GES Day 5

Day five was much better than day four.  I played in a few online tournaments, mixed success but played well in all of them.  I also expanded my reading a bit, with some brief exploration of twoplustwo.com as well as poker1.com, Mike Caro's website.

Playing: 2.25 hours online
Reading: see above, about 15 minutes total
Watching: None

10k Update: 2.25 online hours, 205 total hours

Laying in bed last night, I decided I need to come up with a checklist of very specific items I need to work on while playing live.  Something I can read over before I start playing, and maybe pull out of my pocket on breaks if I feel myself starting to lose focus or feel that I'm not playing as well as I should be.  I'm going to think about it over the weekend and hopefully get that done on Monday.

GES Day 4

Day Four was pretty much a wash.  We spent most of the day out and about.  I did log into the Kindle app late in the day , bouncing around to try to sit at the same table as Tina, but I only ended up playing about 4 hands so I'm not counting it.

Playing: none
Reading: none
Watching: none

I know there will be days like this, I just hope to keep them to a minimum and even them out with days where I do much, much more.

GES, Day 3

Got in some more Full Tilt time and did some reading also.  Played two 9 person SNGs, a fifth and a win.  The win was actually well-earned; 3-handed play took quite some time and I was proud of the way I focused and picked my spots.  Once again, it comes down to having the guts to translate that same type of play to the real felt.

Playing: 1.25 hours
Reading: remainder of July issue of Bluff
Watching: none

Race to 10k: 73.5 online, 202.75 total

The reading was educational. one article in particular stood out as one I am going to refer back to and take some notes.  It covered 5 lessons to use if you want to get better; specifically, five different types of play to practice which, when put together, will cover most scenarios you will come across in both tournament and cash games.

Something for the future: I want to make a short list of strengths and weaknesses in my game, to help me figure out what to focus on when I play.

GES, Day 2

Played a little and read a little yesterday.  This amount of work is what I hope becomes the minimum, or close to it.  I had planned on reading more but was falling asleep and found myself skimming over passages.  Gotta know when to fold 'em.

Playing: 30 minutes, online (Full Tilt)
Reading: half of the July issue of "Bluff"
Watching: none

10k Update: 72.25 online, 201.5 total

One thing I was thinking about yesterday was just how little actual experience I really have.  Take away the SFPT, and I have played in a total of 2 tournaments, and 10 hours of cash game play.  That amounts to exactly squat in the grand scheme of things, and thus gives me a lot of hope.  I feel as though I have made a ton of improvement already, and getting additional "real" experience can only help  - both in terms of putting it into practice, and learning new things.  It's just a matter of committing to getting to the casino to play.

Day One of The Education

Off to a decent start - I spotted some WSOP coverage on ESPN and at the same time played a bit on the Kindle.

Playing: 30 minutes, WSOP app
Reading: none
Watching: 2 hours 2102 ME coverage on ESPN

While watching, I came up with a couple items I need to work on, and which I am going to work on during the next SFPT tournament (which I consider to be a step closer to reality than playing online for fake money). 

10k update: 71.75 online play-money hours, 201 total hours

I have decided that when I am permitted to play online for real money, this will constitue a separate column in the 10k spreadsheet.  It may be that once that day comes (probably years from now), I stop playing for play money altogether, but who knows.

An aside: I do have some hope that with NJ set to go live with real-money poker in the fall of this year, NY might not be too far behind.  One of the state reps (King) is known to be a proponent of online poker, and there is also (I'm hoping) a bit of the big brother/little brother dynamic that won't allow Little Brother to have something Big Brother doesn't have.  Additionally, since the governor has long been in favor of brick and mortar casinos (making him clearly NOT anti-gambling), there is chance he may be swayed in favor of online gaming by the revenue it could bring.

Grinding, Education Style

If I'm going to take this seriously, I think I need to treat it more like a school course.  That means assignments, homework, and tests.  To that end, I have now resolved to do something poker-related every day.  This could be playing, reading, watching TV or videos - anything where I can at the least learn by observation.

In order to keep track of my progress, I am going to use this blog.  I will make an entry if not every day, then every couple of days, cataloging what I did, how long I did it for, and anything I learned in the process.  From there, I hope to formulate plans that will further this education; things like specific strategies to try out,  ways to test myself, etc.

I've found that I often come up with ideas or come to realize general poker strategy when I'm not really trying to do so.  I've had such mini-epiphanies while watching WSOP or HPT coverage, or reading an article that has nothing to do with strategy.  I'm banking on that continuing.  I also need to move into some more specific strategy sessions.  The books haven't done it for me so far (though I have yet to read the applicable parts of Super/System), so I might have to pony up for some training software.

I will also use this space to track my "Race to 10k" progress (update every time I play in any form), as well as my wins and losses when I play live.  I'll also note how far along I've come in my Bracelet Hunting goal.

Bracelet Hunting

I like having tangible goals - things I can work toward, achieve, and say, "okay, I did that.  What's next?"  So far, the main goal in my poker journey has been to simply become a better player.  That's important, but it's also not tangible in a simplistic sense, and it's also something with no end date.  In poker as in life, the goal should be to improve until the day you die.

However, I now DO have a tangible goal.  I want to, and will, play in a WSOP bracelet event.

"Bracelet Hunting" is a term used by some pros, including Jason Mercier, as a hash tag on their tweets about the WSOP, and is also the title of a YouTube series by Jason Somerville, chronicling his experiences at this year's WSOP.  It also happens to be a quick and easy way to describe my goal.  I want to save up enough money to play in one of the lower buy-ins.

I understand that it may take some time to save up enough money, and that's fine.  But as soon as it's close, the planning will begin, and I'll make it happen.  I hope that a number of my friends can get there for the experience, because God forbid should I go on a heater I would love to celebrate with everyone.

To be clear: I have no dilusions about being able to win.  I highly doubt I would even cash.  But I would be in the game, and you can't win if you don't play.  And even if I don't cash, I would have the experience.

Every day that goes by, it becomes more important to me to be in the game.  And by "game", I don't mean just playing poker, I mean life in general.  Get out there, have experiences, make memories.  It just happens that playing in a WSOP event is one of the things I have wanted to do for some time.  By shooting for this goal, I am proving that I am done talking.  Time to make it happen.

Here are two pics from the WSOP Facebook page that give a pretty great impression of what it would be like if I actually, by a string of luck and miracles, won a bracelet.  The first is Mark Radoja after winning the $10k heads-up tournament; the second is Jonathan Taylor after winning the $1,500 NLHE: