Wow I'm I ever glad March and it's madness is about to come to a close. With the exception of my win in the $4.40 4 max MTT I was on a pretty bad downswing the entire month. I am determined that April will be much better. After all April is the month all things are born anew and my poker game is going to be born anew as is my ability to run good.

Over all thanks to my MTT win my bankroll and ROI are up from the end of February so I can't really complain. As for goals I think I stretched a bit much in making them. I'll outline my successes and failures below.

Cash: - Gave up cash about 1 week into March so none of these goals were met.

Play 10,000 hands of 25NL
Finish the month with a bb/100 of 3/100
Watch the cash videos that I haven't watched yet

Tournaments:

Play 500 sngs - no, only about 300
Maintain a positive ROI - yes, overall ROI is 33% for all games player (per Sharkscope over 668 games)
Study 8 hours per week - yes
Play 10 - 15 MTTs - yes
Make Gold Star Status on Stars - no, only maintained silver star

Well onward and upward to a better month with better results!!!

April Goals:

Play 100 27 man MTSNGS with a decent profit and ROI

Play 100 other MTSNGS with a decent profit and ROI

Play 100 STSNGS with a decent profit and ROI

Play 15 MTTs

Maintain silver star status

Study 10 hours per week

Review at least one hand history per day

Well the screen print sums it up! What a nice win! I played really solid in this game, well in the early stages not so much. I had a really hard time accumulating chips early on and barely hung on by a very thin thread. I made it into the money with a way below average chip stack but then picked off some really nice pots and it was all uphill after that.

The game took over 6 long hours to finish and I thought we were never going to get to heads up after we got down to 3 players. The guy who went out in 3rd was a total calling station donkey and I have no idea how he made it that far but he kept hanging on like the freaking energizer bunny.

Heads up was grueling and the guy I was playing took me for 2/3 of my stack with a higher end of a straight but I managed to win my chips back and took it down. I think he kind of gave up after I got my chips back because he wanted to chop but I worked too hard at that game not to have an outright win.

I posted my great run on the Rail Me section of the PokerVT forum and several of the guys (and girls) were railing me and boosting me on in the forum post. For some reason Pokerstars turns off observer chat during the final table of some games and this was one of them so the PVT guys couldn't root me on in chat. What a great group of people the PVT forum guys (and girls) are! It's worth the month subscription price just for the forum. Of course the videos are why I'm now able to take down a tournament like this in the first place. Anyone serious about improving their poker game should join PokerVT. They will never regret it.

Well my the flop be with you and me...

Weeeee - I love roller coasters!!!

Well March is certainly MAD!!! This my friends is variance at it's finest! Ya gotta love poker! I hit a really bad downswing - well not as compared to some people but for me it was pretty rough. Luckily what goes up must come down and, thank heavens, visa-versa.

Variance and these crazy downswings bother me less and less. I've learned through experience that it's just part of the wonderful game we play called poker. Usually the beginning of the month is great and the end rough but this month seems the opposite.

Overall I'm seeing a vast improvement in my game. I'm am doing so much better with push-fold and late game chip accumulation. I've also gotten rid of results oriented thinking, after all if you bust out there's a new game starting every minute on Pokerstars :)

Okay I'm going to say something that's not so nice in this paragraph and I don't mean to insult or hurt anyone's feelings but it's no wonder women have such bad results in big poker tournaments. I believe it's not just the huge ratio of men to women but it's also how so many women think or don't stop to think. I think men have lied to women so much of their lives that they always think someone is lying to them, bluffing, or trying to bully them around so they call other players down with really weak hands and don't stop to think what they can really beat in that situation. I see so many women players donk off their chips with the weakest of hands. On the other side of the coin are women who play like mice. They are afraid to push and bet into their opponents so they end up getting pushed around and ultimately beaten every time. These are the women who shove any big pair instead of playing their hand for maximum value because they are afraid of getting their big pairs cracked. Ladies get some balls and start thinking with your head! We have the skill and intelligence to be great poker players if we can just learn to think correctly and play correctly! Please don't get me wrong - I have a long way to go but I just find it so frustrating to see the way so many women tend to play when they are capable of so much better play.

I've played the ladies tournaments on Carbon Poker several times and won it once and finished in the top three several times and it just amazes me the way these women play. It is so different from the way men play. By the end of the game I'm usually ready to run screaming through the street. Okay enough bad mouthing of my own sex for one day.

Hopefully I can stay on the up side of variance for the rest of the month. May the flop be with me...

What luck!!!

Yes I actually hit a Royal Flush on the 8th and a Straight Flush on the 10th. Both brought in nice pots and the Straight Flush busted the guy with the Ace high flush, bet he's still trying to figure out what the heck happened.

It's hands like this that really make me remember why I love poker! The variance can be pretty awful in poker especially when playing a lot games but overall it's worth the downswings for the satisfaction I get from moments like these hands pictured above.

So far this month I'm just very slightly above break even but I'm sure it will pick up soon. I've played more games than I had this time last month and had a couple of very brutal days. I'm sure things will start to improve very soon.

Tommy's return to work has gone well and he seems almost back to normal. Work has improved a bit but it's still work - if it were fun we wouldn't get paid for it.

Well as the saying goes my your cards be live and your pots monsters and may the flop be with you!

March Madness - yes very mad maddess...

March started out pretty well until Saturday which was anything but great. I had my biggest losing day in the last 34 or more. Today was an improvement but didn't come close to making up for yesterday.

I played in 3 of Derk's (Derek Williams - PokerVT pro) sngs today and managed to finished 3rd in one and 6th in the other two and didn't embarrass myself as badly as last Sunday.

I think one of the worse things about playing poker is how hard it is to beat variance and break through and really win consistently. It seems like about the time you start to get ahead and show a small profit variance pops up and kicks your butt. It's a daily grind and competition gets tougher and tougher. Weekends are particularly horrible since the weekend donkeys come out in droves. Sometimes this is great and other times they just seem to get rewarded for all their horrible play.

Well enough whining! Tommy goes back to work tomorrow and I'm so glad. He was getting really bored having to stay around the house and I'll be glad to get back to a normal routine.

A couple of other brags...

I forgot to post my stats:

Sharkscope:

All games ROI = 13%

SNGs only = 19%

Pokertracker ROI for February = 43%

Pokertracker ITM for February = 31%

Games played 309

I also started playing cash games again near the end of month and got in about 1500 hand with + profit at 25NL

A great month came to a close...

Well after a bit of mid month whinning about variance the month ended on a nice high note. I met all my goals (well except the one about winning a 90 man KO on FTP). I finished the month with my Pokerstars bankroll 12+ times more than I started the month with. While I still have a way to go in improving my game I finally feel as if I'm starting to really get there. I also made silver star status on Pokerstars. This was a pretty big deal for me since I had to put in the volume to get there. My problem in the past was I played too sporadically and didn't make proper goals.

My goals for March are:

Cash:

Play 10,000 hands of 25NL
Finish the month with a bb/100 of 3/100
Watch the cash videos that I haven't watched yet

Tournaments:

Play 500 sngs
Maintain a positive ROI
Study 8 hours per week
Play 10 - 15 MTTs
Make Gold Star Status on Stars

Well time to start grinding (for non poker players this just mean playing a lot).