March 28th - Trying out a video update.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $8.266
Change: -$5.802



AA in the Big Blind: Ick.

22 on the Button: Doh.

KK from Under the Gun: Ugh.

JTo in the Big Blind: I should probably log off.

K9o in the Small Blind: I didn't.

March 26th - Ill timed bluffs.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $14.068
Change: $1.702

This weekend is turning out great. I always expect the first weekend to be the best one, with people getting paychecks and losing players returning.

I haven't been playing my best game this weekend, but the cards have been good and my hands have held up.

99 on the Button: I guess I picked a poor spot to bluff here, but judging the action in the hand I really didn't think anyone of them could have a strong hand here.
I was sure I'd see some timers ticking down with them wishing they had a hand better than TT or QJ, but instead I got a quick call from a slowplayed set.

24th March - Looks like a good weekend.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $12.366
Change: $5.475

The weekend action looks to be pretty good and I am running hot. I try to get as many hands in as I can, but I find it hard to concentrate for more than a couple of hours at a time.

I have been giving some thought about taking a trip to Las Vegas come June. There are a couple of $1.500 NL Hold'em events that I would like to play in.
I don't think any of my friends are planning on going, it seems kind of lonely to go to Las Vegas all on your own. But I think the vacation would do me good, so I think I'll make the trip anyway.

T9o in the Small Blind: The pots get awfully big in $10/$20. If the board would have paired or a spade would have fallen, my results for today would have been quite different.

March 23rd - Hat trick.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $6.891
Change: $2.319

Another session and another win, who knows I might be starting a trend. Well I can hope so at least.

I am still happy with my game and the amount of hands I manage to get in each day. I have basically spent a week in front of my computer, so I am starting to feel a little drained, but I hope I can keep up the pressure throughout the coming weekend.

AKo in the Small Blind: I got really lucky in this hand. I don't see me getting away from the hand if he bet something like $150 on the turn.
I don't know if my check on the turn is always the correct play, but in any case it saved me a buy-in here.

The smart move would probably be to take today off and save up some strength for the weekend. I do doubt though that I can stay away from the tables, it is hard not to play after three good days.

March 21st - Putting in some hard work.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $4.572
Change: $2.132

I have played a couple of sessions since my last update, trying to get up to speed with my planned hand count for March. I know it must sound kind of arrogant to again complain about my luck, but I have seen an awful amount of slim suck-outs lately.

I fell that with my quality of play and the hours I have put in this month, I should have been above my goal by now. Not more than 6 days ago, I wrote that I didn't deserve to be at $7.000 and that I thought I had been lucky so far and I meant it. Since then however I have put in an extraordinary amount of hands, most featuring quality play and I have lost $2.300 since then.

J8s on the Button: I felt like posting a bad beat, after all that complaining. As far as I know everyone has a critical amount of beats that they can take. Most people start playing a losing game after just one of these, if they didn't already play a losing game to begin with.
I feel good recalling how many of these I have seen in the past week and still remember my game afterwards to a large extent as tilt free.

My trials in $10/$20 are still going fine. I am about break even according to Poker Tracker, but I believe that is due to luck and that I have played a winning game. So far I have only logged 1000 hands at the higher limit, but they have given me a lot of confidence.

A9s in Middle Position: I really hate myself for slow playing this hand. Had I just known he turned a set.
This felt kind of like flushing $1.300 down the toilet. The hand bugged me more than all the suck outs of the week.

March 19th - Home game Sit and Go.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $2.440
Change: $1.259

Another day and another long session. Again I think I played a solid game that should be able to beat my current limits out of a healthy hourly rate, even though yesterdays game wasn't quite on par with my game on Friday and Saturday.

Yesterdays session again featured some bad beats and cold decks, but I played a decent game and the competition mostly didn't so I ended up a bit more than a buy in anyway.

AQs in the Small Blind: I thought he would call a push on the river if a hearth fell and I was pretty sure my Queen was live as well. I guess I would have gone bust if an Ace would have fallen, but I figured it was an affordable risk if he indeed had AJ.

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My friends and I played a live Sit and Go this weekend, where we tried out a couple of new blind structures. The final hand of the evening was the hand featured above. I was the lucky one with T6s and Jogvan came in second with his lesser straight flush.

