Hello my name is Nic and I'm a skate-aholic

Well I've made a big mistake last week which really took its toll on my poker playing. I fell victim to a new addiction. I bought EA's skate for the Xbox 360. That game is friggin addiction, I find myself playing for hours telling myself "just this one challenge and then I stop!". Of course after that challenge I forget to stop and move on to another challenge... and so on and on and on...

Anyway, last night I managed to put down the Xbox controller for a while and went to play a bit of poker. I have to admit that I was a bit scared having not played in almost a week. If you've read my old posts you know that most of the time after a short break my first few sessions are... not optimal to say the least. So I went and sat down at my usual stake pretty much expecting a rocky session. My goal was to minimize my downtime "tilt" and try to bring in a short profit or at the very least break even. I did not play very long but to my surprise I managed to get in the proper mindset right away and I picked up where I had left about a week ago. Once again everything seemed to click and my decision making was as good as I remember it being for quite some time. I ended up playing about 115 hands and raking in about $2 of profit, finally putting my bankroll above $70. My goal is still to just bring it up to $100 to climb up in stakes.

As I've said in my last post, I have decided to adhere to a strict bankroll management formula to climb up in stakes. I just figured that posting it here would help me keep it in mind and at the same time kinda make me accountable for it? I know it sounds silly since pretty much no one reads this blog but hey! If it works for me! ;)

So here it is :

Micro-stakes : Go up at 10 buy in, go back down at 8
Low Stakes : Go up at 15 Buy ins, go back down at 12
Med stakes and above : Go up at 20 buy ins, go back down at 17

Nothing earthshaking, but it's the first time I set myself guidelines like these and I think they help me a lot to stay disciplined and at the same time have my next goal always in mind.

If any of you (my imaginary readers) have been interested in the Absolute Poker scandal then I've stumbled upon a reading that might interest you. Some high stakes online player (whose name I always forget) made a pretty thourough investigation that he detailed on his blog. The evidence is pretty damning, and despite AP's effort to drown the story I find it hard to ignore. Anyway, you can read that and reach your own conclusions... In the meantime I have to go grind 60ft and land in a manual...