Overview Weeks 1-8


The Road To Pro has been filled with hills and valleys during the last 8 weeks. As of this entry it is day 59 and 8 weeks have passed. Let me get you up to date.

My online poker experience began back in Marck or April of 2004. During that time I saw a lot of ups and downs. In January 2005 and february 2005 I made a nice little profit and for the first time knew my skills were solid. Then disaster hit. I lost my job and had to clear the bankroll for household bills. Back on May 7th of 2005 I won $20 in a free tournament that I was part of for winning a best post of the month contest. $20 was the mininum that could be won and being as I am not a good NL tournament player, $20 is what I did in fact win and what I startedmy bankroll with. Not much to say the least, but it was a start.

The tournament was held on Poker Stars and since that's where the money was I decided to stay there an play the .05/.10 limit games and work my way up to my goal of playing full time for a living. Working toward what I need before I go pro. Quite simply I need/want $40k.

Stakes when i turn Pro $5/$10

$10k Bankroll
$10k Bankroll for replenishing main BR on weeks I lose some.
$12k 6 months of living expenses for buying food, paying electric phone, etc.
$8k 16 weeks of Pay at $500/wk On the weeks i may lose I can pull out $500 as my pay for the week. Wife and I want me to make $500/wk playing poker full time which is twice as much as i make as a cashier. That amount may sound small to some, but for us it would be more than enough.




Week 1

Sat. - 5 hours +1.8bb
Sun. - 3.5 hours +18.5bb
Mon. - 6 hours +30.7bb
Tue. - 3 hours +9.1bb
Wed. - 2.5 hours + 38.4bb
Thu. - 5.5 hours +50.5bb
Fri. - 5 hours - +36.5bb

30.5 hours +18.55
6.8bb/hr
12.4bb/100 hands
Bankroll $38.55


week 2

-$4.40
Bankroll = $34.15


Week 3:

This was the week I moved up to .25/.50. Obviously well before the 300 big bets which is standard.


Hours Played: 31.75
+$88.73
5.6 bb/hr
Poker Stars Acct. $121.33
Poker Checking Acct $8.55
Total Bankroll $129.88


Week 4

+$39.20
Bankroll: $169.08


Week 5

I started doing some 5 table multitabling during this week. It did not last long as I realized when someone pointed out to me that this could hurt my poker playing and make me too mechanical. i agreed. That and the swings made me decide to go back to single table playing. During this week I also made a $60 or so deposit to my bankroll.

Weekly Totals:

Hands: 2936
Hours Played 16
Weekly +$52.81
bb/100 hands 3.597
bb/hr 6.60
Bankroll $292.81


Week 6

Made the step up to .50/$1

Total bankroll: $353.21


Week 7

After a $50 downswing I decided to stop being so damn stubborn and bought the full version of Poker Tracker. This brought the bankroll to $250 as i experienced a $50 downswing. During week 7 I earned the money I spent on Poker Tracker.

Bankroll $308.35


Week 8

Poker Stars was torture and during the week i cashed out and deposited on Pokerroom where I did quite well.

Total bankroll $376.73


Day 59

Current bankroll $400.98

The major problem I have is playing within my bankroll. I make trips into the next level before I have the bankroll for it. This is a serious lack of discipline I must overcome. Overall it is not a bankroll breaking thing because I simply drop back down if that trip proves unprofitable, but if I would just wait for the proper bankroll amount then i would not have to go up and down in limits like a yoyo.

My goal date for Pro is 1/1/08 but it could come even earlier. My wife totally supports me in this decision as long as we have something to fall back on. I came up with the $40k plan just for her, so she would be at ease. She knows I can do this. She believes in me and I believe in myself.

For the first time in my life I know I have something I am really good at. Something I have a real talent for. Never knew it would be poker, but I am an excellent limit player. I need to improve my tournament play, but limit ring games is where I excell. I want to turn pro because I love playing, I want to make more money than I could ever see in retail, and mostly so that I can get my wife Becci anything and everything she wants or deserves, but as she points out she really doesn't want much, just me. She told me today that the money would be nice but the fact is if we were homeless sleeping in the car as long as I was with her, it would be ok. Damn what did I ever do to get a woman like her. I'm the luckiest guy on earth and the galaxies beyond. So why do i want to become a pro? Lots of reasons, but the one Iuse to summerize is so that becci can go to Disneyland any time she damn well feels like it. All the rest of the reasons are just the topping on the sundae.

Hey dude-

Well, shit. Alls i can say is good luck. You seem to be makin great progress! I gambled up a respectable stake using my case funds in games way too big at the time- and despite the fact that i consider my own talents to be very limited in comparison to alot of others, the game continues to work for me - so there is no reason why it cant for you. Believe in yourself, Beleive in the game, and of course, always remember that raising with 46s is a better play than calling a raise with AJo---and youll do fine.

