The Awakening

Today: -$293 (saturday-monday)
Hours: 5.5
To Date: +$17,914

Booked a winning day finally on Saturday, although I only played for an hour. Also got a little under $200 bonus for the last week on UB. On Monday I kinda had an awakening and decided to get my life back on the path of success. I just all of a sudden felt better and decided to stop feeling a little sorry for myself about this bad streak. I had been feeling a little down because I had such high hopes for the month and the first week was going so well. I wasn't being proffessional, positive, or productive as a result. But yesterday I suddenly felt so much better and am really feeling rejuvinated. I just feel positive and great about things and realize if I continue to feel this way everyday, and get back to being very proffessional about poker and my life, that great things will come. I know that good things will continue to happen to me as long as I continue to put the right energy in to things day in and day out. I know that my results will follow shortly if I continue to focus and feel this way, and I feel like the pendelum has already started to swing back the other way for me in poker. So everything is all good once again, and I love my life and what I do with it everyday. Time to bring all that energy to the digital felt!

Haven't really been playing--But somehow losing big

Today: -1,493 (tuesday-friday)
Hours: 7
To Date: +18,207

Haven't updated because I haven't really been playing much and things have been going pretty badly. On tuesday I was up over $800 until I played $200 nl heads up against a pretty terrible player who was on a luck streak from the poker gods that was unbelievable. I ended up losing around $900 to him, which is almost 5 buyins at 1/2. Then on Wed. I played 2 different 1/2 hours sessions, both of which I had to stop quickly after things going too wrong too fast. But oh well, I'm just in a rut and mentally haven't been motivated enough to put in the hours and get through this quicker. Money wise this downswing seems worse than it actually is because this is the first one I've had at 2/4, and am only used to the true variance of 1/2. I also played some live poker on thursday and friday for a few hours and lost over $500 as well. But I'm feeling ok about my game, my confidence is definitely still there, and I'm ready to start killing the online games again after a 2 day break!

Started out on top of money mountain Ended on Bottom

Today: -$128
Hours: 4.25
To Date: +$19,700


Started off really good w/ a +900 win, and then went downhill from there and I booked a loss for the next 3 sessions. I also started off playing really well and pretty much went downhill from there too. What a coincidence! I don't know why all of a sudden I have been getting angry when I get sucked out on, but I think mostly because I'm just frustrated w/ my own play lately. Poker just sucks when I'm running bad and not playing very good. So that's it for me, I'm done playing bad/ok, and I'm back to playing my best every single damn session. At least I can control that and it will make poker at least somewhat enjoyable and challenging again, and then I'm sure the good luck will follow....

Had to Take a Few Off

Today: -$1,295 (thursday - sunday)
Hours: 6
To Date: +$19,828

I had to take a few days off from blogging and yesterday (sunday) off of everything and clear my head. I started to get off my game just a little bit, but mostly my mental state was starting to slide. I let myself slack off mentally and stopped trying my hardest, stopped being extremely disciplined, and started feeling a little burnt out I think. It was nothing major at all but I thought it would be best to not blog for a couple days, barely play, and then take everything off on sunday to recharge my batteries. Anyways on thursday I only played for a half hour and lost over $700, very frustrating session! I got bullied by someone, and to make it worse I forgot to open the hand history for the one table that I made money on. So my PT stats say I lost $1290 when I only lost $725, so frustrating I can't even tell you!!!!! Didn't play the rest of the day after that bullshit, and then on friday I played for like 3 hours and lost $854. Then on Saturday I won $284 and played a little over 2 hours. But those two days of playing I really let myself go, so I just had a Sunday fun day yesterday and didn't think about poker at all. I am ready to go for the rest of the month now though, so I'm happy. I'm really motivated and am feeling excited to jump back into the daily grind and play absolutely ballerific! (not a word by the way). I'm feeling good about how I'm gonna play and I expect to start running very well again.

