I have no idea how this week has been...

Raising Pots

So as I mentioned last week, this week I was not going to look at my cashier all week! This was much harder than expected. Especially as Monday was a pretty rough day at the table, how rough who knows? Now, I can see the benefits of it but there were certainly some negatives too. They are however pretty similar. So the benefits are that, on Monday for instance, I had no idea how badly I did so once that session was done I could close the door and move on and come Tuesday's session I wasn't thinking, well I lost x yesterday so need to make that up. No, I was just thinking, well yesterday was bad, I played bad, let's make today better. It was purely black and white. Play bad or play good. So, before I open up PT3 and discover what happened, I'll let you know what I think happened. Generally I think I played bad, the dreaded tilt monster has returned on a couple of occasions this week, I've done so well to combat this lately and don't now why it has returned. I need to focus on this. It was on Wednesday that I sat down and said to myself, you're gonna win today, you're gonna play well and I did. I don't recall getting particularly lucky or having a good run of cards, I just avoided those dangerous marginal spots and valued my better hands against the weaker opponents.

So let's guess at some specifics. I think my week will look like this:

Hands: 4,800
Hours: 12
$/hour: -$0.83
Total winnings: -$10
Total Rakeback: $2.20 (this I know for a fact)

Total for the week: -$7.80

So, I'm now going to look at my results...Drum roll, please.

OK, so surprising results. I knew this week had a lot of swings in it so my graph looks a bit like a rollercaoster. Here's the tale of the week:

Hands: 6,708
Hours: 17.28
$/hour: $0.10
Total winnings: $1.72
Total Rakeback: $2.20

Total for the week: £3.92

Positive!! My week's in the green!! I'm very surprised, thanks in no small part to my two biggest winning sessions ever! One for ~$12 and one for ~$15. No where near as bad as I thought. Will I carry this experiment on? Yes, probably.

So, the big things for this coming week to concentrate on are to keep this trend going and to not tilt off chip like a monkey. I also have a big thing happening tonight which I hope will help...more on that next week!

In other news I railed the WSOPE yesterday and saw some of the legends of the poker world! Mr. Phil Ivey himself, Tom Dwan, Vanessa Rousso, Barry Greenstein, Huck Seed...and some Swedish pro named Sofia Lovgren. Do yourself a favour...look her up!!

Lifting Weights

Not such a positive week though I did manage to get two strong sessions and felt good about it and have a positive mental attitude to this coming week!

Short but effective...

Raising Pots

I had family visiting this week so haven't had much chance to play poker. Only booked three sessions, but they were certainly profitable ones:

The tale of the week:

Hands: 1,518
Hours: 3.93
BB/100: 21.71
$/hour: $3.35
Total winnings: $13.18
Total Rakeback: $0.47

Total for the week: $13.65

So, as you can see it's a shame I couldn't play on a little this week as I had three very good sessions and booked a nice little profit giving my bankroll a boost and an all important positive start to September.

So this week coming I'm on an early shift at work which gives me a good amount of spare time to both study and play a good volume of hands. I really see September as a turning point; I'm confident I can win back all my losses and finally break even. I just need to play consistent winning poker, avoid tilt and importantly book the hours.

Have been reading Dusty Schmidt's book 'Treat Your Poker Like a Business' and one of the concepts I'm going to try this week is to not look at my cashier or my results all week. The thinking is your focus is entirely on playing your best game and not being too results orientated. So when I come back next week and give the tale of the week it will be the first time I have seen it too!

Lifting Weights

Another disappointingly inconsistent week but, again, this was down to having family round and not being able to get a routine going. Should hope to crack on with the 100 push-ups challenge this week and get 3/4 good gym sessions in.

Pokerlifter's August

Welcome to the first of my monthly summaries

Raising Pots

So how was August poker-wise? Results wise really not great, though as my posts the last few weeks have stated, I've been happy that I am growing as a player.

So the tale of the tape for cash games is as follows:

Hands: 16,871
Hours: 47.58
BB/100: -0.96
$/hour: -$0.14
Total winnings: -$6.48
Total rakeback + bonus: $26.02

Total for the month: $19.54

So, amazingly a profitable month thanks to rakeback and bonuses. If there was no bonus then the month would be ~-$1. So, with September (and onwards) having no bonuses it will remain to be seen how I will do. In my entire 10month career I have only ever posted 3 positive months. This is going to change.

A quick overview of tournaments. I played 46 tournament's in August for a net loss of -$10.45 or -21.86 %. With 2 1st place finishes 6 2nd and 2 3rd.

Lifting Weights

So, August wasn't great. Good, but not great. Fundamentally August has seen my motivation for t he gym restored. This potential energy now needs to be converted to kinetic so we can see some results. Being fit and healthy will affect my mind for the better and make me a better a poker player, equally positive results on the felt will give me the mindset to work harder.

Come on September. What have you got? Back in a month...