I know we already have a 2007 goals thread, but we need a new monthly goals thread too. Also, if we're going to put our goals in before the month starts, we should probably do it before New Year's Eve when everyone's going to be out drinking. And of course it's fun to be the thread starter.

Anyway, my January goals:

1. Put in 15,000 hands 2-tabling LHE online.
I only put in about 10,000 hands this month and I kinda feel like a layabout, but when I put in 20,000 in November, I got sloppy and almost lost my bankroll. I think 15,000's a happy medium. I know to a lot of people it seems like I'm not even really a professional poker player if I play this little, but the fact of the matter is that for me personally, I think this numbe of hands is more effective for me.

2. Rebuild my bankroll to $27,000
Yeah, it's a little on the ambitious side, but I went from $900 to $12,000 in December so the January step should be easier. Plus, I'll feel a lot better about my whole November meltdown once I regain the entirety of the money that I lost. $15,000's a pretty reasonable monetary goal too if I'm putting in the majority of my hands at 20/40. I have been hammering those games for the most part.

3. Keep my live play losses under $1,000
This has turned into a huge leak for me. I'm in the habit of not taking it seriously, and I regularly make terrible peels playing PLO and stuff. I even did a couple $300 Shanghais the other day. If I'm going to play live, I need to treat it like real poker, even if I'm playing a little smaller and the hands come out interminably slow. This $1,000 figure applies to local play only as if I go to Vegas, it's different and interesting enough that I expect to play well there anyway.

I made like $2k in December. Will be more like $2.5k if I count the rakeback I earned.

I am seriously thinking about switching to 6-max, I think I have all the tools necessary. I'd like to pull $3k in January and hit around $700 in rakeback.

You will make a ton more RB at 6-max, fwiw.

FYP

Dec goals/results

$6,000 ... actual, $5,100
20k hands ... actual, 29k hands

Got raped over the past week. But still came close to my expectations.


January is my first "full" month since June.
Im setting the bar low because i willbe playing lower than i anticipated due to previously mentioned rape.
And the dollar amount is lower because AP changed their bonus structure.

50k hands, and $12,000.

Which translates to about 1.5BB/100 at 3/6 and 5/10, even mix.
This will require about 30 hours a week of play.

After bleeding money for about the first half of December, I managed to make a nice little rally in about a week and a half, then barely played over the last 5-6 days because of Christmas and such. I ended up winning like $250 or so including rakeback in December.

In January I'd like to play at least 5k hands, a mix of 1/2 6-max and 2/4 FR LHE. I'd like to qualify for FullTilt's Silver Freeroll (I qualified for Bronze this month and could have made silver if I hadn't essentially taken a week off for a Christmas trip). If I can pull off the above, I ought to pull in something like $150-$200 in rakeback and maybe $300-$400 in winnings.

At the beginning of December, I wasn't sure whether I could beat my November results, but I ended up blowing them out of the water...running well in cash combined with the hot MTT run I figured I'd need. I did actually play one uneventful session of 5/10 NL. Overall, second best month I've ever had.

In January, I don't anticipate having to cash out any money, so I'd like to keep rolling along. I feel like my MTT game is as good as it's ever been, so I'm going to cautiously predict at least a couple big cashes. I haven't really played much cash lately, but I'm looking forward to branching out into some other games. If I hit a rough stretch, I'm prepared to get back into 2/3 NLHE...but I'd certainly like to start getting into 3/6 and 5/10. If I really feel like stressing/challenging myself, I'll jump back on the SHLHE wagon.

On a forum related note, I want to get back into the habit of posting hands...not necessarily for my benefit, but for the benefit of discussion.

I had a $4000 month in december even though I've only been playing since 10 days ago. Anyways in january I won't get much time to play so anywhere around $1000 would be nice. My goal for December was to make $1200, but I've been playing a ton in the holidays so I've far exceded that amount.

Gl in January and 2007 everyone!

Might have to recalibrate my monetary goal, as I briefly got back to $27,000 in December. Am now at $26,000 as I quit for the morning.

Dec was prob my best month ever to date. I've been working in 1 200NL table with my normal 100NL games and been doing ok. If I can keep my hot steak running into Jan that'd be real nice.

Jan Goals:
1. Earn $1,400 in bonus money plus cash results
2. Continue to try and play in a $200 NL game when I'm playing my $100 games
3. Improve tourney game

GL this next year fellas.

Done. And I think it is largely because of Actuary, Zach the couple others posting in Micro Strat. It really got me thinking again.

I went from about $150 to $660.13 in December.

-----------------------------------

For January, I want to play at least 10k hands and get my roll up to $1200.

I would like to keep taking the occasional shot at 2/4.

I have to stop bleeding money away in tournaments.

Wow, very nice! Any Explanation?


