2009 Goals - First Quarter Review

Now that I have completed the first quarter of 2009, I figured it would be a good exercise to see how I'm doing compared to my 2009 Poker Goals.

Increase my BR
Grade: F
BR has only gone up a few dollars, which is not that good, hence the grade. From my original goals, my plan was to increase my BR by $125 per month, so by my calculations, I should be up $375 and not the $15 I'm currently up (ouch). What has happened is that January ended a little above break-even, while in February I came back strong and finished up very positive. Unfortunately, March saw me lose almost everything I was up in February (mostly on Mansion). Over these past 3 months, I mostly played the $10 buy-in games, but now that I have switched over to Poker Stars with a lower BR, I have dropped down to the $3 games, which means increasing it has been tough. I now need to find a way to move back up the buy-in ladder in order to increase my BR accordingly.

Increase my knowledge/skill of the game
Grade: F
Haven't devoted enough time to this area over the past 3 months. The problem I am having with this is to find the time to read the books I have. As well, I find it difficult to spend time analyzing a hand/situation when I could be playing. I know I'm procrastinating as spending the time doing the offline work will greatly improve my online results. I do have a plan to change this in the near future. Hopefully by my half-year update I will have increased this grade.

Blog/post more
Grade: B
Posting decreased a little in February, but March brought me back up closer to my average of 10 blogs/mth. In January and February I didn't post any hand histories (HH), but in recent weeks I've have been. Since posting more actual hands for review was my goal, I feel that I am the right path for this goal. Now to have people comment on how they think I played the hand, and if they would have done something different.

Games to play
Grade: C
Part way through this quarter I saw myself playing in more MTT's (on Mansion and FTP) even though I have only cashed in a few. I feel that my MTT play has improved as I have gone deep in several of those tournaments but overall am down on the financial side from playing these. Now that I have removed most of my money from Mansion and deposited part of it on Stars, I feel I need to play mostly SNG's there until I can get a better read on the players that play at Stars. I also have been playing cash games (0.05-0.10) games, but have yet to show a big profit. On the live side, I haven't played at the MBP this year, but I did have a trip to Turning Point that saw me lose some money in their tournaments.

Where to play
Grade: B
I now play more frequently at RedKings, FTP, PStars, and the occasional game on Doyle's Room, while taking a little hiatus from the games at Mansion. This is definitely spreading myself around even though my games/hands played has gone down. All I need to do now is increase my BR accordingly. Unfortunately, none of these sites were set up with a rake back deal, so I'm just playing to play on those sites. Once my Point Challenges have been completed, I will look to move my BR to a site that will offer me a nice rake back deal. All in due time.

Side projects
Grade: C
1 of my side projects is almost ready to go live, while the others have kinda faltered. Looking forward to bringing those back to the front, so they may become a reality.

Overall I would give myself a C grade for everything I've done over the past 3 months. Need to step it up if I'm going to be able to reach all my goals by the end of this year.

Good luck at the tables.