I do love this site and maybe a journal can add to my enjoyment of it. It's nice to have an outlet to spew poker talk (family and friends be spared). Of course, if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it ... yadda yadda yadda. This post serves as an intro and I'll follow it up with updates to progress, interesting happenings, etc.

Background: I'm 33, married, been playing online for 2 years, just learned how to play poker about 2 1/2 years ago. Poker is a profitable hobby but I am an engineer in my regular job, currently finishing up my PhD full-time.

Poker History to Date: Started as a clueless noob at Pokerroom $0.5/1 LHE. Gravitated over to Party and eventually dabbled in NL$25 games. First year was nothing to write home about, ups and downs, lack of patience, moving up limits way too fast and wanting to gamble, etc. Instead of grinding away to improve my game I wanted to be playing the highest limits as soon as possible. I started to get more serious last spring or so and despite some wild swings, managed showing regular profits. Then my "big break" was winning an 1176-person $30+3 multi on Party. It confirmed to me that I know I can play pretty well when focused, and cutting out the slop was in order.

Since then I've kept decent records (bankroll-wise, at least). Total winnings last year, despite the setbacks from moving up too fast, managed $11k, but $7k of that was one tourney win. I tended to play in spurts due to my school work, getting away for up to a month or two, and then playing regularly every night of the week in long stretches.

This year, I cashed out all but $300 to start the year and was going to focus on grinding my way up from scratch, using bonus whoring as a tool. I built that up to over $5k by the end of Feb having a feast at the NL$25 6-max at Party, eventually playing up to the NL$100s, and whoring a total of $1700 in two months (including Empire rake back). I got in trouble in March because I planned on cashing out and taking a break to focus on research, I ended up goofing away $2k playing above my bankroll at some wild NL$2/4 games at Bodog. I didn't play online for a month after that. But, one week's trip to New Orleans and I made that back at the Harrah's NL$5/5 game. April was insane - picked up $2655 with a 2/590 MTT finish, and sort of played above my roll, but only risking up to $1k I decided (sort of freerolling some of my tourney winnings). All told, April became a +$11k month as I got fat at Bodog NL$2/4 and NL$5/10. I withdrew most of that for some fun stuff (laptop setup, rented beach house for a week this summer, etc.), and added another $2k in winnings in May. As of the start of June, I'm up $17.4k on the year, but only $5k still playing on. I moved back down to mostly playing NL$0.5/1 and NL$1/2 -- trying to whore along as much as feasible, but playing a variety of sites looking for juicy games. I have a tough 3-4 months ahead for finishing up degree and just want to play safe now and keep getting better so when I have more time, I can be ready for higher stakes.

Bankroll Guidelines: I now am sticking to the following guidelines for online play:
NL/PL (Holdem) -- 2500+ big blinds
NL/PL (Omaha) -- 5000+ big blinds
Limit -- 500+ big bets
Tourneys (SNG or MTT) -- 50+ buy-ins

Okay, that's your intro.

Last night played live for the first time in a couple months. A friend introduced me to a local club in Dayton, OH area.

Played in the $35 NL tourney, with $25 rebuys, with 6 tables starting. It was a true monkey fest and I ended up throwing in the towel after 2 rebuys as my all-ins couldn't crack mighty hands like K8s.

The tourney was cool in one respect. Sitting at the next table across from me was none other than 2-time WPT champ Ron Rose. I guess a consolation is that he didn't make the money, either. Apparently, he plays somewhat frequently at this club and sometimes plays in the NL$300 game.

Well, I really was there for the cash game, not the tourney. They had 3 tables of NL$120 ($1/3 blinds) going and one short-handed game of NL$300 ($5/10 blinds). The $300 game seems ridiculous given the high blinds. I played the $120 game and in 5.5 hours, turned my original buy-in into $633 thanks to a bunch of any-two-suited opponents. I was rockish tight and still got a 52s to call my 9xBB raise from the BB. This game seems like a goldmine, despite fairly steep rake/tips compared to online, and it was a great change of pace to play live. I really play so much better live, more T and more A -- I need to carry this over more to online where I tend to play tight, but a little sloppy at times. I surely will try to play in this game once per week.

So that's my first update.

Thanks, MVP.

Tonight I put in a long session at the club playing live NL$1/3 again. Played 7.4 hrs and never once saw AA and only one KK (but I got 5 callers and an ace flopped = easy check-fold), also I got QQ twice and both times in the blinds and raised the limpers hard and they all folded to me. But I made some key plays and had a good session with relatively moderate swings (unlike the monkey who was playing almost everything and raising like crazy - he was up to $1k in a $120 buyin game but over 6 hours he busted out and rebought once and busted again -- I was finally able to get a seat change to his left which didn't yield any monstrous pots but kept me from putting in money to see a flop only to get blown off with his raises). I was rather proud of myself in making a good session out of relatively crappy cards and poor position most of night (most solid 3 to my right and 3 monkeys to my left). Getting a good feel for using my tight image selectively in key spots.

Session: +$239 in 7.4 hrs
Total for live NL$1/3: +$752 in 12.9 hrs (2 sessions)

keep playing that game. by the time you play 50,000 hands you will most certainly be even. Varience owns you.



sorry i couldn't resist.