2009 Goals

I was glad to get my deposit on Stars and get HEM up and running before 2009. I played just under 1K hands and am learning the basics of 10NL (with help from a few good ol' CCer's). I've just found out that I may be doing a lot of after-school stuff in my student teaching this semester, so I'm going to get a better gage of how many hands I'll be able to put in later in January. As for now, my 2009 goals are:

1. 20K hands at 10NL in January.
2. Move to 25NL only when I begin to crush 10NL and have a minimum of 30 BI's.
3. Become rolled for 50NL by the end of the year.
4. Gain SilverStar once I've moved up, even if it doesn't come until the summer or fall months.
5. Save and do something +$ with FPP's.
6. Spend way more time in the HA section of CC than the others.
7. Only dip into my BR when I absolutely need to.

These are goals I feel like I can accomplish within a year. Once I really start grinding, I'll be able to tell better what is doable, and I'll be updating with monthly goals here as well. Bring on '09!

Bring on 2009..and the Playoffs!

Before I get to the poker stuff, I have to write a little about yesterday. My big Christmas present was a 3rd row seat at the Linc for the Eagles-Dallas game. It was my dad, 2 brothers, uncle, grandfather, and two friends from where we grew up in NJ. For any of you that follow football, last week my dad wasn't too happy he got these tickets for us, after watching the Eagles put up 3 points against Washington. There was so much that needed to happen in order for yesterday's game to mean anything--and it did. Somehow, Oakland pulled one out against Tampa..the place erupted, and the Eagles were pumped. Without going into too much detail, the game was incredible. A complete blowout..and the best part of all was that I got to watch it with my dad from the 3rd row.
Annnnnnd now, poker. I made my deposit today and am qualified for the 25% bonus. I purchased HEM and just need to get it up and running. I still have two days before 2009 is here and my ring game officially begins. Hopefully, Icemonkey will be sweating me in the beginning to get me on the right track. I'm so psyched that I'm doing this.
This weekend was great. I got to see some family that I really don't see that often. Yesterday's game was truly an awesome Christmas gift. Now let's see how much I can learn about this ring business. Can't be that hard, right? :D Heh, and so it begins...

Ready to Go

I cannot wait to start learning ring. I've only started to learn about all of the mathematical stuff that gets accounted for when figuring out the details of cash games. I'm trying my best to keep logging my thoughts in the HA section on CC, as well as continuing to talk to some of the ring players.
On a good note, I happened to play the Full Tilt CC Freeroll today and came in 5th for $15. As much as I've been whining about the variance in MTT's today, I think I played very well and the cash felt good.
Well, I'm still deciding how to approach my deposit to start ring games. I think I've worked out a plan to get myself started by February at the latest, although I'd really like to start before then. On a final note, I'm making another goal of mine to read the HOH Cash Game Books before starting to play.

Well, my poker life has taken quite the turn as of late. I withdrew the rest of my BR for a number of reasons and have given a lot of thought about what exactly I want to do with the poker part of my life. After talking to a few people from CC, I've come to the conclusion that I'm just not happy grinding the SNG's and playing the occasional MTT. I feel like the time I've spent analyzing NLHE should start amounting to more than what I've shown. With this said, I will soon be starting ring games.
I've decided to take some time over the holiday doing some sweat sessions with others, doing some reading, and posting on the forum. I'm looking forward to using the money I withdrew, along with getting paid on Sundays (props to whoever can guess what I do), to buy some Christmas gifts for my family. As soon as I have enough buy-ins saved up after the New Year, I plan to start the grind on 10NL FR. I'll also be purchasing HEM. I can't remember the last time I was this excited for something poker-wise.

Good Session

I got home today at about 1 o clock to have lunch with my family. I didn't get much sleep last night, but feel pretty good. I decided to get a quick shower, unpack some stuff I brought home early from school and play poker. I played two 2-table sessions, and was ITM 3/4 with a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. In the forth game, I flopped a set very early for a quick double, and played for a stack with AK on a AJ3 board against the aggro guy to my right, holding A9. Not long after, I managed to lose AdKd on the As7d4d flop against A2o. The 2 hit the river, unluckily, not the 2d. This player continued to play every pot with me, and somehow he kept out-flopping. I'm very pleased with the way I played, so I can't complain too much about one table.
I have to say, I am also very happy with my 4-handed play right before we were in the money on the table I ended up winning. We were all around even, and I eventually became the short stack. I had reads on all three players from earlier in the game and ended up taking it down.
While I was playing the SNG sessions this afternoon, I also cashed in a $2.20 6max tournament. It was barely any money at all, but I've been feeling so good about my play lately, that I figured I'd take a shot. Now that it's evening time, I'm considering taking a break for dinner with my parents and coming back to do a session tonight, possibly even playing the $5 6max tournament.

Weekend

Well, due the school giving us off for Labor Day, we have to make up for it with the last day of classes being Monday. Then there's two days off for "academic prep days" before finals, followed by Final Exams, Thursday & Friday, then resuming Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Since I already have a lot of things out of the way, hopefully this means I'll be able to grind pretty hard some of those days.
I'm headed home tonight, missing out on one of the last weekends with my friends up at school. Good news is, I'm leaving to see the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Sunday. I've heard the shows are really awesome, so I'm looking forward to it. Gonna be a late night drive back to campus when it's over, but a friend of mine is riding along too, so hopefully I won't fall asleep while driving. Also, I found the Christmas radio station--I'm a sucker for this time of year.
I've started talking with a few people from CC, and it's already been great. This is one of my goals for the month. I've continued to do sweats with Inscore, and hopefully a few more soon. I'm feeling so good about the way I'm playing...if only I could be in this mindset every day. Maybe with some more practice, it'll happen.

More to come...when something exciting happens.

New Beginning

Well, I wanted to start a blog over the summer but never really got around to doing it. Anyway, I'm starting with a fresh BR after making a withdrawl to pay for some holiday stuff. I'm going to stick to all 9-man SNG's. This used to be my most profitable game, but I started to bring back old habits and really just wasn't playing my best. Last night I did a sweat session with Inscore, and went 3/3 ITM with two 1sts and a 2nd. I think the two of us both think very similar about this game (when I have my head on straight), and it was just what I needed. I'm hoping to do some more sessions as well. I've chose to stick with the SNG's for a few reasons. First of all, I've spent a lot of time over the past year learning how to beat them, and they have been my most profitable game. Also, with starting a small BR again, I don't have the money to invest in PT or some sort of HUD, so ring is pretty much out of the question.

So, with December beginning, and my final semester coming to an end, I'm going to set a few goals:

1. Post more on CC. This means not only a post here or there in a thread that grabs my interest, but keeping up with them and coming back to the threads more often. Sometimes, I find myself writing something and then leaving it all together and not coming back to see what other's input was.
2. Meet some more CCer's. With my school schedule, I don't always have time to play the CC buy-in events. Hopefully, once winter break starts, this will change. I'd like to talk to some more players and get to know more people from the forum.
3. Show a profit at the $5 SNG limit.

These are some starters, and hopefully December brings a good month. I'm not going to set time limits for when I'll be updating here, but instead, I'll post whenever I feel like I have something important to say.