Plans to keep this Blog

Hey, I decided to start this blog for my own reference to track my poker play, here is a short introduction to who I am, and what my goals are.

I'm 20 and attending school at Northeastern University in Boston for Computer Science. I just landed my first COOP job, so this spring I'll be working 40 hours a week for Art Technology Group, doing Java programming.

I've played poker on and off for 3 years, mostly home games with a couple trips to casinos and stints online. I was moderately successful online, but over a very small sample size of games, and turned $25 into $200 very quickly. I would rate this turnover at about 90% luck. After that I proceeded to slowly lose the $200 at all manners of poker including SNGs, MTTs, and cash games, mainly playing NLHE, but with a little PLO and Razz thrown in for fun. About 4 weeks ago I decided to learn how to play the game correctly, and try to be a winning player in the long term.

I purchased PokerTracker and PokerAce, which are programs for keeping track of statistics seen on certain poker sites and showing them over the tables in real time. Now when I play I have a database of thousands of hands showing me things like VPIP, PFR, and Aggression factors for the players I'm playing against.

I believe that to be successful at poker, you should set non-monetary goals; monetary goals you can both gain ground towards and shy away from, and this can get frustrating. When tilting this can even prompt you to say "hell, maybe if I play at higher limits, I can just win x dollars". For that reason I'm playing 10,000 hands of NLHE, and then analyzing my play. That way I have a goal I'm always moving towards, and a point where I can analyze my play with a reasonable level of accuracy.

My game of choice is NL25 HE on FullTiltPoker, where I recently deposited $200 (8 buy-ins). Currently I have logged 2500 hands and am sitting at $312. From now on I hope to post after each session I have, so I can keep track of how I'm doing!