Edit: You posted it in Dec. goals. Very nice job.

Didn't exactly meet my December goals, but basically I wanted to get in about 20K hands in the week I had off, and did play about that. Ran around 1bb/100 with efficient bonus-whoring, so made about as much money as I was hoping too.

Secretly, I wanted to make a few hundred live, since i played a few 10/20 sessions. ran terribly and lost about $1000, and only broke about even in other games thanks to NL losses, but got some of it back with a tourney win.

Overall, did about what I wanted.

January I have almost no goals. Just put in some hours when I get the chance. I'm starting a full-time job, and have a lot of studying to do, so poker-wise, I just want to get in some hands when I'm otherwise non-busy, and not waste the time.

Results:

Absolute:----- $2476 (+269)

Bodog: ----- $1288 (-78)

Pokerstars:--- $388 (-111)

Another frustrating month at Bodog (50NL). I'm making too many bad river calls, it needs to stop.

I can't win a pot at Pokerstars 1/2 HORSE or Stud8. Drop 40BB more and I'm moving down to .50/1.00, which seems inevitable at this point.

I just want to have 1 freaking winning month at Stars. And clear my $150 bonus before I go broke .

Are YOU Kenny Banya?

Uh....what?

And whats efgwdgs??

Real blah month of december. Was up 30k+ at one point didnt end anywhere near there though.

For january I plan to rebuild from 5k with a mix of .5/1 and 1/2 nl. Hopefully make in the 10-20k range.

I'll take that as a no. Some 3/6 player on AP by that name says he's an FCPer but won't tell me his FCP name.

No, I'm Draco Malfoy and mostly play LO8,Stud8, and PLO. I play 1/2 LHE once in a blue moon, when I'm in the mood to battle nits for $7 pots.

December: Was a swingy month...turned 50 into 200 then back down to 20 and gonna end up at 200 again with about 50 bucks in rakeback so it was a decent month...It had so much potential for a huge month but cards didnt cooperate

edit: Forgot about January

Well I start workin in the real world as of January 8 so I am not sure how much poker I will be able to get in. Hopin to get about 5000 hands in at various games and that would be a good month

New #2 goal: Earn $20,000 in the month of January. FTR, I am f*cked up as can be right now so I'm not capable of a lot of coherent thought, but I did decide earlier last night that that would be a good number for January.

I wanted to hit 8k, but I took out 3k and such and now my bankroll is about 4.2-3. So technically I made my goal?


My goal is to make at least 10,000 this month. Although I'm actually shooting for 10-15k profit. Going to put in lots and lots of hours.

Alrighty, I've officially finished the stake deal, 2 days earlier than I expected, meaning that I have a $1000 starting BR.

Back to 2/4 for now, and then back to 3/6 when I get to 1500.

The main goal is to get from $1000 to $13,500 (minimum) by April 30th. Unfortunately, I won't get to put in as many hands as I'd like to, due to school, but I think I could make $2000-$3000 in January, inluding rakeback, etc to get off to a good start.

Gl all.

I'd like to be beating 10/20nl by the end of January.

My goal is basically just to quit donking it up. I make the right plays almost all the time, and can go on huge runs when I just play the game straight-up, but I have still never been able to supress my natural tendencies to throw out completely stupid bluffs every 50 hands or so. So my goal isn't any specific winnings goal, but rather to go through the whole month without throwing away more than $100 on bluffs. Also, my goal is to learn to play small-ball strategy so that I can get away from my traditional over-aggressive old strategy.


December Goals:
-Build any sort of bankroll from my $50 buy-in

Results:
-Would have been up to $500 if it weren't for donking it, but had to settle for only being up to $155 after throwing away over $300 on stupid bluffs, and another $50 by calling bets even when I knew that I was beat.

To play $1/2 NL, at the same success rate that I had at .25/50 and .50/1...

To re-read HoH (both volumes... I got them back over Xmas, after lending them to a friend) and play MTTs, instead of SitNGos. Something has gone wrong with my SnG success rate - used to be over 30% after around 750 played, but it has fallen down to 21% - I used to love them but I have no real desire to play them for a while.

The MTT thing is really for this whole year, not just January... I've never really played that many for some reason, but I want to take some big money cashes this year. (In my book, a big money cash would be $1,000+)

Oh, and to stop over-playing mid pairs when the board comes say, A 2 5, and I am holding 88.

Started the year on the right foot for a change. Just took down the daily $5 Stud8 MTT at AP (125 entrants) for $171. I cash in it with some frequency but its nice to win it, since only a top 3 finish makes it worthwhile. Not too significant for my roll, but its a nice confidence builder. Yea donkaments!!!!!!

I put in almost 2000 hands today. With winnings and bonus, I am up almost $250.

