FRIDAY, MAY 12, 2006

Finished up $0.55 tonight. Actually, I finished down, however the bonus I cleared exceded my loss tonight, I came out in the green, however slightly. Massivley overplayed one hand and lost about $4 more than I should have with it, but other than that played OK. Got dealt AA twice in a row, won a small pot with the first hand, and had to give up the second on the broadway loaded flop after two people called my PF reraise and one open-pushed.

Tables played: 2 full ring
Hands played: 432
Time played: 362 table minutes

Poker winnings: ($5.45)
Bonus cleared: $6.00
Total profit (loss) for day: $0.55

Bankroll as of 5/12/06: $752.24

Countdown to $50 NL: $247.76

SATURDAY, MAY 13, 2006

Finished up $4.73 tonight. Actually I finished down again...the bonuses came to the rescue for the second day in a row. None the less, I don't take much solice in that. This was mostly a product of suckouts galore today & tonight. My PTBB/100 over the last 3.5K hands is just over 5, which is better than I was doing but still unacceptable IMO. In a perfect world, it would be over 10. But obviously I suck, so I'm probably going to have to settle for the time being. Not enough hands to worry about it too much, though, and after all finishing up a small amount is better than finishing down for the day by any amount - inching closer to the $1,000 mark bit by bit. I'm confident there won't be any suckouts at $50 NL.

Tables played: 1-4 full ring
Hands played: 1,722
Time played: 1,411 table minutes

Poker winnings: ($17.85)
Bonus cleared: $22.58
Total profit (loss) for day: $4.73

Bankroll as of 5/13/06: $756.97

Countdown to $50 NL: $243.03

SUNDAY, MAY 14, 2006

Finished up $41.86 tonight. A good session overall - got rocked early due to some whiffed CB's and QQ hands that came with ace and king flops, but came back strong on all four tables with some flopped sets and other various big hands and managed to get paid off fairly well. Didn't make any donkish plays tonight, which is always a good thing. Whew...PT's been a huge boost of confidence over the last couple of weeks. I think BTP should make new members purchase PT before allowing to register...

I'm a convert - you were all right.

Tables played: 4 full ring
Hands played: 623
Time played: 478 table minutes

Poker winnings: $34.05
Bonus cleared: $7.81
Total profit (loss) for day: $41.86

Bankroll as of 5/14/06: $798.83

Countdown to $50 NL: $201.17

WEEK ENDING MAY 14, 2006

Well another exciting week of poker - overall pretty good results this week. Played very well for the most part and while I was subject to a number of suckouts, I feel much more content about taking those vs. putting a suckout on someone else or making asanine calls, etc.

I decided to resume 4-tabling this week as well - I've gotten the hang of PT and most of its capabilities. So long as I'm playing solid poker, I'm going to allow myself to play max tables in order to maximize my winnings. Each day is a watch. I'm being very critical and honest with myself in terms of grading any mistakes and forcing myself to drop tables.

I also spent Thursday night studying and reviewing sessions - I plan on doing it again one night next week. I prepared a new VOST plan for myself with respect to poker, and will post in once I hit the $1,000 mark and $50 NL.

1-4 tables
6 days play

Net finish for week: $110.31
Bankroll as of 4/23/06: $798.83

Emoticon of the Week:

Hey RR,

Been following your journal (and journey) for a while now and I have a question for you.

Now that you are a convert to the PT Legions, what exactly do you find it useful for? How are you using it during games? How do you use it to improve your game overall?

And please keep putting up the great posts!

MONDAY, MAY 15, 2006

Finished up $33.36 tonight. Nothing overly exciting - lost some, won more. That's the way I like it. Hit a couple of full houses with SC's to win some sizable pots. Key hand of the night was me in MP with KK. EP limper. I raise 6x, folds back to me, EP reraises all-in for about $20...oh shit, I'm going to call and wait to see the two eyes of Teaxs...I call, board is all rags, Villian turns over AK...what a donkey. nihan



Tables played: 4 full ring
Hands played: 729
Time played: 537 table minutes

Poker winnings: $24.35
Bonus cleared: $9.01
Total profit (loss) for day: $33.36

Bankroll as of 5/15/06: $832.19

Countdown to $50 NL: $167.81

TUESDAY, MAY 16, 2006

Finished down $46.24 tonight. Action session - was up big, then down big, then came back, then started playing horridly and got rewarded for it by stacking off twice - once VERY unneccessarily. Not exactly the session dreams are made of. Can't seem to stay over $800 in bankroll for any amount of time here...tried not to tilt too much but I think subconsiously I was tilting, even though it wasn't totally evident right away. Well, this was the first losing day in almost two weeks, so it's not the end of the world, but I'm going to have to watch myself very carefully tomorrow night and make 100% certain I'm not playing fishy so I can stop the bleeding (what I can control, that is) before I start another vile downswing and lose focus of my goal.


