Plugging the leak

It's been a busy week couple of weeks. I have been on a minor downswing. I lost about 7 dollars in bankroll at the microstakes limit games on pokerstars. I suppose that isn't a minor downswing since its about a third of my bankroll but that's why you need to keep a healthy bankroll relative to the limits you play at, to survive swings.

I wish I could blame variance on all of my losses but I still get sucked into chasing with second pair too often. That seems to be my most persistent leak. I have zen like discipline when it comes to starting hand selection but if I have pocket queens and the board has an ace on it and somebody is all but IM ing me that he has an ace I really fight laying down the big pair.

How am I fixing this? Before each session I am writing out goals for the session. It looks something like this:

DATE:

TIME STARTED:

TIME ENDED:

GAME: (type of game and limit)

BANKROLL/START SESSION:

BANKROLL/END SESSION:

GOALS FOR SESSION:

1. Number of hands I have to play this session
2. Avoid misclicks
3. play top pair top kicker or better. STOP CHASING WITH SECOND PAIR!!
4. Bet for value.

Anyways, writing it down before I start seems to help. My last two sessions went a lot better and while they were slightly losing, I can attribute that to variance.

So that is how I am working to identify and fix my current biggest problem.

I know I keep promising links, what can I say, I'm a lazy blogger. To get you started, I'll point out the most important poker forums on the web. If you found my blog you probably already know about David Sklansky and his company but if you don't than go to twoplustwo.com

It is full of professionals and serious amateurs who discuss the game at a very high level. One word of warning. Before you plunge into the current posts read the FAQ and the stickys. They contain a goldmine of instruction and links. Just as importantly they contain a glossary of the hundreds of abbreviations that members routinely use in the forums. Without a cheat sheet, you'll feel like your trying to order off a menu written in Mandarin Chinese.

Next post I want to talk about the man I consider my role model for what I want to accomplish in online poker.

Until then, Good variance !