Rakeback update

Because of Ultimate Bet's new rakeback policy my March rakeback is actually only $1,400 not $1,550 like I had previously added in. So here is how much I have made to date....
To Date: +$21,123

Slacked off Today a little

Today: -$628
Hours: 3.5
To Date: +$21,273
$400 nl win rate (to date): $158/hr @ 3.8PTBB/100

Ok I finally cooled off. Today was my first loss of over a buyin for a long time. In one of my sessions I decided to play 4 tables of $400 nl and 2 tables of $600 nl because there were some really great 3/6 games going and I was feeling so confident. I made a $250 mistake, got 2 outered, and lost kind of a cooler hand for a loss of around $700 between the two $600 nl tables, and overall lost over $500 on the session. So no more $600 nl until I have at least a few more thousand dollars to my bankroll. Then I'll probably start adding in a couple tables when the games are optimal. At least from what I hear and have seen those games are about the same competition as the $400 games, except for maybe a few more 5/10 pros dropping down when thier games are bad. So when I do feel properly bankrolled I should be able to up my hourly rate adding in some of those games. Anyways I'm pretty dissapointed in myself for how I played yesterday. I think I could easily have broke even for the day, and that kinda pisses me off. But I'm more dissapointed in myself than anything, I was doing such a good job of playing my "A" game everytime I played. It's not like I played really bad or anything, but I definitely let myself go a little and slack off on the discipline. I'm just not gonna accept anything else from myself but playing like a true proffessional all the time. Can't decide if I should just take today off or only play 1 or 2 sessions for the day. I think it would be a good idea to clear my head and re focus, and then come back tomorrow and crush the games. But part of me wants to play later on and prove to myself that I can play my best all the time and yesterday was just a little bit of a slacking day. So we'll see, I would bet that I end up hitting the tables w/ a vengence for like an hour or two later today.

Forgot to post yesterday- Yesterday and Today's results

Today: +$3,370 and yesterday: +$307
Hours: 6 and yesterday: 2.5
To Date: +$21,901
$400 nl win rate (to date): 170/hr

Someone should have taken the under the other day on the +1,800 day I felt coming cause I only made $307. But today I would have fucking crushed it!! After my best day ever last thursday of +$3,181 I had another personal best today with a +$3,370 day. 8 buyins at 2/4 is pretty solid. If I would have played flawlessly today I could have hit 4k, however if I didn't play good like I did I could have only made around 2k. That's how many crazy and tough situations I got into today. My last session of the day was a 1 hour session where I was in like 5 really tough decisions and I was right 4.5 out of 5 and ended up making another 1k. It left a really good taste in my mouth about my play for the day. I have gotten much better at making the right decisions quickly in the extremely hard situations lately. The games in the last 2 days at 2/4 have been phenomenal, I absolutely love it. These are the days of being a poker player I fucking love! The feeling of running well and making tons of money, while earning a lot of it with really good play is unlike anything I can explain. Days like these are usually few and far in between and should be stored in your mind for when the horribly disgusting times come, to be used as hope and motivation. All I need to do is stay motivated to play my "A+" game and keep putting in hours and I should be great. I really hope the games continue to be as good as the last couple days. By the way, having 2 stacks of high society online feels very satisfying.

Told You

Today: +$113
Hours: 1
To Date: +$18,224
$400 nl win rate (to date): $115/hr

Told you I would start updating everyday again. I know it's only been one day but I'm back in business. Anyways I decided to only play an hour today and then get back to normal again tomorrow. I haven't really had a day off in a while and thought it would be good for me to not play anymore after my first session today. The session went ok, nothing really happened but I probably could have made another $100. I'm happy with my play though. I'm feeling around a +$1,800 day tomorrow, any takers on the over/under???? Oh wait, no one reads this except for my girlfriend!

Rakeback

I have never added rakeback to how much I'm up overall to date and I want to do that. So I'm gonna add in January, Febuary, and March's rakeback. I made $1,300 in Jan, $1,000 in Feb., and $1,550 in March. That equals $3,850 total so far in rakeback.
So from January 1st when I decided to kinda start over with poker and take it to the next level until now I'm just over +18k. I see no reason why that won't be over +150k by next Jan. 1st!!
To Date: +$18,111

Review of the Last Week

Apr. 1st-7th: +$4,065
Hours: 25
To Date: +$14,261
$400 nl win rate (to date): $115/hr

