So I completed the first month of playing today. Overall I guess I am relatively happy with the results, I am not really sure how to measure what is "good" success but I ended up some money so I guess I cant really complain. That said I do wish I would have played a little better. I felt I started off the month playing very well, and was feeling good about my game. Then I kind of tapered off a bit in the middle. I am not really sure why this happened. After the lull in the middle of the month I felt like I got back to playing much better even though this isn't really reflected in money won. I still think I was playing much better, just took a small run of bad luck/a few really bad beats but meh what are ya gana do. I think I am gana send some of my stats to my buddy Craig and see if he will be kind enough to look them over and give me a little feed back on how he thinks my game looks.



So goals for next month:
Play more hands. I think I am going to set my minimum hands played goal for 3k
Also try to win enough money to cover the cost of poker tracker, I think thats around $80. This isn't something that I "need" to do just would be a nice goal to shoot for to have my game pay for the software, either way I defiantly think that PT is a must have so I will buy it when my trial runs out for sure.

Here is the 1st months graph:

So I am taking an EMT course this semester in preparation for hopefully becoming a firefighter when I graduate (and yes I am currently going to college getting a business degree... basically to not use it but whatever) This weekend our class is planing on getting to tear apart cars with the jaws of life and practice rescuing people out of them. Needless to say I am very excited to get to completely destroy some cars!

On a more poker related note put in a great longish session today and played very well ending up about 2bb. Made a couple stupid bets in the beginning of the session but other than that was very happy with my play. Thats if for now, and Go MIZZOU vs Nebraska this weekend!

So I have managed to play rather consistently for about a week and half or so. I have played 6 sessions in the 10 day span each for at least an hr. and no more than about 2hrs. (I just start to loose focus after 2 hrs. or so, something I probably need to work on) I have been very encouraged by the results. First that I am enjoying it and finding it very easy to fit poker in my busy schedule (taking 26 credit hrs. this semester...) Second that I am really following my game plan of playing smart, focusing on position, and making solid decisions. I have especially been focusing on position and using initiative to my advantage. One thing I have also been doing is not getting paranoid and constantly thinking that people are making great plays back at me when I am betting in position or trying to steal. I have basically resigned myself to the fact that people at this level are playing their cards, and are basically never bluffing. So I have really cut down on making stupid calls thinking people are trying to outplay me. This is probably the single biggest improvement in my game, I would do this way to much in the past and get burned. Other than that I am not doing anything special, just playing my good hands fast, not getting fancy and really focusing on the fundamentals. So far so good and I have added about 20% to my BR, I am not sure if this is good or not as I have no concept of BR or what a good winning rate is but I am not really concentrating on that at the moment, it is just nice to see all green on the poker tracker stats lol.

Sweet hand... lol:

PokerStars Game #20700773774: Hold'em No Limit ($0.05/$0.10) - 2008/09/26 1:31:43 ET
Table 'Olga' 6-max Seat #4 is the button
Seat 1: Clazziquai ($16.25 in chips)
Seat 2: antique_pub ($12.40 in chips)
Seat 3: Johnny2tone ($2.30 in chips)
Seat 4: Master P53 ($5.70 in chips)
Seat 5: 46lloyd ($2.80 in chips)
Seat 6: belly05 ($10 in chips)
46lloyd: posts small blind $0.05
belly05: posts big blind $0.10
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to belly05 [Qs Qh]
Clazziquai: raises $0.30 to $0.40
antique_pub: folds
Johnny2tone: calls $0.40
Master P53: folds
46lloyd: folds
belly05: raises $0.80 to $1.20
Clazziquai: folds
Johnny2tone: calls $0.80
*** FLOP *** [4c 7h 5c]
belly05: bets $1.10
Johnny2tone: calls $1.10 and is all-in
*** TURN *** [4c 7h 5c] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [4c 7h 5c 3h] [8s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
belly05: shows [Qs Qh] (a pair of Queens)
Johnny2tone: shows [6h Ah] (a straight, Four to Eight)
Johnny2tone collected $4.85 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $5.05 | Rake $0.20
Board [4c 7h 5c 3h 8s]
Seat 1: Clazziquai folded before Flop
Seat 2: antique_pub folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: Johnny2tone showed [6h Ah] and won ($4.85) with a straight, Four to Eight
Seat 4: Master P53 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: 46lloyd (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: belly05 (big blind) showed [Qs Qh] and lost with a pair of Queens

Good luck out there.

Take this test....just pick the quote you agree with and NOT who you think said it.

http://abcnews.go.com/politics/Match...age?id=5542139


Pretty interesting to see who you agree with.

Ok so I am starting back up playing again after a break for the summer basically. I had an internship in Chicago that really took all my time so I wasn't able to hardly play at all. But mainly my goals are to improve my play, and show some growth. I want to really concentrate on ending stupid mistakes, and really get to the point of crushing the micro ( .5 /.10) stakes I am playing so that I can jump up to the next level. I just feel like I have been stuck at .5/.10 because it is really hard for me to motivate myself playing for such a small amount of money when I could just go make a website or something else an make way more $ per hour. But I am going to try and put a stop to that thinking cause I really enjoy playing poker and want to get better at it. So hopefully I can stay motivated, concentrate, and start building my BR in the positive direction. (this is the main reason for starting this blog so that I will stay motivated to keep playing) I also just got poker tracker (the free trial for 60 days oh yea!) so I will be posting my graph results in about a month.