Hey! I just joined BTP not too long ago and I really like the helpful atmosphere here. I've only made one post before today and was overwhelmed with the response and inciteful answers I got back from other members. Unfortunately, my skill level is such that I'm uncomfortable "offering" poker advice of my own on specific hands (though I thoroughly enjoy reading others; I'm usually lurking around the no limit holdem forum), so I was looking for another way to contribute a little something to the site without making a total jackass out of myself; so I found this forum that will possibly let me make a total jackass out of myself in a whole new way.

This first entry will be pretty long as I wanted to tell you a little about how I got started in poker and my ups and downs along the way to where I'm at now. After that it'll probably turn into the standard "how I did today" sort of thing with possibly weekly recaps on the weekends. I'm writing this not only for my own benifit (I feel that keeping a journal may keep me on a more even keel; it won't let me get too high when things are going great and will help me not get down too much on myself when things aren't), but also because, as I mentioned above, I want to contribute something to the site, so if someone who is in a similar place that I am in his poker "career" maybe reading about my successess and failures could help him or her out in his or her game. As my subject suggests, I'll be tracking my progress up to (hopefully) the $100 tables and possibly beyond.

I got interested in poker a few years ago...probably when many people got interested: the Chris Moneymaker year. I'd played poker before but never holdem. It was always those home games where aces, dueces and one-eyed jacks were wild and the games seemed to get progressively weirder as time went on. I was never very good. I liked to play and have fun (which I did) and almost always invariably went home with my pockets empty; the upside is that it got me invited back to a lot of games. *L* Then I saw the world series on ESPN that year and the almost clean aspect of the game of holdem really appealed to me; in fact, like a lot of people just starting out, it almost looked easy. I did a bit of net searching for tips on playing, even though I'd still never played the game before.

So when I'd heard that our local legion was having small tournaments every Friday (usually around 20-30 people), I decided to give it a shot. I soon found out that the conditions for the tournament was hardly ideal. The buy-in was $25 and for that you got a measly $100 in chips. The big blinds started at $5/10, so you can see how unfortunate you were if you happened to be placed in the big blind at the start of the game. Of course I think they did this to encourage rebuys. You could rebuy any time within the first hour for $25 and get $100 in chips again; at the end of the hour there was an add-on where $25 gets you $200 in chips.

Of course I was blissfully unaware what a weird setup this was when I played that first time. Hell, I had to have someone explain in detail what in the world blinds were and how you played them. I did know, even then, that most of the players didn't even know as much as I did about holdem and many were almost fall down drunk. The problem, of course, was that the deepest pockets had the advantage. I brought $25 to that tournament and it was either get very lucky, or go home early. Well I did get very lucky; I finished 2nd in that tournament (which ended when the table got down to 3 people; then the size of the final 3's chip stack determined the finishing place). I brought home over $450 and was hooked on holdem! As I said, though, I never did really get hooked on that certain tournament though. I played it because it was the only one in town and I hadn't even considered playing online at the time. After many times of spending the $25 and leaving within the first 10 minutes of play I stopped going altogether. If you didn't have $150 for rebuys and the balls to call someone's all-in over and over again within the first hour, you weren't going to have much of a chance and I never did get lucky again like that first night. So soon I stopped going altogether since I didn't have the money to spend any more than the original $25 each week.

Before long though, I was visiting my parents and my brother showed up. He owed me 5 bucks and said, well, he didn't have any cash, but he just signed up for an online poker site and if I wanted to play a $5 sit-n-go tournament at his expense we could call it even. Even now I'm not so sure, even if I'd won that sit-n-go, that he would've given me the winnings or even the $5 back. *L* I lost in spectacular fashion though, but I was hooked on online poker. I went home that day and downloaded the software he used since I liked its setup: it was Ultimate Bet.

I deposited $40 and started sit-n-going like crazy. I was mainly playing the $1 tables but would jump up to the $5 if I was feeling particularly invulnerable. I honestly didn't do too bad at the beginning. I managed to make that $40 last quite awhile. It turned out to be the same story for maybe my next 5 deposits of $40. I'd do okay for awhile, maybe not winning, but not losing much either, and then I'd get it into my head to try the $10 or even $20 tables and got the sense (and the money) knocked out of me.

