First blog entry

Just wanted to start off by saying "hello" to anyone who might find their way to this blog. My name is Daniel, I'm a part-time grinder from Anderson, SC. Along the way I've spent time grinding just about every form of online no-limit hold'em. I started out playing freerolls back in 2003 or so. Put some real money on in 2005 and would build up a roll and then do something stupid and bust it. I had no real clue about BR management at this point... I'd usually work the BR up to around $300-500 then decide I was the best poker player in the world and jump in the $55 or $109 9-mans and get my ass handed to me. I would say it was humbling but it took about 3 times to learn my lesson.

In 2006 I decided to put together a plan (now I know this as BR mgt.) and play in $22 180's. I did that for a few months and when I'd get up a few hundred I would take a shot in something different. I won a double shoot-out satty to a $650 live-satty and unregistered... since it was W$, I figured I'd rather play in something where I could get some cash w/o having to win the whole thing. I registered for the WCOOP $530 event, played super ridiculously tight, finished in the mid-30's, and won $4,000+. At that point, I was pretty hooked.

Since then, I went from $60 9-man's on Stars where I lost a few hundred (fail) to 1/2 NL on stars where I won about a grand (I'm not sure how) then I rode a bicycle from Seattle to San Diego to Charleston, SC. I thought I would have some kind of epiphany on a mountain top or something, seeing exactly what I was supposed to do with my life... that didn't happen.

As soon as I got back I went right back to poker. This time I started studying the game more and stalking different forums. Unfortunately, my work ethic, my game, and my focus still sucked... I played $36 9-mans on tilt under the name earlerock (not a Multi-accounter I just didn't know my password from my Poncholoco account back in the freeroll days) and my graph looked like I climbed straight up a cliff just to nose dive down the other side. After that I had no focus at all, I built a $1200 roll into about 5k... got pissed about a check taking too long. Got told I couldn't use the account and sent back to Poncholoco... left FTP for Cake... 8-tabled .5/1 NL tore it up for about a month... won a WPT seat (finished 153/486, no cash, WPT NAPC)... got behind on my mortgage waiting for a check from Cake... withdrew everything and started playing stupid low stake double ups w/ my last months rakeback payment... started nickle-and-diming it on Stars and Cake and wasted a good half year of my poker life playing below my ability. Earlier this year, I realized that I should be playing nothing but 45, 90, and 180-man SnGs. So that's what I've done. Unfortunately, I've still got a pretty bad work ethic and don't put in nearly the volume I should.

I plan to start playing around 100 $26 45-90 man's a week on Tilt starting in September. My goal is to make atleast $8,000 in the last 15 weeks of the year. I think it's a fairly tame goal... 100 games a week @ a 21% ROI will get me there. I think that due to the fact that I only 4-6 table, that my expected ROI in these games are closer to 25-30%... add in rakeback... and I should have a good shot of clearing 10k.

GL me I guess.

Just in case anyone ever reads this far... I'll keep my future blogs much less novel-like.

-Daniel