OK, Real First Post

So this is my blog to to record my poker endeavors. I may or may not record anything in here, I have been playing for roughly 4 years w/o ever having something like this. I have hat my hot and cold periods however, and lately i have been somewhat hot again. I also anticipate playing lots of hands over this winter break so I will use this blog as a memoir to myself and anyone else who wishes to read.

I've basically been stuck playing 1/2NL 6max for the last few years despite having more than enough to be playing 2/4 or even 3/6 if I wished. However I was a net loser at 2/4 over ~25k hands and I let the the monetary amount get to my head, I just couldnt stomach losting over 4k in a matter of days. So due to this phobia I remained at 1/2NL and grinded out enough money to pay for my living commodities like rent, gas, basically whatever. I have never made enough to live off of my winnings completely, so for the past year I've been free-lance flash programming from home which is a nice job to have where I can make my own hours just as I do in poker. Now I am a graduate student and I have a research assistantship with the computer science department here which is nice because I get paid on a regular basis for the work I do with them. Having a steady income is great and I know that if I'm ever in a jam for some money, I can always withdraw from my poker account, it's a nice sense of security.

For me poker has always been a hobby/semi-professional. I'm sure there are people out there who play 1/2NL for a living, and based on my statistics, I could probably do it as well, but it sure would not be a very good living. I figure once I am done with grad school, I will get some sort of job, either full time or part time, but some sort of job none the less. No matter how much money I made, given that it wasnt some absurdly large amount, I would always try to maintain some sort of regular income job. I think it's silly to be a full time poker player, it's just an excuse to be lazy. Full time players have plenty of extra time on their hands that they just do nothing with.

In any case, it would be nice to graduate college and know that getting a full time job was not a necessity. I would like to be financially secure enough to browse the jobmarket at my leisure and never be stuck doing something I absolutely dreaded in the name of making money to support myself. I already know plenty of ppl, first hand, that are in such a position. I myself have had an experience with a job that I hated very much, it was awful. In that case it was only a summer internship and I knew once summer was over, the job would be over. It is a real fear of mine that I may become stuck, indefinitely for financial reasons, in a job I loathe.

This brings me to the present. This is probably just another futile attempt to move up the ranks but I need to try something. I recently have gotten into HU poker. My plan is to play HU poker starting at .5/1NL using a 20 BI (buy-in) scheme. That is, I will move up to the next highest stake once I have 20 buy-ins for that level. If i get to the next highest level, and I lose 4 or more BI's, I will drop back down until i have 20. I generally don't withdraw large sums of money, so I dont see it as being an issue. And considering I am already over-rolled for this, I think I can generally ignore the effects of a withdrawal from my account unless my total BR gets so low that the risk of ruin becomes very possible. I will try and follow these rules as strictly as possible to force myself to become comfortable with winning and losing large(er) sums of money.

I just bought Poker Tracker 3 and I started my new database for my HU .5/1. Ill try and post my graphs from it along with some hands here and there. But as for now, I think im satisfied with my intro to this blog.