Since we are still in the beginnings of December I think that I should get some poker goals out of the way so that when January comes around I will have something to come back to.

Well the first thing is that I am going to be sticking with full-ring .25/.50 limit at PokerStars. There should be less variance in this play and I should be able to build my bankroll somewhat. Currently it sits around $80.

My hands-played goal is going to be a measly 1500 hands. This should be easy, but December is a very busy month. So 1500 hands I hope to build my bankroll to $100. It doesn’t sound like much but if you looked at my last two graphes you will see that December has not started out too good.

The only other goal is to re-read a couple of poker books that I own. I will talk more about this later this week.

Well it is one nasty night here. The first real snow storm of the year, so since I couldn’t leave the house I decided to play some of the poker, again on PokerStars.

I played three table sessions in all, so the sessions that I mention in the titles of these threads are really my sit-downs at the computer to play.

The first two sessions I played went alright. I lost some, in one and ran really bad at the end of one.

The first session I played about 116 hands and lost about 10.5BB. This is the session that I had two really bad hands near the end that put me on tilt. One was my KK versus AA on a completely raggedy board and the other was someone calling all raises pre flop, flop turn and river when I had flopped the nut straight and s/he had runner-runner flush.

Anyway my second session ended a bit better, I had made a couple of major mistakes and was down to 3BB when I started at 20BB, but made it back so that my net was only negative 1.5BB when I finished after 104 hands.

FOr my final session of the evening. After taking a break to charge my phone, call the ‘rents and do some dishes I played another short session while waiting for a good show to come on TV. In this session I played 40 hands and came away with 10BB in the black.

So over all today was a loss, but only about 2BB

What I learned is that I really have to keep the number of hands that I play down, pre-ferably at 25% when I am playing full ring. A lot of people may think that is too tight, but at the low limits that I am playing, when you do hit a hand you WILL get paid off.

Here is a plot of how I did.

It is made with PokerGrapher, which is an addon that you can get for PokerTracker. Both great investments if you are looking to find holes in your game, or if you are simply a stats junkie
So now I think that I am going to go off and before I hit the hay, do some reading in Super System 2 and see what Jennifer Harmonhas to say about getting me better results at Limit holdem.

Session one was a short-handed game of .25/.50 limit on PokerStars. And it went badly. I broke one of my rules, I was tired and not all there mentally. Sure I was watching the game, I picked a table that I thought would be alright, but after about 3 rounds my VP$IP was 10%, thats right in 18 hands I played 2 and both those were when I was in the small blind with no raise.

So when I got J10s on the button I thought that it was a sweet hand. So I called….then the BB raised and me, well I closed out the betting. Then the flop, J-10-x rainbow. Not bad, I figured I could play it cool and just called the BB. Then the card of death Q…..

BB checked-raised and I called and then on the river there was a blank, and he check raised again.. I called and he flipped AK….DAMN!

That simply put me on tilt, I was down to 25% of my buy-in and after 20odd hands called it quits.

I think that if I was sharper I probably would have folded on the turn, and saved myself 3BB.

Now I just hope that this is not me going on tilt full time, and the next time I sit down to play I will be sure to be relaxed

Well I have decided that it is a waste of time to start up an entirely new site just to post about my poker playing. I figure that if I do it for more than a year I may change my mind, but for now I will just be posting it here

So here is the plan, I am going to be trying to play a bit every week and I will make a summary post about what is happening after every session. Basically I will post right away so the feeling about the particular session will be fresh. Then if I have the time I will be posting a weekly round-up. Talk about where my bank-roll is, if it is going up or down, and what I am feeling about my play.

The thing about poker is that you have to be in the right frame of mind to play right. You don’t want to have other things on your mind that will distract you from your play. So during those times I will be probably reading about the game and reporting back on what I learn.

The game that I am planning on starting with is low limit at poker stars. I figure something in the range of .25/.50 This is a good range for me to play at because it is not so high that I am going to lose a lot, but it is high enough so that my gains can been seen. Also I am going to try to stay away from the SNGs, I am not a very good tourney player so the cash games suit me better. Besides I like to be able to get up and leave at any point in time.

It is looking like the stretches of free time I have are going to be getting shorter and shorter till mid-winter. So I am thinking that I am going to be spending my little amount of time that I have. Developing new web-properties take a lot of time, so I am going to be simply maintaining and then spending my little time doing one of the activities in title.

So which one am I going to do?

Well I think that it is going to come down to what one will be the better investment. There are a lot of fish out there even now, so poker would be a great time investment and has a lot of potential.

That said I have money that I am investing in RRSP from my day job and have been thinking about transferring them to stocks and doing more of the management myself. This would take a minimum of 5 hours a week to do it right.

So which one is the better to do? I already play poker for fun and have some books that I have read and could read them again, and “study” them to gain a better insight into the game. With online poker you can play at any time and it really doesn’t matter if I miss some time.

So I think that poker it is. I am going to invest a $100 buyin on pokerstars and go from there. I will post my stats as I go along.