Finally I made a "final" deposit of $40. I started looking around the program a little more and discovered that they actually played cash games in holdem; I'd never knew that before. I made a vow to use that $40 for cash games only and not play any more sit-n-go's. And if I lost that $40 I was going to wait a minimum of 4 months before depositing any more money; I felt I was spending too much on poker when I didn't have that much to throw around. Even so, I avoided the $2 tables altogether. I'd never played them but I just couldn't imagine them being much different from the play tables (which I'd played on one day until getting extremely bored with nothing to risk); I'm probably wrong about that, but at the time I felt like I had to play at a level where it was worth playing. So I started out on the $10 tables, but I usually only bought in for half the maximum. I really liked these a lot better than the sit-n-gos because I soon discovered that you could sit around all day, waiting for just the right opportunity, and nail somebody for all their chips (or at least the portion that I had). I would play extremely weak-tight (though, of course, I had no idea there was a name for this type of play back then). Often I'd even read a book so I wasn't bored between all the folds I was making. *L* I was laying down things like bottom two pair even if I was 90% sure I had the best hand; that other 10% made me lay them down.

It turned out to be a decent strategy. I was winning a little at a time, very rarely having any big losses. Of course after awhile I felt I had this holdem thing down cold and when I got to $200 I felt I must move up and allow the $25 tablers to hand over their money to me. So now I've lost back $150 and playing, once again, at the $10 tables, just the slightest bit humbled. I went through the ritual again. I built it up, this time to about $250, and decided to try the $25 tables, but this time I made a rule that if I even lose down to $200 I was going to go back down to the $10 tables immediately. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I was back and forth between those levels. Perserverance finally paid off though and I found myself winning a bit more and losing a bit less at the $25 tables so that I didn't have to go back down to the $10 level again.

So I still haven't learned my lesson yet, and now I'm jumping up to the $50 tables every so often (even played at the $100 in one, scary-filled afternoon). I'd win at the $25, get my bankroll up a bit to maybe $400 and then do something stupid at the $50 tables and get nailed back down to reality. One time in particular comes to mind. I was doing well at the $50 tables (up about $50) and in the space of two hands I busted out. I can't remember exactly what hands they were anymore but I think one of them was losing with two pair to a set and the other was losing a straight to a flush. So this was the case until last autumn, when financial restraints forced me to withdrawal every single penny out of my UB account. I was devestated that I had to do that, but also sort of proud that if I hadn't won money at poker I wouldn't've even had had that money to fall back on).

So I'm not playing poker for like 5 months. I get my financial situation back on track during that time, enough so that I ordered a few books about holdem and more importantly found a wonderful webite for the beginning player: www.learn-texas-holdem.com (hope it's okay to put this here; I have no affiliation but I feel I need to give credit where credit is due). These things helped me see holdem in a whole new way. New concepts to me like trouble hands came into light, or calling raises with small pairs to hopefully hit a set (I was usually throwing them away because I figured I was "beat") and even the concept of being aggressive rather than passive was the way to go (I was usually very aggressive only when I had a huge hand, postflop, not preflop).

So around the end of January of this year I get my tax refund back. I really had no plans for it so I decide that it's a perfect opportunity to get back online and start playing again. I deposited $500. I started immediately at the $50 tables. Even then I had an idea that I was playing over my bankroll, especially at a level where I haven't established myself as a consistent winner, but at the time my thought process was that if I lost it all, no big deal. I'd considered it found money of sorts, and if I lost it I could just redeposit $50 and start all over again from scratch at the lower levels. The first couple weeks of February was going okay, but not great. The lowest my bankroll got down to was $475, but it rarely got over the $550 mark. About halfway through the month I decided to invest $50 on PokerTracker. Since then I think it's conservative to say that it's paid for itself about ten times over, even if it's mostly in avoiding big losses. One situation comes to mind when I had JJ and called a preflop raise in late position. My PokerTracker said the guy who raised hardly ever raised, so I knew going in that he must have a big PP and I had to hit my set. When the flop came all low rags and he threw out a pot sized bet, I immediately folded, showing my cards, hoping he'd show his. He did and showed AA. That is a situation where, if I didn't have PokerTracker, I'd very likely have lost a bundle to the guy.