For those interested here is the tourney structure we ended up with:

Starting chips: 5000. (8 x 25 - 8 x 100 - 8 x 500)

Blind levels, 6 handed:

25/50 - 20 minutes.
50/100 - 20 minutes.
100/200 - 20 minutes.
150/300 - 15 minutes.
250/500 - 15 minutes.
350/700 - 15 minutes.
500/1000 - 10 minutes.
700/1400 - 10 minutes.
1000/2000 - The end.

The plan is to get plenty of play for everyone for at least one hour and still keep the complete game time down to 2 hours or so.
The system isn't perfect yet and I am unsure what to change if we play 10 handed but I think this is a good structure to work from.

If anyone has some good ideas, feel free to comment. Input is always much appreciated :)

March 18th - Sometimes the bar eats you.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $1.181
Change: -$4.872

I played a long session yesterday and I am again very happy about my play. Sadly luck can make futile any feats of skill and yesterday luck was not on my side. It is sad to be knocked back almost to zero this late in the month, but I am pleasantly surprised at how little the loss affects me.

I really feel I dominate most of the competition out there, both on $5/$10 and $10/$20 and with the amount of hands I have played lately I am sure I could soar back to break my monthly goal with just a session or two where the cards are on my side.
If I can keep up my current level of play and get in five thousand hands or so each weekend, I am confident that I can double or triple my monthly earnings.

JTs in the Small Blind: Here is the first time that $10/$20 has cowed me. I am sure I would call this river if the hand was played at $5/$10, perhaps I even would have played it differently on the flop or turn.

March 17th - Good play but poor results.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $6.053
Change: -$771

I got in almost three thousand hands of clear and focused play yesterday. I played well and didn't have much trouble balancing 6 tables. My first session was on Party and I ended up about $1.500.

After a walk I decided to get in another session. I was playing good and the games were OK, so I thought it would be a waste to end the day early. Unfortunately the deck hit me hard on Full Tilt and I lost back my profits and then some.

I managed to find a good $10/$20 table and I gave it a shot again. I managed to end it with a nice profit. I am glad that the amounts don't bother me that much, for the pots are really enormous. Here is a pot with over $5.200 in the middle. That is more than most people make in a month, before taxes.

AJo in the Big Blind: I thought about the possibility of 22 for a set here, but it really felt like he had two pair so I jammed it in.

Although I am very happy about my play yesterday I didn't play flawlessly. I can always find faults in my game to learn from. Here is a hand I misplayed.

33 on the Button: Once the turn brings the 3rd spade I knew I might very well be up against a flush. In the heat of the moment I thought about not allowing a 4th spade to come for free and also that I would know exactly where I stood with a bet.
Although my bet did accomplish the task of telling me that I am against a flush, the size of the bet left me in a very awkward spot. The correct play here would naturally be to check the turn.

March 15th - $10/$20.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $6.824
Change: $2.309

Luck has surely been on my side this month, I know that I can't attribute my winnings to stellar play or hard work. I am not playing badly, sucking out and hitting draws but I am getting good cards and hitting a lot of flops.
Even unfocused I still think I beat the $5/$10 games, but I shouldn't be at $7.000 yet if skill was all that mattered.

I am getting to a point where I feel like taking a shot at $10/$20 might be a good idea. So while I secure a bankroll I would be comfortable with, I try to get a few hands in at the higher limits. If the games are good and I feel I am playing solid I try to get in some practice.

K8s in the Big Blind: The bigger stakes aren't as daunting as I expected. Internet poker has a way of making the money involved seem trivial.
I haven't played any big pots yet at $10/$20 though. Perhaps I will find the inevitable swings harder to take than I make out.

My biggest obstacle at the moment is playing enough hands so before I can dream about $10/$20 I need to get myself motivated to put in more hours at the tables each day.

March 14th - Bad habits and new phones.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $4.515
Change: -$423

Bad habits die hard and I have got a lot of bad habits. It seems I have a new excuse each day to avoid getting in a thousand hands of poker.
I know I can make a fortune this month if I only get in a daily walk and a good session of poker, but days pass without a single hand played.

I have managed to play about eight hundred hands these last three days. The sessions have not featured much action and my play has been far from stellar.

Q4o in the Big Blind: Afterwards I hated my river call. I haven't played this opponent much, so I had a hard time letting the hand go after I made two pair on the turn.


I have finally bought a new cell phone. I lost my old one at a pub about two months ago. My new phone is a Nokia N80, amongst its many nifty features is a 3M camera. Above is a photo of me eating a Whopper and a salad at Burger King, Tróndur took the photo with my new phone.

