May recap and June goals

My listed goals for May were :
- Play at least 15,000 hands of online poker.
- Post a winning month
- Get a coaching session
- Start reviewing my play more
- Start participating on the 2+2 forums again.
- Update this blog more frequently

With a big losing month and just 10K hands you could easily assume that this month is a massive failure. Trust me, it's not. Sure I missed at least half my goals (did not get a coaching session either), but I did start reviewing my play more and it paid off.

I've finally identified one of the big leaks in my game that was in part responsible for the massive downswing I was in. Since that revelation, my results have been improved already and I am fully confident that June's going to be much better than May and April.

So what are my goals for June?
- 15,000 hands. I need to start focusing again and put up more volume. I'm way behind pace for my yearly volume goal.
- A winning month. Armed with what I spotted I am confident about this.
- Continue to improve on my review/study routine.

Let's get started!

April recap and May goals

April was, as you may have guessed by looking at my graph, a pretty rough month.

I did not play much and whatever poker I did play did not go too well. I've started reviewing some sessions, something I definitely don't do nearly enough of. The downswing I'm on seems to be the results of a bit of variance (like for example I seem to hit sets less often than I should, and they don't seem to hold much), and a whole lot of bad play.

This whole thing left me apprehensive and I found myself hesitant to play. That showed in my play volume. That said, I had a good session recently and it was enough to give me back the urge to play.

The good news is that bad play can be corrected. Already since the beginning of May I've posted a few sessions where I felt a lot less "spewy". I will most likely pay myself a coaching session pretty soon to help me spot some stuff that I do that are costly.

Now, what are the goals for May?
- Play at least 15,000 hands of online poker.
- Post a winning month
- Get a coaching session
- Start reviewing my play more
- Start participating on the 2+2 forums again.
- Update this blog more frequently

January thoughts and February goals

My January goals were :
- Play 15,000 hands of online poker
- Have a winning month
- Review my play in depth once a week

Well I fell a bit short on the volume side of things and definitely did NOT post a winning month. That said I have managed to review my game somewhat regularly. Probably not as much as I wanted, and not enough. But it's still a start.

It's really weird, since my automn hiatus, I feel my game being somewhat off and I've been working on bringing it back to what it was (and even better). That said, I'm still struggling a bit. I also have a feeling that variance has been pretty nasty towards me for the past month and a half. That's not to say that my "bad" results are just due to variance. Trust me, I have made some bonehead plays! Anyway, I have been thinking about maybe getting a coaching session or two in to help spot what makes me a spewtard lately.

Anyway, more on that later I guess. For now, here are my February goals.
- Play 15,000 hands of online poker
- Have a winning month
- Review my play in depth once a week

That's right. Same exact thing as in January!

Ain't variance great ?!?

I'm in the middle of a very rough streak. I seem to have been on the wrong side of variance for quite a while. I make second best hands a lot, my sets are cracked at an absurd rate and I can't hit a draw to save my life. And all that and the frustration that comes with it makes me play way worse than I should.

The good point is that I am definitly playing a lot of hands and should hit my volume goal for January. the bad point is that I stuck being slightly in the red.

I have a few things planned to get my focus back, while I can't control variance, I know for a fact that I am making things worse by being frustrated, playing a bit impatiently or scared. So what's the plan?

- More game studying. I need to start to study my own play and the other regs play more regularly. About 6 months ago, when I was in my best poker period, I was doing that a lot. That includes session reviews, posting hands on 2+2, discussing specific hands a lot with Alex, Joff and whoever else wants to discuss poker.

- Spend time just "focusing". I realised a few days ago that if I take time to just close my eyes, try to relax and take a few deep breath (even if only for a few seconds) it helps putting me back in a calm and positive state of mind. Gotta do more of that, especially when I feel myself becoming frustrated at the tables.

- Keep on playing. I cannot let that rough patch sidetrack me. If I do the two other things I've mentionned and just keep on playing I know the results will come back.

2008 recap : falling short

Well 2008 has come and passed, it had it's big ups and down both in poker and in life and now is the time to take a good hard look at the year and think about the future.

At the beginning of 2008 I set a few goals for myself.

