What's up gentlemen? Just happened upon this site about a week and a half ago and am very impressed with the hand analysis/advice and the occasional (haha) batches of sarcasm to be found throughout the NL Holdem Cash section.

Anyway, I decided to join up and make my first post a journal entry after browsing through several of the journals that the members are keeping. Should be a helpful way to track successes and failures with some comedic relief along the way.

Anyway, to introduce myself, I am Lance and I live in the Southwest Burbs of the great city of Chicago (Go Bears!!). I am 35 and am a Territory Manager for a natural stone (marbles, granites and limestones) company based out of Michigan. Selling is the name and lots and lots of travel (via auto) is the game.

I began learning the game of poker 2 years ago, much like the rest of you probably, by goofing around in home games and watching it on TV. I created an account on Pokerstars and was off and running (not very well) with the play chips gradually accumulating enough to buy into the 25000 and 50000 play chip tournies (lol). But, in hindsight, it was good to gain some experience reading boards, etc. After some deposits and bankruptcies donking around $$$$ on Pokerstars, I found Party Poker and began to play $25 buy in NL cash games. Lost it all, deposited, lost it all etc. Found some interesting literature (Super System II, Gordon's Little Green Book, Harrington on Holdem 1 and 2, etc) and began to show some profits.

Based on information uncovered on other forums (Full Tilt, FlopTurnRiver, etc) I invested in Poker Tracker along with the heads up display add on (Using GT+). Lots and lots of fumbling around with it until I happened to find Excession's Poker Tracker series on here and that series finally helped me get it up and running pretty well over the past week and a half. If you read this Excession, thank you very much for the wealth of information included there. GREAT GREAT articles.

Anyway, as for the poker and the recent crap laws I seem to be most comfortable playing on Pokerstars after remembering that I had about $60 bucks or so on there and plus the are "US" friendly. I believe I have enough experience to be playing at he 25NL level on Stars (where I was when Party took a nose dive) but I am going to start out at the .02/.05NL tables on Stars (buying in for $10) and consider it a challenge to myself to ascend through the various level with my beginning bankroll ($60). I have been back to playing on Stars since MLK Day (Jan 15th) and have built the roll to a paltry $172.00 over the course of almost 2 weeks. Haha, chump change compared to most of you guys but you gotta start somewhere with a structured and disciplined approach to the game. So I guess the goal would be (after reading thru the bankroll management section) to reach @ $250.00 prior to moving up to $10NL and hope to accomplish this goal early next week if things go well.

So I guess I am off to the tables for today. Thanks to those who have read any of this (sorry about the length but I think this Journal will help me stay on course with the discipline) and any questions, comments, snide remarks or sarcastic beratings are welcomed and greatly appreciated.

One more think, I have noticed that some of the hand histories have been written out shorthanded in lieu of the converter. Could someone let me know how to get the "suitedness" of the cards. Does the site automatically put them up if you type say.......Ah or Ahearts or does the suit have to be enclosed in ( ) or { } or [ ]. Until I hear a reply I will just use the converter on any posts.

Thanks for reading and Good Luck to you all.

Welcome...the [ ] around Ah will make . Check out the View more emoticons in the message body of the posting area too. It has all the cards there.

Nice beginning to your journal...not that long a begginning, no worries. For micro and low limit hold'em for the most part, you can find alot of information throughout the NL area. I used to play at Party as well until everyone shut out the US players.

Do you play full ring (FR) or 6-max tables?

Seem to be making some progress. My stats for the evening of 01-27-07.



Should have been better but ran into a KK vs. KK all in pot and got hit with a flush with 4 spades on the board. Oh well, at least it wasnt a donk move on my part.