O-Poker

Where do you hope to be in......?

I just read a really good blog post by Leatherass (one of the lead instructors at Stoxpoker who has probably played more cash game hands online that just about anyone). It is definitely worth taking the time to read. It really got me to thinking about what I am trying to accomplish in poker.

I am not talking about the lofty one in a million, one in a hundred thousand, one in a thousand, or one in 500 shot (depending on how you see your game) of winning the WSOP Main Event or a WPT Main Event. I am thinking about what are my long term goals with poker realistically - aside from winning a major tourney which would obviously drastically change all the other goals. Where do I hope to be in my poker career in 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?

I haven't played much poker or done much of anything since I got sick Sunday night and it has given me a little time to think about a lot of different things (poker being one of them). I set a goal at the beginning of the year of playing 275k cash game hands this year (about 23k hands/month) which seemed reasonable considering my work schedule and home life. From January to March, I only played about 35k hands (12k hands/month) which is about 1/2 of my monthly target.

I have gotten sidetracked with MTTs, WSOP steps and the BBT3. This weekend I decided to get back on track with the cash game hands and really step the number of hand that I play this month and next month. I am going to target 30k hands this month (little behind due to the sickness of the last few days) and 35k hands next month. It is my short term goal to build up a decent size roll to take to LV with me in June (probably the 10th-15th).

As for where I hope to be in 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? 5 years? 10 years? I think leatherass sums it up best, "Anyway, I was just doing some thinking about that and I guess the bottom line is I should just keep grinding and don’t even think about getting to the very top."

With that in mind, I'm going to keep grinding, use good (maybe overly nitty) bankroll management, and let the rest take care of itself. If I play enough hands this year, the money will follow and hopefully one day I can be at the point where I don't have to worry about money.

I'm going to keep playing the BBT3 events and still have the WSOP Step 6 ticket, but probably won't be playing much besides cash games with a few breaks for mtts here and there.

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QQ in the SB - Follow Up

I posted this hand because it felt like I played it so weak - I folded PF. There was just something about it that screamed I was way behind. I guess you could call it one of those feelings that you get sometimes when playing and I went with that feeling. There are times when I would raise with the same hand against the same players, but this one just felt fishy so I folded.

I'm not sure what either of them had, but Seat 6 flat called pf. The flop came all low cards, Seat 6 checked and Seat 2 (who had a relatively low agg factor) bet about 3/4 pot. Seat 6 folded.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5928688441: Table St Ives (6 max) - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 15:36:24 ET - 2008/04/06
Seat 1: god_ofgamblers2 ($209.95)
Seat 2: CommanderData ($253.25)
Seat 3: cmitch ($269.40)
Seat 4: Bluffsalot83 ($200)
Seat 5: marlon1410 ($134.80)
Seat 6: youenjoymystack ($208.40)
cmitch posts the small blind of $1
Bluffsalot83 posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #2
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to cmitch [Qh Qd]
marlon1410 calls $2
youenjoymystack raises to $9
god_ofgamblers2 folds
CommanderData has 15 seconds left to act
CommanderData raises to $32
cmitch has 15 seconds left to act