Phase II

Primary Goals:

Get to $1500 - Last year I deposited $500 into Party Poker and took a shot at greatness. At 25NL I doubled it over 10k hands. I was probably running extremely well and perhaps I got cocky. For whatever reason, I seemed to hit a wall as soon as my bankroll got up to 4 digits. Whether this was the variance karma ghost coming back to bite me in the ass, some sort of mental block, or bad play due to the extra tables I had added on (I started 10-tabling at that point if I recall correctly), I don't know. But I hit what I perceived as a monster downswing (I now know better) and dropped about $300 before panicking and cashing out.

I must not allow history to repeat itself. Though it may seem an arbitrary number, $1,000 is a huge hump for me. I am older, wiser, and probably a much better player now than I was then. Even so, I'm going to proceed with caution and continue to play 20NL (or perhaps 25NL) until I put comfortable distance between 1k and my bankroll. I might even be a nit about it and wait until $1500 before I play 50NL. I must also fight through the downswings and be fearless. This time around, my initial investment is much smaller, and my personal finances are in better shape. As much as it would suck to go busto, the prospect of losing $195 of real-world money doesn't scare me at all. If things get tough, I'm going to fight to the bitter end. No quitting.

Play more hands - Unfortunately, I cannot commit myself to a quantitative goal here. Being a student is my job, and poker is a hobby that may possibly help pay the bills in the future, but not right now. There will be times when I'll have my hands full with school, and I just won't be able to put in as many hands as I'd like.

That said, I'm still slacking a bit. I'm usually 4-tabling on one monitor and reading forums and news sites on the other. I play 6-7 tables sometimes, but not often enough. I also take frequent cigarette breaks because I'm a moron and I can't quit. There's really not much I can do about that, but I'm going to try to make each session at least 2 hours.

On a good week, I should be able to put in about 10k hands. I can't foresee any circumstances that would prevent me from playing at least 5k.

Secondary Goals:

Digest starting hand requirements - Beyond the basics? Forget that, lets get back to fundamentals. I've played 5,000 hands at 6-max and I'm still playing by feel. There's no consistency. I sometimes ask myself why I'm folding AT under the gun when I raised with KJ in the same position 2 orbits ago. It's amazing how much I suck preflop. I need to get a clue.

Learn to deal with shortstacks - I have no way of discerning this via PokerTracker, but I'm pretty sure the shorties are kicking my ass. I'm afraid to c-bet them, and I seem to call their pushes with worse hands with alarming regularity. I just don't know how to play post-flop against these guys when they're pot committed every hand. Having a few on my left makes me want to just start limping everything. I'm starting to think that the only defense for this is better table selection.

Identify my other leaks and plug them - I might be beating these stakes, but I know they're there. My game is like a sponge. It's soaking up money, but it's still full of holes. Tons of them. Even more so than my other secondary goals, I'm going to need help with this one. If anyone here at this fine forum actually reads this thread with any regularity, please feel free to give me an emphatic kick in the ass and point out my shortcomings.

Read more - I'm going to fail the other 3 secondary goals if I don't satisfy this one. Aside from reading and posting here at FTR, I would like to closely examine SmackinYaUp's guide, the stickies at FTR's SH forum, and perhaps some threads at 2+2 if I can find anything specific to 6-max. I can't believe they don't have a short-handed forum there.

At some point, I also need to decide where to take my bankroll. I have been heavily discouraged from moving to Full Tilt by a few veteran members here. For now, I'll just stick with my AP skin, but I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for good bonus whoring opportunities.