The Grinding Dragon

Ok so I have finally come up with my targets for 2010.
I have spent the last few weeks thinking long and hard about them and thinking about what is going to be the best +EV targets for me to reach for.
Most of my target are aimed at improving my LHE game to allow me to start getting out of the micro/small stakes and start moving to the small/mid stakes games. My long term target is to eventually take on poker full time so my short term targets are aimed at helping me create a strong basis to work up from.

I have also come up with a few other poker related targets that I would like to meet this year that I will include at the bottom.

Ok so here are my LHE targets for 2010 (in no particular order of importance):

- Spend a minumum of 3hrs/day dedicated to poker only. At least 2hrs of this is to be spent playing online. The other hour can be spent reading forums, books etc, reviewing HHs, watching videos etc. This time is to be free from distractions, no iphone, no MSN, no surfing the intertubes etc.

- Spend time at the end of each week going through all HHs from that week. I currently am only single tabling as I find it to be much more +EV for my game. As such I am only playing about 1000 hands a week, therefore I should be able to sit down rather quickly go through the hands from the past week and study them. This time can be part of the dedicated 3hrs/day as per the above target.

- Move back up to .50/1 when I reach 300BB @ .50/1 or $300 BR. This is the lower limit of where I want my BR before moving up. I am able to take a shot at moving up and if it doesn’t work I can drop 50BB and still be over rolled for .25/.50 with 500BB or $250

- Take shots at 1/2 when BR reachs 200BB or $400. Similar to above this is the lower limit of my BR before I will take shots at 1/2. And again it still leaves me some good breathing room that if I take a shot and it doesn’t work, my BR will still be fine to drop back to .50/1 and grind back up. 200BB is underolled for 1/2 but my goal is to move up the levels as soon as possible, and taking shots will let me do this. I have set my stop loss at 50BB of the higher level which I know is not much for a downswing but I feel it is sufficent when taking a shot. Either I move up and the shot works, or I lose the 50BB and move down to re-grind.

- Resume my regular coaching sessions with PygmyHero. Now that work has settled down, I have the time again to fit in these sessions which I know have had a huge +EV effect on my game. Big props to you PH, I owe you a tonne of thx!

- Play live LHE at casino. Unfortunately this will require a roadtrip cause I live in Sydney, Australia and StarCity are retarded. Unless it is NLHE or PLO, they just stare at you blankly like you talking a forgein language when you enquire about another game. So I will be saving a bit to the side and making a roadtrip to Melbourne for a few live sessions of 2/4 – 5/10 LHE through the year. I just hope that the rule of thumb of live LHE is equal to approx 10x online stakes, oherwise my first road trip might be the last for a while :p.

Ok as for other poker targets for 2010 (again in no order):
- Play 1 major live event (prob going to have ot be NLHE)
- Get backed into 1 major live event (can be the same as the above)
- Cash in 1 major live event (can be same as above 2)
- Play in a live teams event with my wife
- Establish a reasonable +ROI in >$5 SNG

Ok well that is it for the moment. I know there are a few targets in there that some people will think are a bit random or just plain stupid but I have thought long and hard about them and I feel they wil be the most +EV targets for me for 2010. The ‘other targets’ are more for a bit of fun in order to change things up a little so that I don’t get bored with grinding day in, day out. However all the LHE targets take priority of the other targets as they are they to establish a good base for me to build towards playing full time.

If you have any comments you want to offer, please feel free as I would be interested to get some feed back on these.

Cheers