February Review / March Preview

And another month is in the books for 2010. Bring on March now!

My 23rd birtday is right behind the corner. I am not really into celebrating my birthdays too much. They just remind me that I am another year older and still wasting too much time and energie on things I am not really into. At the moment I have this feeling in particular about my current job training. I know the worth of having a solid education but I have just not the desire to grind out the office life longer then I have to. Even I not realy care about this topic anymore I will try to put in some study time from now on for my final exams this summer.

Anyway before this here will get a life tilt rant I just stop it for now and safe it for another post in the future lol. 

Time for talking about Poker now!

At first a short recap of my month. I went on a nice upswing at 25nl the first few days of February. I felt pretty good about my game at this point and I hit the target in my BR for shot taking 50nl. I had a so so start but after some other spew sessions this month I brought "The Poker Mindset"to finaly help myself fixing my mental leaks. I did not finished this book yet but from what I already read it is a realy good one. Maybe I will make a book review here once  I read through it. Otherwise my confidence is growing from session to session. It just seems the improvments I made are paying divides even there is still a lot of work to do. Besides this I brought a sweet new 25.5" monitor for my grinding. It is just great to have such a big monitor. I can see all stats without problems but at the same time the tables have a good size and I can pretty easy 9 tabling with a tile/stack layout. On top of that I brought althoug a new Mod for the cards, chips and table. The style is nothing else but top notch and way better than the standard stuff on Full Tilt in my opinion. And last but not least FT gave one of the random boni which was for me $50. So with the hit you get on your RB it is still a free $34. I like free money and already cleared the bonus (just needed a few thousands hands for that). Finally some graphs:

So my results for February are the following:

[ ] Stay calm and focused everytime you play.

Besides this one day I was pretty near to archive this goal.

[ ] Take shots at NL50.

In fact I am for the moment a NL50 reg. Cool thing.

[ ] Play 20k hands. 75% at NL25 and 25% at NL50.

Meh another close one. Since I was not able to play most of the time at the weekends I failed to archive this one even by not that much. At least I played a lot more NL50 then NL25 lol.

[x] Get at least Silver in the Iron Man Challenge.

Yeah

So what is coming up this month? A lot I can say!

In the spot light is of course my further improvement as a player and getting used to NL50. This means working on some theorey but although putting a decent amount of hands in. There is no better way than just playing, playing and more playing. This together with focusinng on some mental stuff should make it possible for me to performe a lot better at the tables this month.

Although this month:

Prop bet: This month I am back in the "low volume" prob bet for both the $50 and the $100 pool. So with a total of $150 on the line I am feeling even more motivated to go for a nice amount of volume. I realy like to organize these bets and in some way I find it cool that they are even a bit popular in the forum now.

Mini-FTOPS: The next series of Full Tilts Tournaments series is in the air. With my tournament back ground it is still fun for me to play a few of them from time to time. And there is of course still the dream of this one big score! My performance in the last Mini-FTOPS was at best mediocre. So this time it is hopefuly a bit better. Here a quick overlook about my shedule. I would like to play some more events but given my work/school shedule and the difference in time zones (+6 hours) that is simply not possible. So here it is:

# 04 Event: $20 + $2 NL Hold 'em 1 rebuy and 1 add-on $300k GTD ( March 12th 13:00 ET)

# 07 Event: $10 + $1 NL Hold 'em Rebuy $350k GTD (March 13th 15:00 ET)

# 18 Event: $20 + $2 NL Hold 'em Cashout $60 GTD (March 18th 18:00 ET)

# 23 Event: $10 + $1 PLO Rebuy $150k GTD (March 20th 15:00 ET) 

And at the end my goals for March:

[ ] Work your way through "The Poker Mindset".

Not just read it but learn and apply the concepts from it!

[ ] Play at least 28k hands.

That should be doable while playing 90-120 minutes per day 9 tabling. Before I start 12 tabling i just want to see I can win over a somewhat decent sample size.

