28 Days

Thank you to everyone who wrote such great comments on my last blog. You bolstered my spirits and made me truly not regret my last post. As for the hole, it's patched, the spackling is dry, and tonight the paint goes over the whole mess. And for now we're done with Pot Committed: the Karate Edition.

As I was procrastinating returning a slew of phone calls this afternoon, I did some thinking about what my new short-term poker goals should be, and what sort of time period I should shoot for. And then it came to me.

Drug rehab lasts 28 days, so why shouldn't poker rehab? I'm checking myself in!

Halloween is 28 days from today. In addition to my efforts to stop mentally beating myself up after a bad run, I have five concrete, poker-related things I'd like to accomplish before October 31:

1. PLAY 100 SNGS TO BOOST MY BANKROLL. This will be my primary form of poker for this month, and for me, this is not an unreasonable amount to shoot for. Plus I fucking love these things. 75% of these will be $11 SNGs, 25% will be $22 SNGs. I'd like to play the vast majority of these on Party since they're softer, quicker, and I'm sufficiently 'rolled on that site already for this experiment. Not to mention the beauty of Pokertracker compatibility.

2. STICK TO A WEEKLY TOURNAMENT BUDGET. On Saturdays, I need my tourneys. Telling myself I'm not going to play MTTs is like telling myself I'm not going to eat chocolate. It just won't happen. In reviewing my results from the summer, I've actually been running well in MTTs and steadily improving my play. However, tourneys are the easiest way to piss away all that SNG profit. Ergo, I get two a week on Full Tilt, plus the 500 point freerolls, which are excellent practice. Also-- it hasn't been a problem for me lately, but playing tournaments during the week is not a good idea for me. I'll continue to stick to the weekends.

3. PLAY NON-HOLD'EM GAMES ONLY AT THE LOWEST OF LIMITS. I think I have Drizz and Princess Maigrey to thank for this idea. I was reading Drizz's post about the 0.01/0.02 PLO game they played last night and it reminded me that I had a few pennies left on Stars. 30 of them to be exact. I played some 0.02/0.04 Omaha 8 at lunch and the play was no better or worse than the 0.50/1 or 1/2 games at Full Tilt where I donked off over $90 last month. And I turned that 30 cents into 66 goddammit! This will be my new venue for developing my non-hold'em games, and I can do it with virtually zero bankroll pressure. Though I enjoy Stud, Razz, and Stud 8, October will be about Omaha. From everything I hear, online O8 games are great and getting better and in order to be able to take advantage of that in the future, I need to build my skills. Plus, O8 is funnnnnn and a great way to break the HE monotony.

4. PREPARE TO RE-APPROACH LIVE AND ONLINE LHE CASH GAMES. Not in October, mind you, but I'd like to take some time this month to re-read parts of Small Stakes Hold'em and Jen Harman's Limit Hold'em chapter in Super System 2, as well as continue to review my Poker Tracker data from that bad downswing I took earlier in the summer. Limit Hold'em used to be my best game. And I miss my crazy L.A. casinos. The games there are always good and I think they need a visit from me later in the fall. Even Hollywood Park.

5. POST A "HAND OF THE WEEK." It can be a winning one or a losing one, it should just illustrate an interesting poker situation I was involved in. I'll post the hand, analyze it the best I can, and welcome any comments or advice.

That's my plan and I'm stickin' to it.