Sterotypical First Blog Post!

This is a new deal for me. I haven't blogged in my life and to be honest I used to find them (and the term "blog") sort of annoying. Thanks to the magic of CardRunners and the blogging of various pros (most notably fruitypro and CTS) I have decided to start my own public diary.

The reasons for doing this are twofold:
1. To help myself in learning the game by putting my thoughts, gripes, strengths, and weaknesses on digital paper.
2. To hopefully help other low limit grinders like myself.

I suppose I should follow traditional format and tell you all a bit about myself.

I am a 27 year old married guy living in South Dakota. I have a new baby girl (our first) who is the primary driving force behind EVERYTHING I do - those of you with children no doubt know what I am talking about. We have two dogs, a beagle and an English springer spaniel.

Besides poker I am into music (most any kind excluding country, hippy crap, and fringe stuff like death metal, electronica, etc.), sports, cars, video games, blah blah blah...typical guy stuff. I am also a bit of a chef (my mother caters professionally) specializing in Asian cuisine and meat. I love meat (easy sickos).

Enough small talk, lets cut to the chase here.

I started with poker the same way 90% of people do nowadays: by watching it on TV. Once the boom started, myself and several friends started home games. At about this same time (3 years ago) I made my first deposit onto Party Poker. I can't remember how much is was because I made so many of them. Suffice it to say I lost a lot back then. By the time I joined CR on July 1st, 2006 I probably had lost about $1500 playing mostly sit-and-go's and tourneys. I dabbled in limit hold em after reading "Theory of Poker" but found the game didn't really suit me.

It bears mentioning that at this point I have read "Super System", "Caro's Book of Poker Tells", and three books by Sklansky, "Small Stakes Hold Em", "Hold Em Poker", and the aforementioned "Theory of Poker." I do recommend them all to those of you that have not read up. "Super System" should be required reading. The three by Sklansky are GREAT reads to help you with the mathimatical side of the game. If you play live you should read Caro's book on tells. It is sick.

In the months leading up to me joining CR I took second in a $10 buy-in tourney on Full Tilt making about $1600 in the process. At this point I was a tightish player that ignored position for the most part but was not a typical loose idiot. I lost, but did it slowly. The slow losses took the $1600 I earned down to about $550 when I joined CR.

Upon joining I watched about 15 or so videos then hit the tables. Oops. I am not sure how but I lost every penny I had in the account. I think three things contributed:
1. I wasn't nearly as good as I thought I was. I tried to outplay people, a big mistake at $50nl.
2. I had a pretty sick run.
3. I was desperate to win. I wanted to win so bad I lived and died with every pot. I treated $10 like $1000.

At this point I took about 5 weeks off. I ignored CR completely. When I decided to comeback I decided to start fresh. I committed to taking one last stab at success (in part because I was/am mostly broke). I deposited $250 onto Party Poker using some money I had saved without my wife's knowledge (she still has no idea...). I played 4 tables of $25nl for about 3 weeks before Party shut down to US residents. I got the account to about $400 and was quite proud of my accomplishment. During this time I concentrated hard on not tilting and staying under control at the table. I also worked on studying Poker Tracker and using it to keep my play in line.

When Party closed I moved my cash to Ultimate Bet. After about a month I had the account up to nearly $500 and was struggling to be consistent. At this point I made a few other changes. I started keeping a daily tab of my bank roll. I also tightened up a bit. This yielded a great result. I made $700 over 13 days. I felt like I FINALLY turned the corner and was looking forward to a full time move to $50nl (I was playing both $25 and $50 tables at the time).

As if on cue I was dealt a crushing blow on November 26th. I dropped $272 in one day. One very long day. This started a very rough period where my roll went from $1,200 to $670.

On December, 15th I started private lessons with our friendly professional from the UK, fruitypro (Dan). I am not sure if he wants more students at this point but please trust me when I say you should run, not walk, to him and inquire about his tutelage. Starting on December 8th I have played 25 out of 27 days. During that time I have increased my roll 21 of those days. To be more specific, since I started with Dan I have won 16 out of 18 days. Over that stretch I increased my roll from $735 to almost $1,400. I have increased my VPIP slightly and my PFR% significantly. I am not calling as often pre-flop and am getting away from hands more easily (the two biggest holes in my game). I am also not trying to outwit people and have learned to control my aggression, controlling pot size more effectively in the process.

I just moved to $50nl last night and have set a goal to move to $100nl by April 1st. I actually think I can do it sooner but we will see.

Wow, that got a bit long...

I hope that my manifesto was at least a bit interesting to you all. I also hope somebody other than my mother will actually read this!

I plan to post 3-4 times weekly. I will include an update of the grind as well as some hand histories, sage advice, and witty banter.

Toodles!