At the end of every month I'm going to try and go back and analyze all my sessions and big hands to see what I need to work on.  I'm also going to try and set a goal for the next month, whether its a dollar amount or playing a certain amount of hours.  Most of you know by now that I'm playing low stakes really trying to improve my game and start from the bottom up.  Overall I've been doing quite well and also running quite well.  I was able to start at .25/.50 NL and grinded up to .50/1NL and last night I made it up to 1/2NL.  Like I've mentioned before I'm using the 25-30 buy-in rule for all the levels.  If I have 30 buy-ins I'll play the certain stakes and if I lose 5 buy-ins I'll move back down and grind my way back up.  My first night of 1/2NL last night really didn't go so well.  I ran pretty shitty.  I'll post some of the hands but basically I took some sick beats and couldn't get my hands to hold up.  I didn't end up losing too much so I still have some buy-ins to work with before I have to move back down to .5/1NL.  My goal for February is to make enough to move up to 2/4NL.  I want to have a minimum of $10,000 to start playing at that level, hopefully I can make it there by March 1st.  Once I get to 2/4NL I'll probably stick there for a while and hopefully beat the game for a good win rate.  I have a very competitive nature and I know I'll want to move up eventually, but beating 2/4NL can be very profitable with out going through huge swings.  Theres actually a pro on cardrunners.com that was posting his stats and one year he made $140/hour playing 2/4NL.  Now that's some pretty good cash.

I've also been playing more heads-up lately and being studying it a lot more.  Playing heads-up will really help my 6-max game especially when getting into tricky situations post-flop.  I usually have eskal watching when I play heads-up so we can analyze certain situations.  So far I've only played about 2,000 hands heads-up and I'm up about 4.5 buy-ins.

Anyways here's a graph of progress to date:



The line keeps moving up, so thats a good sign!  I like using graphs and statistics because its a good motivation tool.  Sometimes when you're grinding every day you can start to forget about the big picture, so by looking at progress and profit helps keep me going.

Here's couple hands from yesterday, I have to post the hands here on the page because for some stupid reason when I paste the link now it doesn't highlight so you guys can just click on it.  Anyways its probably easier for you guys to just read it on here.

FullTiltPoker Game #5048062010: Table Lamont (6 max) - $1/$2 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:14:30 ET - 2008/01/29
Seat 1: Bru4USC ($285.50)
Seat 2: ImTiltingBad ($316.15)
Seat 3: rastasam ($200)
Seat 4: gamma746 ($262.55)
Seat 5: Goodfella_84 ($292.95)
Seat 6: ToTheLebaron ($287)
ToTheLebaron posts the small blind of $1
Bru4USC posts the big blind of $2
The button is in seat #5

Holecards:
Dealt to Goodfella_84 [ ]
ImTiltingBad raises to $7
rastasam folds
gamma746 folds
Goodfella_84 raises to $24
ToTheLebaron has 15 seconds left to act
ToTheLebaron folds
Bru4USC folds
ImTiltingBad calls $17

Flop :
[ ]
ImTiltingBad checks
Goodfella_84 bets $43
ImTiltingBad calls $43

Turn:
[ ] [ ]
ImTiltingBad checks
Goodfella_84 has 15 seconds left to act
Goodfella_84 bets $111
ImTiltingBad raises to $249.15 and is all in
Goodfella_84 calls $114.95 and is all in
ImTiltingBad shows [ ]
Goodfella_84 shows [ ]
Uncalled bet of $23 .20 returned to ImTiltingBad

River :
[ ] [ ]
ImTiltingBad shows two pair Queens and Jacks
Goodfella_84 shows a pair of Kings
ImTiltingBad wins the pot ($585 .90) with two pair Queens and Jacks
Goodfella_84 adds $200

SUMMARY:
Total pot $588 .90 | Rake $3
Board:
[ ]
Seat 1: Bru4USC (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 2: ImTiltingBad showed [ ] and won ($585.90) with two pair Queens and Jacks
Seat 3: rastasam didn't bet (folded)
Seat 4: gamma746 didn't bet (folded)
Seat 5: Goodfella_84 (button) showed [ ] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 6: ToTheLebaron (small blind) folded before the Flop

This hand was really gross.  As you can see he check raises me all in the turn, the only hand I was sort of afraid of was 8,8 but was quite certain my Kings were good.  Then BAM.. Jack on the river.. Oh well, I made the right read so thats what I'm happy about.

Seat 3: ACES HONEY ($79)
Seat 4: EnneirdA ($353.05)
ACES HONEY posts the small blind of $1
EnneirdA is sitting out
EnneirdA has 5 seconds left to act
Goodfella_84 posts the big blind of $2
nasri078 sits down
The button is in seat #2

Holecards :
Dealt to Goodfella_84 [ ]
EnneirdA stands up
nasri078 adds $80
ToTheLebaron raises to $7
Mr Melting sits down
ACES HONEY folds
Mr Melting adds $50
Goodfella_84 raises to $24
ToTheLebaron has 15 seconds left to act
ToTheLebaron calls $17

Flop :
[ ]
Goodfella_84 has 15 seconds left to act
Goodfella_84 bets $36
ann3im sits down
ann3im adds $100
ToTheLebaron raises to $183 and is all in
Goodfella_84 calls $145 and is all in
ToTheLebaron shows [ ]
Goodfella_84 shows [ ]
Uncalled bet of $2 returned to ToTheLebaron

Turn :
[ ] [ ]

River:
[ ] [ ]
ToTheLebaron: nh
ToTheLebaron shows a pair of Kings
Goodfella_84 shows three of a kind Queens
Goodfella_84 wins the pot ($410) with three of a kind Queens

SUMMARY:
Total pot $411 | Rake $1
Board:
[ ]
Seat 1: Goodfella_84 (big blind) showed [ ] and won ($410) with three of a kind Queens
Seat 2: ToTheLebaron (button) showed [ ] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 3: ACES HONEY (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 4: EnneirdA is sitting out

It feels good to get the money in with 98.38% equity!

Although I did win some big hands yesterday, it seemed that I'd be winning in the session, then take a bad beat against another big stack to lose everything i.e the KK vs Q,J hand.

I'm probably going to take tonight off from playing and just relax.  Maybe I'll watch a training video or two but other then that probably just get my mind off poker for the night and just chill.  Oh yeah, I've had some of you asking what my poker setup looks like, so in the near future I'll take a couple pics of my setup and post it on here.