Hey guys,
First and foremost I would like to welcome anyone who has come to read my first poker blog. I have waited several months to write this blog which is the first official step to the beginning of my poker career.
I will start by introducing myself. I just turned 18 a few months ago and I am a student from Quebec, Canada. In September I will be starting my last year of school before University. I’m currently in a science program. Hence, I find the whole mathematical aspect of poker very interesting. Also, for those who are interested, I used to be on the national swimming team when I was 15 I was one of the best swimmers in Canada in my age group at the time. This made my travel a shitload because of all of the competitions and training camps. It is needless to say that I’m a fairly competitive guy. However I injured myself which forced me to quit. Anyways now to get to the poker part!
I started playing poker about two years ago with my friends in SnG home games with a buy in of 5 to 10$ that we would organize once every few weeks. I found this site and subscribed about a year ago. Like most people, I quickly busted my first 50$ on FT because of a major lack of BRM. It didn’t really bother me because SC2 was being released shortly after anyways.
Indeed, I played a lot of SC2 when it was first released. I achieved rank 1 in my diamond league and then quickly got bored because of a lack of personal objectives to achieve. That being said, I have always played lots of video games and I have always been able to achieve top ranks in my servers like in WC3 and WoW for example.
Anyways, shortly after getting bored of SC2, I was offered a free 50$ at Party poker. This was in about 6 months ago, but I took a break of a few months. I decided that I would play this 50$ more seriously and I did indeed! I started practicing ICM with the ICM trainer. I would play it for like 1hour every day. This incredibly increased my ROI. Thus, after about 500 games I ran my 50$ up to 150$ by playing the 3$ SNGs. I chose to play the 3$ (and practice improper BRM, but still better than before) instead of the 1$ SnGs because the rake on the 1$ was insanely high. However, at that point, my end of semester exams started; hence I had a lot less time. During my exams, I decided that once school was over I would write this blog (step 1) and then would deposit 600$ into FT and start playing the 6$ turbo SnGs. Once I took this decision I decided to take a shot at the 6$ SnGs at Partypoker with my 150$ BR. I knew this was bad BRM but I considered the 150$ as a freeroll basically (not saying im regretting this like the 1497124 posts in these forums of ppl blowing their BR because of bad BRM). I saw it as If I lose it all, oh well… Im starting with a fresh new BR in like 7 weeks anyways so why not play tryout the 6$ SnGs. It did not go so well, my BR dropped to 80$ and I lost another 20$ playing cash games. Playing poker during exams is very –EV because technically I was not even supposed to be playing (studying more would have been better).
After my exams, I went on a Euro trip with my girlfriend for 3weeks. This is why step 1 had to wait for so long hehe. Yeah so the trip was awesome I visited most of Belgium, Amsterdam (omg), London, Koln ( a city in Germany) and ended in Paris. And now here I am today in front my computer writing my blog that I have been waiting to write for so long. I have not deposited the 600$ yet because I have several steps of preparation to do first. I still have 60$ on Partypoker that I will be playing with in order to warm up before depositing on FT. Once I feel ready ( about 80 games I believe) I will withdraw it and spend it all on poker investments (software, books, etc..).
Graph of time spent on Party Poker
THE PREPERATION ♠_cool:
(This is the list of things that need to be done before I make my first deposit. Serious list is serious!!)
- [X] WRITE THIS BLOG
- [(42/80)] Play atleast 80 3$ FR SNG Turbos at PP with my remaining BR (going to finish off the remaining games playing 2$ SnGs on FT with my deposit)
- [X] Get HEM manager and set it up (Currently only tracking VPIP, Preflop raise, Agr Factor and Hands)
- [X] Get the trial version of SNG wiz
- [X] Talk my friends into reading my blog
- [(4.5k/10K)] 10k Hands in ICM
- [ ] Reread for a 3rd time: Sit and Go Strategy by Moshman (+take notes to help remember important aspects) (decided to focus on watching the silver videos instead)
- [X] Reread Kill Everyone by Lee Nelson
- [21/15] 15 Hands evaluated
- [(2/10)] Learn how to use SNG wiz and go over 10 games with it (will be going over more games once deposit is done)
- [ ] Buy and Read Elements of Poker or/and a book by David Sklansky (Decided to focus on watching silver videos instead)
- [X] Change my CPU workstation to be more ergonomic (desk and possibly chair) (figured out something temporary)
THE PLAN
- 300 hands of ICM before each session
- 2 hour sessions max (need to stay focused)
- 2 Hands posted in evaluation thread per session
- Review atleast 1 complete game per session with SNG wizard
- Respect 100 BI BR management. Move down at 85 and take first shot at 105
- Keep blog active
- 60% play 40 % study
The Objective
(To be completed before the start of school in september)
Initial BR: not deposited yet (going to be 600$ on FT)
Objective 1k
Other Objectives
(To be done sometime in summer, the passive objectives will be marked as completed or not at end of each month)
- [ ] teach my gf to be +EV in home game SnGs with my friends (I always pay her BI of 5$ when we play lol)
- [ ] Learn stud
- [ ] Get gold status
- [X] Play a MTT live tournament with Buy in < 25$ (Finished 14th out of 40)
- [ ] Play several 1-2$ MTT on FT and cash
- [ ] DONT PLAY CASH GAMES
- [ ] Do some form of cardio every day and weight train 3x a week to stay fit
I will be posting more specific objectives for the month of August and July once I have started playing on FT and know where I stand. I will also be posting some hands and exciting things about my personal life.
I made an oath that if I bust my 600$ deposit on FT for what ever reason I will never ever play poker again.