I hit a bad few days where I couldn't catch a hand postflop. Honestly, I would have AA and two kings would show up on the flop. I went through 36 chances with a pocket pair and got exactly zero sets in that period. I wasn't losing big pots but I was losing pots at a very steady rate. Ironically I decided to play sit-n-gos for a break. I found out I'm much better at them than I was a couple years ago. I played 12 of them in about a week's time (10 seated) and finished in the top two 9 times. Either confidence from that, or just my luck finally turning around, I went back to the cash games and started winning a little bit again.

So throughout February I did okay but not spectacular. I won a little over $100 by the end of the month. My ptBB was 2.31 (hope I'm doing that right; I'm dividing my BB/100 that PT shows- 4.62 -by 2; if not please somebody let me know because I'm still not completely clear on the whole ptBB thing *L*). I still worried about my bankroll a bit though so I went to different sites to investigate. That's when I happened upon this one. I was delighted that not only was there bankroll advice, but a whole damn forum just about bankrolls! After all the reading I did on them I decided that I probably should drop down to $25 despite my thoughts on my bankroll being "expendible". Particularly after some member here suggested that I play multiple games; I wasn't sure I'd feel comfortable playing multiple games at the $50 tables with my bankroll.

So I dropped down, and the results couldn'tve been much worse. After only a couple days and 4 sessions I was down $30. I found out that through all my reading and adjusting my play to the $50, it simply wasn't working for me at the $25. It's probably my fault for not adjusting again, but I found that continuation bets, which will work more often than not at the $50 tables, wasn't working for me here and I stopped making them. I was seeing preflop raises of $1 or $1.25 and since that seemed such a small amount to risk after playing at the $50 tables, I found myself playing very, very mediocre hands. Even worse, I was getting so many calls with preflop raises that I basically stopped raising much at all and turned into a very loose-passive player at these tables; it's no wonder I lost in retrospect.

So after some more consideration, just this past week I decided to take my chance at the $50 tables again despite an inadequate bankroll. I felt I needed to play where it seemed to me that things made more sense. You still have crazy players at the $50, but as a general rule they seem to be quite a bit tighter than the $25 tables. They probably wouldn't seem tight at all to those of you who look at it from the $100 or $500 table perspective, but I was able to see the difference immediately. Of course you get the odd occasional really loose table at $50 too (just this past week I reraised a small raise of $1.25 to over $7 with QQ in late position and had not just the initial raiser call that raise, but 3 others as well; you can guess how that turned out for me *L*; I only raised it so much because three people had simply called that original raise and I wanted to make sure I narrowed the field, fat lot of good that did me), but I don't see them as prevelant on the $50's as I did on the $25's.

Not only did I move up in stakes with an inadequate bankroll but I even started playing a second table as suggested to me by members here. I'm flirting with disaster. However, since UB is giving away 100% bonuses up to $500 for another week, I'm going to redeposit another $500. Please, no jokes about UB's bonus dollars. *L* I know how slow it took to even work off my initial $100 bonus all those years ago. But since I basically play only at UB right now I'll be able to work it off without doing anything other than what I have been doing. Anyways, that should give me a little better cushion against a nasty freefall in my bankroll. This week things looked pretty good as I played two tables (in a serious way) for the first time. I've won about $230 this past week with a total monthy amount so far of $368. I've gotten my ptBB (again, if I'm doing it right) to 8.93 for this month.

One thing I've learned this week is that it's okay to change tables. I used to sit at a table and I'd be there until I lost enough to be disgusted with it, or it broke up or I had played enough for the day. That changed early on this week after I played at one table for over an hour and didn't win a single hand and ended up losing like $19. At that point I told myself that if I haven't won single hand in 50 dealt I was going to change tables. That happened to me a couple days later and I immediately added another table and finished my orbit with my "bad" table. Within 10 minutes at the new table I was up almost $50, and ended up that table with a $95 net win.

