Poker Journal : Another Day Another Dollar

 
This is me, sitting in front of my computer, sweat dripping down my face like condensation on an ice cold bottle of mountain dew. Did I just run a marathon? Scale a mountain? No. I walked to the store and back. No small feat when you weigh 300 lbs. It is almost exactly 300 meters each way. 

In 31 degree heat (that is 87.8 F for Americans). Carrying two large jugs of water. Normally we get our water delivered but it is holy week. Anyway it was actually a great workout and a great way to start the day. I'm going to play some online poker soon, but first I am going to allow a cool down period to recover from the intense physical activity I just experienced. I am also going to intensively hydrate myself. Not only to recover my precious bodily fluids lost on the trip, but also because sleeping tends to dry me out heavily as well.

OK. I played some video games for a while. About to start a session. Need to hydrate a bit more, get a coffee. My plan is to play 4 tables of PLO $10 for 30 minutes to two hours. I will allow a little variation, for example going up to 6 tables temporarily for game selection purposes. No PLO $25 this session. Period. I need to establish more planned control over the stakes I play. That is not something that I should adjust on the fly too much. 

I am a bit leary about having such a wide time span for playing, but I guess it is okay. I want to maximize volume, but at the same time I don't want to force it if I'm not in the game. I guess.

Alright. I'm hydrated. Had like three glasses of water. Decent sized glasses too, big plastic ones. Got my coffee ready. Finished most of a large glass of milk, and I've got some more ready to go. 

I'm in great shape for a session. I slept, it is relatively early in my day. Had a good work out. Took some rest. Did some mental activity. But I will do some chess puzzles real quick to warm up.

Ok, got a nice 13 streak in puzzle streak on lichess. Didn't even look at problem 14. 

Session goals.

Play good.

Do a post session recap.

4-6 tables PLO 10 for 30 min to 1 hour.

This is not a growth session, this is a 'maintenance' session. This is a build session. This is establish rules and discipline session. There should still be growth, don't get me wrong, but what I am saying is I am not going to push the limits of what I can do or anything like that. Just hopefully get in there, make some good decisions, get out, evaluate. 

I also really, really need to catch up on hand review. Or maybe accept that I am going to be going play heavy right now. We'll talk about it later journal.

Alright, let's get it done.

Post session recap.

Okay. It's over. The session is over.  I played 1 hour 25 minutes. Nothing but PLO 10. No more than 6 tables. Okay, it was over on the time, but initially I had set the time for 30 minutes to 2 hours and I guess I forgot that I had changed it to 30 minutes to 1 hour. So it wasn't that I deviated from the plan, just that I thought I was following the plan when I wasn't. This is a big difference from willfully violating the plan imo.

Anyway. Great session. So I ended up winning $2.43. But I was losing the entire session. Well most of it.

A little concerning to quit right as soon as I got even, but that really wasn't my consideration. Actually I was looking forward to booking a losing session this session, it was just that I went on an upswing right at the end when I had already decided to quit. 

Booking losing sessions is very important. A lot of gamblers like to fool themselves by generating a long string of small winning sessions. That is not what you should be doing. If anything, you want to quit much more aggressively when you are losing than when you are winning. But ideally you can just sit there and battle regardless of whether you are winning or losing. 

Okay, how was the session?

It was pretty good. I stuck to the plan, more or less. Went a little long. Two glasses of milk was a bit much. Think half a glass would have been better. And maybe drank right when I got back not when I was playing. But whatever. I stuck to the plan. Things went well. I really like this process I am developing, of setting a plan, executing it, then evaluating.

So what can I do better in future? Well I did no note taking. And I wasn't really making good reads on people. That is an area to improve on. I could use some table tamer software. That would save me a lot of time I could use more productively. And I could play higher stakes. Even just adding in 1 or 2 tables of $25 would be a big improvement, because then I can table select across limits. I also need to do better at table selecting.

So those are three areas to work on.

Note taking, observation and adaptation. Making reads. Studying my opponents.

Add in some $25 PLO.

Invest in software.

I also need to invest more time in studying. This is going to have long term dividends. Actually, what I will do is a studying journal entry. Just like a play entry. Pre session write up, post session recap. Set study goals.