Tables played: 4 full ring
Hands played: 716
Time played: 550 table minutes

Poker winnings: ($56.00) - needless to say the PTBB/100 took a hit tonight
Bonus cleared: $9.76
Total profit (loss) for day: ($46.24)

Bankroll as of 5/16/06: $785.95

Countdown to $50 NL: $214.05

WEDNESDAY, MAY 17, 2006

Finished up $2.99 tonight. Another hand slammer of a session -- the real problem is, I lost money again from poker tonight (bonus put me in the black for the night). The bigger problem is I don't know exactly what went wrong tonight. I didn't stack off or anything - lost a couple of $8-10 pots due to some suckouts, but other than that just the usual win some, lose some. I think I have a couple of ideas though:

1. Waiting until the turn to define a good but not great hand (TPMK, etc.) vs. betting out on the flop. BIG MISTAKE.

2. Calling too many river bets - my W$SD% is 58, so this isn't too bad.

3. Not BETTING the river enough with the winning hand. I'VE COST MYSELF AT LEAST A STACK OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS.

4. Overbetting my monsters and folding off the field of otherwise playable second-best hands. I'VE LOST A LOT OF VALUE ON THIS ONE - THIS COULD BE MY BIGGEST LEAK.

My PTBB/100 is downright dreadful, so embarrassing in fact I'm not going to share it. Still, I only have about 6,500 hands in PT, so no need to give up yet or consider not moving up to $50 NL when my bankroll allows, but I have a feeling I'm going to be spending more time at $25 and $50 that I would have liked coming in to this thing. I don't think I'm being overly tight - my VPIP is over 20 since I started opening up my game.

I guess 6,500 hands isn't really enough to cast anything in stone, but I'm still worried that I'm not playing a great game of poker - one that I know I can play.

Hopefully I'll get to $50 NL sometime before I die of old age.

Tables played: 4 full ring
Hands played: 973
Time played: 772 table minutes

Poker winnings: ($8.20)
Bonus cleared: $11.19
Total profit (loss) for day: $2.99

Bankroll as of 5/17/06: $788.94

Countdown to $50 NL: $211.06

RR, dont worry about your BB/100 til you have at least 10k hands realisticly more like 20k. There is going to be so much fluctuation that if you define your play by your BB/100 you're going to driver yourself crazy.

SATURDAY, MAY 20, 2006

Finished down $78.62 today. That's right, that was not a typo. Another mega-losing day. Getting real sick of this racket. It seems just when things start to turn around, I get hit with stack after stack of losses. At this point I'm so frustrated I'm not even sure if it's suckouts or poor play - probably some of each. It's been well over a month now since I've won for any period of time without losing everything I've worked for. I really can't believe that it's $25 NL - if I find that I can't beat this level, I'm going to quit poker forever. No way in hell should I be stuck like this. I don't know how much more time I'm going to give it - all I have to look forward to is tougher games as I move up...I'm in this for the money, I'm really starting to think I'm wasting my time. Seems like I can't compete with people who have much more time than I do to devote to this. I don't know how much time is enough...I probably spend about 30-35 hours a week between playing and studying...for what? Maybe I just suck.

Tables played: 1-4 full ring
Hands played: 1,533
Time played: 1,089 table minutes

Poker winnings: ($96.60)
Bonus cleared: $17.98
Total profit (loss) for day: ($78.62)

Bankroll as of 5/20/06: $710.32

Countdown to $50 NL: $289.68 (like this statistic matters)

SUNDAY, MAY 21, 2006

Finished down $42.05 today. Another lovely day in the life of. Actually, I lost three stacks to one guy on suckouts - all times we were all in PF. QQ loses to AK (this one's not too too bad - I usually don't go broke with QQ, but Villian was ultra-nuts), KK loses to 99, KK loses to AJ. Not what I needed after yesterday's agony. Very depressing - I won a bunch of money, but as time went on I managed to lose it all. I have no clue if I'm beating this game or not anymore...granted, I haven't been playing up to par, but I would think that there would be some leeway at $25 NL. The bloodshed continues...

Tables played: 1-4 full ring
Hands played: 1,487
Time played: 1,130 table minutes

Poker winnings: ($59.35)
Bonus cleared: $17.30
Total profit (loss) for day: ($42.05)

Bankroll as of 5/21/06: $668.27

Countdown to $50 NL: $331.73 (like this statistic matters) <-----

WEEK ENDING MAY 21, 2006

Another abysmial week. Actually, my worst ever, and that's all just from this weekend. I guess this is how hard work and study get rewarded. I'd be lying if I said I was 100% confident that I'm actually a winner at $25 NL. Funny - I ran my bankroll up from $500 to $850 very quickly - that was over a month ago, haven't been close to returning to that point since. Hopefully that first $350 wasn't just variance in my favor - let's hope those results are the true ones and the last few weeks are just a rotten slump.

Like I said last night - reservations are starting to set in on quitting this gig. I'm quite discouraged with both my game lately (hasn't all been variance albeit most of it has), and have been in for quite a rude awakening as to how much better the $25 NL players are than the $10 ones. Of course, when there are morons at my table, the card fairy is out to lunch.

Looking at my recent results, 4-tabling is killing me. I don't think I'm very effective doing it yet. It's amazing how much I've lost by adding in that fourth table. Three-tablling hasn't been much better, however, but the sample size is small. As such, I'm going to drop down to 2-tabling for a little while and see how things go. Even if it is due to the downswing, I'd like to have some momentum when firing up all tables. Here's to a better week in the coming days.

1-4 tables
5 days play

Net finish for week: ($130.56)
Bankroll as of 5/21/06: $668.27

Emoticon of the Week: