Ok 50NL went pretty bad today the first hour I played I lost $322 so I took a break. Played some 100NL later and won a bit back, Then played more 100NL even later and lost most of it again. I dont think I can beat 100NL, I have played 10 days this moneth and 2 of them were winning days, I will do coaching sessions and such at 100NL, but most of my playing during the day at least is going to need to be at 50NL.

I am not sure whats going on, I feel like I knnow more about the game then I ever have, but still am not winning, not sure if the other players are just improving faster then me or what. Now I actually have a fear of playing because I feel it is inevitable that I will lose. I have lost just about everything this month that I made last month and I don't feel like it is just going to stop.

One specific area I am having a tough time with is overpairs, alot of people have said with how aggressive the games are you just have to get it in on the flop with an overpair. But my stats with overpairs are pretty bad, and I am neg BBs when the hand went to showdown.

This is probably a big leak that I need to fix.

Forgot to post yesterday so I am doing it right before I start today. I had a breakeven day. Lost 3 buyins at the end of my normal day and didnt play till later in the evening, while being sweated I was able to get in a few good spots to come back a bit.

Time played: 5.5 hours

Hands: 1404

$ Won: -$3.10

Stats: 17.4/14.4/4 WTSD 23.1 W$SD 53.6

Today I am going to play some 50NL on Tilt then in the afternoon switch to 100NL.

Everything went great today...almost. My schedule worked really well, I was always fresh and focused, I think I made maybe one play that was really bad, but other then that just got coolered all over the place.

Hours Played: 6.81

Hands: 2011

$ Won: -$343.53

I played 19/15/4.2 but this is on UB, so the players play alot diffrent and it took some time to adjust, I think you can make moves on these guys but alot of them overvalue their hands, so value betting big hands is the way to go.

I am really hoping tomorrow I have some results or I will move down to 50NL till I am out of this downswing, and that will take a couple weeks at 50NL... Also I hate the UB software but I think today got me used to it and after tomorrow I should be fine.

So I obviously am doing a pretty bad job week 1...

Something I have been thinking about though is the fact that I keep thinking "okay now I'm going to start getting serious now I'm going to start putting time in... "So I play a bit more, watch videos a bit more, I have done a few sessions with a coach... and I have gotten better. I guess I am just realizing that each new level I want to beat, means even more effort above and beyond what I was putting into the last level. I played 50NL yesterday and it felt really easy... and when I started playing a long time ago I didn't stand a chance. So I have been getting better.

Even though I said all the things I was going to do every day I didn't do them, I only went to the gym once... and I did a set of crunches or two... I need to put my pull-up bar back up too.

So I guess I need to be more specific with my schedule and also try to stick to it better. The hard part is however that during the day the games are harder, and it's hard to "work" at night... also I waste too much of my time during the day. I think I have a solution, I put 2K on Ultimate Bet, and the games there are much softer during the day, so I can find some good games easier... looks like they are soft through 2/4 actually. So in the AM I will play on UB and if I put hours in at night it will be on tilt unless I find UB is that much better.

Also I am going to cap my sessions at only 45 min for at least this week. That means more short sessions with 15 minute breaks, I am going to attempt to put together an 8 hour day like this. So the breakdown is still 6 hours playing for the 2 hours of breaks. During each break I will do a quick HH review, fill my water glass, and do my crunches to clear my mind out a bit before diving into another session. I will take 30 min or so for lunch. I will save watching videos for the evening and weekends. I'm not sure when I want my gym time. I would like to start playing around 9am at the latest preferably 8am though. So I will outline a detailed daily schedule, subject to changes, but this is what I will do on Monday.

0700 wake up

0730 gym

0845 Breakfast

0900 Start playing on UB

0945 Break crunches 25x4, HH review

1000 session 2

1045 Break

1100 Session 3

1145 Break

1200 Session 4

1245 Lunch & Armstrong pull-ups

1330 Session 5

1415 Break

1430 Session 6

1515 Break

1530 Session 7

1615 Break

1630 Session 8

1715 HH review, update blog

I think this is a great way to do it... but we'll see how it goes. As I get used to putting in the time I will start pushing the sessions out longer so that I get more actual playing time in the day. Any sessions with my coach will be in the evening. Videos, and any sessions I feel like on full tilt will be at night as well so this should be the minimum hours Monday through Friday.

Tomorrow I have to do a few things to get ready for the week...I am going to make it happen this time...

1. Set up pull-up bar

2. Write out workout program

3. Get headphones for working out

4. Print out my schedule & Armstrong program so it's by my desk

The last thing I want to mention is the winning switchover and stop loss. I don't think I can just not play the rest of the day if I have a bad session, so if I hit 3 buyins down in a session/day I will skip one session as a break. I don't really know what the games on UB will be like, if they are really bad and play worse than 50NL of full tilt I won't drop down, but if they are similar I will drop down once I am up $250 in a day.

Monday I will write about how the day went and if there are any changes I want to make, then I will switch over to shorter updates. And I will do better than I did this week on my blog at least that is 100% in my control.

That is an excel sheet I use to keep overall records, and that is May. While I was disappointed, it is also the best month I have had this year.

This entry is really going to be about my overall plan of attack for June.

POA- Poker

1. Session length- Sessions will be between 1 hour and 1hour 20 minutes.

2. Hours/day- on a "working day" play a minimum or 4 sessions, shoot for 5 with a minimum of 1 hour between sessions.

3. Tables- at 100NL no more then 4-tables open at any time, 50NL no more than 6.

4. Session Review- After each session every hand where I lose more then $10 will be reviewed.

5. Level Drop- Stolen from verneer, when I reach $300 in a day, I will drop to 50NL or play Full ring.

6. Full Ring- 100NL 8-tabling only, more to follow once I start playing.

POA- Life

1. I will be updating my blog every weekday from now on. They will be short entries with just a checklist; the items will be as follows.

2. Gym - I will be working out 5 days a week at a gym.

3. Pull-ups - sometime in the afternoon I will be doing a pull-up routine called the Armstrong program.

4. Crunches - After each session I will do 100 crunches, the set #'s will increase each week.

5. Not on the checklist but Saturday will be a long run 5-10 miles.

6. I will also have an update with some info on how the day went, hands, winnings, etc.

The other thing I will be doing is eating better, eggs in the morning, protein shake snack, chicken for lunch, tuna, cottage cheese, pineapple are other day snack foods, and fish and such for dinner, it's a high protein low carb diet.

All of this working out/eating well I think will improve my focus and my play, I will be going to a challenging school for the Marine Corps in October, so I have till then to get back in shape.

If anyone wants details or more specifics on my program just ask in the comments section or PM me.

Well that's the last two weeks, not much to say... It's been really rough. I had a few sessions where I played bad but I have also been running even worse. Here is my equity at 100NL 6-max the last two weeks.

As you can see just on my all-ins I am down a brutal $980. I have never run this bad before and it feels pretty crappy, at the same time theres nothing you can do about it so... at least I am getting my money in much better then my results suggest. I am going to try and put in a ton more hours from now on, and also may play some full ring games to help with the varience.

I have had alot of distractions and have played way less then I would have liked these last two weeks, I am going to start making sure I put in the hours. I also want to try what verneer is doing, he just tries to get up $500 each day and then drops limits for the rest of his time. I may do the same thing at $300, once I hit $300 in a day drop to 50NL... IDK if this is really a great idea or not, but I'll think about it more.

Pretty decent week overall, I got the hours in but fell short on the results side, I was down in equity a bit at 50NL. Everything else went well, 50NL in the spreadsheet is actually HU stats, PT3 just doesn't know what to do with Full Tilt's deep tables yet. My last 20K hands of 50NL (6-max) are solid at about 9ptbb/100. 100NL (6-max) is going well so far and my goal is to put in 30-40K hands at 100NL and be ready to move up again. We'll see how that goes.

HU is alright, but I have alot of work to do on my game. Moving up HU is really important because the rake at 50NL is really high. This is both HU and 6-max, 50NL is about .05 per hand, 100NL is about .07, so if your winrate stays close to the same or only drops a little, you are paying a much smaller % of your win to the rake...if that makes sense.

