I’ve played a ton of poker this month. I was going to put up one of those 2008 review/2009 goals type posts but never got around to it. 2008 came and went and I’m glad it’s gone. It was a tough year in my personal life. I have a few personal things to take care of that I’ll have finished next month. Once I’ve finished them I can focus on other things. Some of those other things include poker and my websites.
Sure I’ve got goals for 2009 and poker. I’m not the type that has ever created a bullet point list of goals and actually been able follow through. I used to write them down, but again never really follow through. I’m always thinking of things and I get distracted easily when a new idea comes to me. So, I guess it’s time to give it a shot again and outline a few things I hope to accomplish this year.
- Keep accurate records
- Build a Roll
- Play in the Heartland Poker Tour
- Launch my other sites
- Focus on Limit Holdem and Tournaments
- Play Sober
I’m really not sure if I’m a winning or losing player. I can guess that I’m break even or a slight loser. I’m tired of not knowing where I stand so this is something I’ve been working very hard on this year. I’ve taken it so far as to make a prop bet with my buddies as to who will be the big winner of 2009. The bet is for live play only but I’ve got a spreadsheet that I have been using for everything. I’ll outline the prop bet in another post.
I’ll build an online roll and live roll this year to play on. In the past I always just deposited money or played out of my paycheck. I’ve only had to make 1 deposit this month but I will put a little more each month until I get $500 online. I’ve opened a separate savings/checking account for live play too. I’ll make a deposit out of each paycheck until my live bankroll gets to $2000.
I missed this poker tour last year. Each time I was out of town. This year, they will be here twice and I plan to play in it in April.
I have about 3 other sites I’ve been working on but haven’t been pushing hard enough to launch. I hope to have a redesign of this site in the next month. The other sites should be finished by July.
LHE is all we have to play here live in Colorado so I figured I should be focusing on this more. I’ve been playing 6max LHE games online with great success so far. When I first started playing, I played limit successfully. I’ve also been pretty good at tournaments but in 2008 I focused only on NL cash games, which really burned me out. I think it’s important to find a poker niche in which you’re good at and stick with it.
I drink too much when I play poker and blow way too much money. It’s simple, I win when I’m not wasted. I can’t count the number of times I’ve blow through my whole online bankroll in one night because I was wasted. This is probably the most important goal I have this year.
So far I’ve found that keeping accurate records is actually helping me play better. I’m break even so far on the month when combining live and online play. I suspect this goal in particular will help me be successful in 2009. I’ve been making deep runs in tournaments and won a $4.40 180 man sit n go this month. I’ve been using tools like pocketfives.com and OPR to see how I rank up. I guess the main goal is to have a profitable year. Things are on the right track!
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6 Comments
I wish limit was more popular. I used to do really well until I switched to no-limit, but that is the only live action I have access to locally.
#6 is a killer, but without it the hours become long and some of the fun of online work is lost.
GL
I’m kind of glad that it’s not really popular because I see a lot of mistakes being made which is good. I want to focus on my strengths this year and that means limit and touney MTTs.
I agree with you on #6 but there’s a huge difference between enjoying a couple drinks and getting totally shit faced. I still have a beer when I first sit down at the casino to loosen the nerves, but overall need to keep this in check.
BTW how were the books?
I thought the books were excellent (finally finished them over Christmas break), thank you again. Keep in mind that I don’t have a lot of cash game experience so the basic concepts seem really sound advice. I know a lot of critics say the books are not as ground breaking as his tourney books, but to me they were.
However, he does mention on concept that has not played out well for me so far. That concept is the one about checking the turn to control the size of the pot. For instance, if you raise in position and get 1 or two callers. Flop comes and gives you top pair or similar - the 1 or 2 still in check to you. Naturally, you continuation bet 1/2 to 2/3 of the pot size and get one caller from the checkers. On the turn, the check-caller checks again. To keep the pot size small (you only have one pair in a cash game), Harrington says to check the turn (or maybe less than 1/2 the current pot size. In practice, the majority of check-callers seem to read this as weak (I missed but bluffed the pot with position) and lead into me with a big bet on the river. This seems to happen a lot forcing me to call a lot of big bets some of which I have been plastered in by a weird two pair or rivered flush/straight. Lately I think a decent size bet on the turn will prevent the check-caller (if they stick around) from leading into me on the river with a huge (pot sized or better) bet on the river thus keeping the final pot size smaller than if when I follow Harrington’s advice.
I don’t know, just starting to put his advice to practice so it may be too early to disregard his strategy.
Two books I also like are lee jones’ low limit hold em book and Arnold Synder’s poker tournament formula (book 1 - designed for the small buy in stuff with fast levels as opposed to harrington’s longer level tourneys).
That’s good to hear you’re getting something out of them though. I don’t really like the play you mention you’re having trouble with. I will do it sometimes but it depends on a lot of factors for me. I prefer to check the flop on occasion, if I know that my opponents will check the turn again. This is kind of a delayed Cbet and allows me still keep the pot small and take it down on the turn with one card to come and still get away cheap on a river if the draw gets there. Another reason I will use this line sometimes is it allows me to bluff a scary turn card. Let’s say I raise J-10 from ML position. check-check a rag flop, the turn is an A or any other scare card. I can bet when checked to here and take it down a ton.
For the most part in these small limits we play I fire the flop with top pair good kicker, fire the turn, and bet the river for value when I think my hand is good. With that much aggression you’ll find that the draws will check the river to you hoping you bet allowing you to check behind if you put them on a draw. Also, if someone fires into you on the river when the draw gets there, chances are he’s not bluffing. These low limit players are only thinking about the two cards in their hand. Two pair hands are a little harder to identify but let’s say you have AK and the flop is A-2-J, turn is a blank, river is a 10 or Q. Sometimes I check that type of river if I think my opponent is the type who won’t laydown second pair with a decent kicker that he may have hit. Hand reading and knowing your opponents is a big thing when you decide what line you’re going to take on the hand.
p-d,
Everyone talks about goals but you actually wrote them out. Very nice. Stay sober is the hardest one for me too. Same story for me (playing live 2-5 NL, gettin’ hammered) I used to battle all night, play great poker, build up a nice stack, then piss it away on an attempted bluff because I just wanted to yell “all-in” because the guy looked at me funny, not even realizing he had me covered! Then I would get mad tryin’ to be cool and all, slurring “didn’t you see the possible flush man?” Not even realizing that he had the nut-flush until I would make it back the next day and hear the story!
Been there too many times man! Party with your winnings, much better feeling! Good luck! Peace out.
“geno”
I’m horrible at sticking with goals but I hope this works out since it’s on “paper”.
It’s sickening looking back at all my losses (big) and realizing that it was because of drinking so that’s a huge leak. Glad to see I’m not the only one!
Thanks for stopping by and following me on twitter.