I typically play about two hours a day, Monday through Friday and usually like to take the weekends off (though I may be missing some nice fish on those days; can anybody give me an idea on whether it's better to play on weekends?). I've burnt out before at holdem, and I want to be careful not to do it again. When that happens then a loss seems personal and devastating, when in fact it's something I should expect to happen. My handle is the same on here as it is at UB. Probably not the brightest thing in the world to do if I discuss my strategies at all *L*, but I didn't want anyone here to be able to ask why I'm hiding behind a fake handle (this was of course before I knew how helpful most of you are) if I do or say something particularly stupid.

As for my bankroll. Since I began again in February I'd decided that for every $50 I win I'll withdrawal $25 of it. So if you wonder why my bankroll isn't going up as much as it seems like it should be, that's the reason. I felt from the beginning that if I only played to add money to my bankroll I'd burn out quickly, so I needed to make periodic withdrawals to at least make it seem like I'm playing FOR something other than to get to the next level. So far I've put $200 in winnings onto my car loan, so I'm really happy about that. My bankroll at the moment is $717, and the deposit will jump it up to over $1200; hopefully that'll be enough to handle a couple of big losses. I will say that I've been very fortunate so far to not be stacked since I've started playing again. My biggest loss so far was $28.45 when I had a set of 4's and got somebody to go all in with TPTK and they hit runner-runner flush cards. My biggest stupid loss was with KQo (of course) and that was $21.50 when a king was flopped. My only defense was that someone raised only minimum preflop with AK, but altogether it was a really indefensible hand, but at least that one happened back in mid February, so I like to think that now I wouldn't make this same play. But I'll probably prove myself wrong in time. *L* I could've been stacked easily, and that hand is the one I posted on the NL forum where I was covered and had gone all in preflop with KK and was facing AA and QQ. Luckily the guy who had me covered was the QQ, but even more luckily I caught a king to win a very nice pot.

Well that's about it I guess. Hopefully if anyone reads this entire thing (and I, for one, wouldn't blame anyone for not reading it *L*) you have a better idea of who I am in a poker player sense. And at least it gives me the chance to introduce myself and to thank all of you who responded so quickly and thoroughly to my post in NL, and even helped me to figure out where I wanted to go from there. Lets just say that, so far, it seems the suggestions about playing two tables at the same time rather than one are really seeming to pay off well for me. I find I can fairly easily keep track of players at both tables, and in particular, find the "wild cards" who I want to win money from. My one day attempt at three tables, however, proved less fruitful, so I'll stick to two for now.

Welcome...and good luck! I'm only half-way through your post though
Let's just say that you've come to the right place...but I think you know that.

Hey Kramer glad you decided to start a journal. A couple of suggesstions-

1. Read Woody's journal - he's got an excellent plan for bankroll management and discipline - quite frankly I get ALMOST as much enjoyment as setting poker goals for myself and following through on them as I do winning money.

2. Why stop at $100 NL? UB offers stakes as high as $50/$100, or $10,000 NL!!!

First off, thanks for the welcome and good wishes BK.
You too RR. I've been trying to read lots of people's journals. From what I've seen quite a few of them have something pretty good to offer. And I hope I don't stop at $100. That's why I put the very vague "beyond" in my subject. *L*

So to poker. I rarely play on Sundays but I think I did today just so I could make an entry in my journal. *L*

I wish I could've started off with a bit more of a bang though. I didn't have a horrible day, but it was pretty blah. I only played about an hour and a half compared to my usual 2 hours just because it seemed I wasn't getting any cards. I think because it's been since Thursday since I last played I was quite a bit looser than I should've been at first, limping in way too often. The tables didn't help. They were very passive preflop, very little raising. Then I got that under control and thought I'd see really how passive the tables were by raising a lot more hands preflop. Unfortunately the tables were passive, but loose, which meant I was getting called by 3 or more people every time I made a preflop raise. Finally I decided to try a tight passive game myself and that seemed to stop the bleeding, but I didn't have much luck with the cards still. Altogether it wasn't a horrible day. I thought I made some good laydowns and didn't misplay too many hands. Here's the rundown:

Level: $50 No limit Holdem
Time spent at tables: 95 minutes (2 full ring, 10 seated)
Daily Earnings: $16.35 (green is win, red is loss)

My only really decent win came when I flopped a set of 9's and got a guy to lose his stack (about $23 to me). That's really about it for wins. I got no other win over $6.10.

