Thursday, January 13, 2011

First Score and Training Update

This past Sunday I had my first significant score of the year. Finished 4th in the $3 rush rebuy for a little over $3k. It's probably not a coincidence that this happened after spending the week watching more vids than I've watched over the past 6 months+.

Hopefully, this is just a small sign of things to come.

I've sent out several PMs this week trying to find out more information from various online coaches. I have a couple of prospects, but I think I'll wait until Pocket 5s releases their new coaching "classifieds" feature. If you know any good MTT coaches for mid+highstakes, please let me know. Thanks.

Good Luck and Stay Positive.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year

Once again, I ended the year on a downswing, but hopefully, I can start off the year with a solid uptick like 2010.

Here is a wrap-up of 2010 and my goals for 2011.

1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
I took a lot of shots this past year. It worked out for me the early part of the year, but for the better part of the year, I just managed to eat up a good chunk of my BR.

2) Cash in the WSOP ME
Still working on this one. I'm 0 for 2. I did manage to chop a Venetian Deepstack tourney and min cash another.

3) Win a 6-figure score
Well, I'm glad to report that I managed to hit this goal. I was a part of the 7-way chop in Feb. 2010 FTOPS Main Event.

4) Play 2000 MTTs
Only played 1774 and that includes a fair amount of satellites.

5) Finish in the Pocket 5s Top 10 ranking for North Carolina.
Finished #31st

6) Develop a regular MTT training regiment
Somehow I managed to regress in this department.

7) Make some online buddies that can help improve my game.
Met a lot more people than I knew prior to 2010, but still need to improve a lot in this area.

8) Win 10 MTTs
Only won 3, but had a few more chops.

9) Play in a $5k+ buy-in non-WSOP live tournament.
Still need to work on this goal. I've finally gotton a passport, so I'm ready to go whenever I ship a sattie.

10) Play in 10 PokerStars Big Sunday tourneys
Hit this goal. Managed to play in 20+ tournaments.

11) Play in 10 FTP Big Sunday tourneys
Hit this goal. Managed to play in 30+ tournaments.

12) Play in at least 10 FTOPS and 2 WCOOP events.
Hit this goal.

Here goes my 2011 list:
1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Cash in the WSOP ME.
3) Win a 7-figure score
4) Play 2000 MTTs
5) Finish in the Pocket 5s Top 10 ranking for North Carolina. Get into the Top 1000.
6) Watch 2 training videos each week and review one of my HHs per week. Find a coach and have regular meetings.
7) Make more online buddies that can help improve my game and exchange HHs or whatever to pick their brains.
8) Win 10 MTTs with no chop. (Live or Online)
9) Play in a $5k+ buy-in non-WSOP live tournament.
10) Play in 50 PokerStars and 50 FTP Big Sunday tourneys
11) Play in at least 10 FTOPS events and the WCOOP Main Event.
12) Play 5000 cash hands.

Most of all I want to dramatically improve my game and stay positive. I firmly believe that a positive attitude has a dramatic effect on my play and results. Hopefully, I can make great strides on improving my emotional control while playing.

Good Luck!

Blog Design Update

It's been a long time since I've looked at this blog. One of my New Year's resolutions is to post more updates. So, I'm starting off with a new design template. This scheme seems to suit me a little better. The good part of blogging is that I can vent which seems to be a necessary evil for the life of a MTT grinder. Well, I'm back and hopefully with plenty of good news to report throughout the year.

Good Luck!

Friday, April 16, 2010

Quick Update

It's been a while.

The Good:
Had my first, hopefully of many, 6 figure score. 7 way chop of the Feb. 2010 FTOPS ME. Was pretty exciting, but disappointed that I didn't win. I was open for chopping because we didn't reach the final table until about 8am EST. I was beyond tired. The frustrating part of the situation was that after the chop, I didn't realize that there was still money on the table to play for. This was my first chop on FTP since they released the automatic chop tool. So, I played half-heartedly thinking that all of the money was accounted for. Oh well, I expect to be back at a major final table in the near future. I'll TID then.

Also, won a Bracelet Race package on FTP. These are pretty cool. My third year winning a package. Hopefully, I can win the "real" package, a WSOP ME seat.

The Bad:
Running like shit on FTP. The doomswitch is on full blast right now. Killing my drive and confidence. Haven't done much of anything since the FTOPS final table.

The Ugly:
After chopping the 10re in Jan., don't think I've come close to even sniffing a final table. Running horribly on there like it's 2007. That resulted in me not playing on Stars on even a semi-semi-regular basis util January 2009. Hasn't gotton to that point, but it's getting close.

That's it for now. Good luck at the tables.

Friday, February 5, 2010

2009 Wrap-up and 2010 Resolutions

Well, this is a bit late, but better late than never.

I ended 2009 on a sour note. Nothing like the end of 2008. But 2010 has started off pretty good. I've have my 5th winningest month since January 2009.

Now on to the 2009 wrap-up. Here are my 2009 resolutions and my thoughts about each, a year later.

1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
I was able to play well within my bankroll limitations. Even though I am just a part time poker player, I manage to not blow my roll by playing MTTs that I'm not rolled for. Spending my money on "toys" is a different story.

2) Grow my bankroll to $100k
Due to some life issues, I had to regularly take money out of my poker accounts to pay bills and such. Even without that, I wouldn't have hit this goal, but woulda been a helluva lot closer than I am now.

3) Win a seat into the WSOP ME
Although I didn't directly win a seat into the WSOP ME, I still was fortunate to play in it. I hit a $6k score in Vegas and was back by a few friends. I didn't cash, but definitely want to play again this year.

4) Win a 5-figure score
Technically, I had 2 5-fig scores, but one was for 19k and another score was just short, $9400.

5) Play 1000 MTTs
Hit this. Kinda hard to know the exact number because all of my databases include sats, but even if I take out 30% of that total, I exceeded 1000 MTTs.

6) Play 60,000 cash game hands
What's a cash game?

7) Climb up to $5/$10 6max
See #6 above.

8) Reach the Pocket 5s Top 15 MTT players for North Carolina.
I was at 15 for a couple of weeks at one point. Finished #17.

9) Develop a regular MTT and Cash Game training regiment
I had a few coaches and went through spurts of a decent training regiment, but this is definitely something that I need to continue to work on.

10) Win 10 MTTs
Only won 4.

Here goes my 2010 list (see any similarities?):
1) Continue to maintain solid Bankroll Management rules
2) Cash in the WSOP ME
3) Win a 6-figure score
4) Play 2000 MTTs
5) Finish in the Pocket 5s Top 10 ranking for North Carolina.
6) Develop a regular MTT training regiment
7) Make some online buddies that can help improve my game.
8) Win 10 MTTs
9) Play in a $5k+ buy-in non-WSOP live tournament.
10) Play in 10 PokerStars Big Sunday tourneys
11) Play in 10 FTP Big Sunday tourneys
12) Play in at least 10 FTOPS and 2 WCOOP events.

Most of all I want to dramatically improve my game. Good Luck to all!

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

WBCOOP

Online Poker

I have registered to play in the WBCOOP PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! You too can Play Poker Online at PokerStars.com and take part in the WBCOOP which is open to all Bloggers by registering on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 505235

Monday, December 21, 2009

Crunchtime

My holiday vacation away from my full time job began today. This time last year is when I kick started my nice 2009 poker run. I made over $10k during that break. Hopefully, I can have a similar, if not better run over this year's break to kickoff a huge 2010.

Happy Holidays!