Hi, my real name is Jônatas Aimbiré, and i play at Full Tilt Poker (and also PokerStars eventually) with the screen name of 'aimbire', after a few attempts, some big MTT hits, i never actually grinded hard to become a poker player. Used to play just like a hobby and a way to make some decent cash sometimes. Now i've really decided to put the effort to grind up the limits and i've set myself this challenge to do so.
My Pre-3F Poker History (updated August 19th, 2010)
I Started out playing poker about 18 months ago, free with some friends at my 22nd birthday party, we just freerolled, i got the concepts of hand ranges, showdown games and actually believed flush were all the same (like a ace-high flush ties with a 6-high flush 
).
So as of online i only played on PKR Room for a couple times, and after joining PokerStars i've won $10, with that money i played some sessions (i think it was NL10, not sure), reached ~$35 in like 30 minutes, and after 2 minutes the whole money was gone (yeah, who would've thought, right?).
So i didn't want to deposit my own money into the game, but i feel a little bit addicted already, so i've google it everywhere if there was someway i could get about $10 again on PokerStars, and somehow i've found PokerStrategy.com :f_biggrin:.
Joined the community, registred, tried to get the test answers on google instead of reading the articles (man, what a moron), passed the quiz, send my info when requested and of course, PokerStars didn't accept the bonus on my 2nd account (btw, i've told PokerStars support already, and the account is closed). So PokerStrategy support said i need to choose another Poker Room, and i choose Full Tilt, i didn't had a clue what rakeback was actually, but the site at the time as i was oblivious to almost everything, seemed a nice place to play.
Now, as you can see by history, i burned my $50 capital in a short time because i didn't play good solid BR managment (moron, part 2). Then i said to myself: "oh, i'm just unlucky". Huge mistake, made a $150 deposit from my own pocket (i used to get a $500 monthly wage by that time, yes, i know, i was stupid back then). And when i got exactly $1.40 in my account in a timespan of about two weeks. (You know first deposit bonus? I've only cleared $15 bucks of it), i said to myself, this can't be possible.
Now newsflash i DO have a friend who makes a living playing online poker. And i asked him if i was too bad for it. He said: "Take a break, read everything you can, and then, only then, sit down at the tables. I'll help". I did that, listened to the voice of experience and notice the my game had so many flaws it was impossible to win money in the long run. I did played some live tournaments and a few friendly cash games and i can say in six months i've made a profit of about $3,5k. But now things will get more serious over time.
End of story?
So, i live in Brazil 
, to be more precise in a little island on Santa Catarina called 'Florianópolis'. And to make this blog really personal, i will eventually post some photos once in a while to talk about non-poker stuff.
Just so you can have a short-term idea of how beautifull my town is, below are two pictures. First is one of the most famous beach around here (one of the 40+ around here) on usual summer:
And this one is from another beach that stays on a adjacent island, but still from my town:
3F Challenge, as of August 19th, 2010
For the ones who followed this blog since the beggining it started 100% sng and after i got this one-in-a-lifetime-opportunity of being coached by a far more experienced player on cash games, i've moved almost all my focus to the ring games. Just to be clear, vonki didn't talked me out of sngs, this was already a long term plan and because of this chance i've got it has been speeded up.
This personal challenge will no longer a focus on SNGs, although they won't be completely gone for a little while, but most likely they will be only for recreational purposes after i'm ready to play for NL25 SH NLHE.
I won't be posting too much of how results are going (and won't be paying attention to them too), but on fridays after rakeback cashes in, i'll shall post some graphs. And also i'll be trying to post daily snippets of sessions i've played (they're random though), raw and unedited so maybe some cool evaluations can come.
Short Term Goals:
- Acquire enough experience and have a solid bankroll on NL5 FR NLHE.
- Move up the limits and play NL10 FR NLHE
- Study some of PokerStrategy.com articles on BSS every week.
- Finish reading "The Poker Blueprint".
Mid Term Goals:
- Change from NL10 FR NLHE to NL10 SH NLHE.
- Read "The Poker Mindset".
Long Term Goals:
- Start playing NL25 SH NLHE
- Achieve a gold status member on PokerStrategy.com
Rules:
- Always respect my coach.
- Never play on "tilt", i.e. making decisions that i wouldn't usually make for any reason.
All the sessions will be 30-90 minutes long. For every 30 minutes played, i get 5 for a break. If at anytime i feel i'm not playing my "A"-Game i will take a break as long as it's needed.
Any comment is always appreciated and i promise to treat everyone with the same respect i like to treat everyone around me. 
Best Regards.