Move to NL25 before this summer and to NL50 before the end of 2008

Well I did manage to move up to NL25 around May, but as the clock hit midnight and 2008 was a thing of the past, I am still an NL20/NL25 player, my bankroll being a few buy ins short of moving up. Part of me is telling me that I should cut myself some slack. My father's sickness, moving to a new condo and having my laptop stolen sure took their toll on my playing time and who knows if I would have made it if not for these events.

I still managed to take a few shots at NL50, and bonus whoring combined with the renewed motivation I have should put me back there pretty soon.

Play live games on a more regular basis

That one I just let go. Went to the casino a few times and quickly grew tired of the electronic tables the Montreal and Gatineau casino spread (yeah, I know, the Gatineau casino is now spreading real tables and the Montreal one should be doing so soon too). I frequented a few poker rooms in Montreal and had fun, but it's my feeling that "poker rooms" attract poker players, while casinos attract, well, anybody. Hence I don't feel that playing in poker room is as +EV as playing at the casino.

So with all this I just decided to let that one go.

Develop a game studying routine

Did I manage to do that? Yes and no. For quite a while I was participating in frequent session reviews, posting hands on forums, reviewing my own play and the play of the regulars I meet often. Then I just stopped. Right now I'm trying to get back into it all but I have to list that one as a fail.

Put more serious time in another game than NL Hold'Em

Again that's a mixed one. I spent some time on the Pot Limit Omaha tables and read a great book on that game. I still love that game and I'm pretty sure I'll keep going back to it from time to time. That said, if I want to be honest with myself, I did not play as much as I intended when I stated that goal. I guess that's one of the good things about setting goals, with hindsight it helps reassess your priorities and where you're really at.

So, what to make of all that? 2008 was mostly a good year for me poker-wise. Reading back my archives I see how far I've come (and how far I still have to go!). Sure I fell short a bit, but one year ago I was barely playing NL10, now I'm on the verge of playing NL50 and that is despite everything that life threw at me.

I am proud of what I've achieved, thrilled about what's to come and ready to face the challenges of 2009.

Back from vacations : July recap and August goals

Well I have not been updating this blog nearly enough recently. I just came back from vacations and I guess it's time to go back to work and focus on poker once again.

Goals for July were :
- Play 10,000 hands of NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Start reviewing sessions at least once a week.
- Start getting a healthier lifestyle.

I definitly played enough hands. More than I expected. As for a winning month... well... I can't put my finger on what's wrong, but I am in this long breakeven stretch that's annoying the shit out of me. Anyway, there are a few things I will do pretty soon that should help with that. I won't say more about these for now but rest assured, I will in a few weeks. I did review my own play a bit more this month... but again, not nearly enough. As for the big "healthier lifestyle" thingy well I started riding a bike to work, started eating better at home... next step is to eat better at work.

So overall mixed results for July... I'm not entirely unhappy with it though. On the positive side I moved a big chunk of my bankroll to an iPoker skin where I got a nice deal. So this should help.

Now the goals for August :
- Play 15,000 hands of online NLHE. Back with an vengance!
- Start dabbling a bit in PLO again.
- Post a winning month. (ldo)
- Come back to post here more regularly
- Start the thingy that I don't want to tell you guys more about... yet
- Go on with more exercise & healthier food.

June recap and July goals

Well here we are, it's that time of the month.

June goals were
- Play 12,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Deposit on CD Poker and start clearing the 200$ 1st time deposit bonus there
- Keep updating this blog.

I am definitly satisfied with the amount of hands I played (even though I'm a bit short). Month ended up in the red... this is only the second time it happens to me since September so no big deal.

About starting to clear bonuses... I fail on this one. That said, I'll get to it soon. I hope to get to it before the end of July, but July is pretty busy for me so I am not sure it's the right time to start the grind of bonus clearing.

Now on for July. Well as I said, July will be pretty busy for me, so I will set smaller goals for myself.

- Play 10,000 hands of NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Start reviewing sessions at least once a week.
- Start getting a healthier lifestyle.

Now about the lifestyle thingy... feel I've been letting myself go a lot lately. I eat crap, don't sleep quite enough and don't exercice near as much as I should. So there it is, I want to start improving on at least 2 of these 3 points.
1) I want to start bringing healthier lunches to work.
2) I want to take some time everyday for a bit of exercice.

