Current amount: $61.55

I’ve played live poker about fifteen times with my friends and the first time I played it I fell in love with it. I love everything about poker, the feeling of outplaying your opponent, making yourself appear weak, probability, the swings, everything.

With this new hobby I decided to test my skills online. So on 5/10/10 I decided to deposit $50 onto PokerStars and before I had any idea what I was doing I happened to be at the Micro SnG’s which I have come to thoroughly enjoy. At the beginning I had no idea what I was doing and I bottomed out at about 44 dollars or so. At this point I realized that I was truly awful at poker and I decided to do some research and whatnot so I bought David Skylansky’s Hold ‘Em for Advanced Players, downloaded Poker Tracker, and read some tips about SnG’s on Sharkscope (which I’m blocked from the database for some reason?) and since then I’ve seen a true growth in my understanding of the game.

I really love the feeling of exponential growth and I feel right now I’m completely empty of all knowledge and that I have so much to learn and I can’t wait to delve into the real strategy of poker.

Anyway, my goal is to use the $50 I deposited and turn it into $250 and hopefully from there maybe $1,000 but right now it’s all about understanding the game and taking baby steps. My approach right now is the $1 DoN’s and I’d like to have 50 BI’s before I move up to the $3.40’s (although I’m open to any and all advice on how many BI’s I should have for my BR) I hope to put in 1-2 hours a day until the summer, and then from there anywhere from 2-6 hours a day. I’ll be posting hands in which I may have played poorly and updates on my goal daily or every other.

I am open to any and all advice you can give me and thanks for taking the time to read my thread.

goodluck kid!

You can do it!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2HcRl4wSk

Peace and love. xx

completely capable...just keep your head up and take the wins/beats with confidence. If you can play, you'll come out ahead.

I like that this is a very very realistic goal. Best of luck, looking forward to the update.

GL Man!

Update 5/18/10

Played 18 games today (2 sessions of 9) and another 9 yesterday And I must say I really do enjoy the Turbro's more than the regular speed as I think I outplay most of the players in the mid-late stages of the game and I can play more hourly. I placed in the money in 12 of the 18 games which is right around where I'd like to see myself.

One of the memorable hands was when I re raised pocket kings PF and then the guy pushed and I though to myself "I bet he has Aces" I called and he did, I got a laugh out of it because I kind of knew what he had, but I still called.

I watched my first DeucesCracked video and I must say I feel that I am much more aware of what I should be doing in certain situations and where I stand during the hand.

What I really want to work on now is being able to get away from high pocket pairs when its almost certain I'm beat but I'll call anyway and working on having 1400+chips on every table when blinds hit 50/100 (which is where I find myself able to excel), and upping my volume.

Current bankroll is at $65.70 and I was thinking should I test the waters of the 3.40 DoN's once my BR hits $75? I think I may be scared money as a large portion of my BR may be on the table at one time. What do you guys think?

I appreciate all the good wishes and I'm glad some people commented. Again all advice is greatly appreciated. (Both on my poker play and my write ups)

personally id give it a try. DON's have less variance then regular sit n gos and cash games so using a slightly looser bankrole strategy is acceptable. that being said it would probably be better for you personally to stay at the 1 DON till you hit around 90 or so. skill wise your probably good enough to play higher stakes but variance and tilting can be a killer so keep grinding it out! good luck ill definatly be followin your progress

How many tables do you play?

Peace and love. xx

Good to see you are enjoying poker Make sure that those DoN's don't kill it, I'd hate playing 18 $1 DoN's a day myself. Unlucky with the kings, but it's good you called, unless related to having a comfy chip stack and risking bubbling you shouldn't fold KK imo in $1 DoN.

Wait with $3.40's till higher BR as well imo. Good luck!

Update 5/22/10: Current BR: $78.10

First off I'm sorry for not posting an update in the last four days (not that anyone follows me, but if so, I thank you) but I promise they will be more frequent.

Anyway on Wed and Thurs I played no games due to me having to study for some exams and me not having much time to play. I attempted to make up for this lack of volume by putting in 18 games both Friday and Saturday. There were little hands of interest that I noticed so I do apologize. In the future I'll make a conscious effort to tag hands I played questionably and post them here. After watching the first and second video on SnG's by Deuces Cracked I've noticed my play has become much tighter and aggressive. With this new play I've noticed a much higher and stable ROI from about 12% to about 19%.

I play 9 tables at a time and am hoping to increase that once I become comfortable with nine. Although $1 DoN's probably do seem dull and easy to me I just love being able to play the game and earning money playing is just a plus. With question about the $3.40 DoNs I think I'll test them at a $100-$150 BR.

I have some questions I'd like a in-depth response to if you could spare the time.

What's value betting? What are Stack size implications? How do you control the pot size? And about the forum, how do I edit previous posts?

Once again thanks for all the support, advice, and answers to my questions.

id recommend you to watch that last man standing series by AMT and play normal 9man turbos. i think you'd accomplish your goal way faster that way, imo. lots of money to be made in those and a lot less boring I found. but if you really like DoNs then go for it, I'd suspect people don't know what they're doing there either. gl on your goal!

Nice job grindin up that BR, Ocean...now to answer you:

Value betting is betting when you're likely to be ahead. The point of value betting is to get your opponent to put chips in the pot with the worst hand.

Stack size implications...if stacks are short relative to blinds, play will be shove/fold. If stacks are deep, players will play more drawy type hands and be looser. If you have a 5BB stack in a DoN, you don't make a standard 3x open. Nobody else does, either (or they're awful).

Controlling the pot size is done by bet sizing. Generally this comes down to betting larger only when you are likely to win and betting smaller (or not betting at all) when you're not sure where you stand/are unlikely to win. Controlling the pot size successfully is tough because you'll let off bet sizing tells.

There's an edit posts button underneath any post you make. The catch is this button disappears after 20 minutes.

Hope this answers your questions.

Good job so far. Keep going.