So this week my big goals are getting 25-30 hours of 100NL, and 15-20 hours of 50NL-HU. I am going camping this weekend so I'll try and put in more hours during the week.

I really like 3-tabling, I play better, take better notes, and don't spew nearly as much, so most if not all of my hands will be 3-tabling untill I have some notes on regs and such.

So this is my first week played as a full time poker player, I have to say it went pretty well. I graduated on May 3 so I didn't play until the 5th. I played 6 days this week and had only one losing day, due to a bit of tilt playing HU cash. I didn't meet my hand goal by about 4,000 hands, but I put in a ton of hours watching vids and studying, so now that I have gotten through that I should be able to just play more. I think 35 hours of actual play time each week is reasonable, 40 seems kind of high. I think 1.5 hour sessions 4 times a day is a solid goal, If I do that 6 days a week its 36 hours, so that would be great to have on my PT next week.

Next week I will be playing more 100NL but still mixing in some 50NL. I am trying to find a HU cash coach and will be starting in on that as soon as I do. I find the coaching is really good and develops your game at a much faster rate. As I am just moving up I will only 2 table 100NL for the first 2-3K hands then move up to 3, not sure if I will get to 4 by the end of the week. But I will probably try 5-tabling 50NL from here out and see how that goes.

I also got commissioned on May 3rd, which means I am an officer in the Marine Corps now (pending some medical paperwork). I am pretty pumped about that. This is me and my girlfriend Cassi between graduation and commissioning. Still waiting to find out when I go to The Basic School, which is a 6 month school all Marine Officers go to... when I get that date I'll know how long I have to play "pro poker player" before my real life starts.

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Ok, I failed miserably at most of my goals but April was a great month. Not based on my results so much as how much I have learned. I have given up on HU Sng's, and I havent started with HU cash. This is all fine though because for the first time I feel very confident in my 6-max cash game skills. I have hired a coach and that has really helped me chage the way i look at the game. I have gone from a 17/15 player to a 22/19 and the results have been great.

For the last few days I have been getting in 2,000 hands a day, that is my goal for the summer when I am doing this full time.

I am going to put alot of time into getting hands in, and studying in May. I hope to move up to 100NL within a week or so and seeing how it goes. I also am going to put some time into HU study so I can start putting in some HU cash hands.

My biggest failure was not updating my blog at all, now that I have more time and am playing full time I will be much better about it.

Well I am starting my blog over, maybe this time I will make better use of it . Well I'll start off with my goals and then talk about my plan for acomplishing them.

My goals are:

1. Move up in levels as fast as I can. I want to be playing 100NL 6-max by the time I graduate in may, I currently am playing 50NL.

2. In HU sngs I want to get to the $100 buyin lvl by that same time. I currently am crushing the $20s but struggling in the $30s.

3. I want to be a confident HU cash player, and beat 50NL HU cash by the end of May. To play I want a bankroll of 60 buyins.

My status now:

1. I have a good BR for the levels I play, about $2300 or so depending on the day.

2. I just today figured out how I can beat 50NL and encounter less varience then I had been getting, much of that thanks to CR member Blood who I go over hands and such with.

3. When it comes to moving up I am more concerned with my ability to beat a level then my actual bankroll, so I want a winrate of around 5ptbb/100 hands at 50NL over 20K hands before moving up. Also I want a good ROI in SNGs before trying to move up to the 30s again...also going for a higher sample size.

My Plan:

1. Start a new PT3 database to stay in line with this blog. It will be nice and clean and wont have anything in it except for 50NL 6-max untill I move up.

2. Keep playing $20sngs untill I have made another $350, then take a shot at the $30s again.

3. Stay diciplined while I play cash, my biggest leak right now has been playing too much from the SB and OOP in general, and making too many bluffs, the last few days I have cut down on both and my results have reflected.

4. I will try and update the blog on Sundays with results from the week regarding both Cash and Sngs, and any things I am working on with my play or weaknesses I find.