Hi again everyone.

I was going to wait a while to get a new journal started, but have ultimately decided that starting a journal from the beginning of my new adventure would probably be the best thing for me and my game.

In case somebody hasn't read my other journal (as if *L*), really quickly I'll sum up the goings on. I had to take a large chunk of my BR out for personal reasons. I didn't have the BR left to continue playing at the $50 tables comfortably, and I wasn't playing them well at any rate, so I've decided to start from scratch...basically. Rather than go all the way back down to the $2 tables, I'm just taking a step back to the $25s. I've just completed the transaction to put my entire $500 BR back into UB (and getting an additional "Easter bonus" of $125). It's there now, but I probably won't start playing again until after the Easter weekend so that I really will be starting out fresh in more ways than one.

I actually just got done reading Runner_Runner's journal and it was an inspiration to take things slow and focus more on getting in a great number of hands at a certain level rather than try to get to the next level as quickly as possible. In fact I'll probably take things a little more slowly than he does. I have 20x the buy-in right now, but I won't make the jump back up to the $50 tables until I have 30x the buy-in, or $1500. I feel this will guarantee me a very nice number of hands at the level before moving up.

I've decided to not make withdrawals with my bankroll with one exception: the bonus money. Every time I earn $25 I'll take out the $25. I have about $578 in bonus money right now and that should do nicely. As for any winnings, I'm going to contribute 100% of them towards building up my bankroll.

I'm not going to promise that I'll continue this journal past $1500 (I have to assume I'll get there or there's no point in me even playing). This journal is mainly my quest to reach that milestone and I'll record it as detailed as I possibly can. I'm just going to stick with my short term goal right now and try to keep from thinking too far in the future.

I'll contribute my daily stats (when I play; if I don't I may not have an entry) and a week ending roundup as I did with the other journal. The weekly entry will be posted every Saturday morning barring unforeseen circumstances. In that I'll include a list of all my biggest losses and how the hands played out. I'll do this so the newer players reading this may learn from my mistakes and to give others a chance to maybe tell me what I may have done wrong. And I welcome contributions to this journal anytime, anywhere.

I'm going to try and go back to playing strictly ABC poker. I think I was trying to get too fancy at the end there on the $50 tables, especially at times when fancy plays weren't warranted. I'm going to be looking for good opportunites like small pairs against a preflop raiser, or coming in with suited connectors in late position with a lot of limpers. At the same time I'll be trying to avoid the "beginner" plays like calling a raise with AJo UTG (or even coming in at all with AJo UTG), or playing suited connectors in an unraised pot with one limper and no real chance to win money if I do hit. I especially want to make a note here to remind myself that Axs (x being 9 or lower) is not that good of a hand in FR games. Lately I've fallen in love with this hand and it's rarely paid me off even when I do hit a big flop. Mostly I've just donated money with it. I'll play two games at a time in the beginning and possibly add a third when I'm entirely comfortable with two.

Finally I want to say that I'll try to keep this journal cleaner than the other one. Meaning I'll try to keep my rambling to a minimum (this entry is the exception ). And I'll do my best not to make changes to this strategy. I was always changing things here and there during my last journal and I felt I had no solid foundation to build onto.

I'm so jazzed about getting started that I want to play right now. *L* But I'll hold off for awhile and give myself a couple days of not thinking about poker at all to recharge the old gray matter. Anyways, it's good to be back, anyone miss me?

Good luck on the renewed project...remember that super super simple ABC works right through the 100 and 200NL levels...'fancy' plays are nearly NEVER warranted at the low levels...I make perhaps one move in 10k hands at 100NL at the moment

Have you read HoH (harrington on hold'em)? I suggest it if you haven't...

Thanks BK. And no, I haven't read HoH, but I've heard very good things about it. I thought it was geared mostly towards tournaments and I'm not a tournament player. Since you seem to think it'll help my ring game though I'm going to give it a try. I've just ordered "HoH: Strategic Play" and "HoH: Endgame" from Amazon. I'm a lousy SH player, so the latter book should be helpful to me as well.

Kramer my friend, best of luck to you. I'm sure you will do fine. The UB games, as I'm sure you're aware, are weak-tight. Remember that.

Oh, and stay away from my tables. I'm sure our paths will cross at some point.

I decided to play today (Sunday) rather than tomorrow because I'll have to work late and won't have a lot of time.

I played two fairly short sessions today (about an hour apiece), two tables. The first session was useless. I don't think I was ever up or down more than $2 the whole time. I was very, very card dead (had to scoop up the blinds every so often just to come close to breaking even).

