1 Year
One year ago I got the itch to start playing poker again after a 2 and a 1/2 year hiatus. I took $100 cash to a Western Union inside a Kroger in Johnson City, TN as my deposit method on PokerStars and started playing $2NL literally for pennies. I've kept up with each level and retrospective ever since in this thread. At this writing I am off to a good start @ $100NL having earned ~15 buy-ins @ ~11bb/100 or 5.5ptBB/100 BUT it is early and my sample size is small @ just over ~15k hands. IF I was able to redeem all of my FPP's @ 62.5 FPP per $1, I'd have enough money to technically play $200NL according to my original rules of 30 buy-ins per level. However, I changed my rules to be more conservative to at least 40 buy-ins and may even require 50. Plus, who knows when PokerStars will have their next bonus special?

It's been a fun year with many ups and downs. Any poker player can relate to the downs: downswings, bad beats, and coolers mainly. I had a few days in particular I remember being on the verge of comical with how quickly and consistently things went bad - days when you couldn't stack the deck any better against yourself if you tried. You try to tell yourself it's random and it IS, but some days random just doesn't seem random I also had a stretch @ $50NL where I was break-even much longer than I wanted and sometimes allowed a sense of entitlement to creep in and @ times felt like I was being "held back" somehow. To get through those times, I just tried to remind myself that I was paying my dues. All poker players go through it. As always, just focus on the right decisions and improving and let the rest take care of itself. Most days I was successful with that mindset ... and other days, well, easier said than done

Fortunately though there have been many more ups than downs. So far, my graphs and profits have been pretty consistent in the right direction. I had what some might consider pretty sick "win-rates" @ $5NL in particular even though I wasn't there long enough to see if it was good luck or sustainable. I've had several heaters, too highlighted by a 5 buy-in win day once @ $5NL and even though I had some long break-even stretches @ $50NL, once I started to turn it around, I had a personal best 15 winning sessions in a row where a "session" is a 24 hour day period starting from 12:00 AM of wins or losses.

I have come a long way and have even longer to go I hope. Looking ahead, my main goal is to keep learning poker, keep evolving, keep pushing the envelope while following bankroll management, keep having fun, and hopefully keep moving up and making money. The ceiling for this journey appears to be to get to $1,000NL ($5/$10 blinds) and make 30 buy-ins there. That is the highest full ring stake on PokerStars that appears has games going regularly and if I can make a 30 buy-in profit there, I'll consider myself having "beat" all the levels at this unique moment in time. Of course, I may not make it that far to even play a hand, let alone make $30k from it, but IF I was able to do that, that would be the finish line for THIS particular journey. Obviously, the next few levels will be much harder than the ones to this point. My biggest fear as a poker player isn't losing money - it's that I STOP learning or the fish dry up. But, as long as I continue to learn and as long as there are players in games I have an edge on, poker will hopefully continue to be fun.

For anyone who feels the need to take shots because they are too antsy, impatient, or "good" to follow bankroll management, I remind you and everyone that it DOES NOT take long to move up the stakes if you are winning. Even WITH a full time job and a reasonable social life, I was able to make close to $6k from profits and bonuses in one year starting from the BOTTOM. Not only that, I have fully traversed 5 levels ($2NL, $5NL, $10NL, $25NL, $50NL) and am almost 1/2 way through the 6th ($100NL) and I'm at a spot where I think MOST players would consider the potential profits "real money". The things I learned during this time can't be crammed into a few "shots" taken at levels you may or may not be able to beat. Maybe YOU can do it faster or maybe it will take you more time or maybe you just can't do it, but if it's the latter two, you are better off starting from the bottom. If it's the former, it won't take you long to get where you should be and you'll be richer for having gone through the experience, both financially and otherwise.

A few things I've recently done to try to help my game:

- I signed up @ Full Tilt WITH rakeback to give myself more table selection and take advantage of their deposit bonus. It's early going, but hopefully it'll be a good long term investment.

- I bought the RSA token on PokerStars and activated it. Plus, I moved my email to a private, non-Gmail, poker ONLY account. On FullTilt, I have the security pin enabled. In the future if I have more money in that account and the RSA implementation is beefed up on that site, I may do that there, too. Hopefully I have enough security measures in place to reasonably protect my investments.

- I recently started playing on my laptop. It got off to a rough start. I was down a few hundred @ one point trying to get used to everything, but I am now only down $50 purely from playing on my laptop. Hopefully I'll be out of the red soon enough and it will be a +EV move for me.

- I've started playing some heads-up (HU) $2 SNG's at the low levels (won 5, lost 2) because I want to improve that part of my game. The rake @ $50NL HU is just too bad I think to be profitable for me starting there, which is why I'm doing the SNG route for now. If I am successful, enjoy the games, and feel like it's enhancing my overall game as it relates to starting full ring tables, I hope to move up through those eventually to $100NL HU ring games. Because I start so many tables, I'd really like to start excelling @ HU. Compared to full ring players, I already feel like I'm one of the better players or can at least hold my own for my stakes, but I'd like to eventually take it to the next level if possible.

Below is my 1 year graph:


Overall Winrate 12 bb/100 or 6 ptBB/100 over ~167k hands (As of 12/13/2009)

We'll see what year 2 brings.