Ouch...Playing more and Winning less

Today: -$938
Hours: 3.25
To Date: +$4,476
$200 NL win rate: $140/hr

Not a good day of poker for me at all. Was put in a lot of really tough spots and had to make a lot of hard decisions. Obviously the deck was hitting me in the face pretty hard, but as w/ any bad run of cards it is ultimately mostly my fault. I was definitely not sharp today and not playing that well. This was one of those days where I needed to be at the very top peak of my game to minimize my losses. And I didn't perform leaving me dissapointed in myself right now. For the majority of the day I just played decent, followed every so often by a bad move or wrong decision. If I brought the right focused energy to the tables I would have lost somewhere between $500-$700 today and been happy. All it took was one BIG decision wrong and about 5 other small, stupid, and sloppy plays. The big lay down that I made which turned out to be wrong I'm actually pretty ok with becuase I was really trying to make a great play. But the other $250 or so worth of mistakes was stuff I never do anymore, but at least I realize it. A lot of people would just blame the cards on a day like this, (in the past I might have lost a lot more today than this too) but I no longer do that and realize that even a day like today could have resulted in a relatively small loss with truly great play. So tomorrow when I play I'm gonna bring the absolute best energy and focus possible and make sure I play my A game. If the cards are gonna be bad for the next 500, 1000, 5000, or even only just 50 hands I'm totally fine with that and ready. But I'm gonna make sure that I focus on playing them as well as I possibly can to minimize my losses and maximize my wins. Even if it takes so much out of me that I can only play for an hour or two, there is no way I'm posting here tomorrow that I didn't try hard enough to play well. With all that said, I fully expect to start running well again and finish off this month great. Giving me momentum into my over $10,000 month of February.

Playing less and Winning more

Today: +$1,120
Hours: 1.5
To Date: +$5,414
$200 NL win rate: $383/hr

Haven't been able to play hardly at all. But what I did play today was a CRAZY session. There was huge hands on all my tables for the most part all at once. I should have made another $140 if I was playing perfect, overall I played pretty good though. I got down $500 in the first 15-20 minutes, kept my composure and focus and then went on a serious rush. I'm running really well right now, pretty much like I expected to. I think I was right in my assumption that I didn't really have that good of a run of cards at $100 nl. And I think the cards have really picked up here in the last few hours. Anyways I just need to start playing more now, like I had been in the past couple weeks. Then I will be on my way to riches!!! Man does positive thinking and using your mind in the right way pay off big. I need to get a post in on what I mean here soon...

Short Good Day

Today: +$554
Hours: 1
To Date: +$4,294

Win Rate $200 nl: $254/hr

Didn't feel in the mood to play a lot today

Day 1 $200 NL and Goals

Today: +$526 (not counting $65 from 2 PLO $25 tables)
Hours: 3.25
To Date: +$3,740

$200 NL Win Rate (to date): $162/hr

My first day at $200 nl went pretty good. My first session I didnt play too well and completely donked off a full buy in. I was playing 3 tables of 100 and 200 NL each ,and on the lower tables I wasn't playing as good as usual either. I think I was a little overwhelmed and not used to the big pots of the $200 tables, and the smaller tables just didn't seem significant. But when I came back for my second session I realized that playing anything other than my "A" game was unacceptable. So before I played I got myself in a really good frame of mind, and stayed in the zone the whole session. I played all $200 tables and just enjoyed myself and focused on my play. I ended up playing really well and of course good cards followed. I made over $700 and got up to over $500 for the day. The main difference I notice so far is at $200 nl players are much more willing to put lots of money in the pot. They call big raises more in position, and overall just don't seem to worry about the money factor as much. I definitely like this and really think I'm gonna make a shit load of money over the next few weeks.
I have a few short term goals for $200 nl. I want to make over 8 PTbb/100 playing 6 tables at once, and to be honest I think it's very likely that I run somewhere around 10 ptbb/100. I want to be done with this level by the end of next month, and I want to make over $10,000 in February. Also, I want to continue getting better and working on my game as much as actually playing. I plan on reviewing my play on poker tracker a lot, watching a lot of cardrunners videos, and reading about the game. I'm loving poker right now so much and I think I will definitely achieve each one of these goals.