For the second session I tried something different. Before I chose tables I data mined the last 50-75 hands played on the ones that looked interesting according to UB's sparce stats on them (it'd be nice if they could at least put the size of chipstacks of the players at the tables). I didn't data mine more than that because of the huge turnover on the tables made it pointless. I finally chose two. I was mainly looking at players who had questionable stats but had at least a full buy-in chipstack. So often I've gone to tables based on UB's pot size stat only to find out the fishes busting out was what made the pots so big, but now they were gone.

At first nothing happened. It was very much like the first session. About 20 minutes into it though my cards started coming. In about a 20 minute time period I was able to win about $40 ($25 on one table, $15 on another). Then the cards started drying up the last 20 minutes again, but I didn't lose much back. I ended the last session up $37.15, $35.95 for the whole day (lost $1.20 in the first session).

Here's the day's stats:

Today
Won: $35.95
296 hands played, about two hours total

The Road to $1,500
Total Bankroll: $535.95
Left to go: $964.05

Oh well, should've quit while I was ahead. I played yet a third session tonight (I really wanted to see what the Sunday night crowd was all about). I went through the same process of finding two tables, and found a couple of good ones. One in particular was juicy with two guys on there that had VP$IP of over 55% and huge stacks (relative to the $25 tables).

Unfortunately on this table is where I lost my money tonight. And the bulk of it was from one bad play by me. I'm in UTG+1, limp with AQs, it gets raised to $1 by MP2. Folded to me. I called and flop was KQ6. I check, he throws out an almost pot-sized bet of $2. At this point I couldn't put him on anything. He had a PFR of 12% so it's just as likely he had TT or something rather than AK, AA or KK, but he did have a "normal" VP$IP around 20 so he probably had something decent. I CR him to $5. He calls. And this is where I really screw up. I come out firing on the turn rather than check it. And to make matters worse I only bet half the pot (because a full pot bet would've pot-commited me). Even to me it looked like a really weak bet after I made it. Of course he goes over the top, all-in and I have to fold. He may very well have had AK there, but I'll never know. All I do know is that I have to be careful at this limit. Right now it's easy for me to throw out a $5 bet (after playing at the $50 tables for so long), but I need to always remember that it's going to take longer to win it back. And it's easy to get pot-commited this way without even realizing it.

Other than that hand I didn't do horribly on that table. I did call a $4 reraise PF with QQ, and that was a lousy play because I didn't have the odds to make that call. A big problem was getting very few cards and not winning anything. I had 6 wins and the biggest was 70 cents. *L* I ended up losing $22.25 at this table.

On the other table I did a little better. I won about $8.70. So altogether I lost $13.55 tonight.

I am concerned that I may be playing too tight though. After 464 hands my VP$IP is only 14.44%. And my WTSD is only 12.50%. On my secondary table I think it's fine because I'm supposed to be tight on that one, but the stats don't jump up considerably on my main table. In fact the largest VP$IP I had at a table was just over 15%. I think in the back of my mind I may be worried about getting involved too much with some of the crazy players I've seen.

Stats:

Session
Lost: $13.55
168 hands, about 1.25 hours played

Today
Won: $22.40
464 hands, about 3.25 hours played

The Road to $1500
Total Bankroll: $522.40
Left to go: $977.60

From here on out I'll be entering my daily stats the next day before I play. This way I don't have to feel as if I have to stay up late just to get them jotted down (as I'm doing now).

Oh wow, what a hideous session I just had. I didn't have to work as late as I thought so I got in about an hour on the tables. I would've made much more working another hour. *L*

I can't bitch at anybody or anything. It was all my fault. Twice I lost my stack with the worst hand (once with TPTK, another when flopping top two pair; lost both, of course, to sets). I'll preface the session by saying that I went in determined to play more hands and play them strongly with regards to my last post about playing very weak. Turned out the only thing I accomplished was getting my PT icon changed from weak tight to tight aggressive...I think that's worth about $37 in losses.

I lost my stacks really early on in the session, and the only thing good is that I didn't let it put me on tilt. I at least managed to win back about $13 after losing my stacks. I just don't know what the problem is. I'm disciplined as hell preflop, but postflop, when I have a decent hand, and, more importantly, when I'm the preflop raiser, I seem to lose all my marbles. AA, KK and QQ scare the hell out of me anymore because I just don't know if I can get away from it postflop. I'd much rather have 44 or 77 and calling a PF raise, because I know I can get out of there easily if I don't hit my set.