Well on my way to complete my goal!

Click to view attachment

Well, my first day of being free! (aka unstaked).

Didn't play too much, since I had played like 5000 hands the two days before that, but I got in 380 hands. Made $205 in the 3/6 game on AP (160 hands), plus $10 bonus. It was the only full ring game going, aside from 1/2 (which I hate), and looked ultra juicy, which it usually is these days, so I took a semi-shot. Mixed in 2 2/4 games on Stars as well, and made a whopping $11 in 201 hands, and broke even over 19 hands at 1/2 3-handed/HU, while waiting for the waitlist.

Oh, and cashed in a flipament for like $17ish...lol

BR is up to $1217.26, after I donk out of the $22 MTT on Stars starting at midnight, or win it for a couple grand.

The next step in my robusto plan is to cash out at $1000 at $2500 to straighten up some expenses I got here in the non e-life. Hope to have that done my Jan. 15th.

After that, it's gonna be like one more $1000 withdrawal to pay of the Visa, and then it'll be straight BR buildage.

I <3 poker.

I didn't post in the December thread but I'll relay my results anyway. They sucked. I wasn't able to play much this month between having to cash out most of my roll to pay the bills and having to start a new job( because I had to cash out my roll to pay the bills).

So i was left with $60, plus the $230 I got from FCP for a partial clearance of their bonus, plus a bunch of player points at various sites. With all of that I was able to work it up to $600, most of that was a $208 tourney win

For January:

Learn NL. Am going to start out at the micro limits and hope to play around 25K hands. The goal is to have a winning month don't care about what kind of winning month just a winning month(ie +$1 )

Play a few MTTs. Not sure if I'll be able to play that many, I only have 2 days off a week (having a job sucks) and MTTs take so long with the big fields.

Learn to balance working again with playing poker. When I wasn't working getting in the hours for poker was really easy, had so much extra time. Now it seems so much harder.

GL to everyone else this month

congratulations. you'll be robusto in no time.

some advice - the 1/2 game on AP is nice. i know it sucks to play it, but often its the only full-ring going, and the bonus/RB make it probably more profitable on 2/4 on stars.

also, playing without bonus/RB when you're playing marginally high for your bankroll is not great, so maybe consider throwing a couple hundred on Interpoker or Sun Poker (you can get RB at Sun I believe, that clears concurrently), and playing there when there's full ring available.

Did anybody notice that AP went up to 30% rakeback on Rakebreak?

I hope they bump up existing accounts from 28%.

2/4 is well within my BR, and I do have RB/bonus for the 3/6 on AP, if there are no 2/4 games going. I'll be at $1800 in no time to be up with industry BR standards for the 3/6 anywhere.

I'm actually trying to figure out what to do to make up for the tables now that AP sucks for FR. I emailed FT support to see if they'll hook me up with RB, so we'll see about that. I imagine it will be similar to Stars in terms of gameplay and tables open, as in I can always have 4-5 tables going between FT and AP.

I was also thinking about either Prima networks, or Crypto... which is better?

I noticed that too. Highly doubtful they make it retroactive.

Update:

So... After donking out of the $22 tourney I decided to sit again, same setup 2 2/4s on Stars and 1 3/6 on AP. Cleared about $260 more over 451 more hands.

Updated totals for the day: $478 at the tables.

Total Bankroll: $1477.76

Fuck, I pwn.

Increased my roll by almost 50% on my first day off the stake.

I'm also proud to say that after 18,162 hands (14,657 at AP, and 3,505 at Stars), I run at 2.06 BB/100 from 1/2 to 3/6 (Majority [8500] at 3/6).

I hope I can keep it up. I feel like I am playing great poker, and hopefully not running too hot.

(PS - I need a blog)

Congrats.

Because I'm bored and kinda curious I wonder if you'd be willing to divulge the details of the staking arrangement. Obv, I'm not asking who staked you, I'm just curious as to what the arrangement was (i.e. how much you had to payback with in what timeframe, what would have happened if you'd lost the money, etc.). Yeah, I'm really bored.

I don't think it was a secret, but I don't remember, so I won't say the name yet, but it was $750 to start.

The deal we made was I would finish with $1000. It was a 45/55 split, meaning I made 55% of my profit. (Usually, its 50/50) Anywho, that meant at $2568.18, I paid back $1568.18, and I kept my $1000 to do it all over again with.

If I lost the money (which would have been next to impossible unless I played out of my roll [assuming I'm a winning player]), it is the staker's loss. He takes 45% profit in exchange for the risk. So yeah, he made like 1500% annual rate of return, lol.

Cinci, hit me up on AIM or MSN if you want more details, or want to talk poker or whatever. I'm bored too, lol. PM me for that crap if you want.