I had two losses of exactly $7 apiece. They were my only two decent sized losses. I had a loss of a little over $5 during my "aggressive" period when I tried to represent three jacks on the flop: that failed miserably. *L*

Here's one of the $7 losses:

Pre-flop: (9 players) Hero is CO with
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $0.5, 3 folds, Hero calls $0.5, Button folds, SB calls $0.25, BB checks.

Flop: ($2, 4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, UTG+1 bets $0.5, Hero calls $0.5, 2 folds.

Turn: ($3, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $0.5, Hero raises to $3, UTG+1 raises to $6, Hero calls $3.

River: ($15, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets $0.5, Hero calls $0.5.

Results:
Final pot: $16
UTG+1 shows 6h 6c

I didn't think I played this all too horribly. I'd actually put him on a set when he reraised on the turn so I figured if I could catch a good card (hoping it was the straight card rather than the flush) I might've been able to stack him. I had no choice on the end but to call his little 50 cent bet even though I was pretty sure I was beat. The way the 10 slowed him down though I was fairly certain I wasn't going to stack anybody in that hand, even if I had hit.

The second loss (which actually came earlier than the one above; I'd only been playing a few minutes when this one happened) I wasn't crazy about. I thought I made a bad play by calling his all-in, but it was only $5 so that was a big decision maker for me. I just didn't like how coordinated the board was. If he'd had $10 or more I probably would've folded. Turned out I had the best hand all the way until the river. Perhaps I should've raised more preflop, but either way I think the results would've been the same.



Pre-flop: (8 players) Hero is Button with
UTG folds, UTG+1 calls $0.5, 3 folds, Hero raises to $2, SB folds, BB calls $1.5, UTG+1 calls $1.5.

Flop: ($6.25, 3 players)
BB is all-in $5, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls $5.

Turn: ($16.25, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $16.25)


River: ($16.25, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $16.25)


Results:
Final pot: $16.25
BB shows Jh Js

I put in my $500 deposit to get my bonus so my bankroll is going to be skewed for awhile until I work that off ($4.75 gone so far from it...yahoo!).

Updated bankroll after session: $1205.78
Withdrew?: N/A
Total bankroll after withdraw, if applicable: N/A
Amount left to reach next level: $794.22 ($2000 for the $100 tables)

I chose $2000 because I figure with all the withdrawals I'll be making as I win (hopefully anyways), I'll be at the $50 for quite awhile. And so long as I win I figure I'll deserve to jump to the $100s when I get to $2000 just because that'll mean I've actually won almost $1600 at the $50s since I'll be withdrawing half of every $50 that I win.

That's all for now I guess.

I noticed something in your first post about changing tables: don't change because you haven't won a hand in 50...that's not looking for the reason. There ARE lots of reasons to change a table, but that in itself isn't one of em. For example, if the table is too tight and pots aren't big enough, then that's a great reason to change. Also, if there's one bully who's raising EVERY pot and the table has basically turned into what we call a 'bear hunt' where everyone's just going after the one player...another reason to leave. If you're playing poorly and your image is shot so that you either get no action, or too much...then change. But, don't do it if the cards are just cold. Playing multiple tables helps alleviate this worry since you'll be seeing more hands and it's unlikely that you won't be involved in a hand SOMEWHERE for more than a couple minutes. If you're playing one table, it's very possible to not play a single pot past the flop for over 100 hands (I play 6-8 at the moment in fact).

Hand 1: you should raise the FLOP, not the turn. You raise on the flop with a draw in position so that you can check behind on the turn to get a free river card to hit your draw...or else you can keep betting when the draw comes as most people don't suspect that you were drawing. Also, do this MORE with straight draws than flush draws because they're much less obvious...ESPECIALLY when it's the kind of OESD that you have where your cards are between the board ones. If you raised the flop and he only called (a set would reraise though), then you check that turn with tonnes of draws...then bet or raise the river if you hit. So, raise the flop, not the turn.

