My goal is to make it to $10,000 playing live 1/2 and $5 zoom poker. Mainly this challenge will be about my live play as no one will care about my micro zoom sessions. I am starting out with $1800 live and $200 online. I can reload any time as I know $1800 can go quickly in live poker.

Abouy myself : Had a $11,000 poker bankroll before then with convincing from my wife put it into our savings account. My wife is awesome about poker she realizes it is a skill game and her reasoning was I could play stress free as I could withdrawl anytime and not have to worry about swings. It worked out well but in all honesty I kind of just lost interest in poker but I am now really missing it and want to start a new challenge. I am a teacher for 11 years now 36years old and my wife works at a bank we both make around $70,000 a year and have two kids. I live in Alberta where I believe the poker action at low stakes is awesome as thier is a lot of people who work in the oil fields and do not mind blowing off $1000 or more in a night just for entertainment. Most of the 1/2 games almost play like 2/5 as the stacks get very big by the end on the night.

Weaknesses : I feel my greatest weakness in live poker is giving people to much credit and making lay downs when I should be calling. I sometimes just do not comprehend how bad these players are until I see thier hands. I would say my next biggest weakness is making myself actually go to the casino. It is only a 10 minute drive but I often find myself making excuses not to go. Once I am thier I seem to enjoy myself but making myself go is half the battle. Anyways I feel if I commit and work on these areas I can make it to $10,000 then give 2/5 a shot. My first live session will be Saturday night so hopefully things will start out well.

I had my first session last night and played from 6 to 11. The action was again crazy people pushing all in preflop with 88 or shoving 100 blind because they were on tilt. I could not pick up any hands and it was $15 to $25 preflop every hand so I was not involved in to many hands. I managed to stay even by winning a few small pots with AK and hit a flush with K10 suited. So after 4hr of basically folding I pick up 66. Under the gun raises to $10 I am in third position and call the fish next to me min raises to $20 and we both call. Flop is 4 6 J with 2 clubs. Under the gun checks I check and fish bets $45. Under the gun folds, now I know he has AA or KK and no matter what I do he is shoving so I reraise to $175 leaving myself $100 behind. Fish has me covers and takes literally .5 seconds to shove all in which I call. He shows AA turn is a blank river is another 4 and I double up. I played for another hour and left with a profit of $230. I was glad to get off to a winning start and will start playing some zoom poker tonight.

Results : 5 Hours + $230

On a side note I tried to highlight my $230 in green but it did not work. Also I clicked on the suits for the hands on the post icons but do not know how to put them into my post. Any help would be appreciated.

Played some zoom poker last night for two hours and broke even. I can not seem to get into it right now I find myself wanting to do something else while playing. I might just stick to live poker for now I will give it a week and hopefully gain more motivation. Maybe it is because it is 5$ zoom and the pots are so small I just do not care. On a side note will go play live this Friday.

Played 10/25c zoom last night was up $30 then by the end broke even. Did enjoy it this time a lot more then $5 zoom.

If you really want to do this you gotta get and stay focused. By being unmotivated to take a 10 minute drive to the casino makes me believe this goal will come to a crashing halt before it begins.

A ten minute would be a dream and should be an a driving factor to get in and play live as much as possible. Anyway goodlxuk with your goal, and remember this is just my opinion on the matter.

You are right it is no excuse I just got to focus and put as many hours in as I can. In the past I would just make excuses to stay home and play skyrim or do something else. I enjoy live poker but one thing I do fight is getting really bored and getting annoyed at other people in my mind. I am an easy going person but the people that are super loud and obnoxius just get to me after a while. My first session of this thread I specificly reminded myself to stay focus and not let anyone else annoy me wich worked well. What is your guys opinion on bringing a hand held game system to the table like my vita is this just ******ed or exeptable your thoughts?

Depends. I would say no, some people might say yes. Depends on if your casino even allows them at the table.

Some advice, poker is about freeing your mind at the table, not letting someone get into your head. Take a bad beat move on. Get coolered, oh well it happens grind it back in the next hand.

While at the table focus on other players move. How they bet during a specific hand, and what they played if they showed. Make a mental note for future pots your involved with that specific player.

My favorite game to play while at the table is putting every player on a specific hand, especially when I have folded. You would be amazed how that type of information helps you down the road in a game.

Again, I'm sure you've played live poker for years, but everyone needs reminding of fundamentals from time time.

When I was talking about getting annoyed at people its not the beats or coolers just the general inability for some people to act like a normal humans in public. As far as putting people on hands I think after an hour if the table stays the same I generally can get a good read on if thier good, bad passive or agressive. Some hands are interseting but for the most part a lot of hands are just donks trying to out donk each other. The funny thing about live 1/2 is I can play tag for 3hrs straight but it makes no diffrence to most players they will still call my reraises or all ins with top pair, even though I have played like a rock all night. Anyways thanks for the repls nice to know someone read my thread.

Ahh the beauty of playing 1/2!

This is a extremely slow day at work as I am a p.e. teacher and the grade 5,6 and 7 students have presentations so I am basically at my computer all day waisting tme. I started to think of my challenge and I really want to focus on making the most money I can in poker and seeing if I can move up levles in zoom poker along with my live play. I should not be playing 10/25c zoom as i only have $230 online. I can reload anytime but I do not want to reload online because in all honesty I am not confident I can win online like live poker. So I will only play $5 zoom until $500 then try 5/10c. If I reach $1000 then try 10/25c but that is a ways away. I am not going to focus on the money online but rather trying to beat the level and improve my game.

As a side note I like to always here from others playing 1/2 how is your journey going and those of you who play2/5 is it a big step up or not so much. Hope to play 2/5 if I reach my $10,000 goal.

I played $5 zoom poker for 30 minutes last night and decided I am going to start at 5/10 level instead. I played 2 tables of 5/10c zoom for 1hour and made +$27. I will be playing live poker tonight and hopefully session #2 will go well.

Update - Played live poker Friday night from 6 to 12 and lost $-225. The action was absolutly crazy with big pots. I lost about $100 in the first 4 hrs just not hitting flops. then I picked up AQ against huge donk and hit top pair and bet every street then on the river he reraised to $100. I got him to show me one card which made my fold easy he confirmed that he hit a 3 outer for a straight showing me his cards. I think I played well and know igf I got some big cards could have doubled or tripled up. Will play 5/10c zoom poker tonight.

Results 2 sessions = +$5
Hours = 11

Update I have been playing zoom the last few days and I came to the conclusion that I am only going to focus on live poker right now and cash out my $200. I am just spending to much time trying to make a small profit. I am on easter holidays starting this Friday so I will be able to put in more hours shortly.

If you feel as though your weakness is live why not load up and play $1/2 or $2/4 online and multi-table?

As you mentioned earlier it will negate for lack of motivation to drive to the casino and allows the opportunity to play a lot more hands than live.

I think you missread my post I am going to focus only on live poker right now. If I thought I could beat 1/2 or 2/4 online I would obviously be playing, but I know I can not. I think I may be able to make a profit at 5/10c zoom but the hours I need to put in are just not worth it.