Hey all, Ruairidh here. I've played poker(badly) for the last 3 months, just playing when I can. Unfortunately, cash is low for me right now, so I decided this would be the start of my serious poker venture. In my Pokerstars account, there sits $30, and my first challenge: double up in one week. It is not the most monumental challenge, granted, but I feel it is big enough for my first serious go at poker, and this thread will help me do it.

The Challenge: $30, 7 days.

Supplemental challenges:
read poker books and improve my game - an obvious goal, but nonetheless an important one. I have 2 books at the moment, crushing the micros, by blackrain79 and The Theory Of Poker by Sklansky. Suggestions are definitely welcomed

Have fun - this is a big one for me, whenever I have played poker it's been my own little escape from reality, and it is for this reason that I am not spending all my time studying poker.

Branch out – try to play more than cash games, and possibly even try new games out. This should help keep me interested and I may even find I have natural talent at a different game(well, I can hope anyway). I've never had any success at tournaments, but then again, I've never really tried, so I'd like to change that.


The rules: any loss > $2 is considered a losing day, likewise any win > $2 is considered a winning day. Or it is considered a break even day.

Any time I have 3 losing days I move down a stake, conversely any time I have 3 winning days I can move up a stake, starting on 5NL.

I will have ~2/3 hours a day to play midweek and all day weekends. I will start off 2-tabling 5NL but may well up that to 3/4 tables if I feel I can still make decisions quick enough. This also stops me loosening up mid game, which is a problem for me whenever I play.

I hope this thread/blog can give me a place to celebrate, vent, discuss, and hopefully track progression. Most importantly however, I hope this thread pushes me to up my game. I don't want to embarrass myself by losing money, obviously. I'll try to update this once or twice daily and hope that anyone still reading this enjoys my adventure.

I want to add that as bland/unambitious my original goal is, I am the opposite. This will be the first of many short term goals I share with anyone daft enough to listen to me ramble on. As far as a long term goal goes,the closest I have to one is to be able to go out a couple nights a week when I'm back at uni. I think that's for the best. Given that I don't have much indication of ability at the moment, long term goals seem like an unnecessary disappointment.

Just a small session today ~90 hands, I'm absolutely shattered and thought I'd leave on a win, especially after losing a BI KQs vs AA earlier on, glad I stuck in

In all honesty I think going all in here may have been a mistake, but the flush draws worried me a little, needed to make it expensive though. Think I'm gonna get a decent sleep for work and carry on tomorrow.

the last couple of days I've not been playing much, 300 hands tops. Work is really wearing me thin. It has given me a bit of time to try something new though. I've played a couple fifty/50 games and won a couple times, I could look further into that. I also played a couple freeroll mtt's just to see what they're like. I placed ~200 of 25k players twice so I think that's pretty good. I'll need to work on my mid/late game though.

The few 5nl games I have played, I seem to have hit a run of bad luck, people drawing 5to1's on the river, being dominated by one card etc. It's irritating, but damn, that's poker. I've got the majority of the day tomorrow, so I'm going to look to study for a couple hours and play the rest. Still debating whether or not I'm going to continue with cash or move over to a couple sng's. I'll decide tomorrow.

I'm close to hitting chromestar for this month, which is cool, I suppose. Does chromestar come with any decent benifits? Either way, I think silver will be my goal for next month.

finally, I think I'm going to print off a couple starting hand guides. What I'm thinking is if I have a 10% page, a 20% page... up to maybe, 50%, it'll be easier to change gears for competition. It should also help me to put an opponent on a hand if I have any info on them.

Only played a few hands today and I'm already pissed off. Aces beaten by JT, KK running into AT and losing. I'm not playing badly though, which is the important part. But I'm too tilted to carry on at the moment. Think I'll do some reading

Good luck - subbed.

thanks man, really appreciate it

Unfortunately I've been saddled with an unexpected uni project so poker's going on the back-burner until next week. Not to mention I can't catch a hand to save my life...

Uni project might be a 'welcome break' then.

Good luck!