THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2006

Finished down $23.18 tonight. Well if you've been following my journal since I started it, it's time to move back down to $10 NL to revamp my game and recover from my downswing - the downswing now sits at $131.39, which is over my 5-buy in rule. So down I go for awhile. Didn't play too horribly, but still not up to my expectations. The key blunder of the night was reraising AK in MP when UTG raised 6x, despite bells and whistles going off that I'm at very best a coin flip (QQ or JJ), and probably two card dominated (KK, or even worse, AA). At least I didn't call his push in response to my reraise. Still, that's $4 I don't expect myself to lose. The correct action would have been to fold.

Sets: 0-12
AA: 0
Ace Magnets:0
QQ: 5


Tables played: 3 full ring (took some advice from MikeM and dropped one tonight)
Time played: 1.8 hours (just enough to punch my ticket down to $10 NL)

Finish for day: ($23.18)
Bankroll as of 5/4/06: $710.25

Countdown to $50 NL: $289.75

See my special entry, next.

Down to $10 NL & Poker Tracker

Well it's happened much sooner than I would have liked during my still young campaign. Between a combination of bad beats and bad play, I've lost enough in the last few days where I wish not to jeporadize my bankroll any further at my current level. Despite earnest attempts to fix mistakes, I find myself still not playing up to the level I know I can play at.

I do have one objective that will delay my return to $25 NL initially, but long term it will be more than worth the extra time it will take me - having received a ton of great comments in my journal over the last couple of days, I'm going to purchase PokerTracker and GT+. I have a very simplistic understanding of what the figures mean from reading the posts here during my tenure at BTP, but will be reading the articles closely and be dropping down to ONE TABLE for a short period of time to get used to the real-time stats and what they have to offer me. I will also need to make a commitment to myself to study my databases and use the information I get. Hopefully it will help me diagnose where I'm going wrong (and I am, make no mistake, it hasn't all been bad cards), and fix it.

Tomorrow night's session will be one table of $10 NL and my first experience with PokerTracker. I will be spending the next few days getting used to the functionality of the software and learning how to create databases, etc.

Of course I will be buying it via the BTP link - I COULD get it for free, but the comission BTP will receive is the very least I can do for Ice, Tetuso, and the guys who have kept this great site of ours growing.

I'll continue to post daily entries as always.

FRIDAY, MAY 5, 2006

Finished down $9.83 tonight. The downswing continues - more cold cards and one not so hot call that I regretted even before I hit the button. Other than the one call, I thought I did a good job and didn't make any mistakes - it was just another session of CB's being fired back at me and second best hands (most of which I was able to fold before the river).

Got PokerTracker up and running tonight - I haven't yet incorporated the real-time stats with GT+, but have used it to import my hands and see a nice breakdown of my session. I'm optimistic that PT is going to be a HUGE help going forward.

I'm thinking about revamping my campaign in light of PokerTracker - the spreadsheets I have really have become obselete thanks to PokerTracker. I'm not going to cash out my bankroll or anything like that, but I'm not sure I need to be down at $10 NL when I still have plenty of bankroll available to play $25 NL without fear of going anywhere close to broke. I'm going to make a special entry tomorrow explaining my new rules, etc. - but on a preliminary basis, it's going to involve going back to $25 NL and probably refraining from multi-tabling until I can identify what it is that I'm dong wrong (thanks to PT of course!!) and fix it. I have enough money backing my action (still well over $500, even with the PT purchase) that I really don't need to play $10 NL.

Sets: 2-26
AA: 5
Ace Magnets:0
QQ: 4


Tables played: 3 full ring & 1full ring
Time played: 3.9 hours

Finish for day: ($9.83)
Bankroll as of 5/5/06: $615.42 (I withdrew $85 for PT, to cover taxes on the withdrawl - I didn't start my campaign until very late in 2005, so I only reported my MTT win on 2005's tax returns, but will be reporting every withdrawl starting in 2006)

Countdown to $50 NL: $384.58

No shame is dropping back down a level, we have all done it. Ice dropped back to $100 NL for a little while and now he is killing just about every game he is playing as high as $1000 nl. PT is a tool that takes a little getting used to but in the long run it is a huge help. Excessions articles on the main page are very good, read and read them. PAHUD is nice since it has a ton more info than GT+ but it can also be a little overwhelming. Since Gt+ is free I think you might just want to use it while you are making the adjustment to using PT. I have found that for NLHE gt+ is just fine for me.

Campaign Revisions

OK as disucssed in last night's entry I'm going to be making some wholesale revisions to my campaign and rules of play in general - the purchase of PokerTracker has been a milestone, even though I haven't seen the results from it yet (only used it for the first time last night).

Here's my new rules that I've made for myself:

1. As I'm in the midst of a downswing/not playing well, I'm only going to be playing on one table to start out. If I play back to back sessions without making any major mistakes, I will add back tables, one at a time, starting with two and working back up to four. I will also no longer be using the mini-view -- I need to get used to playing full-sized tables with some overlap. I'll need to this for when the time comes that I start using GT+ and also if I wish to change sites.

2. Bankroll requirements - same as before. $1,000 (or 20 buy-ins) to move up to $50 NL. I will not, however, be giving up/dropping down as quickly as I subjected myself to before. While there's no shame in doing so, so long as my bankroll is over the 20 buy-in requirement for a given limit, I will continue to play in that game.

3. If I find myself making mistakes over the course of a couple of sessions, I will not hesistate to drop table(s) until I remedy the problem. This is an extension of #1 above.

4. I will pick one night each week that I will do nothing but review my sessions in PokerTracker, catch up on my reading, and browse the forums here. This means no playing. I think I short myself in this area, and of course PT is going to be paramount with this action step.

5. I'll also be breaking out the bonuses included in my daily finish (up or down $) - previously I had included any bonus received in my numbers.

Once I get some material sample of hands into PokerTracker, I will begin using GT+ in real time to help with reads. I am to wait just a short time before doing so, as I wish to get the functionality of PT itself dialed in and want to focus on my own game and not be tempted to "over use" the GT+ reads. Having said that, however, I've set up the auto-rate rules and will be reviewing results of some of the more regular players (and there are a lot of them at $25 NL on UB).

First results entry tonight.

SATURDAY, MAY 6, 2006

Finished up $52.35 today. I'm already feeling more confident with PokerTracker behind me. Also, I was much better able to focus on the game 1-tabling than I had been previously. I may actually continue 1-tabling for just a little longer to bring my confidence back up to where it was before I ran into some trouble a couple of weeks ago.

Hit some good cards, but more importantly, didn't make any mistakes during either session today, which IMO is far more important than anything else right now. From today's play, it just seemed that not making mistakes allowed me to win a goodly amount - it's not even anything brilliant that I did - just played my ABC game and came out on top.

And on another note, I won a satellite to the PartyPoker $500K guranteed tomorrow afternoon. Wish me luck! I'll need it...never played in a tourney with this high a buy-in, but it should be fun none the less.

Sets: 3-13
AA: 3
Ace Magnets:1
QQ: 0

Tables played: 1 full ring
Hands played: 306
Time played: 243 minutes

Poker winnings: $47.70
Bonus cleared: $4.65
Total profit (loss) for day: $52.35

Bankroll as of 5/6/06: $667.77

Countdown to $50 NL: $332.23