The history, the plan, and the goals

Welcome to my new blog. I am going to try to keep this blog isolated to hand histories, primarily. I will give my interpretation of the hand, and hope that you comment on them too. I have been tracking my bankroll since August 13, and will now keep track for you, my audience, live, on a semi-daily basis.

I started playing Bodog back on March 24, 2007. I initially funded the site with $100.00. I dropped all the way down to $0.00 on July 5, 2007. That depletion of funds happened to coincide with the first [and only that I've seen] deal to convert my "poker points" into cash. I was able to cash out $20.00, and started playing again. By August 12, I was back down to $5.00, and on the ropes. I took a long break from playing, and started reading a TON of books, including Doyle Brunson's Super System and Super System 2 and Sklanky's Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players.

The first turnaround
After reading the books and the long break, I started to right the ship, vowing to be MORE aggressive on more selective hands and turned my game around. Playing the $0.05/$0.10 NLHE tables, I began to eke out a profit on a semi-regular basis. I would raise any two picture cards and play any two suited or connecting cards. I was an extremely loose player, and my bank roll would experience HUGE variation (variance), but overall net positive outcomes. Playing in such a manner, I rolled my stash all the way up to $182.89 on September 12, 2007. However, that was not to last and I dropped down to $68.81 on October 13, 2007.


The second turnaround
I could see the only direction this was heading - which was down; all the way down, again to $5.00. This time I figured I would not be able to pull out of the nosedive, because I had been consistently getting missed flops and unlucky cards, mixed with a healthy portion of bad beats. I knew I was not playing optimally, and sat down to re-read a few more books, including Phil Helmuth's Play Poker Like the Pros. I realized that I am playing FAR too many hands, and should be even more selective with the hands I raise - even the hands I play. I started adopting the disciplined way of playing / raising the top 2% of hands, and limping on the semi-premium hands (AQ, AJ, KQ, etc.). My bank roll immediately showed the after-affects, enabling me to rise from the recent low of $68.81 to $101.13 on October 13, 2007, to $168.21 on October 16, 2007, to $202.10 on October 25, 2007, to as recently as last night, where my super tight play enabled me to win the biggest pot of my online career, a $57 doozie, completing my bank roll as of this writing at $266.27 on October 29, 2007.

During that run, I realized that there is a lot less variance in the higher stakes games, because the players are not playing like donkeys with as great frequency as the players at the $10.00 tables. Therefore, I moved up to the $0.10/$0.25 tables. The players are far more predictable, because the money is "more meaningful." I do not think the competition is more fierce; if anything, it is more tame, but people are a lot more careful with a $25.00 buy in as opposed to a $10.00 buy in. That suits me fine, because given my new way of playing, I enter the pots where I feel I am ahead, and I will not take pure gambles. That's not to say that I don't ever take gambles; in looking at the hand history, most of my questionable hands stem from pots I should have never been involved with in the first place.

The plan & goal

• I would like to get to $1,000.00 by year end, December 31, 2007. I don't know how realistic that is, due to the fact that I am averaging $3.00 per session played. There are only 60 days left in the year. However, that is my goal and I am sticking to it.
• Once I hit $1,000.00, I will likely withdraw $500.00 from my Bodog account, just to see how the withdrawal function works. I also feel like $1,000.00 in a foreign account is a bit much to trust with a company that has no U.S. jurisdiction over its head.
• I track my win rate on a daily basis, enclosed is my trends, with $$$ / hour in pink, and $$$ cashout in blue (see above).
• I will target a flops seen percentage of approximately 30%.
• When I reach approximately $750.00 in my bank roll, I will begin playing the $0.25/$0.50 tables - in the same manner in which I am playing currently. I will not deviate from my game plan, as I am making good money right now from the $25.00 tables - I don't anticipate it will change at the $50.00 tables.
• I will continue to capture interesting hands and post them for critique from my [1 or 2] member audience. I have quite a few hands in the back log that need to be posted, and I will do that as time permits.
  

Right now, my online poker future looks very bright. If I can stay away from tilt, and continue to play conservative aggressive, I will sweep up. Over the past 2 weeks, since I clamped down again, I have been averaging a $20.00 win rate per night. At that rate, I can achieve my $1,000.00 goal by year end (60 * $20.00 = $1,200.00 + existing $227.00 bank roll = $1,400.00).