My first Blog

OK, My first blog entry, a place for me to tell you why I am blogging, and my goals...

WHY BLOG...Simple enough, after several years of "playing" at poker, it is now time to start working at it. In order to achieve that, I must have specific measurable goals. So, I will list a few, in the future, add a few, and update often. The goal of my blog is to put it out there. With this added pressure, I hope to take my goals more seriously. So...here goes

#1) Make Money. Sure, it's just a way of keeping score, but let's keep score. Here is my short term goal, with measurable marks for improvement. This is September of 2008. This month, I want to average $10 profit a day. Simple enough. I can do this playing $0.50/$1 tables. Very little risk. But my long term goal is to average $100 a day within one year. In order to achieve this goal, I will have to move up in limits, probably $5/$10. So, increasing my bankroll (for proper bankroll management) is vital. I have other thoughts about how to incrementally make this work, and plan to write those thoughts during the journey. The Chris Ferguson ploy of $10,000 playing poker is an incremental goal. Also this month, I want to average $1 per hour playing poker. Again, my year goal will be to average $10 an hour.

#2) Grow as a Poker Player. As the post says, Let's play HORSE! I have met so many people that saying those words would scare the hell out of them. There are plenty of NLHE experts that can not play a hand of RAZZ, do not understand the differences between limit Hold'em and NL, play a pocket pair of aces in Omaha 8 like it is a birth right to win. I could go on and on. I have a good grasp of NLHE. But frankly, it bores me. I certainly am not afraid to play NLHE, but I am going to be working on my general poker skills. Hi/Low split games, mixed games, sit and goes, tournaments...I think the loose money is to be found in the non NLHE games. Play where the fish are, and right now, the fish are swimming outside of the shark infested waters of NLHE. Along with playing and improving my general poker skills, I want to start working on poker outside of the internet. I plan to play in a casino at least once a month, and start working on finding live games. Even if I have to start one of my own. And finally, nothing beats playing poker to improve your game, but there are lots of resources out there. I will be taking advantage of those resources more consistently. I will be reading books and magazines more, finding new podcasts to listen to, fellow bloggers to read, etc. Learning a new skill can be very profitable, but it can be expensive on your own, and inexpensive to learn from others.

#3 Keep better records. I will not bore any possible blog readers with my daily records, but I will commit to my newly created MS EXCEL file. I will be recording cash games, with hourly profit/loss totals, sit and go wins and loses, and tournament successes. Eventually, I will have a grasp of which games are profitable, which ones I have to work on, and which are the sucker games.

And finally, just to keep a record off my life. To record the good things, the fun things and also to share my issues. Could be a bumpy ride.

OK, here's where I am starting...

My assets are $331 in my Full Tilt account, as well as 550 medals that can be used for $24/$2 tournament entry. I have something over 17,000 Full Tilt points that I can use to enter satellites if needed for more play. I have an additional $300 that I can dedicate to my live play. I have a library of books that I intend to read/re-read and study the game.