So 2009 is over and I crushed my original goal of turning $100 into $1,000 but came up a little short of my amended goal of turning $100 into $5,000.  My bankroll now is around $4,100 which doesn’t include some poker coaching I had and cash outs that totaled $450.

I originally started this blog to keep myself accountable and play lots of poker and while I have played more than in the past, it still isn’t enough.  I wanted to push myself more, so I’ve made some ambitious goals for 2010 and I think you guys are going to like them (at least, the ones that will benefit you directly).  Here they are with timelines:

Start a Free Newsletter with a Weekly Video

I know I mentioned this a couple months back, but I’m very close to making it a reality now.  I already set up an account with a reputable mailing list service and delivery system for the videos (which tend to be large files).  I should be ready to pull the trigger next week.  If you want to be notified as soon as it’s ready just subscribe to my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter.

Build an Online Poker Chip Store

I had one of these back in 2004, but I honestly didn’t know what the hell I was doing.  I’m much more web and business savvy now and believe I can make this work.  I’ve already located a terrific supplier that will allow me to offer awesome clay and composite chips as well as kick ass poker sets and cards.  I’ll even be able to do custom designs and hot stamping.

Best of all, I’m working on a way that you guys can get some great sets for free just by signing up to certain poker rooms and tooling on donks.  The site is TournamentPokerChips.com and it should be ready by the end of January.

Start Coaching

I’ve been coaching my wife and she’s winning for the first time ever at low stakes.  I want to get serious about coaching some of you as well.  I’ll probably do a few pro-bono cases first to establish some results before I start charging.  I also want to make this offer:

If you’re not getting rakeback right now, click this link and then click the ‘Submit Existing Account’ button. [doesn't work for Full Tilt]  You’ll get the highest rakeback possible and I’ll be notified of your sign-up email address.  You can then email me a hand history at any time (cockyfish@justplaypoker.net) and I’ll email you back with an evaluation of the hand.  No charge.

Of course, I reserve the right to cut this offer off if too many people sign up.  I’m only one guy after all.  This offer is good effective immediately.  I’ll make a note on this post when I’m ready to end it.

Post Every Day in January and At Least Twice a Week Thereafter

This one’s important to me.  I’ve met a lot of great people with this blog and talking strategy has definitely improved my game.  I think my poker buddies would say the same so I want JustPlayPoker.net to be a more active site.

I also think frequent posting will force me to think of other things to write instead of the usual strategy articles (which I’ll still do).  I really want to push myself in 2010 and I think this is a good step.  It’ll also force me to play more to get more stuff to talk about and I’m gonna need to play a lot to meet my next goal.

Increase My Bankroll to $25,000 by the End Of 2010

My work schedule and side projects mean I can’t play every day, but I’ve set a minimum weekly goal of the following:

• 15 Multi-table tournaments
• 40 Sit ‘N Goes
• 1000 cash hands

That goal is very doable for me, but it also means that I’ll have to move up in limits aggressively if I’m going to make my $25k goal. 

So what do you think?  Is there anything else you’d like to see from JustPlayPoker.net?  What are your goals?  Write them in the comments and let’s all have one hell of a 2010!

October was a busy month both on and off the felt.  I just finished a few big writing projects and have a couple more lined up in November.  I’ll also be working diligently this month to get two e-products created (one poker related) and find a way to offer free videos of my games without it costing me a bunch of money.

As for my work on the felt, I’m in 4 different poker rooms now: Absolute, Bodog, Full Tilt and a smaller site that where I prop.  Table selection is becoming a HUGE part of my strategy because I’m playing $1/$2 and a little $2/$4 on a $3k bankroll, so I’m playing a very nittish strategy against the decent players and exploiting the bejesus out of the shitty ones.

I look for a table with one or two players playing 40/4 or worse and try to get a seat on their left.  I generally respect their raisings (only raising 4% of your hands? Come on!), but I raise their limps with all kinds of speculative garbage.

KT offsuit?  Good.

T8 suited?  Raise it up!

58 suited?  That’ll play.

It’s like printing money.  These guys call a lot pre-flop, but fold to a lot of C-bets and double barrels.  If they ever get real aggressive, I know I’m beat and can fold easily unless I catch a monster.

The best part is when you showdown a straight with a hand like 74 suited (that you raised pre-flop).  People lose their shit.  You can play super tight and still get action.  Occasionally a good player will catch on to what you’re going and start playing at you, but that’s when the leveling goodness starts.

I’m not going crazy though.  I usually make these plays only when I think I have a good chance of iso-ing my target and my stats still look fairly tight aggressive.

Overall the strategy has been very profitable and very low variance for me and it does a great job of camouflaging my big hands so I can get paid when I hit.  Here’s what I’m looking at so far in each account:

Absolute: $574.65

Full Tilt: $529.88

Bodog: $1,499.98

Prop Site: $529.29

Total Bankroll: $3,133.21

It looks like $5k is still in my reach for the end of the year, especially if I can make time to play more.

So another month has gone by and I haven’t written a damn thing in my blog.

I’m pretty upset that I’ve been writing so much for other people and nothing for myself. My commitments end in October (at least, the big ones do) and I’ll be writing in this blog a lot more then. I have some big plans for November including:

• 1. An e-Product that teaches players how to use SNGwiz to its fullest potential (and a way to get it for free).
• 2. A weekly video of my play with commentary (30 – 60 minutes) and sometimes instructional videos of how to review your lines away from the table (Free…for now).
• 3. A shit-ton more playing.

