Today's Goal & Results

Well, typical for me, I am at work and my mind is on poker. I often find myself thinking about poker at work, then looking at the message boards and forums and thinking about what I will play that night. There are days when I just cant stop thinking about poker and when I get in my car to go home after work, I am positive I will win. I haven't had that feeling in a few weeks, but the last time I did, I went home and won $409.

Today is a big day. I will be leaving on the 21st to go home for Christmas and most likely wont be playing too much. So, I need to log some hours in the days leading up. Hopefully, I can make a deep run in a tourney as well. Thought last night might be the night, but not quite. Very satisfied in the way I played the tourney, but I might need to loosen up a bit. I felt the table tighten up and didn't respond quickly enough...must follow my instincts.

Tonight, sngs! Only if I am having success in sngs will I reward myself with a MTT. I want to play the $40k again, but only if I am up a minimum of $222 ($200 profit plus the $22 buy in). That's the daily goal for today...I have 4 hours to obsess over it!

Ok, about to leave work and very focused on my task at hand. One first major hurdle I am hoping to overcome is the # of sngs I play is not enough. The first obstacle to rectify this is when I start out and say I fire up 2 sngs and finish 1st and itm in the 2nd. Now that I am playing the $55s, that is netting me a minimum of $240 when that happens. I need to overcome my results oriented thinking and keep playing. I just can think of the times I am grinding away, catching bad beats to finish 4th and ending the night after playing 18 sngs either slightly up or slightly down...I just figure that I should take these winning days and be happy with them...But that also means I am foregoing big, big nights...Let's see what happens tonight...I'm outta here.

Results

Overall, a successful night. Played 15 $55 sngs on Party for $175 bucks. I would say overall, I acted with confidence and there were very few hands where I felt I was lost. When those times did occur, I forced myself to fold. No sense going broke when you feel lost in the hand. I think controlling that impulse is enormous and one of the first hurdles you must overcome to play poker profitably.

Started the night slow, getting one 3rd place in my first six sngs. Was down about 4 buy ins, which is really quite small, but bothered me. I felt pressure to make it up...however, I felt that it didn't affect my play. I didn't push myself harder or feel any urgency to win, but it helped me focus and stay in the game. I came on late finishing my final three sngs 2nd, 1st, 1st.

I did miss my goal of $200. I wanted to win early and try the $40k, but didn't meet my goal by the time it went off and missed it. Maybe tomorrow. My goal for tomorrow is going to be $200 again, but if I am up $100 by tourney time, I think I will allow myself to play it.

Monthly Numbers:
79 sngs
23% ROI
37% ITM
$1005 profit

Respectable start.

ONE MORE NOTE: I am particularly happy with myself because in the final few sngs that I played, I felt the table tighten up and immediately started to raise. I ended up building my stack without going to a showdown and had a ton of ammo once I actually caught a hand to double up on. This is something I need to continue to do.