New Poker Blog time, i'll start out with some autobiography - a la Spoon with his 1000th post...

Cliff notes
1) loads of self-indulgent autobiography
2) I discovered poker, learnt to play, started to make some money
3) I'm working part-time hours the next 12 months
4) Planning to play some poker in addition to work
5) I'm gonna start playing standard grinding styles
5) Poker goal = make $25k over the next 12 months...

here and here detail converting $200 to $4000 from August 2007 to present

I'm a kiwi. From that little ol' country at the end of the world. Famed for rugby, nuclear-free, lord of the rings, adventure wonderland and a (dubious) clean green image. Currently I'm based in Wellington - the capital, all 300,000 people of hilly harbour city windiness of it. Imagine a microscopic version of San Fransisco

I arrived in Wellington aged 17 (1995!), cos that's what I did - abandoning smalltown rural NZ to go to University (college). I climbed and tramped (hiked) my way through and emerged in 2000 with a couple of degrees, a post-grad piece of paper and having finally attained my goal of dropout - when I finally became disillusioned with acadaemia...

And then... then followed a few years of travelling and working random jobs (fruit picking, guiding, street performance, etc) through Australian and NZ. Finding more of life and surf and climb and yoga and being outside.

Somehow I found myself juggling in Europe and sorta helping to coach circus in Spain. Then abandoned that for a fantasy - which saw me a month later contemplating a big rockwall standing between me and the path I'd chosen. 3 Weeks since I'd spoken to anyone. 2 Weeks since I'd been truly warm. And telling myself to suck it up - while wondering about the merits of choosing technically challenging variations to a late-Autumn coast-coast solo traverse of the Pyrenees. A week later I was on the Mediterranean, and soon after cruising through the Omani desert, chasing camels. Soon I ended up back in NZ for two months of nothing but climb.

Decided to return to urbanity, fell into a lucky contract and continued to make lucky judgement calls through the project. Met an amazing South American girl at the same time, finished the project and moved to join the Chilean mafia.. I got on well enough with the Dons, but the mafiosa and I didn't last so I took off to the mountains. Solo mission to some big hils saw a near miss at 4500m on some rock arete that may have been a first ascent if I'd finished it! and I broke my base-camp and took off to Uruguay. En route I met a Swiss banker who claimed to be paying for his travels by playing poker - he was playing party poker steps and $5nl so I doubt it was true, but the idea fascinated me. Uruguay = two months of yoga-asado-party-surf lifestyling and some poker.

In fact, the next 6 months of South America were punctuated by two hour internet poker sessions playing mostly $6 sng's on Party - lost a coupla hundred bucks over the first few months, but read some strat as well...

Cruised around the Patagonian Andes, hung out at Cerro Torre basecamp and decided it was for next time. More downtime in Santiago de Chile, then a Bolivian sojourn where lol$/gram started causing me problems after a month or so (think rave-party in a velodrome 4000m asl, 10:30 am and marching powder), so I left. And soon after I was back in New Zealand, kinda broke and winter was drifting to an end.

Signed on for a ridiculously "career" contract as a principal business analyst, some shit like that anyway. Pulled out my poker $$, somewhere on the road I'd switched to cash games with no idea about bankroll management and somehow managed to devour $25nl on Party. I'd also bought poker tracker after arriving back in NZ - so I have a record of my 40ptBB/100 run at $2/$4 limit!!!

Anyway, I decided to spend the poker money on living, and started from scratch with US$200 - read about that here and here if you care...

I debated ending work when my contract finished end-April 2008, but thought differently of it - I'm still not convinced that poker would be healthy like that.

But, I'd decided that working for the man has big downsides so convinced work that I could effectively oversee/manage a big programme of work in only 18hrs/week - so now I have 4 day weekends and no necessity to do anything more to support my increasingly dissolute lifestyle.

I guess I got better at poker somewhere along the way. But then I got bored and certain that a simple TAGG grinding, multi-tabling, 4ptBB/100 game wasn't optimal. So I experimented, a lot. That's how a bunch of March and all of April have been. 6-1 nit, I've played it, 13-12, yep, 18-9, sure, 25-20, si, 40-30 almost 10k hnads, 65-45 to learn about aggression - that was a little costly, but somehow I've still made money through these experiments and I've added a load of tools to my game.

I've also learnt that my natural game lies somewhere between 14-9 and 17-13, and it's also my most lucrative style.

So, now...
Bankroll has supported a surfboard, new laptop and monitor, etc. and is now sitting around $4k, not bad from $200 back in August as a part-time hobby.
Yeah, now.
I'm gonna grind. Plan is to play 10-15 hours/week over the next 12 months (variable, but working 18hrs/week gives me time)
I'll clear some bonuses, earn some $$ and soon move up to 100nl.
Goal time. Only play while I'm enjoying it. Play a standard (for me) style - allow space for incremental improvement and evolution rather than searching for hte lightning flash of soul-reading poker enlightenment

$50/hr is probably achievable. So, a $goal?
Dunno. I want to play consistently and well. I guess US$25k is attainable. That's it then. I'll update here occasionally, monthly, significant milestones, etc.

See you at the tables, I'll be 3-betting and floating to your left.

Davenout.