gotta start somewhere

I've been meaning to do this for a while. Not that anybody would really notice another blog about some 20 year old kid grinding away at 1/2 limit, and 50 NL/PL. Mainly I'm just doing this for me. A few fans would be cool, but mostly I'm just doing this to track my own progress, and to have a place to dump ideas and concepts I've learned and applied on the table. A big thing for that is PLO8, where their is NIL literature on the subject, so rather than keep it in a notebook (my handwriting is god awful), I'll just post it with my thoughts, and what I've learned.

Where to start? started with a $50 deposit on party, played mostly .5/1, and a $5 donk and go now and then. I withdrew $50 anytime I hit $100. I got to withdraw $50 a few times, and I also started to post on twoplustwo, and learned about a little thing called "Bankroll management", and found out that a 50BB downswing is nothing, and I should really move down in stakes.

I did move down in stakes, and hit up the 5c/10c game. Ran well, upped my roll to $90, and took a shot at the 25c/50c game. Ran well, and boosted my roll to $200. This is where I go to Paradise, and hit up the "grannymae" bonus($100 on a $200 deposit), when it was still around. Grinded a bit, moved my roll up to $500 or so.

I did a few casino bonuii, moved back to .5/1 for a few of party's reload bonuii, made a crapload. I withdrew a decent amount to help my sister go to a summer camp she wanted to go to 2 summers ago. During the same summer, withdrew some more to cover destroying my moms car door (not entirely my fault, but thats a whole different story), which actually was a blessing in disguise, cause I wouldn't be able to do cover the expenses with $ from my job alone. Moved around my money some more, played in a few $11 donk and goes, made monies, moved to .5/1 6max.

Bring me up to this past summer, got my first RB deal at Eurobet. 30% WHOOO! Took a shot at 1/2 6max, get wrecked for $200 (100BB no big dela, but it was frustraging), moved back down and worked it back up, took another shot, lost another $300. I worked on my game, ALOT, learning that 1/2 plays alot diffrently then where I got my teeth cut at .25/.5 pokerstars. Also learned that the rake is most unfair (in terms of BB/100) at 1/2 so didn't feel to bad. Even so that I broke even, made decent $ from RB.

I don't know how I got there to where I am now at UB/Pokerstars. Somewhere in between I play more SnG's, decide to not play them again, play NL and win money at full ring set mining, and lose money at 6max playing poker. I also magically went from maybe $600 to $1200, not that I'm complaining. I guess clearing the reload bonus at Paradise's 1/2 crazy pineapple game worked well for me. I move to UB for RB + $650 bonus (which moves SLOW, but never expires, so who cares?), and do well at 1/2 there, as well as play $25PLO8, and enjoy the game. 20% up to $600 reload bonus at stars, and I dive into the HORSE game there, doing alright, though I'm sucking at stud/8, and trying to adjust to LO8.

I probably missed a bunch along the way, and I don't think I can track how I've grown as a player since I first started (since I didn't write down my status in a journal or blog of some sort :-P), but I grew, ALOT. I don't plan to stop thinking about my game, as I am partially obsessed with poker, always writing my thoughts in a few scattered notebooks, and posting on twoplustwo.

I don't know what my goals are, monetary or limitwise (where I want to move up to), but so far, that list is:

1 - get better at the ORSE part of HORSE
2 - learn shorthanded/non-nit NL HE
3 - continue to play well at PLO8
4 - use this blog instead of notebooks lying around everywhere, and scrap pieces of paper containing my thoughts.

Expect some PLO8 hands tonight, I have a good chunk to go through from my pre-PTO playing.