Done with $100 NL

I'm done with $100 NL and on to $200 NL. Took me 3.5 weeks to complete it and I feel like I'm really on pace to do everything I want in this game. I'll probably play 3 tables of .50/1 and 3 tables of 1/2 to ease myself into the swing of things. If tomorrow goes well then I'll strictly play all 1/2 nl tables from then on. Here are some results and stats from $100 nl this month:
STATKING stats:
Total Won: $3,214
Win Rate: $54.02/hr
Std Deviation: $155.98
Daily Win Pct: 68.18%

Poker Tracker Stats:
VP$IP: 19.54
PF Raise%: 15.46
Total AF: 3.96
PTBB/100: 7.80
MT ratio: 5.08

Today

Today: +$259
Hours: 2.25
To Date: +$3,214
Win Rate: $54/hr

Played really bad in my first 1 hours session. Realized it and played MUCH better for the next session. I cannot express enough how important it is to be on your "A" game at all times.

Why multitabling DOES have at least 1 small downfall

Today: +$242
Hours: 2
To Date: +$2,955
Win Rate so far: $52/hr

Played some good poker today. I made a couple small stupid mistakes, but made up for them with a few really good plays that made me much more. In my second hour of play I decided to play 4 $100 nl tables and 2 $200 tables because there were hardly any tables of .50/1 going and my bankroll is only a couple hundred away from $6,000 in my Absolute account. It really sucks b/c on a $200 table I thought I turned the nut straight while I was in 3 other big pots on my other tables. I got really excited because I put my opponet on AA or top set of queens and knew I was gonna stack him. I re raised all in and like I thought he had top set, but turned a boat and I lost. So I thought oh well that's poker, didn't bother me one bit. But then I looked over the hand and realized I had 64 and not 86. So I had 6 high...lol. So I should have made another $175 today. I was really pissed off for like 10 minutes but then realized I needed to get over it fast or I was gonna have a bad session. I got myself back into a really good state of mind and ended up playing extremely well for the last 40 minutes and made a lot of money back, so that was very good. But damn, that does suck!

Jan. 24th Results

Today: $-67
Hours: 1.75
To Date: +$2,713
Win Rate so far: $49/hr

Blah.......im guessing just a little downtime until the rush of good cards continues. Kinda like the eye of a hurricane baby, lol. My first metaphor in this blog, or is that a simile?...wow. Anyways I swear sometime soon here I'm gonna talk about some other things instead of just my daily results. I want to talk about how I have learned to use my mind to be successful, as well as qualities most don't have to be a significant winner in the long run, ect.

Can't Wait for $200 NL

Today: +$107
Hours: 3.25
To Date: +$2,780
Win Rate to date: $52/hr

Played OK overall. Made one really horrible play that cost me 3/4 buy in. Made one really tough fold w/ a set that I think was a good play. Made a couple other small mistakes and a bad bluff that is unacceptable. But also made a few pretty nice deceptive plays in small pots that netted me almost a full buy in extra. Should have made a profit somewhere around $250 today at my best though. Hopefully I'm playing $200 NL on Ultimate Bet by Friday. The games look so much better than Absolute, and I really think I'm going to make over $120/hr there. Probably somwhere right around $150/hr with rakeback and the intial deposit bonus actually.....that is awesome!

Almost $1,000 Day at .50/1 NL

Today: +$948
Hours: 2.75
To Date: +$2,673
Win Rate (to date): $53/hr

I knew the rush was coming. Hopefully it will continue for a long time. Got a lot of big hands that got paid off, but also maximized my profit really well. Gonna move to $200 NL on Ultimate Bet once I make another like 7 buyins.

Not much play

Today: -$55
Hours: 1.25
To Date: +$1,725
Win Rate to date: $36/hr

Only played a little over an hour, thats all I could get in today. Played OK.

Ready For a Rush

Today: +$418
Hours: 3.25
To Date: +$1,780
Win Rate (to date): $38.5/hr

Got a lot of good hands today. Flopped tons of sets, but got stacked 3 times to gut shot straights hitting on the turn. I Didn't play my absolute best poker today, but overall everything was pretty good. Feel the rush coming!

