march thoughts

I've been thinking a bit about exactly what I need to do to improve my play, especially cash game play. And basically overall strategy.

The biggest leak in my game is pokerstars, there's no reason not to be playing cash games for no rakeback, that is plain stupid and I dont know why I even played 6K hands at pstars last month, that would be like 70$ in rakeback, which coincidentally is more than I was down for the month... so yeah I'm kind kicking myself for that whatever.

I hated absolute when I played there, I angrily withdrew - down 60$ - and vowed to play somewhere else. I put money on Mansion poker for 36% rakeback but theres like no cash game selection, they have max 2 tables per level, which doesn't exactly let me 6-8 table micro stakes, does it. I will still leave the money on mansion, in case I ever start winning elsewhere and allow myself bigger buyins for tournaments I'll work my way into a mansion 100K GTD that are ever so sweet. Can't see myself playing cash games whatsoever which kinda defeats the point of the 36% rakeback. Oh well.

Anyways I was surprised to see that $80 sitting in my account in absolute until i discovered that it was rakeback. I am comfortable starting out with 8 buyins for .05c/10c, I doubt I'm going to run bad enough to go broke here so hopefully I'll run good for a change and start making some money and some rakeback.

My goal for games games this month is gonna be 10K hands, thats 2.5K hands a week, which is certainly doable, thats only 3 800 hands sessions a week, I can handle that easily. My biggest problem with games games is my lack of aggression I think, I need to step it up a bit, I was playing full-ring on stars, which will be replaced with 6-max at absolute. I believe i'm a better 6 max player, it feels much more naturaly to play loose and aggressive. I turn into a maniac 6-max sometimes, I think that a good VP%IP to shoot for would be around 25% with PFR of about 18%. When grinding I'm basically just looking to play good aggressive poker, and at these limits you don't realy have to play tricky, bet bigger on the flop and dont waste time with smaller half pot sized bets.

I think harrington lead me astray in bluffing technique, I was fascinated with the idea of betting half the pot because you are giving yourself a 2:1 at winning the pot. In cash games this strategy is pretty balls. Betting on the flop, even c-bets should be roughly pot sized. My fault is not betting enough - I feel like I"m nto getting paid off when I have a hand, and Im the one getting suckered in on teh many coolers i faced this month plus the alwasy fun losing to 1 outters ect.

I"m really gonna focus and review on my strategies in the next few weeks, I wanna be a winning player NOW so I can move up to limits where I can start winning more significant money. Even just a couple hundread dollars a week would be very nice, and I think its certainly within my grasp. not at these stakes, I'm guessing that at the end of this month I'll be up somewhere around $300. I wont be dissapionted if I don't even come close, this might be optimistic, it might be realisitic, I dunot know we will see. This is basically the first month that my online poker playing with be more regimented and focused. Thought discipline control. Thats what antonio esfandiari says.

As far as SNGs go I only designated 100 tournaments as my goal for the month. I had a sickening run at $6+.50 turbos this month, the ROI was around 70% although I only played 21 tournaments. Even if I can run at 30% ROI I would be pretty happy and this first run makes me think that the turbos are at least beatable. For this month I'm just going to do sets of 5 SNGs, which means I only have to do 20 sets, I am planning on completing the 20 sets perhaps in the first 2.5 weeks and at that point I will be able to asses what my bankroll is sitting at, and at that point I will play donkaments MTT sngs, 45 person and 180 person. I truly believe that these are beatable and I knwo that if I start to run well and win 2-3 of these tournaments my bankroll will swell heavily. A good week in MTTs can easily double a bankroll, thats why I plan to dedicate the last week and a half to them. Obviously all this while playing cash games. And I also might run a bunch of heads up matches, just because I think those are fun and beatable. although frankly it's pretty hard to multi table when you'er playing heads up, which is why I'm not setting any heads up goals for this month, I need to focus on more important poker things.

Yeah this is a rediculously rambling blog. Perhaps tl;dr status. But yeah basically I"m just really really high right now.

Um I think thats all. I will potentially have weekly updates or more, not that anyone reads this. One day it'll be a hugely epic blog and i'll be a highroller 1/2 NL player with a 10K roll. I'll laugh and boast as I buy in to 100$ MTTs, this is foreshadowing people. Too bad I suck at micro limits.

Anyways that is all i have to ramble about.