Heh, I'm at work....can't get on AIM or MSN right now, but I prolly would if I could. Feel free to PM me your names and I'll hit you up sometime.

Pls get a blog Zach.

Ok.

Lol, I've tried it once or twice before but continuoulsy give up on it.

I'll try another one.

december: had my first positive month post legislation +1500 weeeeeeeee mostly buying in short at 200-400 PLO8 would have bee +2000 if it wasn't for a christmas eve tilt a thon at PS SHLHE. i won a razzament on stars, and took third in a donkament at bodog for 5 hundie (which probably just covered my donkament fix for the month)

january:

SET UP POKERTRACKER/TOURNEY MANAGER

play ONLY on pokertracker supported sites (that means no bodog until dogwatch gets figured out)

play 1500 6.50 turbo sng's on stars (that's only 100 sets of 15) bc they're my best game (that would also make me gold star) (if i played 90 a day i could be supernova lololololol)

NO NL CASH GAMES I SUCK HARD AT NL CASH

NO 10 or 20/180's BECAUSE I CAN'T TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY

i'm sure to add more!

Ok, this one has some potential to actually stay up to date...

http://Zach6668poker.blogspot.com

Read it, or else.

It isn't.

I know a +EV deal when I see it.

Thanks again Zach.


Mark


January goals:
I don't know what January is going to be like, but I'm probably not going to have a lot of time to play poker or post here so I'm not setting myself any specific goals.

Online goals:

-Make 3 final tables in MTTs
-Continue to beat the $25 PLO games on UB
-Have more patience playing NLHE ring games

Live goals:

-Satellite into Borgata Winter Poker Open

glad to see your back in the game Zach and nice blog

Play my A Game
Stay away from tournaments and limit.
Make Platinum Star
Keep out of Mexican jails

FT is probably a good idea.
Both Prima and Crypto have only occasional FR going. I know Crypto usually has 1-2 2/4 and maybe 1 3/6 going sometimes. Don't know exactly what goes at Crypto, but volume is poor there too.
I think there's usually a couple going at Doyle's Room, where bonus + RB clear concurrently.

Optimal is probably to put a couple hundred on each of those sites, and play wherever there are games. That'll be annoying though, so I think just trying to get RB on FT is the smartest for now.



Favourited. Make sure you talk about drinking and stuff too, so I don't have to rationalize why I'm reading a poker blog.

Thanks for the blog Zach, will read.

OK, so I deviated from my plan...

I had a great beginning of December and worked up to about 100k playing 100/200 and 200/400. Then took a shot at the 500/1000 game which was full and lost 25k. Worked my way back up to 100k in the next few days then looked at my schedule starting with the LA Poker Classic and ending with the WSOP and decided to withdraw 75k from the account to pay for the entry fees for all the tournaments I'd like to play in in that timespan.

I know my original goal was to work up to 300k, but that session at 500/1000 frustrated/bothered me that when I got back to 100k I made the decision to bankroll myself in the live events after basketball season. I've also been really busy with basketball (december is tournament season) and after I withdrew on the 14th I didn't play but 6 or 7 sessions for the rest of the month.

Anyway, I'm happy that I've staked myself for the live tournaments, but on the other hand I'm a little dissapointed that I didn't have the patience to reach my original goal. Oh well.

Haven't updated my progress or posted goals for a while, since Nov.

Nov started good, ended Nov Break even. Dec started out so-so and then got bad. By mid Dec, my measely little $440 BR was down to about $330. But, I'm glad to report the last couple weeks of Dec were outstanding and my account is up to $834.

And, I finally made a final table in a MTT other than a 180 SnG. However, it was only a 50 cent buyin tourney, lol. 1st- $188, 2nd $120, 3rd $64......... I managed a third! Doesn't matter, it gave me some confidense that was very badly needed. Even though it was a low buy-in doesn't matter to me, I finally made a final table in an MTT (2200+ entrants).

After the final table I managed to win two $10+$1 18 seat SnG's, and place 4th in another, after a very long draught in those. It was nice to finish well in those again too.

Cash games did well for me as well to help with the end of Dec success.

So, Jan.......

I'm simply concerned with continuing to build my BR. I would really like to get to the $1K mark, it's a goal I've had since I first started back in Spring of 06. It's been a long time coming, but patience and good BR managment has allowed me to get this far. The $1K mark is so close I can almost touch it......... almost.

I would like to see a final table at a higher buy-in MTT, $5-$20 buy-in. I won't play many of these so I'm not overly optimistic. Some more good success with the SnG's would be welcome as well.

Monetary goal for Jan....... $200, playing mostly $25nl, with some (very little) $50nl & $100nl thrown in for interest and testing the waters at those levels.

Good luck everyone!

Zach, looking forward to reading your blog. Glad to hear you are doing well.