Minimizing My Losses

Today: +$87
Hours: 4.5
To Date: +$1,362
Win Rate (to date): $32/hr

Another day of some bad beats and a lot of sets hitting against me. But I honestly couldn't be any happier. My play has really improved and I think a month ago I would have been down at least 2 or 3 buyins more in the last few days. I also made a few good bluffs and some timely good decisions. To be down not even a full buy in after the last 2 days really shows me that I am minimizing my bad runs of cards. Gotta keep on focusing on playing my best and improving and I should be more than fine. By the way the only time I got the least bit frustrated was when I got all in for over a buyin w/ AA vs KK and guy hit a king on me. That is the 4th time in the last few months I have gotten all in pre flop for a buyin + w/ AA and lost to KK....ANNOYING! Anyways as long as I continue to play well, my hands will start holding up and and my win rate will climb back up in a hurry.

Well...thats poker.

Today: -$168
Hours: 4.75
To Date: +$1,275
Win Rate: $33/hr

Tons of bad beats and a couple coolers. Was down almost 6 buyins on the day at one point. Very happy with myself for not even coming close to losing my composure. The more it didn't affect me, the better it made me feel. So I just continued to focus on my play and ended up winning back $400 of it. I did make one mistake at the beginning of the day, where I bluffed with a re-raise with AK. I had bad timing but thought I was pretty pot commited and possibly had 6 outs. Turns out I think I acted to quick and could have just folded with half a buyin left to my stack. Overall, I'm really happy with my attitude and approach towards the game right now. I feel like I'm really improving as a player and will be MUCH better in the coming weeks and months. I know its just short term variance and the pots will start racing towards my stack soon.

First 2 Weeks in Review

Alright I've gotten through the first 2 weeks of this blog. Overall, I am pretty happy with my play. I have made a fair amount of mistakes and think I should probably have a $5-10 higher win rate. The Last couple days I've hitten a little bit of a rut too. My hands haven't been holding up very well and to go along with that I've been a little too aggressive. But I'll make the neccessary adjustments and continue to focus on playing my best at all times. I really expect things to pick up in the next couple weeks. I didn't get to play as much as I wanted to in the first 2 weeks, so I will make up for it in the next 2. I want my win rate to be above $60/hr by the end of the month and to be playing $200 NL by Feb. 1st. So I need to make somewhere around another $2,500, which should be no problem at all. I also want to get my BB/100 way up, it should be above 8 within another 10-15,000 hands. But my main goal is to have a $6,000+ bankroll by the end of the month so I can be playing $200 NL. My plan is to start an account with Ultimate Bet in a week or so and start playing there once my bonus is gone at Absolute.
Stats:
100 NL profit: +$1,443
Rakeback (from December paid on Jan. 15th): +$438
Absolute Poker bonus w/ a little from Dec.= +$400
Dec. 31st- Jan.15th total profit= +$2,281

StatKing stats:
Win Rate: $43/hr
Total Hours: 33.75
Std Deviation: $126.51/hr
Daily Win Pct: 69.23%

Poker Tracker stats (from 1/6 -1/16):
Total Hands: 10,050
VP$IP: 19.84
Amount Won: $954.90
BB/100: 5.17
MT ratio: 4.94
Hands/hr: 381.40

Long hours

Today: +$45
Hours: 4.75
To Date: +$1,443
Win Rate (to date): $43/hr

It was a long day with a very long 3.5 hour session to end it. I'm glad I did it though, because there was some really bad players that ended up paying me off pretty good. I was down $235 to start the day so I ended up getting it all back and then a little. I got all in pre flop with ace king off for 3/4 of a buy in, which was dumb. I also was a little too aggressive today and need to tone that back a little. I C-bet too much and made a few bluffs that I definitely shouldn't have. As long as I make these little adjustments and continue to focus on taking my time to think and playing my best at all times I should be really good. I'll post some stats later today and talk about a couple other things...