[ ] Get Iron Man.

That will be the first month I try to do this. But with the volume I am planing to play this should be no problem. I just have to watch out I play at least the 25 days I need to and can still take 6 days off pokerwise.

[ ] Perform good at the Mini-FTOPS

No profit goal or such things. I will buy in most of them with points so it is a bit like free rolling. I will just try to play my best and maybe I can make some deep run. When I play good but bust out of the money... Well, nothing I can do and the variance in 6k+ starter fields is just sick.

I see this is already way too long again so I just wrap it up at this point.

May the grind be with you in March!

January Review/February Goals

OK, it is time for my monthly review since I take this weekend off pokerwise. So here it is:

I had a bit of a rough start into this month but nothing really to worry about. After this short episode I caught a very nice upswing. But then I had one session when I went on tilt and blew some BI. It is pretty easy to see in the graph where that happend. But besides that I am happy with January. It is my best month ever at the cash tables so far while my confidence into my game grew slowly but steady this month. Of course I find still enough spots where I did not take the best line.
But instead of being upset with that like in the past I am now excited about the complexity of Cash Game Poker and how there are always spots to improve. So it is a good thing to remember myself that I still have much to learn even I improved a lot this month since I worked really hard on my game. And it is nice too see this work paid itself off.

So here is my graph just for NL25:


The first thing I am really happy about is my red line. It is way better then anytime before even it is still not great. But I find my blue line decent, too. I definitively found the fold button way more often in January in spots where I had to do and therefore stopped my POW magic lol.

And here is my overall graph with the summary of the different stakes:





So I played a bit off NL10 in the beginning of the month since the NL25 tables were so meh most of the time. But after Full Tilt increased the minimum table buy in they are better then anytime before. So no more dime for me next month. The few NL2 hands happend when I rearranged my HUD. But it wasm nice to win a cheeseburger in just 1,5 orbits lol.

My goals for this month were:


[ x] Stop spewing!
Yeah. Besides my tilt session and some minor pay offs I did not spew in January.

[ x] Clear $125 Iron Man Year End Bonus
Ship the free money!

[ x] Play 25k hands
Yeah.

[ x] Improve your red line
It is better but still space to improve.

[ x] Keep Iron Man Gold status
I booked this, too.

So everything more or less achieved and here are the goals for February:

[ ] Stay calm and focused everytime you play.
I caught myself to be mindless and therefore sloppy with my game when I grind sometimes. Since this is a safe route to burn money I need to stop that. I am yet not sure how do achieve that but I will hopefully find a way.

[ ] Take shots at NL50.
I think I am finally at a point where I can try to do so. My bank roll is big enough to make this step and I have no problem to move down again when I fail.

[ ] Play 20k hands. 75% at NL25 and 25% at NL50.
Since February is such a short month and I will play just 4-6 tables when shot taking NL50 compared to the 8 tables I play normally at NL25 that goal seems reasonable.

[ ] Get at least Silver in the Iron Man Challenge.
Looking at the goal above this one seemsmore realistic then aiming another month for Gold.


That was everything for now. I hope you will all have a great month in February and I hope I will have some time/motivation to blog here a bit more then I do at the moment lol.

r2w

Year end review / Welcome in 2010

So 2009 is over and pokerwise I am not too sad about that.

Of course it was an interesting year and a lot happend. I started with playing Double or Nothing SnG on OnGame before I switched to Poker Stars in early Summer and played there 90man SnG and some Stud Hi. But this was just a pretty short peroid before I made the move to Full Tilt. And after I played there some more Stud Hi and LHE I finally concentrate on FR cash (even I had in September a short visit at 6max) since July.

But December was just a month to forget. My results are okay but could be so much better. But I screwed it up playing awful a.k.a. spewtastic poker. I really never played so worse like I did most of the month. I have not really a clue why I did so but I do not want a month like that again for sure.

