I was bored and messing around on 2p2, flipping through BBV and other threads that are poker's equivalent to supermarket tabloids as far is educational value goes, and came across one comment, with one checkbox, that actually provided some valuable insight. Some guy who went from $100 to $40k in a relatively short period of time posted a graph of his progress that included all of the hands. One of the comments read as follows (I think this is pretty close to verbatim, not sure though):

[x] proof that bankroll growth is exponential

The graph resembled a perfect exponential function (obviously the line wasn't perfectly smooth, otherwise I would have demanded coaching or instructions for obtaining a superuser account). Such an insight was valuable to me because it was extremely difficult for me to start with $100 or whatever and try to grind it up while reading blogs about players having 5 even 6 figure swings. It seemed completely out of the question to get to that level. Certainly, I am unlikely ever to get to where I'm having those types of swings anyway, but the point is that even though poker can be a slow, boring grind, progress will accelerate (assuming you're a decent player). It's simply a matter of patience, discipline, and consistency.

Now, patience, discipline, and consistency are three things I have never possessed in great measure. Therein, I think, lies much of why poker is so attractive to me. Many things have come easily to me, but success at this silly game we play is requiring me to cultivate some habits and parts of myself that are sorely lacking. Hopefully I can be successful at this too.

Cheers, folks.

Warning: Post is poker-related and will likely be painfully obvious to many.

I have a few minutes until my next class and don't have time to make it home and don't feel like studying, so I thought I would do some work relating to poker.

One thing that I have never spent any time thinking about (let alone doing) is how to prepare for a session properly. It has always been "well I have some free time and I'm bored... Poker it is!" I've begun to see that this is a pretty foolish approach. I think much of what attracts me to poker is the competition, and having been an athlete in a past life, I would equate this to stepping onto the field without having warmed up your muscles. The mind needs a little kick-start as well.

In addition to preparing to start a session, an approach to managing sessions as they go and ending them are two crucial aspects of the game to which I have given little thought, and it has cost me. Playing too long or at inopportune times and not taking breaks have been my downfall. Prior to the one I am playing on and working on building now (my biggest ever: yay), every roll I have ever built has been lost not due to sick downswings and prolonged periods of time in games where I was a loser, but at the tail end of long sessions where I have wound up on monkey tilt, spewing more and more money at higher and higher limits. Just writing that is thoroughly embarrassing, hopefully enough so as to prevent it again.

Below is my proposed approach:

[B]Pre-Session Preparation[/b]

1. Physical/Mental Check - Before I play I need to ask myself if there is any reason I should not. Am I tired? Hungry? Angry? Do I have other things pressing that I know I should be taking care of as opposed to playing poker? There is a Buddhist saying that says something to the effect of "an elevated spirit is a weakness, just as a depressed one is." Relating this to poker, am I going to be able handle having a losing, or possibly even only a marginally profitable session? If I go in hoping to win 10 buy-ins, will I be disappointed if I don't? Will I go broke trying?

2. Be sure the space I'm playing in is clean and orderly - In general, I'm a pretty big slob, which is fine for my normal activities of reading, partying, tv watching, and music listening. However, it is very difficult for me to focus when my room is a mess. Ideally, the room will be in the same condition I like to have it in when I am studying.

3. Getting in the Poker Mind-Set - Once the previous two have been satisfied, the decision to play has essentially been made, and now I should be looking to get myself focused. I think the best way to do this will be reading excerpts from some of the books I have, various poker blogs, or forums on 2p2 (those that are of substantive value).

4. Choosing something to focus on - To me, part of the beauty of poker is that on its surface it is so simple (one can learn to play in just a few minutes), but it is a game of great subtlety and nuance. Having acknowledged this, improving one's game takes time, and there are so many aspects of it. So, I am going to pick 2-3 aspects of my game to really focus on prior to starting each session.

If anyone has any further suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

GL

I have noticed, as I'm sure many of you have, that some of the most successful online players have blogs that they update on a semi-regular basis. Now, much of this has to do with marketing the training sites of which they are a part, but this does not eliminate the possible benefits to them. My question to anyone who cares to respond to it is this: how much, if at all, do you guys think having a blog helps your poker game?

I've been blogging for a very short period of time, but I do feel like it has helped me immensely and will continue to do so. What do you guys think? Obviously, there is a good chance that the sample is simply biased, because a losing player would not be likely to stick with poker and blog about losing constantly (though this could be very entertaining, I suppose, equal parts tragic and hilarious). Just a thought.

