GG January

January '09 and January '10 were each my best month of those two years. Naturally I was hoping that result would repeat itself this year. It didn't.

January 2011 started off rough then it quickly switched gears to horrible. Luckily the last two days of the month almost completely negated the damage the first twenty-nine days inflicted.

On Sunday I made two small FTs (one win) and a deep run in a big tourney with a respectable cash. Tonight I got 4th in the 3r on Full Tilt for $865. First place was 2.6K so I'm obviously disappointed. One of the final five players was an average player, two were absolutely horrible, and one was really good. If we played out the final five 100 times it would come down to me and the other good player heads-up 90% of the time.

I lost a flip to the good player while five-handed (my JJ lost to his AQhh) in a three-way all-in pot. The shortstack shoved from utg+1 against a utg limp and the good player reshoved. We had about even stacks and I wasn't too excited about reshipping but I'm not sure I can fold in that spot given the strength of my hand five-handed and the aggressiveness of my opponent.

Anyway I lost the flip and had like 3bb left. I managed to work my way back to 16bb but busted in a B v B cooler. If I would have won the flip I'd have been three-handed against the two horrible players, WITH the chiplead. Dream scenario obv. Oh well.

Here's the screenshot:

While I missed out on a substantial score, I'd be lying if I didn't say the $865 doesn't help. I cleared out all of January's losses minus about $300. Good way to start off February.

So I played 454 MTTs in January. It was't a profitable month but I put myself in +EV situations and things just didn't work out. Now I just have to keep up the grind in February. I'm not likely to run that bad again so I'm hoping this is the month where I can get my roll into the 4K to 6K range at least. At this level I can move up slightly in stakes and take some bigger shots.

I've noticed in my poker playing career that things tend to explode after long periods of bricking. My roll could literally be 10K+ in the next five days while having spent the previous 30 days in the red. It probably won't but that potential is there and that's what the grind is all about for me.

I get excited about building my roll and I've already come up with future schedules for different rolls. I have a schedule ready for a 4K - 6K roll, a 6K - 8K roll, and an 8K+ roll. I also have Sunday schedules made for each of those scenarios.

I think the logistics of building bankrolls is what I most excel at in this game. And I'm not bad on the felt either so it's no wonder I've taken a marginal starting amount (something like 1K to 2K) and turned it into 10K+ several times in the last few years. Hell, I could write a book on it.

My problem is after I build the roll I tend to lose motivation towards the game. It's sad, really.

I learn more and more about my strengths and weaknesses as time goes by. Each year I've played I've improved on my consistency. I think this year will be the year I finally put in consistent volume and hopefully also the year that I force myself to play once I reach my "peak".

I'm thinking of doing something similar to the 25K Project in '09. For those who don't know what that was, I set up a goal to turn $500 on Stars into 25K. I set up different phases for what I would do w/ my roll once I reached a certain amount.

Anyway, I got the $500 all the way up to 15K, hit a bad run, got all depressed, then quit. In retrospect, it was really really stupid of me. I mean, once I got to 15K the hard part was over. I have a long history in my life of getting 90% of the way towards a really tough goal then quitting. I'm still not sure what that's all about.

Ok so this is getting absurdly long. My whole point here is that I'm thinking of resurrecting the 25K Project into something similar but not the same (and finishing it this time). I'll have more on this in the future.

Sorry about the long ramblings. Let's have a great February!