I just wrote up a post regarding my goals for 2009 regarding Poker. I have completely fallen off the map poker wise, not watching/reading/talking/ basically participating whatsoever in poker for the past few months. Just these last few days have I started to lurk on twoplustwo, pokerroad, and cardplayer to get an idea whats going on in the poker world.

2008 was a tough year for me poker wise. I started out strong live in the cash games and had some ITM finishes at my local game but no tourney wins. Online I got my butt handed to me due to my horrible money management skills. I have not played as I was saying and its time to ease my way back into the game.

I used to play a tonne of heads up against my buddies and when I was playing it, I found my overall poker “feel” was better. My table confidence is shot right now. I used to go to a table “expecting” to do well. Now I am second guessing alot of my play. The last time I play, I was making good reads and felt really good about knowing where I was in hands. I need to get back to that feeling. Confidence is such a large part of this game, its time that I play with confidence again.

I used to make money goals, but I am steering clear of that. I want to have a poker only roll by this time next year as we have a local casino opening. I have started rolls many times, only to have to put the money towards bills and other “life” stuff. Once again in 2009, I will attempt to build a bankroll for poker and my other pursuits that will be a roll on its own, and hope to not have to put it towards bills. I am not setting a limit on this roll, only that I get one established be it 3 figures or 4.

Starting today, I will be keeping a detailed spreadsheet on every cent that I put into poker. I do my best when I keep track, even when I get anal about it, as it keeps me focused. It’s easy to do when your winning, and equally as easy to let it go when the results go south. This will not be something made public, but I will keep an accurate to the penny spreadsheet of my results.

4 years ago, I had a “book” of my poker playing. My thoughts on how my opponants played, my session results, notes and all kinds of stuff. I stopped doing that around the time coinciding with my downward spiral of results. Coincidence? I am not sure, but I am going to go back to that.

On a non poker front, but gambling/gaming related, I also plan to significantly improve in some other games this year including backgammon, darts, relearning chess, and whatever other games strike my groups fancy. I love to compete and I think competing in other areas of gaming can only help my poker game. My group is very competitive and there’s never a problem getting action on pretty much anything. So I will be looking to host more at my house, be it poker, darts, Wii, board games or whatever.

Originally posted on the team blog

I have kinda dropped off the poker grid completely since my debacle back in Sept of buying in for 120 on Red Kings, getting it up to 298.50 playing poker, then losing it in 40 min playing blackjack. Wooooo. I have just recently (this week) started looking at poker sites again (check out www.highstakesdb.com, Gus Hansen has won and lost 1 million in one day a couple times this week!) and watching it on tv. I was severly burnt out, and after 3 months of zero poker involvement I am slowly coming around again.Since I am a “goals guy” I thought I would throw my thoughts out there as Dango and blitz have done. My goals cover “gaming” as a whole rather than just poker, so bare with me:

2009 Goals

1. Play less but more focused Poker. Learn to quit when it is no longer profitable online, or when I no longer am making correct decisions. (i played about 350,000 hands online in 2008, many of which were played when it was no longer smart to continue)

2. After January, make it to the rest of the LPT’s for Season 4. It’s killing me to have missed so much.

3. Read 4 poker books minimum in 2009, starting with rereading two of my favorites

a) Little Green Book

b) The Poker Mindset

4. Host more games at my house, including a 50 dollar Horse tourney

5. Learn to play more games. This includes the HORSE games, to improve at Darts, learn to really play backgammon, relearn to play chess. You know me I love to compete, but I cannot focus all my energies on Poker or I burnout on it. So there’s got to be other ways I can take your money.

6. Write more about Poker and gaming of all sorts. I have started yet another blog to house all my “guy stuff”, poker, sports, gambling, video games. it can be found at http://shaneleighton.net/shanesroom/ and will encompass all my competitive pursuits and hobbies.

7. Get my game in shape for the casino early next year. Be playing very smart, correct poker.

8. Give myself a shot to win another LPT. It’s been way too long.

9 start playing heads up again with Donnie/Jeff/Scott and start some heads up with Josh. Heads up has been my favorite form of poker in the past, and I want to get back to playing.

