Short Day/Day Off

Starting bankroll: $215.02

Games Played: 3

Current Bankroll: $195.52

Today's Profit/Loss: $-19.50

Current Percentages:

ROI	152.66%
ITM %	19.23%
Top 3 %	11.54%
Win %	7.69%
Win-ITM%	40.00%

So today was supposed to be my scheduled "day off." However, I just happened to wake up early (which, 9 AM is fucking EARLLLY for a day that I don't have school or any commitment before like, 3 PM), so I decided to get on and see what happens today. Since it was supposed to be an off day, I wasn't concerned with staying on and playing a while if I didn't do well off the bat.

Obviously, Wednesdays are my day off for a reason. Played in 3 6/45s and cashed in nary a one of them. I'm not even sure I made it to the antes in any of them.

So, today was a day off. Since I'm probably leaving sometime midday on Friday, I'm going to attempt to play a LOT tomorrow, and hopefully I will win enough tomorrow to put me at my goal for this week (+200). If not, that's ok. I will have my laptop with me this weekend, and I may get a chance to play, or I may not. And even though I started counting my scores on part of Sunday, I will consider Sunday the official "end" of each week, so I will most likely have the entire day on Sunday to chase any losses and/or attempt to gain ground for next week.

No one ever said it'd be easy...

Bad Habit or Smart Decision?

Starting bankroll: $254.02

Games Played: 6

Current Bankroll: $215.02

Today's Profit/Loss: $-39.00

Current Percentages:

ROI	172.58%
ITM %	21.74%
Top 3 %	13.04%
Win %	8.70%
Win-ITM%	40.00%

Yet another terrible fucking day for the J-Dizzler.

I started my day at like 11ish (skipping classes FTW), and right off the bat, I doubled up with QQ on my first table, then busted another person to put me at 4500 by like the 5th hand. Things were looking good.

Then, obviously, I got a run of good cards (and by good cards, I mean mid pocket pairs), and I couldn't let go of them early enough and ended up bleeding a lot of chips. I played in 6 tournies today, and I'm pretty sure I busted 8th, 9th, or 10th in at least 4 of them.

Just as an example of how bad it was, I open shoved with 10 BBs UTG w/ like 35s or something like that, and the BB had like 900 more chips than me, and CALLED with 97o. Even if he knew I was shoving any two cards there, that is a piss poor call.

So, sometime around 2 PM, after I busted in my 6th tourney, I decided to take a break, which turned into a couple of hours, which turned into an early day. I just didn't have the will or mindset to go back and keep trying.

This is what I've been struggling with, though. I'm usually pretty good about not tilting money away, even when I'm still in a tournament after a bad beat, but usually I don't because I leave as soon as possible after I'm done with all current games, and I don't come back. Now, obviously, avoiding the tilt factor is huge and probably saves me a lot of buy-ins for the really bad times, but I also think there's a part of me that thinks I'm wasting a lot of value by not playing through the pain, so to speak. If this were a real job, I obviously wouldn't be able to just walk away. I might take 10 or 15 to chill out, but then I have to get right back on the horse.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

I don't think I'm going to play tomorrow. I mean, I only have my night class, but for some reason I just am never really in the mood to play on Wednesdays. If I wake up early enough, I might try to play and see if I can chase my losses.

My dad's birthday is on Saturday, so I likely will be going home sometime on Friday. Which means I probably won't play a whole lot, if at all, on Friday or Saturday. I will come home Sunday (hopefully in time for the 100k, if nothing else).

Ok, that's all I can think of for now. Later.

PS. Post some fucking comments. Lurkers FTL

The Fall After The Rise

Starting bankroll: $295.02

Games Played: 10

Current Bankroll: $254.02

Today's Profit/Loss: $-41.00

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Well, I honestly can't say today was a success. I played in 10 6/45s today, and I only managed to cash in one today, good enough for a 5th place. I final tabled 3 or 4 more of these, only to go out in 8th or 9th place. There's nothing more frustrating than getting to the final table looking to score, only to get shut out. But with the way I choose to play these tournies, I'm going to have a lot more bubbles than most, but when I do cash, it's going to usually be big.

In fact, I played around with Excel today and came up with a few percentages that were very interesting:

ROI	233.48%
ITM %	29.41%
Top 3 %	17.65%
Win %	11.76%
Win-ITM%	40.00%

Obviously most of you know what these all mean, but just in case, it wouldn't hurt to go over it. ROI is basically how much I am getting back for what I invest in the tournament (ie. total winnings divided by total buy-ins). ITM% is the percentage of the time I've made it in the money when entering these tournies. Top 3 % is how many times I make the top 3 spots in the tourney when I enter. Win % is how many times I win in the tourney when I enter. And Win-ITM% is the percentage of the time I've won the entire tourney when I make it into the money.

Now, of course, this is a sample size of 17, so it's nothing to write home about as fact, but I'm willing to bet that these stats are fairly representative of my play. I don't make it into the money all THAT often, but when I do, I take the tournament down a good percentage of the time.

Anyways, I didn't feel like I was playing or running particularly well today. I made a couple of questionable plays that I probably shouldn't have, and I ran terribly.