Also, what did your post of the month consist of anyways?

Day 62 Stupid Decisions Lessons Learned


Where to start. As I write this my bankroll is at $373.74. That is just about $3 or so down from the previous week and tomorrow is the final day in my poker week so I may just yet end up with a profit, but if I don't then the only one to blame is myself. I made so many mistakes this week and none of them were at the poker table, yet they were mistakes nonetheless.

Back on 6/28, sick of the river beats, bad beats, outdraws and overall suckouts that I was suffering on Poker Stars I decided to return to my first and most favorite home of Pokerroom.com. And since that date I had won over 100 big bets at .50/$1 and was cruising nicely. Then after a couple of non-winning sessions, not very bad ones mind you but simply non-winning ones, I decide to cash out and give Poker Stars another run. Why? Have I lost my mind??? I leave a place that was a fish pond and for what? If you figure it out let me know.

I had some money in a bonus account at UB so deposited there. That was unsuccessful. I go back to Poker Stars and not 4 days later am going through the same bullshit that caused me to decide to leave and get a fresh start elsewhere. It sure the hell is not my playing. VPIP 20% PFR 8% W$WSF 34-35% W$SD over 50%. With these numbers it would be almost impossible to be losing money, yet at Stars I see every suckout possible. It's disgusting how bad players seem to get lucky time and time again at Stars. I am not going to be ridiculous and say anything is rigged or that Poker Stars is allowing bad players to win some so they stay and deposit more later, but I will say that Poker Stars is known in the online poker world as River Stars and perhaps the fact is that some sites just are not for you. The funny thing is that PS is where I turned $20 into well over $300 and all the time I spent at .05/.10 and .25/.50 I went through very few bad beats. But as i start playing the higher limits of .50/$1 and $1/$2 they are incredible, happening over and over again. Makes me wonder sometimes just what is happening with me. I play good solid poker and still end up losing time and time again.

So the greed of free money sent me back to UB for a short time and some unknown mental disease sent me back to Poker Stars. Part of it was two fold. PS was where I have done so well until the last few weeks anyway and it gave me a chance to play against a fellow member of another forum I frequent and I enjoy the opportunity to play against a fellow forum member in a limit ring game.

So tonite I withdrew the remaining balance at Poker Stars. They immediately credited $137 of that to Neteller and I made the deposit back to Pokerroom where I will be staying for a very long time, win lose or draw. Their software can get a bit laggy at times, and I think it's because the amount of people they have has increased recently, but all in all it's my favorite place and always has been. While writing this entry I fell 12 big bets and am now up 2 big bets. Something I never seemed to be able to do at Poker Stars was climb out of a hole like I can here. Maybe it's the poker gods telling me to stay at Pokerroom. Who knows. Whatever the case, it feels good to be home again.

Week 9 Complete


The magic at Pokerroom .50/$1 seemed to disappear. This was not totally surprising to me as I had previously posted a profit of over 100 big bets in less than 1000 hands and there's no way anyone can keep that kind of pace going, but damn it does it always have to be pure hot or pure cold? That's the way it seems to run one or the other, never anything in between.

Today I played strictly the $1/$2 tables and ended up posting a profit of $33.25 in just 274 hands on this level. This included a loss of over $17 on my last session, so even with that it was a decent day. Also cleared $20 in bonus money at Pokerroom as well.

Something has got to give. The bankroll is just over $400 and if I continue to play $1/$2 it could be dangerous. 200 big bets as a bankroll is not exactly giving me much cushion and it is an aggressive approach to say the least. When this whole run started with just 420 and at the .05/.10 tables I started with a bankroll of just 200 big bets and worked through it very nicely. of course replacing that bankroll had i lost would have been a lot easier than replacing the current one. I do not have $400 lying around if I were to bust. Not to mention I would hate to see all the hard work I've put in thus far go to waste. What actually sent me to the $1/$2 tables today was complete frustration at .50/$1 People cold calling pre flop raises with hands like 69o at hitting trip sixes on the turn. How can people play so stupid and win? My last several sessions at .50/$1 have been brutal losing 6 out of my last 9 sessions at that limit. Looking at my stats in Poker tracker I am seeing a lot of very short sessions. i think that when i start losing I have a bad habit of getting frustrated and leaving the table. Perhaps if i stayed longer things would turn around. patience is a key in poker and perhaps I need more patience in this area also.

Once again this week i will start out at .50/$1 and do my best to stay put. I tried this last week and failed miserably so I will keep on trying. I'm also going to try to make each session a mininum of 1 hour and preferably 2 hours. Let's see if by sticking it out we can't turn these losing sessions into winning ones.

