Back to paying bills with poker

Well, I am officially playing poker "professionally" again. I am only doing it part time as I do have other means of earning income, but due to some unfortunate business conditions, I am back in a must win situation.

I really dont like the pressure of a must win, but I have built up the bankroll a little to support something like this. My record keeping is good, but the pressure to make the bank each day does make it harder to stil to my rules of 2 buy ins per session. I have a couple of tournaments this week, including a $500 buy in that should be a big payout if I can money. I was thinking about posting my earning needs on here and track it with yall. Is that something that would be interesting to follow? Let me know.

Good luck!

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.

January in the books!

Well, I closed out January and it was a good month in cash games and a loss in tournaments, even with a 2nd place finish. I am excited to continue accurate tracking of my play. So far, I am up more than I would have guessed. I am also doing a better job of managing my bankroll.

February started on a big down note with a two big loss days, but I made just about all of it back yesterday. I am a little tired from playing, so I will be taking a few days off. My next blog I will post a couple of key hands for everyone to evaluate.