Sleep? Well.... sleep will come later I guess ;)

May thoughts and June goals... or how Nic failed

I guess I should be happy about having the best monthly results I've ever had. But I fell so short of my goals that I can't spin this in a way to make me feel good.

My May goals were :
- Play 15,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Take a shot at NL25
- Keep updating this blog.

Now I definitly managed to achieve 3 of these goals. But 8885 hands in a month?!? This is nowhere near what I need to put out. The last time I played less than 9K hands was in december!

On the good side, I managed to move up to NL25. Actually most of my month was played at that level. One of my yearly goal was to move up to NL25 by this summer and doing so at the beginning of May is definitly satisfying. I also feel that I kept that blog updated pretty well. But I definitly have to play more hands than this. This is especially true since I want to make bonus whoring one of my focus for the next few months.

Now where does that leave me for June. Well, here are my June goals :
- Play 12,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Deposit on CD Poker and start clearing the 200$ 1st time deposit bonus there
- Keep updating this blog.

Now about bonuses. Browsing through the bonus whores site I managed to find a few bonuses that are definitly clearable at NL25. This should help me take shots at NL50 earlier than anticipated. The first one I will attack will be the 200$ bonus on CD poker. Seems relatively easy to clear at NL25. Then I might take a shot at the 600$ deposit on FullTilt. Seems clearable at NL25, would also finally release the money I have on FullTilt and won in a freeroll a while ago! Clearing the FullTilt Bonus might be a bit of a stretch at NL25... but I'll evaluate things once I clear the bonus at CD Poker. By then my roll might be enough to take shots at NL50, so who knows...

Anyway, if you're a poker player and haven't checked bonus whores I think you owe it to yourself to take a look at it... unless you hate money

April thoughts and May goals.

A quick recap on april and then I'll move on to my May goals. The goals I had stated for myself for april were :

- Play 12K hands of NLHE online
- Play at least 3 times at the casino
- Post a winning month online
- Keep updating this blog as frequently as I did in March.

Now other than the casino play I reached all 3 of my goals. I played over 12K hands and definitly feel like I could have played more. While I had a pretty big downswing (more on that later on) I still finished the month up which is always good. Means that in the last 6 months I've only had one losing month which I'm pretty proud of. Now the casino play took a backseat after that bad evening I had there at the beginning of april. This was a conscious decision and I'm glad I let that goal go.

Now what's next for May? Well I want to play even more than in April. I want to again post a positive month and, of course, I want to keep that blog updated. So here are my goals for the month of May :

- Play 15,000 hands of online NL Hold'Em
- Post a winning month
- Take a shot at NL25
- Keep updating this blog.

The most interesting thing that happened though in the last few days is that I had sort of an epiphany. I just realised why my game is pretty swingy. I play my drawing hands VERY aggressively. If I have an open ended straight draw or a flush draw out there I'll go out and fire bets. This means that when I hit my draws I will win bigger pots on average, but it also means that when I don't hit, I kinda "spew".

I am still not sure if it's something I want to change in my game. I think I'll just start by trying to pick my spots better for my semi-bluffs. Anyway, you can call me stupid for just realising this... I'm just glad I did!

March 2008 online results

Well March was kinda rough (isn't that some understatement?). First time in a while that I post a losing month. For a while there it was a downward spiral but it helped me identify a big leak I can have at times. Next step is to find how to prevent it.

Good thing is, I broke the 10K hands and the end of the month was not so bad. I managed to stop the bleeding and win some of my losses back.

On a side note, March was also the month where I kept that blog updated the most frequently with 13 posts.

Week end recap : it sucked!

What a horrible, horrible week end.

On the cash game side I played horribly and whenever I found a good play in me I would end up paying the best hand with the 2nd best hand. My roll is now in pretty rough shape and I have to reassess what I will do and do a lot of session reviewing to get out of that funk.

I am also finally out of the WSOP step thingies. After busting 4th, 2nd and then 5th on the step 3, I finally busted out in 9th, being kicked out of the loop.

Somehow I doubt I'll sleep well tonight.