I had this one tournament today where I swear to God, like 90% of the hands I saw from beginning to end had at LEAST 2 people all-in (well, I guess I mean an all-in and a call). It was the absolute craziest table I had ever experienced in my short poker career, and that includes most rebuys.

In fact, if you don't believe me, I uploaded the HH to PXF (don't worry, the link is public, so you don't have to sign up for it to view it):

http://www.pokerxfactor.com/HH93638/craziness

Just trust me.

Anyways, I ended my day at about 7. I took a little too much time off in between games, but I'm proud of the fact that I actually kept at it despite my piss-poor day. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. Variance happens.

I left my laptop on last night while I slept so that I could finish downloading Dexter (don't get Showtime, but I HAVE to see Dexter asap...his sponsor is hooottttt), and I was pretty worried that it would overheat or something. I have used a desktop for as long as I can remember, and I pretty literally didn't turn my desktop off since I got it in the summer of 2003 (only when I absolutely had to), and it worked perfectly fine up until I moved into this new apartment, and now suddenly the monitor no longer works.

But, do any of you have any suggestions in relation to my laptop? Is it kosher to leave it running like that, or is turning it off and giving it a rest mandatory?

Ok, I think I talked about everything. Later.



PS. GO SOX!!!!!!! SUCK IT NEW YORK!

End (?) of Day 1

Starting bankroll: $130ish

Games Played: 7

Current Bankroll: $295.02

Today's Profit/Loss: $165.02

Today was a great start to my quest. I played in 7 6/45s (I don't know the precise number, but from my OPR stats page, that's what I'm pretty sure it is). I cashed in 4 of them, getting 2 1sts, a 3rd, and a 5th. I think my 3rd and 5th were pretty much offset by my Sunday donkament entries. I like to play the Daily 15k and the Sunday 100k on Sundays. Just to take a shot at a really huge score. Might be a little irresponsible in terms of BR management, but as long as I'm not going crazy with them (and 2 buy-ins out of my norm isn't crazy), I think it's ok. Everyone needs to take a shot sometimes.

So, suffice to say today was a good day. It started off good, getting a win. I almost stopped playing for the day due to my very very poor performances in the 2 Sunday tournies I played, as well as my performance in the RakeTheRake freeroll on Full Tilt (which, since I am literally busto on FT, I need that cash, haha), but I decided to just take a short break and then come back and play. I was dually rewarded.

On my break, I downloaded and installed PokerHound. I used PokerTracker and PAHUD for a while, but since PT got hacked, I have stopped using it out of concern for my safety. But, while going through and setting it up and stuff, I really discovered that I just didn't like it. The boxes were too big and got in the way of everything, and the fact that I can't tile my screens was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back. gg PH.

The reason why there is a question mark in the title of this post is because I'm not sure if I'll play more tonight or not. Usually I don't play after 6 or 7 because I like to go watch TV, or I have night class (on Wednesdays), or I don't want to be up tooo late because I have class the next day. But if I'm feeling good, I might give it a shot.

Maybe I should devote my nights to watching PXF videos. Need to start watching the new PearlJammer vids.

That's about it for now. glglglglglglgl at the tables, loyal viewers.

So It Begins...

Alright, testing testing 1-2-3....

So I've decided to start this whole blogging thing. I guess it will help me track my progress as I make my journey towards fame and riches, etc.

The name of my blog is "The Quest for a Grand." It's actually pretty self-explanatory. I've been playing on Stars as a microdonk for about 4-5 months now, and I'm getting to the point where I have to make some cash or get a job (aka sooooicide). Right now, my bankroll is at about $220. I started off with a $50 deposit, and it's been a rough ride. At my best, my roll was just over $400. Obviously I haven't been doing so well in recent weeks, but I feel like it's all about to change.

What I'm going to try to do, for my first poker quest, is to grind the $6 45-man turbo SNGs on Stars until my roll reaches $1000. The reason I'm choosing $1000 as my goal is that once I reach $1000, I'm basically completely rolled to play in whatever kind of donkaments I want to play in. Obviously I will still need to be careful playing in $12 tournaments, and be disciplined in terms of moving down once I get there, but that's all for the future.

Once I reach $1000, I will consider myself a winning player, and one that can sustain myself. At that point, I'll probably start withdrawing money from my account and trying to make a living out of poker. I'm a simple guy, so I don't need much money per month to live off of.

Hopefully below is the format under which I will start all future blogs:

Starting bankroll: $xxx.xx

Games Played: xx

Current Bankroll: $xxx.xx

Today's Profit/Loss: $xxx.xx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm hoping to reach my goal of $1000 by midnight CST on December 1st. So I have 33 days and about 7 hours to acheive my goal. That's about $29 bucks a day, or $1.25 an hour.

But since I won't play 24/7, I'll need to adjust my dialy/hourly goals. My current plan is to play from noon to 6 PM on Monday through Sunday, taking Wednesdays and another day (selected at random) off. That's about 30 hours a week. There's an average of 5 weeks in this goal, so I'd need to make $200 a week, which is just about $40 a day. So $7 an hour, thereabouts.

It seems so easy on paper, but this month is going to be a big fat clingy bitch.

glglglgllglglglgllgg JDeEzLy TID ONE TIMEEEEEEEEEEEE