Looking good 1/2 way through month

Today: +$18
Hours: 2.5
To Date: +$1,398
Win Rate (to date): $48/hr

Lost almost $300 in my first session today, but came back strong with some good play. Tried to play 7 tables in the first session and not really sure what happened to make me lose so much. A lot of strong hands getting out flopped and turned, but I'm gonna stick to 6 tables as my max. Playing 7 just felt a little too hectic for me. By the way, I can't believe I procrastinated so long and didn't buy poker tracker until a couple weeks ago. I absolutely love it! A feature that I didn't really realize that I was missing out on was being able to go back over any single specific hand I want. Being able to do that is really nice, and only makes me want to get better. My desire to improve is so high right now, after being at a stand still for probably 2 months or so. I didn't realize at the time how much it was affecting my play and mindset in a negative way. I'm definitely gonna use some other available options to really improve my game as well in the very near future. Even when I'm thinking about how to play better, or reading about poker theory that isn't really knew to me, it still gets my mind in the right place and makes it easier for me to play at my best at all times. Anyways, tomorrow I'll probably post some stats from the first 2 weeks of this blog, as well as some poker tracker stats from Jan. 6th until now. I'll elaborate more about where I want to be by the end of the month and things like that too.

Motivated

Today: +$338
Hours: 3.75
To Date: +$1,380
Win Rate (to date): $52/hr

Overall today was pretty good. There was actually a fair amount of juicy games at stupid Absolute Poker today. I really need to figure out how I can get rakeback at Full Tilt. But I did make one fold with 2 pair that was wrong that cost me 3/4 of a buy in. I just didn't realize that the player was that dumb and got unlucky. I also made a lay down with trip queens and a jack kicker that I really have no idea about at all. It's really bothering me though, because the guy had a VPIP of like 38 or something. If I was in position I would have been able to keep on going further in the hand and figure it out better. I hope he had a boat with a small pocket pair or had me out kicked or something. I also think I maximized my profit well today in a lot of hands. And I'm happy with myself for constantly being focused and really trying to play at my best. I see myself having a very profitable day tomorrow. I'm so damn motivated to get my win rate up and play better than ever.

Very Swingy Day

Today: -$74
Hours: 3.5
To Date: +$1,042
Win Rate (to date): $46/hr

Ok I've been sick with a pretty high fever for the last couple days. I couldn't even play yesterday, and today I played pretty much 1 hour sessions when I was feeling as good as I could. I am pretty dissapointed with a few key decisions that I made today. I should have made around $150 today, instead of $74 in the red. I didn't listen and completely trust my true gut feeling a couple times and it really cost me. And then one hand where I flopped the nut straight I completely became retarded for a minute and no where near made the money I should have. So I chalk a little bit of my mental lapse today on my health, but for the most part not. At least I know what I did wrong today, and will definitely learn from it. Other than that, talk about swingy! I went from being down $470 in the first 2.5 hours, to making $403 in the last hour to end the day. The positive thing is I never once even came close to steaming or tilting when things were really not going my way at all. My 3-4 significant mistakes were just me not thinking clearly, being impulsive, and once quickly losing the ability to use my mind for some reason.

Sick

Today: +$51
Hours: 1.5
To Date: +$1,116
Win Rate (to date): $58/hr

Made one big mistake that cost me like $65, and a few other small mistakes. I would go into more detail but I have a temperature and am feeling like shit. Decided to stop after 30 minutes of my second session because I refuse to play unless I'm in a really good state of mind. If I get a good night of sleep I'm sure I will be healthy as a horse tomorrow. That way tomorrow I'll be able to make up the hour and a half I cut short today.

Right Where I Want To Be

Today: +$391
Hours: 3
To Date: +$1,065
Win Rate (to date): $60/hr

Im right about where I think I should be 5 tabling $100 NL. I finally got paid off on some big hands today where my opponets had no business being involved at the end. I really wish I could get rakeback at Full Tilt so I didnt' have to play at Absolute Poker. I can't stand so many things about that site, especially the lack of good games later on in the night. I really wonder how much more money I could have made in the last month playing somewhere else. Thats a rant I will save for another post though. I made the right decisions in 2 big pots today that netted me some good money. I played solid today, but I need to clean up a few small mistakes that I made. Overall though, I'm really happy with how the day went. Yesterday I said I expected today to be an even better day. And as far as my profit from poker it was! Got that good old feeling about tomorrow again, so we shall see...