March 10th - A turn for the better.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $4.938
Change: $4.354

What a big score in two days play. Suddenly I feel pretty good about playing again, it is funny how much my mood has to do with the amount of money I win at poker.

Yesterdays session wasn't too grand. I didn't play my best, but I got good cards and ended up about $1.000.

Today I played better and it seemed to be a small winning session, but just before I called it quits I went on a rush and won a couple of big pots in short time.

AJs in the Cut Off: I often get faced with these kind of block bets. I sometimes stick in a raise, but I think calling down when hitting a mid pair is the right play.

I am trying to host a poker game tonight. As usual it is a bother trying to arrange it, I have spent all day on the phone and am still not sure if it'll become anything or not.
People want the luxury of not having to come if they don't want to and still having a game waiting for them if they decide to come. So getting 6 confirmed players for a SnG is a drag.

March 9th - A small update.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $584
Change: -$541

I am still not focused or psyched when it comes to poker. Now that the weekend is here, I want to get a couple of thousand hands in, but unless my energy returns I am gonna stick to a bit lower stakes than normal.

March 6th - Unfocused.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $1.125
Change: -$429

I am not happy about my play as of late. There are a lot of things on my mind as of late and I am not as focused as I want to be while playing. I want to shape up before the next weekend rolls in. Until then I am gonna take it easy.

I didn't have many interesting hands since the last time I posted, so I'll just post the biggest pot I played.

QJs in the Big Blind: I got a feeling that my opponent was happy about his hand, so I hoped for the best and pushed with the second nuts.
My river bet is twice the size of the pot.

March 5th - Deep stack play.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $1.554
Change: -$547

I played a good session early yesterday. I got my monthly profits up above $4.000, but after that my luck turned. For the past two days I have had a very bad run of cards. The weekend action has been very good, with loads of bad players throwing their money away. It has been tough seeing all those opportunities wasted away, because I couldn't get any cards to cash in on the action.

I haven't played flawless poker, but I can't attribute much of my losses to bad play.

76s Under the Gun: I usually don't call preflop in spots like these. I have not got much practice with these kind of hands and deep stack play. I hope to train this portion of my game so I tried it out in this hand.
I don't know what to think yet of my play, but I know I regret folding the river.

My game is improving and I feel confident that I can build my bankroll up for higher limits. I need to put in more hands when the games are good, so I plan to hook both my monitors up to my PC again, so I can up my table count.

March 3rd - A good start.

Monthly goal: $11.000
I am at $2.101
Change: $2.101

I don't think it is a good idea to set myself an unrealistic goal for March, just because February fared well. If I want to get into a new level of earnings and start to make twenty- or fifty- or a hundred thousand dollars a month, I need to make fundamental changes to the way I play. Either by playing drastically more hands per month, or moving up to higher stakes.

I don't plan on making any such changes to my game in March, so I feel a goal of $11.000 will serve as good motivation for my current game.

I played a poor short session at $5/$10 two days ago and lost about a buy in, so I decided to take a break and get ready for the weekend. Yesterday I did much better and my game was at a decent level. I won back my losses and got a good start on the month.

I hope to sharpen up my focus more for the remaining hands I can get in before the weekend is over.

March 1st - February results.

Monthly goal: $10.000
I made $15.285
Change: $4.053

I played very well yesterday and got some good hands as well. It is always good to make several buy-ins in one day, but it feels even better to be able to end this month with such good results.

Here a my results for the month of February

I made $14.808 from cash games alone. Add to that close to $1.000 from rakeback and subtract a couple of buy-ins for tournaments that didn't go too well and I made a total of $15.285 in 28 days.

I am very happy about the results. I was hoping to get a thousand hands in a day, but even though I didn't make it, this month was a step in the right direction. I crossed the $10.000 goal in mid February, but I had to struggle to keep ahead of it in the late days of the month. Yesterday was a big score and I raced in front of the goal.

As you might notice, I made an effort to play as many hands as I could in the $5/$10 NL games. I wanted to prove to myself that I played a winning game at that level. Because I have had some dubious results in those stakes for a couple of months now.

This months results have spurred my desires to try my luck at $10/$20 NL. If I can repeat the number of hands played and close to the results I have had for this month in the months to come. I think I will save some of my future profits for building a bankroll and give $10/$20 a try.