Hand 2: he's only got 5 left so that's an easy call. Raise pf to 6x ($3) instead of 4x...you're out of position and there's a limper...the general rule is 4x+x for every limper...however...at the 25 and 50 levels (and to some extent the 100 level), 4x just isn't enough to narrow the field.

At what intervals are you withdrawing half of every $50 that you earn? I STRONGLY suggest that you do this on a monthly basis rather than every $50. Take out half of every month's winnings on the last of each month rather than the former idea. The monthly plan lets you avoid vairance problems: you go on a hot streak for 300...take out 150 right away...but this hot streak statistically needs to be balanced, so you suddenly lose 200...well...if you took out 150, then your BR was +150, lost 200 and is now -50. If you left it in and waited until later it'd be +100....a difference of 150, not 100! See how this creates a problem?

BK: Wow! I didn't expect such replies in my journal and I want to thank you for them. I'm always open to new ideas and help with my play. After all, there is a reason I'm uncomfortable trying to give advice of my own: I'm simply not experienced enough.

About changing tables. Yes I did say I was changing after 50 hands of winning nothing. But I think I was unclear on why I was changing them. Let's be honest, I was writing a book in that first post and towards the end I was trying to be as brief as possible; I was worn out. *L* I'm not changing because I'm folding, folding, folding all the time; I'll stay at a table with what I think are a couple of fish with lots of money the entire session for the hope of getting involved in a pot with them. And it's always good to know your opponents as long as possible rather than switching tables all the time and facing new ones. I usually try to find a table with big pots being taken down, but after I join, and the table turns ultra tight, and yes I have been sitting there without a hand for 50 hands, I typically see no reason to stay when there are so many other tables available. There is always another reason, other than cold cards, that get me to leave, because once I get settled in a room I like to get to know the players as much as possible. Even if I don't catch any cards, the knowledge will be good in a few days when I am catching cards against them.

About hand one: honestly never even considered raising the flop. I've read about the "free card" strategy, of course, but it's often one thing that tends to slip my mind, especially when I'm in late position. I still have quite a bit of work to do on learning how to play position to its optimum. Hell, until a few weeks ago I was actually losing money on the button (was the only position I wasn't winning at). I see your point with this and I'll do my best to keep it in mind if such a situation rears its ugly head again.

Hand two: Please don't take this the wrong way, and I surely don't mean this in a sarcastic way, but if I'm on the button I'm out of position? I ask because I really want to understand this. Is this because I have the blinds left to act behind me? I actually only raised it to $2 for the purpose of getting at least one call; I was afraid with $3 I wouldn't get one. But I'd just joined the table and I really had no read on anyone so I'm thinking that $3 probably wouldn't've been all that bad of an idea.

About my bankroll. Yeah I have been taking half of it out every time I win $50. In my former poker career I was doing the "taking half out every month" sort of thing, and I made the change this time for only one reason: because I was having a tough time mentally with the monthly schedule thing. Believe it or not, I would actually get a little depressed when I made those monthly withdrawals, especially if I had a good month. At the end of the month my BR was $500 after winning $150 that month, but taking $75 out at once dropped it back down to $425, and that was a level I thought I'd passed a long time ago (in poker weeks *L*). So I thought more frequent withdrawals (assuming I'm winning of course) would help me to alleviate some of that. And I have to say that it has. But I do know what you're saying. When I went through that bad patch of poker I mentioned in my first post I'd dropped down from a "starting" level of about $550 down to $475. Now not only did I have to win the $75 back just to get back to even, but I'd have to win another $50 before I could make any sort of withdrawal again.

I think I've read that you play poker for a living and if I was in that situation I'd absolutely change my withdrawal strategy. But for me, I'm only using winnings for supplemental stuff like making extra loan payments, so to me it doesn't really matter if I go even two months or more after a big losing streak before I can make another withdrawal. I know that if I'm a winning player I'll win it all back eventually and then some; if I find out I'm not a long term winning player then I'll just chalk it up to another of life's lessons. If my situation ever changes, and I find myself more and more serious about poker for a living, then I won't hesitate to make changes, but for right now I'm comfortable with the status quo. I know to some it seems irrational and a big chance, but for me I think it's more important that I feel good when playing poker and irrational or not, I feel much better taking money out a little at a time.

Thanks tons for your input!