I just don't know how to fix this particular problem (if it's even fixable). I thought about trying no CBs after a preflop raise (rarely do they work at this level), or raising a little less than I usually do preflop (which is about 5x the BB) so I don't feel so committed to the pot. It's just hard to tell what the other players will do. I raised once to 4x the BB and get no callers, another time I raise 6x and 5 people call that raise. My PFR% was 6.0 and it rarely gets that high even in a single session. At some level I just don't think I'm giving some people on there enough credit for really having a hand. I don't think they're bluffing, but I always feel they got just a little bit worse hand than I do, and that they're inexperienced enough to push it hard. As it's going, though, that last sentence has been fitting me to a "T". Anyways, if you got some ideas I'd love to hear them because I'm fresh out. If not maybe HoH will give me some ideas. It's supposed to be on its way to me.



Today
107 hands, about 55 minutes played
Amount Won or Lost: $36.95 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 21.33%
PFR: 6.00%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 1.08
WTSD: 32.35%
W$SD: 45.45%
PTBB/100: (49.27)


Total Stats
614 hands
Amount Won or Lost: $14.55 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 16.12%
PFR: 4.23%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 2.57
WTSD: 18.42%
W$SD: 57.14%
PTBB/100: (4.74)


The Road to $1500
Total Bankroll: $485.45
Left to go: $1014.55

Reading is definately great. I wish I had done more of it when I first started. I basically just read UPF (the forum), and played for a year before I finally started to understand what was going on around me. I think it took me about 3-4 months of post-reading to understand what TOP will teach you in a couple hours. I would suggest playing a little bit every day after reading. It'll help you start using those ideas in the books as opposed to you starting again after two weeks of hardcore reading, and not remembering what the first few things you learned were.

GL with the books.

HoH has some of the "why" information you are looking for.
i also recommend playing a bit after reading, just to help assimilate the information.
Just stick to the cheap seats while experimenting, you will be able to find many very-low-limit tables where there are people actually trying to play well.
PokerStars is great for this, just choose your table wisely.

Low dough is spot on with this. Some of the ten dollar tables there play better than the 200nl tables.

Thanks for the input guys. Well I'm playing UB and while it has some wild players, I know it has it's share of decent players too, even at the $25 tables I'm playing at.

BTW, I finally did get both HoH books today. I've only read the first few chapters of the first one, and haven't really gotten into the "meat" of the book yet, but what I've read so far I really like. I especially liked that hand analysis of the Vahedi-Farha hand in the 2003 WSOP. Sounds like there will be more things like that in there and I'm excited about getting to them because he seems pretty thorough in the "whys" and "what ifs".

I'll wait until I get a little farther in the book before getting back to the tables. I'll read tonight and play a session tomorrow at the $25 tables. I'll be playing only a single table so I'll be sure to make my choice wisely.

Well after getting about halfway through HoH, one things strikes me above everything else: I had no idea how little I knew about playing poker. There is at least 10 things (and that's being very, very conservative) he talks about that are new concepts to me as far as poker goes. I also realized that I was much too ambitious in my idea that I'd tear through 3 or 4 books that I've ordered over the next week or so. I'll probably be lucky to get a really solid grasp on everything HoH has to say in one week. Already I'm suffering from information overload, so the thought of even trying to start another book when it gets here (they tried to deliver them today but I wasn't here so I'll get them Monday) is ludicrous. They'll still be here for later, but right now I want to concentrate on what Action Dan has to say.

I played today but didn't get many cards, but with playing only one table I only had 83 hands to look at in a little over an hour. I think I had a VP$IP of 11% or so. The table I played at was crazy. One hand someone would raise PF to $.50 and everyone would fold, the next someone is raising to $2 and 4 people call. Next hand three people are going all in. The next, one person bets $.75 PF and everyone runs away. I just didn't know what to make of it. As I said, though, the point was moot because I didn't get many hands today. I think there was a lot of money to be won at that table if I did.

I noticed in PT that I've played just under 700 hands, have gotten 34 PP and have hit only one set with them since dropping down to the $25 tables. Hopefully the math'll even up pretty soon and give me a good day. I may have to start playing a little longer sessions than I usually do to make up for the fact I'm only playing a single table. 83 hands just doesn't seem like enough to get much of anything accomplished.



Today
83 hands, 68 minutes played
Amount Won or Lost: $1.45 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 10.84%
PFR: 3.61%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 2.00
WTSD: 8.33%
W$SD: 100%
PTBB/100: 3.49

Total Stats
697 hands
Amount Won or Lost: $13.10 (wins in green, losses in red)
VP$IP: 15.49%
PFR: 4.16%
Aggression Factor (minus preflop): 2.52
WTSD: 17.46%
W$SD: 59.09%
PTBB/100: (3.76)


The Road to $1500
Total Bankroll: $486.90
Left to go: $1013.10