This is the first time in 3 or 4 years I have not set a money goal. I took a beating in 2008. I am getting away from the money because, to an extent I cannot control that. All I can control is making correct decisions. That is my goal, getting back to playing solid poker. I used to consider myself as one of the best players in this group, and now I have zero confidence at the table. It’s time to get my game back in shape, and start playing good poker again. I am not going to worry about winning X amount but rather playing strong poker. If I play strong poker, the rest will fall into place.

Well was reading on the team blog on the parent site earlier today and someone mentioned people aren’t writing in the individual blogs much.  I have disapeared, not having written in quite some time.

During the 6 weeks of no posts (and two deleted posts written out of frustration) I have played sparingly online doing my custom doubling my buy in ( and in two cases doubling, then doubling that) only to lose it in a very short time.  I am burnt out on online poker, and holdem poker in general.  I have written about taking breaks a dozen times on this blog and the old one, but this time I have lots to keep me busy and fight for the time that my back can stand sitting still long enough to do devote to one of my hobbies.  I recently bought a xbox 360 and I also have started playing WOW online again in the past few weeks since my buddy has returned from the beach for the summer.

I need a real good long break to get me away from poker, clear and hopefully forget all my bad habits.  Wait to play until I really want to, not play because of the need for action.  I hope to stay away for 4-6 months, or however long it takes to get the joy back in playing the game.

In the meantime, once I am ready to get back to poker, I will do it by reading first.  I have a dozen or more books on my shelf I have done no more than glance at.  I will try and play a few live side games, as long as they are mixed games and I will play the LPT monthly events when I can get there (I am missing my first game in 4 years this coming Friday for a weddding.)  So thats it.  I am taking a good break and clear my head and find out what I want from poker.  Do I just play once a month with the boys or do I dive back online and try to make something of it?  I dunno,  I just know for now I need to steer far clear of the virtual holdem table felt.

Been doing some surfing around, watching some poker video’s and reading some blogs as always.  One of my favorite blog reading subjects is the guys that undertake Ferguson like Bankroll challenges.  I have tried two or three times in the past to undertake these things and the bottom eventually falls out.  I "know" that these things make sense by design, and I know I should follow the process but I just always end up bailing on them.  Sigh.

I watched the last event of the 2008 WSOP that will be televised before the main event this morning.  They were following the Grinders table as well as Hellmuth at the smaller horse tourney.  Hellmuth was whining as usual and fell short of his bracelet as did the Grinder.  After Lindgren’s win, is he now "the best player without a bracelet".  Hard to say.

Still not playing a whole lot accept for a few tourney’s.  Been playing some sat’s lately and doing well in them.  I am starting to wonder should I start focusing more on tourney’s and SNG’s?  I know the variance is crazy.  It’s just that the cash games have not been working for me so I dunno what to do.  Haven’t been playing live, but the LPT is only 2 weeks from today away….wooooo.

Been watching alot of youtube poker the past few days. Take a peek of this clip.

More bad luck for Negreneau early in the HSP shows.  The third or fourth time he flopped the nuts and loses.

Take a peak

Not his finest moment…..

I will spare the details of my poker night and instead post for about the 5 th time on 3 different blogs, some words from rocky that i need to take to heart.

Enjoy..

but once again I am going to be taking a shot at applying proper bankroll management.   After a rough up and down, up and down couple of days I am going to step back from the limit i play most often which is 2/4 limit holdem, and step back to 50/1 for a few thousand hands.  I have just under 600 bb for this level but as I have been saying for years I need to instill patience, discipline, and bankroll management in my game.

I know I can beat 2/4 on stars.  I need the proper roll to do it though.  Playing within your roll just makes so much more sense then taking shots especially when playing mostly limit holdem in my opinion.  In my experience there’s going to be a lot more  beats when you play snug because they will always feel priced in to call (even if they don’t understand what priced in means).   I’ll save the details of the beats I have taken, because I want to get away from that, and also of course, I have layed a few of my own.  So I will hang out down at 50/1 for a few thousand hands, and play overrolled for a while and try and get some real good habits ingrained in this thick skull of mine.

I am going to continue to read the Limit Holdem digests on 2 plus 2 and keep working on my game away from the table, both virtual and live.  I want to find out where the most glaring holes in my game are and work to plug em.  Without proper bankroll management I will never ever get anywhere in this game.  Today, once again, I start a serious effort to instill it in my game.