At the last week I had to mix in a lot of NL10 to get the volume I needed for the prop bet. The tables at NL25 were just awful. So I made the prop bet even it was very very close at the end and I am happy to split the $300 price pool two ways for a nice little side income.

So lets see now how I did in December overall.

December Goals:

[X] Have finally a winning month (before RB). Even it could be way better like 3.5pt at NL25 and around 4.5-5pt at NL10.

[X] Play 25k hands. Yea and I am happy about that.

[ ] Improve overall as player ( posting hands, reading COTW, etc.) Big Fail

[X] Table select as good as I can. Meh somekind. It is just hard sometimes to do so proper

On the positive site is that my red line is a little bit better. After some great help I found out that I have two major leaks which are the reason for my hughe red line losses. I work hard to fix them now. And I reseted my HUD. Some parts of it are now color coded which helps my game a lot. I although optimized my preflop play a bit and it is now a bit better.


So here are my goals for January:

[ ] Stop spewing!
[ ] Clear $125 Iron Man Year End Bonus
[ ] Play 25k hands
[ ] Improve your red line
[ ] Keep Iron Man Gold status


And here are my goals for 2010:

[ ] 20k in winnings (RB and Boni although count)
[ ] Move up to NL50 until March
[ ] Move up to NL100 until July
[ ] Take shots at NL200 from November on
[ ] Have a positive result overall in tournies
[ ] Learn 6max
[ ] Learn PLO


I know that are pretty big goals but I like to set myself such ones. I believe the only thing which still stops me to excel at Poker is myself. So with the right mnd set and enough hard work I think I have a real shot to reach all these goals.

I wish a happy new year and an awesome 2010 a the tables and in real life to all my co-contributors of this blog and its readers!

r2w

Month summary & next month goals

Alright, November has been the best month for me in my 1+ year of playing cards. Some people will tell me I've been on a super-heater or something and I guess I've been a bit. I also think those results are due to the fact that I read 2p2 everyday and post mostly everyday in strategy posts which helps me in figuring out some spots and thinking about spots.

During the month I've been 6-12 tabling strictly depending on table selection and how I felt about my game at the time I start a session. I've also tried mixing up levels, at the beginning of the month I played strictly 25NL, after I've won a couple of BIs I included some 50NL tables. At the end of the month I was playing 50NL and included several 100NL tables.

I played some SnG during the month too when I don't feel like 'grinding' but more like playing cards for entertainment.

Here's my November:

Graph:

Stats:

(I know I'm running hot with sets :P)

My next month's goals maybe won't make sense but whatever I'll just state them anyway..

[ ] Become a regular at 100NL

[ ] Take shots at 200NL if BR permits it at some point

[ ] Finish reading Professional No Limit Hold'Em

[ ] Make at least 1K next month

[ ] Play 30K hands and try to hit Platinum

[ ] Sweat 2 people ( General Johnson already has a reserved spots here :P )

[ ] Get sweated

November Review / December Goals

Latley I feel pretty ok about my game after I cut my tables from 8 to 4. But yesterdy I got totally hammered on the tables and booked an awful -5 BI session over 1.2k hands.

Here is my month overall




Seems like I have still a lot of work to do before I can beat NL25.

December Goals:

[ ] Have finally a winning month (before RB)

[ ] Play 25k hands.

[ ] Improve overall as player ( posting hands, reading COTW, etc.)

[ ] Table select as good as I can.

I wish you all an awesome December at the tables and in life.

r2w

Introduction and end of year goals

Yo,

My name is Yannick and I've been playing poker for a bit more than a year now. I've started playing 2nl with a $50 roll (overrolled baby). I'm now pretty much playing 50nl and taking unrolled shots at 100nl when I feel frisky.

I speak french. =)

For the end of the year goals part, I'd like to be taking serious shots at 100nl if not being a reg there already by mid January if everything goes well.

I'll try posting interesting hands here if I encounter any and give my opinion about it.

Laters,

Yannick