Total profit for the week was 33.21 but most if not all of that came through the Pokerroom bonus i have been doing so the week was most likely a losing one. Once again I will aim for 30+ hours and 2 big bets/hour and or 3 big bets/100 hands and I will try to keep it at .50/$1

Bankroll $409.94

Good luck achieving your goal. I like that you have given yourself a reasonable amount of time to get there. You should seriously consider playing NL as well as limit. There is more money to be made playing NL and believe it or not, you risk less money in NL than you do in limit. If you get bad cards for a month in limit it can get expensive. If you get bad cards in NL it will be cheaper because you can make a come-back on one single hand, something you could never do in limit. I also recommend you try hard to to stuff outside of poker. The game can be a horrible grind and having a life outside of the game will actually improve your results.

gl!

YD

Great advice from Yoga....

Nice journal. I wish you luck...

just a thought... maybe you should put some more reachable goals for now..and then make new ones till you eventually do get that huge roll?

I have played NL in the past in ring games, but I don't like it at all. Bad beats in NL can cost you so much money, you can't control the maniacs with check/call like you can in limit games and you also never get to play suited connectors because of not getting the proper pot odds in NL and they have paid off for me nicely in the past.

With that said, I must admit the preospect of doubling my buy-in in one fell swoop is very appealing to me, but where to start. If I were to add NL I would want to do it the right way. If I understand that correctly I want 10 buy ins? Or is it 15?

Also what stakes? start with blinds of .01/.02? .05/.10? If I was thinking of trying to add NL ring games to my arsenal what would you guys/gals recommend?

Week 10


Well another week has come to an end. After my Day 67 entry someone suggested that I find one site and stick with it. Thee were correct of course and as such have heeded this valuable insight.

I did a bit of site hopping if you will and made a decision this week that while I was sad to do it, at the same time I put my emotions aside and proceeded forward. I played some $2/$4 live poker during the week and in the space of half an hour walked away $62 ahead. It was a lot of fun playing with breathing people next to me.

With the bankroll just over $500 after that I decided to hit the $1/$2 limit tables. I decided that if I fell to under $450 I would make the drop back to .50/$1 and that still holds true.

After grabbing $20 of bonus at Absolute I cashed out of there. I just don't like the look of the software and with only 2 or 3 $1/$2 limit tables available I was not thrilled with the lack of available games as well. I also cashed out of Pokerroom. I really like that site, but the games are a bit too loose to fit my style so leaving that site was the best thing for me, although I am somewhat saddened by this. Pokerroom was the first place I ever played real money online and in a strange sense I have a bit of emotional attachment to it. Not sure why, just know it exists.

I needed to find a place I like and stick with it. Ultimate Bet is it. With 15000 people on it there is a sufficient amount og game choices for me. The last two times I ventured to UB I was unsuccessful, but I decided I needed to give it another shot and hopefully stay there. So far so good although the last couple of days has been a struggle to be sure. -$70 and -$30only to bounce back 2 other days.

I started a new Poker Tracker database for Ultimate Bet, but the one I had started I deleted because I was seriously screwing things up, not remembering to use the hand grabber and what not, but now I make sure I turn it on before I go there. Does not make sense to have incomplete data, but since I restarted it I have all my hands recorded although at this point it is only 333. So far so good with a VPIP in the 20-21% range but my autorate has me listed only as tight/medium since my PFR percentage is only 6%, but with only 333 hands in the database I cannot really make any determinations yet.

One thing I like about UB is the Kill games. if someone wins two pots in a row the stakes double. So far I have not played much, but when the time comes I feel like trying $2/$4 this is a way to be able to play for those higher stakes on a part time basis. For right now I will stick with regular $1/$2 unless circumstances dictate a need to drop levels. Still have slightly over $65 in bonus dollars on UB and it seems to clear at a reasonable speed.

So for the week it was a profit of slightly over $108 overall. I will take it to be sure. This week I will be sticking to all internet play and am going to track my daily progress to see how that progresses on a day to day basis and of course try to maintain 3bb/100 hands and/or 2bb/hour.

Total Bankroll $518.82

Day 72


Another poor start to the beginning of the week finds me in a deep hole to start things off. Yesterday I dropped abpout $70 playing $1/$2. The funny thing was that my play was solid. One or two mistakes perhaps as I looked over my Poker Tracker stats, but overall my play was solid, yet I lost anyway. It's a swingy game as they say.

