The Big Climb

During my short career at the poker tables on Stars, I’ve tried quite a bit things out. At first I thought I was hooked on the 9 mans, but eventually got bored when I almost had broke even over the course of some hundred games of ‘intense’ grinding as I thought it to be myself. Then I tried some 18/45 man grinding, but didn’t really have the will to outlast the variance or whatever (basically I played 4-5 sessions and decided I was going nowhere with that). I then had a break from poker, god forbid, for about a month and a half, after which I came back with renewed focus and (as I like to think) as a result of that, I made my first real MTT cash for about $950. Not bad for a 2 dollar donkament! I obviously got hooked on MTTs again as a result of that, but wouldn’t believe it to be true when I didn’t cash the following month. I then played some HU, but found them to be going too slowly, and didn’t really wanna practice that format. Then, after getting somewhat tired of poker and the triviality of grinding SNGs I thought that cash games might just be what I should start practicing — and thus I watched a couple of cash videos and thought I was settled for good. Played a few thousand hands at a buyin I couldn’t afford, resulting in a swing too unhealthy for my bankroll. So I decided to quit that as well.

Now you might wonder what the heck I’m doing. Why don’t I just focus on one game, and only that? Well, to be honest I think I’ve just not managed to maintain the optimal focus required to be grinding the same format for weeks or months. I simply got too bored at some point when I didn’t immediately see the results. So I thought I’d better do something to help myself get going again. I have been reading a lot of blogs by real grinders the last week, and that has made me realize that besides wanting to get better and have my bankroll growing steadily, grinding one format is just the way to go. And since I consider myself a decent SNG’er as well as loving MTTs, I am now starting to exclusively grind the 180’s. I know there is a lot of variance in this bracket, but after reading how the real grinders overcome this, I am willing to at least play 1000 games and reevaluate.

So for the weeks and months ahead I will be grinding the 180’s. Since my bankroll currently is around the 400 dollars, the stake I’ll start with will be the 2.2’s. Besides my 2.2 180 grinding I will take the freedom to play a random big field MTT or two, so that the ratio between these will be something like 90/10.

As I also have a part time job to be concerned with, I have set a goal which I think is quite realistic and obtainable, but still requires hard work and does not allow for day breaks from the tables.

Weekly goals:
- 200 180’s at least.
- 5 hours of studying.
- keep the mental focus

In the longer run:
- victory in a big field mtt (by the end of april)
- go from $400 to $2000 allowing me to play $12 180s (by the end of may)
- reach at least 10.000 games played on Pokerstars (by the end of 2010)

Hopefully this should keep me going for a while!

Ps. Should any of you be grinding the 180’s or similar, I am very interested in maybe doing some sweat sessions or some mutual HH review, should anybody feel for it.

So long!