February 2008 online results

Well I finally took a shot at NL25. Sadly, this afflicted me with a severe case of Fancy play syndrome combined with a getting cold cards for quite a while. As you can see from the graph, results were pretty bad. Stepped down at NL10, returned to basics, and I am almost ready to move up to NL25 again.

Missed the 10,000 hands mark again, goal in march is to hit it. Also as a goal in march I want to move up to NL25 but for good this time.

The elusive NL25 and a goal recap.

Turns out NL25 is a tough bird to catch for me. Everytime I get close to my goal, I hit a small downswing that delays the inevitable. That said I have to be pretty happy about it because I'm almost there, 4 months ahead of my goal.

As for my other goals, well I've started playing quite a bit of Pot Limit Omaha. I really enjoy learning the subtleties of this game (the fact that the fields are so soft at micro-stakes probably helps making it fun for me.). Playing more Omaha makes even more obvious to me how simple No Limit Hold'Em is.

I wanted to play more live games in 2008 and I have to say I am pretty disappointed in myself so far. The casino opened it's poker room a month ago and I still have not set foot there. I am dealing a few tourneys soon though so that should help finance my first visit to the casino. I also have a day planned at the Gatineau casino the first week end of March.

Overall January was pretty decent. It was really swingy but the overall results were fine. February started even better so far, so I hope to keep it on the right track... and finally move up to that darn elusive NL25!

Week End recap

I played quite a bit this week end and ended up with a nice gain breaking for the first time $200 in my bankroll. At some point on sunday I was on a sick tear and was up to about $230, but then I got distracted by the NFL playoffs and lost quite a few pots to bad plays and a pretty nasty misclick. Still, the week end as a whole is really positive. I have not heard from Alex in a few days, but I'm pretty sure I've pulled ahead by some bit in our bet this week end.

I've been playing at a madman's pace so far in January. At that pace I should easily break the 10,000 hands in the month which would be by far my biggest month. Being back to 4 tabling helps a lot on that side of things. I feel pretty comfortable on 4 tables at NL10 right now. I don't know if I'll manage to get to $250 in January and move up to NL25 though, and when I'll move up in stakes I will most likely reduce the number of tables I play on for a while.

That's about it for today, going back to work now. God this week will be a long one. First full week after the holidays is always rough.

December 2007 online results

Well here is my monthly graph for December 2007. As you can probably see, I've switched stakes (around hand # 1600) and with that bigger swings came. Still I'm an overall winner which is always good.

On a bad note though, I'm now lagging quite a bit in the prop bet with Alex. I will have to work pretty hard to catch up to him. That said, last night I finished the year playing poker with a few friends in Gatineau. And what a session to finish the year! I more than doubled up what I bought in for, and I am pretty sure I was the last person to win a poker hand in Gatineau in 2007! I started raking the pot while the clock started to ring midnight :)

The biggest hand of the night though came when I flopped quads 7 and managed to double up by just slow playing against a guy who was playing super aggressive and had been bluffing at a lot of pots. I also managed to pull out a few plays at him once I figured he was just trying to bully people out of pots with his then biggest stack.

Anyway, 2007 was a lot of ups and down for poker, but finally I managed to be a constant winner and that is huge for me. Hopefully 2008 is even better!

Quick update

I can't wait to post my November graph. It might not be the best graph as far as constant results go, but it sure as hell would make an entertaining roller coster plan! I'm still managing to put up gains though and around 50% of my sessions are winning ones (which I consider pretty good). So far November is bringing more profits than September or October... that said the month is still not over so who knows where that roller coaster will bring me!

Alex and me have made a nice prop bets. Whoever logs more ring game hands until January 17th. So far I am about 400 hands ahead and I feel pretty comfortable about this bet even though my holidays should be busier than his. I think it will be a race to the finish, but still, being ahead early is always fun as it puts the pressure on him.

I have been dealing in another tourney last week. Went pretty well, not much to say about this except that bad poker players seems to like to throw their cash away in rebuy tourneys.

I'm doing OK in both my fantasy football leagues. Could be doing better but I am still in a good spot to make the playoffs, and once in I'm pretty confident my team will get me money.