On to the goals...

I decided that part of the reason I have had trouble managing a bankroll in the past is because I never really had a figured that I wanted to reach in mind. I think a friend of mine summed up the problem a lot of gamblers have when he said "Some people simply can't win. When they lose, they lose; when they win, they only want to win more, and then they lose." Ambiguity is something that I prefer to minimize, and not knowing where exactly I wanted to go poker-wise has been a crippling form of it.

So, I'm setting a what I feel is a modest goal of having $10k of completely disposable money in the bank by this summer. I have withdrawn most of my roll (the heater has continued and I have run it up to just under $6k) and left myself with $1500 online to begin playing .25/.50. I plan to focus on HU because it seems so profitable, I have found there to be many bad players, and the game moves faster. Most of the money I have cashed out will be going towards various purchases I have been hoping to make for a while, so this does not put me halfway to the goal. However, I feel like I am off to a good start.

Now, this goal is serving a larger goal I have, which is to spend either next year, or at least a semester of it, studying in London. I have heard this is difficult for law students, but I do not think I will have a problem. Having that extra money will hopefully allow me to do some traveling while I am over there. I have actually been to Europe 3 times before, but never for any more than 3 weeks. I want an extended stay where I can jump from country to country on the weekends. I especially want to see Prague, Rome, and Amsterdam.

GL at the tables,

ARMM

...Having somebody quit you.

This is an embarrassingly new experience for me, and I must admit I do get a kick out of someone admitting defeat, gathering their chips, so to speak, and leaving.

On the other hand, the person is essentially admitting that you have an edge on him when he quits you, so he is also depriving you of a a profitable situation. Oh well.

I've continued to run fairly well, and even fought my way through a "downswing" of about $500 dollars. The roll is up to about $3500, which feels fantastic.

I feel like my game (and by "game" I mean my approach to the poker experience as a whole) has really started to come together. Of course, it's easy to feel this way when running well, but I truly believe I have been playing well, too. I have been thinking through all of my decisions and having a rationale for each play I make. One thing I am working on is being alright with ending a session in the red. I am not going to win every time I sit down to play. This used to drive me crazy and was one of the main reasons I always wound up going busto is because I would chase losses. Lately, after a session that ends with me down, I have been able to say "well I lost $300 today, but I'm still up over the past 2 days, since I won $400 yesterday" etc. Again, I realize this is small for many of you who might be reading this, but it is huge for me.

I also have been able to think through an entire hand from the beginning rather than simply playing one street at a time, which has led to some hugely profitable situations. I was going to type out sample hand, but decided I'm too lazy. Suffice it to say, it helps.

Anyway, does anyone have any experience running HEM or PT on a Mac using bootcamp? If anyone has anything to say about this, please leave a comment for me.

GL ya'all

So I haven't posted as regularly as I would have liked, but I also haven't played nearly as much as I would have liked either, so that's alright.

My 8:45 AM class that usually meets tomorrow got canceled, so I decided to shut it down early as far as studying goes, and go sit with a friend of mine and play some of the poker. My roll now stands at just over $3k. Or 3BB if you're sitting in the Thunderdome or Rail Heaven. Once again, I excluded myself for a couple of days so I can do some studying (both for school and for poker) and just cool off a bit. I feel like every time I've ever been on any sort of roll, I get into a mode where I feel like I can't lose and I have to win every pot, which obviously results in massive spewing, which results in massive tilt, which inevitably leads to me going bust.

The money never seems real when it comes that quickly... Until of course it leaves at the same pace. Leaving it alone gives me time to reflect and say "I've got X dollars to work with" and think about what I could do with that amount of money. Being a student (read: broke), even if I kept just $1000 online, that would be enough for me to play the games I should be playing now and generate enough income every month to make a real difference in my lifestyle. Even if I just enough money to pay my rent every month, that would help. I don't spend a ton of money, mostly since I don't have the time. And there certainly isn't time to have a part-time job with the rigors of law school (at least not one that would allow me to also study enough to get the sort of grades I'm aiming for), but being able to make a little money at any hour of the day from anywhere I can get internet access would be pretty nice.

Of course, I would imagine virtually every word written above is common sense to most all of you, but it's taken me an embarrassing amount of time to realize this. I hope it sticks this time.

