Well the grind is still ongoing but at least I can say I’m moving in the right direction. I’m still working through clearing the Party reload bonus and it looks like there are a couple of bonuses now waiting for me when I clear. Poker Rewards has a reload starting the weekend, 25% up to $50, not much but should clear fairly quickly – only need 500 hands. Also, River Belle has some funky promotion where you can win blah blah blah, but at the end of the day it you play 500 raked hands in the month of May they will give you $50 – again, should be easy enough to get. And with whatever their promo is, maybe I’ll pick up some extra cash.

Now, I’ve been tempting all my readers for the last month about my ‘revelation’. I figure all of you have waited long enough, so, here goes …

‘It’s not all about the money’

WOW, did I just say what I think I said? OK, it is all about the money but let me explain where I’m coming from when I say that.

I’ve been at this for almost three months now and really I think my game has improved and changed a lot since I started. When I say it isn’t about the money the premise is, do I want to ‘learn’ how to play when I’m playing $0.50 / $1.00 or when I’m playing $5.00 / $10.00? If you think back to the timing of when I first said I had this ‘revelation’, it was when I was on my huge downswing.

The thinking is, I’m much happier learning and losing at this level than any high levels. I would rather learn the finer points of the game now when it doesn’t cost me as much money. Don’t get me wrong, the ultimate goal is to make money and the grinding I’ve been doing the last month or so is positive rather then negative. And besides, as my game improves so will the winrate.

I’ve been really trying to focus on each hand rather than what my BR is or even my stack at the table. The challenge (and it still is a challenge) is to stay focused on playing solid poker, I know that I will get sucked out on on a regular basis (especially at this level) but if I make profitable decisions, in the end I will be profitable.

I’ll get more into my BR update in my next post, but for the purpose of this discussion, currently I’ve lost about $50 playing ring games (includes all levels) and my intent is only to move up when I’ve turn that number into a positive one. I now have a sufficient BR to play $1/$2 but what does that gain me – more learning and losing at a higher level.

As I said, I think my game has come a long way over the last month and I don’t want to put a timeframe on when I will move up … but (can’t help myself), if things continue to move in the direction they are going I’m going to play at the same level until the end of May and reevaluate then.

It’s funny how things go and how your mind reacts to your swings. Maybe in a future post I’ll do some fancy graphs (ala Poker Geek), to show what my rollercoaster ride looks like and the mental make up is at each point in the graph.

Hopefully it has been worth the wait and provides some insight for other beginners!

That’s it for now, AA up.