Poker and Massage

Today: +$283
Hours: 2:45
To Date: +$674
Win Rate (to date): $46/Hr

What a great day today ended up being. Now that it's over, I would have to say this has probably been the best day of the year so far for me! By far the best time you could possibly play poker is a few hours after an 80 minute masage. I was in such a good state of mind while playing today. The three hours I played today was the best I've played over an extended period of time since probably November. It really shows that while December was an absolutely horrific run of cards, a lot of the money I lost was 100 percent my fault. I will no longer ever again blame cards like I used to for my losing streaks. There is so much people can do to hugely limit their bad runs, but instead just let the cards dictate how things are going. I've known this for a while too, but just didn't have the discipline and drive to do anything about it. It has been so long I had almost forgotten how good it feels to play really well. And thankfully I think I have become addicted to it again and can't wait to continue it. Playing when I'm in the right frame of mind and completely comfortable, happy, content, driven, and focused makes all the difference in the world. It's the only way to go for me, and just affirms many of the things I've been reading about lately (which I will get into in a later post) are true. I know that if I just continue to focus on playing really solid that the money will easily flow into my bankroll so fast it's not even funny. Not to mention I also got all of my shit back that was stolen from me a week ago. Getting back a laptop, PSP, Nintendo Wii, and a bunch of clothes that was all stolen out of your house feels pretty damn good to get back. Im expecting tomorrow to be even better, wonder what the chances of that are?

More Hours=More Money

Today: +$82
Hours: 1:30
To Date: +$391
Win Rate (to date): $33/Hr

Today was good, I just wish I could have played more. From what I have played lately, I feel pretty good about. Im still losing most of the monster pots with the best hand when the money goes in, so it's kind of hard to make a lot of money. But other than that my cards have been pretty good, and so has my play. I easily could have made another 40 bucks today if I didnt play a little scared in this one hand. I let my memory get the best of me by thinking about how the pot was getting awful big for just having a pair of aces w/ king kicker. I've been losing a lot of those lately and really let up way too much. Other than that I've been playing some pretty simple ABC poker and getting out of the way of big pots without the real goods. However, I do need to just fold more often to small raises on the flop when I know I'm just gonna fold to another bet ont the turn anyways. I've also realized that lately I've lost that drive to try and maximize my profit on every one of my winning hands. This is costing me some extra dollars that I should be making. So now all I need to do is get more hours in and focus on playing how I know I should, and then Im finally back to making some serious money.

Updates

Ok I haven't been able to play much poker lately because of some hectic things going on in my life. But I'm slowly getting back into the flow. Starting tomorrow I'm going to play at least 3 hours a day and eventually more. Playing around 5 short handed tables at once should allow me to get in over 1,200 hands per day. I really wanted to get going on this blog more than I've been able to as well. So I'm really gonna get moving on it in the next week here. Tomorrow I'm gonna put up a link to my email, in case if when anyone starts reading this wants to contact me about anything. Also I would love to hear people's comments and responses to my posts so feel free to drop a comment on here about whatever. Anyways I'm glad I will finally be able to put some real time into this blog, and hopefully some people will actually find this site and start getting something out of it.

Good play, Bad results

Won: $-55
Hours: 1:30

Appreciate your Computer

Won: -$168
Hours: 6
Win Rate (so far): $40.44

This is a long overdue post due to my house getting broken into and having half my life stolen from me. Getting your computer stolen really sucks! Especially if you have as many things on there that mean a lot to you. Not the best way to start off the new year I guess. But I'm back in action now and it really feels good. I haven't had a chance to play much poker this week, and what I have played has not been too good. Today was the first real poker I've played with both of my screens in a week. On the 3rd, I played an hour of 4 tables and lost $135. Played an hour on the 4th and won $68. Today I played 4 hours and lost $101 averaging 5.25 short handed tables. I played ok for most of the day, but in my last 2 hour session I had a 30 minute time period where I lost my focus and made one bad call, and another horrible call. Then after that I realized I had been slipping and played really well for like 45 minutes, making 2 beautiful plays. I would have been pretty happy with my session if I wouldn't have then gone on to make a retarded monkey bluff that cost me $45. It really pisses me off that in the last 10 minutes of my sessions I have the tendancy to fuck off a fair amount of chips. I definitely should have made at least a $50 profit today, instead of $100 in the red. By the way another pet peeve I have is when I make a really good read on someone's hand, and then make what I think is a great play on them, and they are such a chump that they end up calling down with their shitty hand anyways. But it feels really good to have a computer again. It's got me feeling really motivated to play a lot, and to play well. Now I can really start blogging, and best of all playing a lot of poker.