I would suggest still making withdrawls over a bit longer time... even if it's just weekly. It sucks to win 150 bucks, take out 75, and then lose 100. And I understand that you can probably handle that, but it WILL hurt your game when you start thinking stuff like, "I had a great run and a horrible run, and I ended up down after combining them? Poker SUCKS!"

But I also get that taking out big portions of the bankroll at once sucks, maybe you should just have a system like... every month you win over 250, you take out 100, and that's it. So then you still get money msot months right in your pocket, but you can really SEE your bankroll grow a bit.

BTW, I'm a bit drunk so I don't know if any of that made sense, but good journal so far! *L*
(It took me three or four times to realise what the heck that was.)

Misread position on hand 2...raise 5x +x for every limper...so if there's one limper, raise to $3 at this level. 2 is far too small...2.5 is good, but you REALLY want ot be heads up. Believe me, at that level, you'll get your caller when you bet $3.

Whatever works for your BR strategy...yes I play semi-pro so a strict BR strategy is paramount. I think doing a weekly basis would split the difference. At the moment, 45% of my monthly profit stays in my BR...so when I win $100, I only see it as $45 so I don't have the same issue that you're suggesting: you build the roll up to 550, take out 75, then you're back at 475 and discouraged...it'd be better to just understand that half of your winnings aren't really 'there' at all...they're in your bank account because you're going to withdraw them Use something like PokerTracker and it'll show you how much you're making/up...so you can look at THAT instead of just your bankroll...it's the 'out of sight out of mind' thing: just because you withrdrew that 75 doesn't mean it's gone You still earned every penny of it...it's just been moved somewhere else.

My ptBB was 2.31 (hope I'm doing that right; I'm dividing my BB/100 that PT shows- 4.62 -by 2;

Good news - you double your PTBB/100 to get old-style BB/100, not half it!

4.6PTBB/100 is a perfectly decent win-rate.
You have to remember that you are out-running the rake of 2-3PTBB/100 as well so you are taking about 7.5 PTBB/100 out of the pockets of the other players - you need to sit down - stay at a level that you are properly bankrolled for (at least 20 buy-ins, preferably a bit more) and get a few 1000 hands into PT.

Then you can post some numbers and we can give you a bit more guidance..

I would concentrate on playing the core hands - pairs and paint cards (ie two cards T or better) and track your winnings/losses with trap hands like KQ,QJ,AJ to make sure you aren't overplaying them.

No need to get fancy with small/medium pairs at first - just limp and set-mine. You will make good money on them over time..

yes of course - my comment is to show that he is beating the other players by more than 4.6PTBB - if you had a 10-handed table where everyone but one player was break-even, that one player would be leaking money at -20PTBB or so

Sorry Flop! I'll post right here that if I write "*L*", that means "laugh". I've been writing it that way since 1995 and I'm too stubborn to change it even though I still get people in poker rooms asking "WTF is *L*?" And thanks for posting! I understood most of what you said even if the lines were a little wobbly.

I didn't play today. I had to work almost twelve hours today and all I want to do after I write this is sit back in my recliner and waste the rest of the night...oh but I must make sure to watch 24 later on. In fact I think this is going to be a very busy week altogether so I doubt I'll play as much as I generally like to, but I may try to get on here and there for a few shorter sessions.

I've been giving my bankroll more thought today. When I first decided to do the $50 thing I didn't have PokerTracker. And the more I think about it the more I'm realizing that I've looked at my actual bankroll less and less since I've installed PT; I usually just pay attention to what I'm actually winning according to PT. I'm glad you brought that up BK because I might not've even thought about that otherwise. I might just give the monthly thing a try for awhile to see how it works out. It would certainly simplify things if nothing else by only taking money out once a month. I do get a little tired of each little withdrawal getting to my bank account at different times; I'm never really sure at any one point how much I can put towards my car payment.