After much contemplation, I have decided to stay with Poker Stars afterall. I made this decision due in a large part to availability of games. As I work the graveyard shift at my regular job, when I get home at 430AM I like to play before going to sleep. I was on UB as I had decided to play there, but there was 1 table available and 1 kill game. Poker Stars on the other hand had no less than 3 or 4 available. When I add that to the fact of the available low buy-in MTT's offered and more Limit tournaments, which limit is my strong suit over NL, the choice was a bit obvious. The bad beats are horrendous at Stars, but maybe no more than anywhere else. I think that is I stick to my tight tables like I like then those beats will be less likely. So many people at different forums tellme how wrong I am to go after tight tables as opposed to loose ones and for awhile the looser tables at Pokerroom proved profitable, but the long run is what really matters. In that long run I have more consistant winning sessions at tight/passive tables. It's what I am sticking with from here on in.

My trek into $1/$2 got me thinking about bankroll management once again. Bottom line I suck at it. I get so over anxious to get to the next level so I take the chance and step up before my bankroll warrants it. A good run and life is good, but I have now dropped back to .50/$1 and it will take me twice as long to recoup that loss. 400 big bets seems to be my comfort level but as soon as I get above the 400bb level for my current level I jump into a game at the next level. One bad session and I'm back where I was minus the profits of course.

Now anyone who follows my journal knows this is nothing new for me. I don't have the discipline to do anything other than what I have done. I know I should wait till I have $800 in my bankroll, but I lack the bankroll discipline to do so. No excuse for it really, it comes down to a lack of discipline, plain and simple. But any lack of discipline in any aspect of my game is not the way to turn pro as is my goal.

So my short term goal is to play .50/$1 until the bankroll reaches $800. If you're laughing as you read this I can't really blame you. I have tried so often and failed that the statement in itself is probably laughable. But if I don't keep trying to achieve these goals, if I don't make an effort, I never will develop the discipline needed for this game. So I carry on, trying yet again to achieve that which I know is within me, yet struggles to surface. Maybe this $70 loss finally taught me the lesson I need to learn. Perhaps not, but I hope it did finally.

I have got to stop deleting my Poker Tracker databases. When I decided on UB I deleted the ones I had on Poker Stars since I was not going to play there any longer. Well since I decided to move back to Stars for good I had to start a new database. Duhhhhh. Oh well, live and learn. I deleted my UB database as well. Probably should have kept it, but I am staying with Stars so this is the ones that are important I suppose. Of course starting a new one as I did I have only a little over 150 hands played.

Today has been a good day at the tables as I have already won back about half of what I lost at $1/$2. My numbers preflop are a bit loose, but I think the cards have been running well so I have been able to see a lot of flops. Just hope it keeps going this way.

Day 73


It's actually a little after 3:30 am of day 74 that I write this, but since I have not gone to bed yet it is still the previous day to me. Working the graveyard shift can screw you up a bit in this respect and even though I am on 2 days off my schedule stays constant. Sleeping in the day and up at night.

After waking up this afternoon I hit the .50/$1 table on Stars and things did not go well. 2 sessions one of -6.50 and the second of -18.50 and I was steaming. Headed right for the $1/$2 tables. I'm ashamed to admit it, but it's what I did and then something happened. The $1/$2 games were very loose, so much so that I never even entered one because the players/flop percentages were in the 40's. I went and had a cigarette and cooled off and started thinking about my poker playing.

Since I frequent many forums I am exposed to a lot of information from other poker players and the one thing that struck me was when I see posts of people's Poker Tracker stats many of the players have an overall VPIP of 15-20% and accordingly usually positive results to go with it. My VPIP is usually just above 20% and usually around 21 or 22% and while this is not completely ugly it made me wonder how the hell could other players keep theirs so low? I decided to take another look at the starting hand charts in Matthew Hilger's book "Internet texas Holdem. For the most part I play my game as he suggests with just a few minor variations, but the one area I am downright stubborn on is calling raises from the small and big blind and calling the half bet in the small blind. Looking it over I realized that was an area where I am losing a lot of my hands, so I decided for the next session I would tighten up in that area especially. I also decided to stop limping in with Axs. It has just not proven to be worthwhile.

So I played at the .50/$1 table. Tight, tighter, tightest. Playing nearly 3 hours my VPIP was just under 15% and what happened? I had the best session of my career. The end result was +29.75 big bets. Coincidence? Perhaps, but the fact is the big blind is my biggest money loser in a database of a little over 500 hands. It's enuf to convince me that I need to tighten up even further if I want to be consistant in this game. bad swings are inevitable, but the tighter I play, the less likely the bad swings are I think.

Well I'm gonna grab a smoke and head back to the tables. I will continue to tighten up my play especially where the blinds are concerned. And no matter what happens I will try my best to stay away from the damn $1/$2 rooms. I am disappointed with myself that I was goiung to do it out of frustration that way, but at least the circumstances presented themselves where I backed away from them at the last moment. maybe that's a small victory in my struggle for discipline.