Sticking to your rules

As many of you know, I started tracking my results starting in January. I have started to track results many times, but always lost interest and eventually quit. I am now a month an a half in, and I am still keeping track despite having a terrible start to February. I have made up some ground this week, but it was tough to write down several big losses in a row.

Today I want to talk about avoiding those big loss days. When I started this tracking process this year, I set a couple of rules for my game to prevent the huge swings I have taken in the past. The rules were simple and they are below.

1. Maximum of 2 buy ins per day. NO EXCEPTIONS!
2. No more than 2 drinks per session.
   If it is a drinking session for fun. Max is one buy in.

I have failed miserably with rule number one in February and it has cost me. I went 7 buy ins deep on one day and they were increasing buy ins, so it got really nasty. A couple other days, I got 4 buy ins deep. It is so hard to get up and quit when you are stuck, but I had a huge eye opener after going through my results. If I took all the days I had more than two buy ins and just quit after those two, I would have $4600 more in my bankroll right now. Wow! I had no idea it was that big of a difference! That includes a session that I made a nice comeback as well.

So, I am now sticking to that rule and it is out here for all to see. That always seems to make it easier to hold myself accountable.

Quick side note: I won the weekly Tuesday touranment again this week, so I have a commanding lead in the points standings which will net me a $1500 WSOP buy in.