop to <51 buy-ins, I have no problem going back to Noble to grind back up.

To end, I wanted to show the final hand that won me the tourney, I couldn’t really have asked for a better outcome.

A couple big announcements

1. Ring games have put me on tilt.

The realty is my ring games just aren’t as strong as my SnG’s. After playing a patient session on 4 ring games I lost a substantial amount of my bankroll the other night. Am extremely disappointed with this and will be stepping away from them for a little while.

After much analysis of all me ring sessions, when I win, I win small and when I lose, I lose big. I think I’m approaching ring games with not enough patience, which is detrimental. I’ve proven to myself that I am steadily increasing my bankroll via SnG’s and the odd MTT so that’s what I’ll be focusing on for the next couple of months.

I’m not going to back of ring games all together, I’ll never grow and develop if I do, but whilst I grind my way up to a decent bankroll that will allow me to play games a little higher than .01./.02 I’m focusing on tourneys. I’ve previously found that I am slightly more successful at higher cash games than I am at the lower ones. Maybe because at this level, people will play and chase ANYTHING, and when that happens and people suck-out on me, it’s easy to go on tilt thus destroying the entire session.


2. Re-evaluation of bankroll rules

I’ve been following basic bankroll management rules of the following:
•Ring games -never buy-in for more than 5% of total bankroll
•SnG’s -have a minimum of 50 buy-ins for that game
•MTT - have a minimum of 50 buy-ins for that game

I’m changing my ring game to 2% of my total bankroll starting immediately. Better to be the side of caution. If I plan to take this seriously I need to be more patient. It will come, it’s just the early days that will be a grind. If I can make it through the early stages, I’m ready to run.

I’m also changing the MTT buy-in to a minimum of 100. MTT’s can be very hard to ‘cash’ on a regular basis. Even if you do cash but not that high up, the return on investment generally is nothing exceptional and hardly worth the time out in to get that return.

These rules are in place to protect my finances now, and for the future. Yes it does mean that growing and developing will take a little longer, but when I look back in 12-18 months, I’m sure I’ll have made the correct decision.

OMG - What are the odds of this happening?

Prior to reading this, please make sure you've read the previous post.

OK.

So, after success yesterday in a MTT, decided to give it another go. Can you guess what happened?



2 3rd's, back to back. Could be worse, could have not cashed in either. All I can do is laugh. As I was yesterday, am over the moon with the result, just can't believe I came 3rd again.

Aside from that, had an absolute deplorable day on the SnG's. 9 games with only 1 cash (2nd). I do know where I went wrong. Normally I play 2 tables at a time. This morning decided to play all 4 at once. Played far too loose too early and didn't even make one final table. It's all good, will be sticking to my 2 tables on SnG's from now on. After all the losses on the SnG's and the 3rd in the MTT, ended up $0.56. Not the greatest hourly profit, considering I played around 6 hours. But a profit is better than a loss.

Will be slowing down for tomorrow, always play less during the week due to time constraints, but that won't be forever.

Bankroll at start of day - $204.62
Bankroll at end of day - $205.18

Don't usually get upset when making money - but it does happen.

It's relatively straight forward. 2 hours and 44 minutes and I missed 1st place by 2 spots. Whilst I'm over the moon with a ROI of 797.73%, it is so hard to swallow the fact that I was so close to winning, and just missed. Felt I played very well, super tight for the first hour, as you must play in a micro MTT. 1 or 2 bad calls in the late stages which put me on the short stack, hence, not allowing the win. Still, not a bad day at the office. I'll take the 797.73% return everyday of the week if possible.

Furthermore, the $19.75 win, plus another $4.80 on SnG's has boosted my bankroll over $200. Not only have I achieved my bankroll goal for May, I have achieved my revised bankroll goal, and it's only the 24th.

Happy with the money but, damn, first would have been nice.

Back on track.

After a disappointing result a couple days ago am happy to report that's been recovered plus some. Playing such small stakes, at the most time is quite frustrating as the only thing stopping me from player higher limits is cash (bankroll management). Did manage to get through a fair amount of games. 11 SnG's with 6 cashes, 2 of which were wins.

When you're a competitive person, there's nothing worse than losing.
When you're trying to fulfill a dream, there's nothing better than having the discipline to sit down, know what you must do and do it, regardless of previous results.

Bankroll at last post = $171.47
Bankroll at this post = $182.27

PS. Am revising Part 4 of my May goal, bankroll now aimed to be $200.
PPS. Am also proud to say, all other parts or May goal haven't been broken.
PPPS. I'm not a fan of posts without either a picture or graph. Below you will see the graph of all SnG's played at Noble Poker, lets keep it climbing.