Bang bang bang!

Man....seems like ever since I started focusing on it for the challenge, I've been racking up EV like crazy. Pity my showdowns aren't the same, but my total winnings are close enough to exceed my goals, so it's all good for now. After getting sucked out on twice on a donk-y table, I bought in for a full stack and more than doubled up over the next 80 hands or so.....this was an idea I was experimenting with a few weeks ago, but I was a little worried about stacking off $200 at a time. I was plenty comfortable with this though, so perhaps there's some full-stack NL 200 in my future.

I normally don't play this early on the morning (per my population-conspiracy theory), but I was lured by the fact that Full Tilt gave me a $75 bonus out of the blue for being such a stellar customer (read: person who plays too much). So I did exactly what they wanted me to do and promptly logged on and started messing around with tables. There was more action than I expected, so I ended up putting in almost 3 hrs. That, combined with the several hours I put in last night while on the job, puts me up $380 on the month. I'm about 7% of the way to my goal and I've only put in a little less than 4% of the time; so far, so good.

Just as importantly, I've racked up some nice Sklanksy Bucks! Check it out:

At this rate, those pizzas are mine! I wonder if it's too late to up the wager to include a 12-pack too...

January in review and the Sklanksy Challenge!

New month, new start! (Kinda). January treated me fairly well, netting a hair under $5,400. That's pretty good considering I played pretty badly for some of that; if nothing else, I've learned to be more attentive to when I'm not on my 'A'-game (if I can be said to have one) and stop making dumb plays. The earnings exceeded my hourly goals by about $2,000 and my monthly goals by about $3,300, so I'm doing ok there.

For February, I'll try to focus on playing smarter and getting my money in better (see below) as well as improving at MTTs. I'm looking to play the same volume (about 100k hands), but I'm shooting for $6,000 net this time. I think this is completely attainable if I play smarter and avoid tilting when I get luckboxed out of big pots (strange, when I luckbox out I never go on tilt...so I'm halfway there ! guess!). Another area I want to address is volume...often in january, I would find myself putting in far less time some days than I had allotted; I would make $200 or $300 in 2 hours and stop playing....basically, I made enough to reassure me I was doing well and then stopped instead of continuing to make money, for fear of losing and 'ruining' my winning session. This month, I'm going to make sure I keep playing....as long as I play well, I've got nothing to fear.

To facilitate getting our money in better, PokerxPro and I are undertaking the Sklansky Challenge; 'Sklansky' because it's a competition to see who can earn the most EV and 'Challenge' because it sounds more meaningful with 'Challenge' on the end. We'll be competing in 3 categories: Most EV earned, Best EV/100 and Worst Luck (Showdown winnings - EV). As I play higher stakes, I should (hopefully) win the Most EV Earned category. PokerxPro's a pretty good player, so it should be a good comeptition for Best EV/100. Worst luck, of course, is anyone's race.

We'll be posting updates every monday as well as a recap at the end of the month. The winner of the majority of the categories will have bragging rights, with further awards being mutually agreed on at some later date.

Think you've got what it takes to try the challenge? Well, tough cookies, this month is only between us....but let me know and next month we'll hook it up.

Update: We've both agreed to additonal terms: winner receives a large 3 topping pizza! Now it's on ^_^