General Poker 2010 Goals

2009 was my first year as a amateur poker player. I started playing online poker at March on cash games without knowing nothing but the cards ranking value. I started to take more seriously this Summer and when I joined a training site on August I started to think more about poker. After reading and rereading 2 poker books and play a lot of hands I started to realize that poker is more than just the cards you hold on your hands. Made Silverstar on Pokerstars on August and maintained during September. October was the month where I decided to specialize in SNG and play more MTT's instead of cash games.

I figure out the 2 main factors in becoming a good poker player:
- Bankroll Management
- Tilt Control

You can learn to play good poker by reading books, watching videos, posting hands on a forum or play a lot more. But you cannot become a good poker player if you do not master bankroll management and tilt control.
By bankroll management I mean you have to play the games that suits your bankroll, you should have a strict and disciplined control over your bankroll.
By Tilt control I mean emotional control, you should put emotions outside of the table and always think logical about every decision that you make at the table.

Here are the poker goals for 2010:

1. Educational goals:
- Read 4 new poker books;
- Watch more MTT/SNG videos during the year;

2. Pokerstars goals:
- Becoming Silverstar more than once a year;
- Qualify for a live tournament;
- Increase my bankroll in 300%
- Reach a final table on a online MTT;

In general will try to play more games per month (average of 125 SNG's), specialize in one or two SNG structures and build my roll from there. Will also play some online MTT's and try to reach a final table. I will try to qualify for a live tournament on Pokerstars.

I hope I can post more here on the blog and give some profit numbers every month, will try to do that. 2010 will be a great year to play poker online, specially at Pokerstars because there will be some major positive changes to all Pokerstars members.

Happy new 2010 year!

Pokerstars, the Greatest Online Poker Room

Will play today on the World Guiness Record Tournament Poker at Pokerstars, there are already more than 140,000 players signed up. I will post here the final number with a picture.

Pokerstars made a huge improvement for the next year on they VIP club, so 2010 will be a profitable year. I can make silverstar with only 750 VPPs and there are going to be milestones cash to all players, for more information checkout: http://www.pokerstars.com/vip/2010changes/

I have been grinding some DoNs and I am very happy with my results, on the last 73 games I have a 22% ROI. I invested $73 on those games and not only I received that amount back, but I also made some more than 20% profit on them. I have $50 bonus to release until February, I am sure I will release that bonus with more profit on these DoNs games.

I am playing right now and there are 149,196 players on this MTT, Guiness World Record for Pokerstars!!



You can also look on this picture and see the numbers of total players current playing on Pokerstars (not necessary on this MTT of course):



One more thing, just started 2 more blogs, one of them is in Portuguese, you can checkout on my profile section.

How things going?

This weekend was a very cold one outside but very warm at the poker tables. I have been playing one type of SNG where there are 10 players at the table and 5 players receive a prize and the other 5 dont. The prize is the double of the buy in (the amount you pay to play a SNG or tournament).

After 40 games of playing this type of SNG on the last 90 days, I am very happy with my results. I am having a ROI of 27% and my bankroll is building slowly but in the right direction. My perception about these type of SNG is that they are more secure to play, but the reward is not so higher like the 9s SNG type.

I wish I Merry Christmas to all the readers.

Weekend Feedback

This weekend I played 4 MTT's, I cashed in one. On the one that I cashed there were 5000 entrants and I placed 143. I ended busted with my pocket eights against the chip leader that was holding pocket aces.
I do not regret pushing with my pocket eights because I was geting shortstacked and need to double up. In overall the MTT's are going reasonable, on the others I faced some suck outs but in genereal I think my performance is ok, still need that final table and specially that top 3 place to boost my bankroll.

As SNG concerned, it was a disaster weekend, at least on Pokerstars. I played more than 10 games and I lost more than a half. Some of them were sick bad beats, like holding KK and push to a AA hand or having AA and busted for a KKK hand, some damn things like that. I played most of the time the shorthanded turbo mode $3 SNG, they are soft but the variance sucks.
On the other hand I won 2 SNG's on other rooms, one on Betclick and the other on Diamonbet, the last was a private SNG.

My strategy will change a bit for the rest of the year. To maintain my bankroll in a healthy mode, I will continue to play the MTT's on weekend because I feel I can make a final table sonner or later. On the SNG I will leave the $3 and return to the $1 but more important I will return to play some DoN's (Double or Nothing SNG, where half the field gets paid). I do not like so much the DoN's but they are safer to build bankroll.

My main goal is very soon play the steps system on Pokerstars so I can climb the steps and reach a live event package.

Bankroll Management, the 5% Rule

Hi readed today one article from professional Pokerstars player Vicky Coren. She said that one golden bankroll management rule is to invest no more than 5% of your bankroll on a buy in tournament.

I am a true follower of this rule, ever single game whatever it is a MTT or SNG, I never invest more than 5% of my bankroll. I played the $1.10 buy in MTT's and I could play a little more higher buy in, but I prefer this buy in level right now because MTT's are high variance games. On SNG's I started to play the $3 and it is still under 5% of my bankroll.

The $3 single tables SNG's are soft but I still did not reached ITM, I had 2 bubbles places and on 9 place where my AKs was busted against KK. The bubble is thougher on these games but I know I can make it and crush these $3 SNG's. Just need to continue to play them.

This weekend I will play my usual MTT's today and tomorrow and some $3 stt SNG's. I will try to satelite for the Sunday 1/4 million on pokerstars.

November Review, December Goals

I dedicate the whole November to SNG of 90 players and some MTT's. Here are the main stats for November:

Type of Game: SNG - 90 players
Played: 47 games
ROI: 13%
Best rank: 3rd place.
Best cashing streak: 2 games in a row

I am current on a stretch of 10 games without cashing, my worst stretch on them until now, facing some bad beats along the way. The variance on multitable SNG's are very high. My goals for December is to play at least 50 games of single table SNG's on $3 buy in at, lets see how is it going to be.

Type of Game: MTT's
Played: 20 games
ROI: -56%
Best rank: 366 place.
Best cashing streak: 2 games in a row

On the MTT's side I will try to play at least 20 games, but I hope I can play more. Of course my main goal on MTT's is to have a positive ROI on December and try to reach a 2 digits rank. Reaching the final table is always a goal but lets see my performance on these games.

So, December will be plenty og SNG's at and MTT's, specially the 2K GTD on pokerstars (23:00 PM GMT time).