As far as learning goes, in addition to the books and the videos, I've been messing around some on 2p2 and found a link to Cole South's blog (with entries that date back to when he first started playing, way before he was a CR pro). It's very interesting to see the progression of a high stakes regular from 1/2 NL. Of course the games were much softer back then (he goes from 2/4 to 10/20 in like 4 months), but it was noteworthy for me to see where he came from poker-wise, as it's easy to rail a big game and not think about how the players made it there. They once played low stakes as well.

As far as school goes our (much needed) fall break is next week, which I'm really looking forward too. I'm going to go visit some friends and just spend a week engaging my brain as little as possible.

GL at the tables.

So anyone who checked out my previous/inaugural blog entry (thanks to all of you) knows that last week I ran $50 to just over $1000 during class one day and then locked my account for a week to give myself time to cool off/study a bit and give myself a chance to sustain some money in poker and manage a bankroll properly. It worked out rather nicely.

I had been studying (for school) most of the evening and was beginning to wind down when I realized that my self exclusion period would be ending within the hour. So, having a little bit of degen in me, I waited anxiously to be able to jump in the game. I decided to play a 6max SnG and some $50NL HU. The SnG went poorly, as I wound up spewing off my entire stack once I got bored, but I managed to book a 6BI win in the cash game in just under an hour (if I thought I could do this consistently, I would probably have to reconsider this whole law school business).

Sadly I do not have any hands to post because A) I don't have HEM/PT (playing on a Mac and don't have the parallels set up yet... anyone with any words of wisdom on this matter, please let me know. I feel like Mac's are looked down upon in the online poker community, but, at least for non poker stuff, I'll never go back to a PC if I can avoid it) and B) I did not have my FTP account set up to automatically save my hand histories.

At any rate, I feel like I played pretty well. Obviously this is easy to say when running well, but I literally need to improve every aspect of my game as I generally just played my cards without any regard to what my opponent might have, think I have, or think I think he has, etc. I actually put thought into each of my decisions and think I was able to get maximum value on my big hands. I was even able to make a huge river bluff work based on my read and how I thought my opponent say me thanks to some hands where I 3-bet pretty light getting show down.

All in all, I can already tell it's helped my game tremendously to invest time in the "poker experience" as a whole, rather than just playing. After just a week this has included reading a ton about poker (finished Harrington's first cash game book today), thinking about it some, and studying. I think I may even do some writing on the topic eventually, but seriously doubt I'll be posting any such drivel here. Why read my nonsense when you could read G-Bux, etc? Anyone with any advice regarding material to study or other ways to elevate my game WHEN NOT PLAYING please let me know.

GL at the tables.

Greetings everyone,

I'm starting this blog in hopes of simultaneously starting an illustrious poker career. I've been playing online poker and and off (mostly off) for the past couple years, rarely very seriously, and never with any discipline. In general, I've deposited a small amount when bored (usually $50-100) and run it up to $1000+ before liquidating the account by either cashing it all out or just busting it (usually the latter).

So, last monday I was sitting in class (I'm a first year law student, hence the name and blog title) being extremely bored and decided to deposit $50 and see if some SnG action could help drown out my professor. It did, and by the end of the day (I proceeded to play through my next couple classes as well) I had run the account up to just over $1000.

This is generally the point when I would go busto, since you obviously have to be playing WAY too high for your roll to increase it by such a percentage, and for some reason I could never bring myself to move down... I know, great discipline, right?

So my last class ended and I was heading back to my apartment with the intention of playing some more when it occurred to me that I had a decent chunk of change (at least by my standards, no doubt a mere pittance to many of you high stakes players) with which I could actually play stakes where the amount of money I could win would matter to me while exercising proper(ish) BR management. So I made what was probably the smartest poker decision I've ever made, and excluded myself from online play for 7 days. I decided to spend at least a week, and probably more, preparing myself to take a shot at sustaining an income at this game WITHOUT ACTUALLY PLAYING.

Over the past week, I have read Sklanksy's "Theory of Poker," Schoonmaker's "Psychology of Poker," Colin Moshman's SnG book, Tommy Angelo's "Elements of Poker," and am about halfway through the first book in Dan Harrington's cash game series. I've also read various forums on 2p2, including many of the "wells" (Jman's was great, and of course I should give a shout to aejones, as his was also excellent). If anyone has any other suggested readings, please let me know.

So, the goal is to see if I can't make some decent money while still giving school the required attention (they weren't kidding when they told me law school would be a ton of reading). I'm thinking I'll start tomorrow with some $22 SnGs, but really want to move to 50NL HU as soon as possible. Any comments/advice would be welcome, though I suppose I should expect a lot of "tl;dr"s.

GL at the tables.