$1/2 so far

10k hands in at the halfway point of the month, so on track for my target. Over the first 10k hands my objective was really just to settle in and I can work my game up from that.

I started out over the first 5k hands playing way too tight, kinda scared play... $200nl is a LOT more aggro then $100nl, it took me a little while and a couple of coaching sessions to adjust to this. Because it's more aggro I've been getting in more tough spots postflop in 3-bet and raised pots... made a ton of mistakes over the first 5k, lost a lot of buy-ins just not knowing what to do in certain situtations. With the help of Messiah I've moved my game up a notch and I'm not a lot more comfortable with tough spots postflop. I'm analysing situations much better and I know a lot more standard lines in 3-bet/4-bet pots.

My postflop aggression is much more selective now (over the last 5k hands). Due to the poor first 5k hands my winrate here isn't that great, I picked it up a lot in the 2nd 5k. Overall I survived at the level over the first 10k and didn't have to move back down, which is success! Now that I've developed self confidence in my ability to beat $1/2 I can focus on making adjustments to my game and plugging leaks. Hopefully I'll see my winrate increase over the next 10k hands.

So I'm playing about 21/18 now, which I'm happy with, kind of where I want to be preflop wise. My positional stats are pretty much where I want to be too...


There are a few issues I need to address for the next 10k...

Table selection
I like to play 5-6 tables at once and at the times I play there are often only 3-4 good games on the go at 200 on iPoker. So I've got a high RB account at Prima (I'm now setup as an affiliate, so PM me if you'd like an account) and I'll be playing simultaneously at Prima/iPoker to improve the quality of the tables I'm on.

Coaching
Gonna try moving to a video review style with Dave as our last session wasn't that useful due to there not being much action. Dave's a great help going over tough hands on SkyPE, I think this improves my game a LOT. Gonna continue logging my tough hands on weaktight and going over them with him a couple of times per week.

Reading
Finished reading the fantastic Elements of Poker by Tommy Angelo. It's one of the best poker books I've ever read, I'd recommend it to anyone that's serious about the game. It's really improved my attitude towards the game, winning, losing, and tightening up my discipline. It's really light and easy to read too, the writing style is really different and accessible. Going to start reading the Full Tilt Pros poker guide book next to brush up a little for the big tourney at the end of the month.

PAHud
Dave's recently reworked my PAHud setup, adding some new stats to my hud that I've not used before. I'm not really using these to their full potential at the moment, so I'm going to spend a fair bit of the month looking at interpreting opponent PAHud stats and looking at how to use them in various situations. Will maybe write a couple of posts on this... I've found good way to learn when to 3-bet/4-bet light and when to float recently based on opponent stats.

Study
Not really watching too many CR videos at the moment. Will try to find some time to fit some of those in. Also Dave sent me a big word doc file he's compiled which contains all sorts of gold, need to get through that.