October was meh... Goals for November

I think that's the best way to describe the month of October when it came to poker. I had some goals for the month that I didn't even come close to accomplish.

I ended September with $28.57, and ended October a slight up. The BR is currently at $30.93.

One was to play at least 10 hours each week. This did not happen at all. I didn't even play 10 hours in total this month. Work has really taken over my life this week, and when I've actually had the time to play, I've opted for poker training instead.

Life hasn't been too good this month And as I explained in my previous post, I have a tendency to let my life influence how I play. So I've decided to stay away from the tables when I'm in a bad mood.

And since I've played less than 1000K hands this month, I didn't even have a shot at making enough money to move up to 5NL.

But I've made some improvements throughout the month. Such as actually not losing my whole stack when someone has my pocket aces beat. Looking back I'm not 100% happy with the way I played the hand below, but it is an improvement. I think I should have bet larger on the flop, and also bet the turn.




October did end on a good note though. I'm self-employed, and yesterday I got an surprising email from a company that wants to work with me. They said that, "you have been highly recommended," which is very nice to hear. And I'll get a huge pay-raise compared to my other contracts. This might mean that I'll be even busier in November.


Fortunately I'm too stubborn to give up, so my poker project will continue. I have some goals for the month of November: First of all I'll try to get in the 10 hours of play a week, this should be around 2500 hands a week. And yet again I'll aim to move up to 5NL by the end of the month.
Oh, and I'm going to play at least one Micro Millions event at Pokerstars, as well as sign up with 888poker to try out their platform.

I'd love to hear how your October went, and if you have any goals for November.

Life and Bankroll - A Positive Correlation Relationship

...and I'm not talking "positive" as in YAY!
Ever since I started my $13.08 BR project I've been tracking my progress carefully. And there have definitely been some ups and downs since the start.

But the other day, while I was looking at my bankroll development, it dawned on me: There's a really strong correlation between life events and my BR (yes, I might be a tad slow for not figuring this out sooner, lol).

Looking at the graph, I realized that my BR is heavily influenced by negative life events. During this time period a lot of stuff has happened, including and in no particular order:

• Two deaths and two funerals
• Learning that a good friend's cancer is back, and things are not looking good
• The one year anniversary of my dear cousin's death
• My grandfather having a heart attack, he's okay though!
• My dad losing his job

Can you pinpoint some of these events just from looking at the bankroll graph?

I'm the kind of person who really like to cheer people up, to make the people I love feel great. And I feel so helpless in situations where there's nothing I can do. So I worry. And it's quite apparent that I bring all of these feelings with me to the poker table.

In the game this comes out as either a complete lack of aggression, being to passive, not thinking while I'm playing, or just plain old monkey tilt.

Most of the time I've been able to step away from the table when I realize that I'm not playing my, A, B or even C-game. So I haven't played nearly as much poker in October as I'd planned on.

But there's one good thing to take from all of this. I know not to play when I'm feeling like s**t, and I need to find another outlet for my feelings. Yoga, climbing or karate sounds pretty good. And I'm taking up archery, which should be a lot of fun.

So while hoping for life to brighten up a bit, I'll focus on getting my thoughts and emotions under control. And I'm slowly working my way back to the tables.

Until next time, GL to you all :)

xx,
Ava