I really am going to blog pretty much everyday I play from now on again. I have let myself go w/ updating, but that's all over with now. I have been putting all my energy towards focusing on extreme discipline and focus at the tables, and I will be disciplined again w/ blogging my results and focusing on my game away from the tables as well. So the last week has gone pretty well, and was real close to going very well. The reason I say that is because like an idiot I decided to play another session real late last night when I shouldn't have, and I got very unlucky on the river for an $800 pot and also spewed off around $150 w/ unfocused and bad play. So instead of finishing up on Saturday around $1,250, I only won $380 on the day, that's a large and significant difference. So if I didn't just do that I would rate last week as an excellent week overall. On Thursday I had my biggest day ever in poker and won $3,181 in only 3.5 hours for the day. Other than that nothing crazy happened for the week, just ran pretty good and played very good. I am very proud of my improvement as of late in all areas of my game. Ever since the middle of March I really started improving my strategy and the way I play the game. And I have continued to get much better at extracting money, saving money, inducing big bluffs, and just overall maximizing my winnings hugely. My style really has developed into a much more difficult opponet to play against, a fair amount for the bad players and especially for the solid $400 nl players who play against me. I think I used to be somewhat easy to play agianst if you are good, but now I'm tricky, thoughtful, creative, but also for the most part very solid and disciplined. The last week I believe I also have really improved myself in the mental area and aspect of poker. I have made a serious effort to focus on playing my "A" game everytime I play a session, to think hard about every decision I make, and most of all to be disciplined at all times. I have definitely noticed the difference that this makes in just the last week. Being disciplined over the last week has really helped me make more money at the tables. So this is what I've been most proud of lately, and I will absolutely continue all of these things in the future everytime I play. I expect this to help my play and profits immensely in the long run, and surprisingly it helps immediately as well. So anyways thats pretty much it for last week, I'll make a serious effort to post everyday again this coming week. If I play and make what I did this week for each week of the month I will have reached my goal and be very satisfied w/ myself. I think I can and expect to average around 4k for the next 3 weeks too. Like I said if I just didn't play that last 30 minute session on the late night last night I would have been up another $900 on the week putting me right around +$5k last week. Oh well, on to next week which I expect to be even better results, and for sure even better play.

March results and April Goals

March ended up being a descent month. I can't figure out for the life of me if I exactly how much I made. For this blog it looks like I made around $4,800 w/out rakeback, but in my PT stats it says I made just under $6,000. So one of these is off by a little over a dime, but I seriously cannot figure it out and don't want to waste more energy trying to figure it out right now. I played 95 hours this month and saw 46,000 hands, averaging 2.55ptbb/100 hands overall. I played 5,000 hands in the last few days of the month at $400 nl and made 6ptbb/100 so that was really good at least. But overall I didn't reach my goal of $10k for the month, however I got to playing $400 nl and I definitely think I played much better than Feb. and improved numerous things in my game. I also made $1,500 from rakeback which feels really good. So overall in March I profited either $6,300 or $7,200, not bad.
My goals for April are as follows: make over $14k, play over 100 hours, make over 4ptbb/100 hands at $400 nl, play my "A" game and focused every single session, and be as disciplined as humanly possible for me.

26th-31st resutlts and updates

Today: +$1,551
Hours: 17
To Date: +$10,196

Ok I took a week off from updating, ive been lazy blogging for the last couple of weeks. Things ended up going pretty well since sunday. I started playing 1 or 2 tables of $400 nl w/ 3 or 4 of $200 for tuesday and wednesday. Then on thursday I decided to take a shot and play all $400 nl tables (average of about 4) and things didn't go too well. I had lost on wed. and then lost like $700 on thurday. Then my first session on friday I lost another $600. I told myself if I didn't put in a winning session for my next session I would have to go back to $200 nl and grind back up some money. And that is when I happened to have a great session, winning the biggest pot of my life in the process. I played the hand very deceptively and it payed off big time and I won a $2,400 pot, profiting almost $1,400 on that one hand. I ended up making almost $2,700 that session and it felt really good compared to how things had been going over the last few days. The next day on the 30th I just played one session for around 2 hours and lost $200. So over the last week I made about $1,500, and hopefully I will be able to continue playing $400 nl full time and never look back. My next post will be my overall results for the month of March, as well as my results at $400 nl so far and my goals for April.