Excession: So to be perfectly clear on this (and I need to be clear on this or it'll end up driving me absolutely...or at least even more...crazy!): When somebody posts ptbb, that means what they are posting is the actual number that is listed below the "BB/100 hands" heading in PokerTracker? There's nothing else I need to do with that number to make it ptbb? Right now my total hands equals 4598 in the general info tab. 7 or 8 headings to the right of that it shows my BB/100 hands equal to 9.95. Does that mean that 9.95 is my actual ptbb at this point in time? Sorry to grill you about this but I've even been to the part of the forum explaining ptbb and I'm still not completely sure I understand it and I'm seriously wondering if I'm making something really simple way, way too complicated. I think all the conversion talk about the "old style" BB/100 has gotten me confused about whether I need to do any conversion at all. I just need to know that when I write "my ptbb=x.xx (or better yet xx.xx *L*)" that I'm putting in the right number so that I'm not making a complete ass out of myself (I'm okay with partial ass-making, but "complete" is something I try to avoid unless its...well, unavoidable). Hope you or someone else can end my misery on this subject once and for all.

Finally, since I do have a few thousand hands (though I've read enough on this forum to know you and I should take this small of a sample with a grain of salt) and someone asked I will post my stats here. As of right now, here they are, with, as I said above, 4598 hands played so far (though of course I've played quite a few more than this, but have only have PT for a little while):
Every stat here is played on the $50 tables
VP$IP is 19.51%
W$WSF is 28.56%
Went to SD is 17.00%
Won$ at SD is 49.42%
PFR is 4.07%

Any other important stat I'm leaving out? I'll be happy to post it if you let me know.

Also using the newest rules defined somewhere on this site so that you can autorate players, I autorated myself with them and came out as tight aggressive; I very rarely ever just call after the flop, the hand above with me just calling on the flop was definitely an exception rather than the rule. It's usually bet, raise or I'm gone. I've probably discarded more winning hands than the average player, but at this level I've come to realize that a much better opportunity is usually just around the corner. It's probably why I usually manage to avoid the huge losses. At a higher level this probably wouldn't work, but at $50 there's always somebody doing something extremely dumb if you can just hang around for the next ten hands.

Any suggestions on my stats?

I think I'm generally okay with my VP$IP. I don't think it's too tight or too loose.
W$WSF is something I'm not sure about. I'd read before that this might be a little low. But I haven't been able to compare it to other player's stats so far.
WTSD I'm simply not sure about. It looks and feels low, but it probably has to do with what I mentioned above, about folding the best hand maybe a little too often.
W$atSD I've heard is a bit low too, though at least I've raised it by about 5% since the first of March. I think I was doing a little too much bluffing early on. I've tried to control that a little more lately because at this level there's not much of a percentage in doing it.
I know the PRF is a bit low. That stat has actually dropped almost 3/4ths of a percentage point since March 1st. The more I play the $50 level though, the more it seems like you don't have to be really aggressive preflop to win. Oh when I have a normal raising hand (AA, KK, AK, QQ, etc...) I'll do what I have to to narrow the field (though as you mentioned BK, maybe I need to up the size of my raises a little bit), and I'll try to be aggressive in very late position with high cards like AQ, AJ, KQ and some higher pocket pairs if lots of weakness is shown, but to raise with a very marginal hand even in late position at this level is just asking for trouble in my opinion. Well I take that back. I'm asking for trouble because if I raise and catch a piece of the flop I'm not yet desciplined enough to just give up the hand very easily. Even if everything is screaming at me that I'm beat, I'll talk myself into the fantasy that the guy doesn't have my KJ beat on a jack high flop. He has a QJ or JT or maybe he just caught middle pair or is going after a draw, but there's no way he has AJ or a set after I was the one that raised. He's just an idiot who is overplaying his cards; of course in almost every case I discover who the true idiot in this little play was all along.

Wow, this got much longer than I intended. Sorry about that, but then again, if you read this periodically I guess I should say that you better get used to it because succinctness isn't one of my greatest virtues. But I guess that's it for now. Anyone feel free to chime in on anything; I'm always looking for ways to better my poker game!

To get the standard bb/100, take the ptbb/100 number and double it. PT was designed first for LIMIT play where the BB stands for BIG BETS...but in NL it stands for BIG BLINDS (to us). The big blind of a limit game is half of the big bet...so pt reports big bets/100...but we care about big blinds/100...which is ptbb/100*2.

A very good win rate over >10k hands is 5ptbb/100.