In general, my goal is to write less for other people and more for myself. I also enjoy poker a hell of a lot more than writing, so I want to put in a lot more hours at the table.

Last month I said I wanted to spend 100 hours on poker. I’m not sure if I met that goal. I sure as hell didn’t meet it with my play. I have, however, spent many hours reading poker books and watching videos on Stoxpoker and Cardrunners (check out trulyfreepokertraining.com if you play on Full Tilt).

As far as playing goes, I did a lockdown session of 10 hours a several Fridays ago and it didn’t go well. I dropped about $700 and got that sick feeling that you only get from taking enough bad beats to make you want to stab your computer screen and watch the colors bleed out. I decided then that I was going to give up Sit N Goes and start focusing on cash.

There were a few reasons I chose to make the switch:

• 1. I felt my edge was small against a lot of SNG players at the higher limits that were playing proper strategy.
• 2. I felt that my post flop skills had improved a lot over the last few months and SNGs don’t give me the opportunity to profit from those skills.
• 3. I know of a lot of players that make a good living playing SNGs, but the only players that get filthy rich play cash.
• 4. It’s easier to game select in cash and target the weak players.
• 5. Did I mention there’s more money in cash?

I played several cash sessions at $.50/$1 and $1/$2. I’m not properly rolled for either level, but I think I can play a profitable, low variance strategy with proper game selection. The results were nice including a $402 win in less than 2 hours. I never made that kind of cash multi-tabling SNGs. I won my money back and then some.

I cashed out about $300 from my bankroll. It went to a friend of mine who paid me for a transfer. Even with that money out, my bankroll is still at $1598 and change.

I’ve been playing at Cake a lot which makes posting graphs difficult. I can’t use Sharkscope anymore and PokerTableRatings is inaccurate since it can miss big wins or losses (it missed a hand where I stacked an opponent at $1/$2. However I still want to post proof, so I decided on posting screenshots of my accounts with the personal detail removed. Here they are:

Once my bonus at Cake expires, I plan on moving the money to Bodog. I’ve been watching the play there at the request of a friend of mine and it’s pretty god-awful. I can also use my HUD with it a big plus over Cake.

Anywho; onward to October. Hopefully I’ll be able to play more than I have in the last couple of months.

Yet another month has gone by and I haven’t done a damn thing.  August was a busy month for me.  I took some time to analyze my game and figure out what I was doing wrong and I think I found it.

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), writing has been keeping me pretty busy and I haven’t had much time to play.  I only played about 100 SNGs this month and haven’t had a chance to make a single post to this blog.  I am, however, up a couple of hundred bucks for my limited SNG efforts.

September is also looking bright.  I’m making an effort to play at least 300 SNGs every month for now on with 500 being the goal.  I still have a lot of writing to do, so it’ll be tough but I don’t want to neglect my poker game.  Yesterday alone was almost a $500 day for me.

I’ve also started to work cash back into my game.  I’m playing low stakes ($.25/.50 and $.50/$1) on Cake and am doing pretty well there.  The players on Cake are pretty god-awful, so I plan on chipping up there whenever I don’t have time to pull a full session of SNGs.  I also want to give some of their bigger tourneys a try and am taking some shots in their satellite games.

The only problem with Cake is that I’m having issues with Hold’em Manager importing my sessions so my graph is inaccurate.  I’ve decided to use my Sharkscope graph for this site now since I’m primary an SNG grinder on Full Tilt.  Here’s the graph for last month (It also includes Sept. 1^st and 2^nd):

The past 100 or so games have been good to me.  I’m confident in my style of play now and I think I only have a few more leaks to plug up before I can run away with this and make some serious cash.

Making $5,000 by the end of the year is going to be tough, but I think it’s still in my reach.  My bankroll is at $1423 and change now, which is still significantly below my $2200 high point; but there are still 4 more months left in the year and I’m only getting better .

I’m a little late making my end-of-month post for July due to a couple reasons.

1.      I was in Las Vegas for the first week of August.

2.      July was so god-awful that I really didn’t want to talk about it.

All in all, I’d say I lost between $800 and $900 in July.  At first I was just running bad, but then I started playing bad too.  I wasn’t getting crazy or making any bad moves.  On the contrary, I was playing too tight.  It’s easy to get lulled into a fit-or-fold TAG strategy when you’re playing a lot of Sit ‘N Goes.  After all, weak-tight is the right way to play in SNGs.  But I was folding even when my reads told me I could take the hand away.  Even folded several times when I had less than 10 big blinds in the small blind and only the big blind was left in the hand.  That should be a shove with any two cards.

Anywho, here’s the graph (green is actual winnings, red is luck adjusted winnings):

Kill me now.

So what am I doing different in August?

As I mentioned before, I’m playing a more aggressive game and going with my reads more often.  Every once in a while I look like a horse’s ass when my read is wrong, but my ROI is climbing back to where it used to be.

I’m also setting a time goal to spend on poker.  Before I’d just set a number of SNGs I wanted to play, but winning isn’t enough for me.  I want to CRUSH the game.  Not just Hold’em; but Omaha, Razz, 7-card, whatever.  I love poker and I love the challenge.  Forcing myself to play a set number of games meant I had less time to study poker books or review my play.  After reading this article on Ansky and Gugel’s blog, I decided to dedicate 100 hours out of every month to poker whether it’s playing, reviewing my play, getting coaching or studying the game.  I think it’ll be beneficial in the long run.

Hopefully August will be a better month for me than July.  It sure as shit couldn’t be much worse.