Ready for 2012

Hey everyone,

Well it has been an absolutely crazy year. Which is the primary reason I have been unable to play on any sort of consistent basis over the past year.

For a brief recap - At the beginning of the year I was promoted which required much more time at work, all the while trying to adjust to being a newlywed. As things started to slow down, my wife and I were blessed with our first child. 3 months later I quit my job, accepting another in North Carolina and moved - in 3 weeks time. All of this happening in early November, and we traveled back to Michigan for the holidays, returning this evening.

Needless to say, poker (and many other hobbies of mine) were left in the dust.

Well things are finally starting to settle down again and I want to get back into playing consistently. With the demands of a new job and a growing family, I think 5-7 hours a week is realistic.

My plan is to keep track of my progress in the blog as often as possible, hopefully 1-2 times a week. I play mainly cash games and am looking to grow my roll back to a few thousand, with a goal of making this happen by June. I started with $214 that I had in my Carbon Poker account.

I have already started building on this playing .50/1 and occasionally 1/2. Obviously this is terrible BR management, but it is intentional. It is certainly a risk, but for some reason I do not have the same results at the tables appropriate for my roll. Whether it be my style of play is not as successful against the standard player at those levels, or (more likely) a lack of focus. Admittedly, I have grown so accustomed to these stakes that playing levels where doubling my stack is $10 profit does not appease to me. Its basically sink or swim, and I hope to do the latter

A recap of my first few sessions:

1. First time I have played in months, I sit down at a .50/1 table. Early on I get KK in the BB, the table folds to the SB who makes a standard raise. I re-raise about half the pot only to get re-raised. At this point I am thinking a high PP, and if it is AA, then oh well. I re-raise the pot again, trying to force him to move all-in. My reasoning is an all in from me may force TT or JJ to think and potentially fold. I thought re-raising the pot would provoke a hand like that to stay in, thinking I may be a little weak. Who knows if this is the case, but I wanted to give my thought process.

Anyways, he does move all-in and shows TT. My hand holds and I get a quick DU. A few hands later, I strike another big hand against the same guy when my QQ holds against his AK.

However the streak would end in a bad fashion. I again got all in against him pre-flop, my AA against his KQ, flop came two queens and I gave him a large chunk of the money back. All in all, I ended up $73 on the session, but it could have been MUCH more.

2. I do not have details for my other sessions, but I came out with profits of $20, $60, and $74, as well as winning a small $5 bounty SNG worth $20. I had one losing session in which I lost $25. Felt ok with my play, really just couldn't hit much. Looking back I was a bit tired so I may not have been as aggressive as usual. However, I am not sure if that would have been good or bad. I could have lost a lot more, or been able to steal more hands and come out about even.

Totals so far:

Profit - $240
To Meet Monthly Goal - $260
To Meet 6 Month Goal - $2760

Wish me luck!