Week one and goals.

"I guess it comes down to a simple choice. Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'"
-Andy Dufresne


Really, isn't that what it all comes down to? Anyway, I wanted to use my blogpost today to go over my goals, both short term and long term, and outline what I hope to accomplish through my training and coaching.

First, a little more about one of my coaches. He posted a response in my first blog. Bodeye is 19 and from Sweden. Some of you are probably thinking, boy it must be emmasculating being trained by someone 7 years my younger but, Bodeye is, well Bodeye is a great poker player already. And being that he has only been playing online for a little over two years, Bodeye may become a legend in time. Since working with Nick just a few short months ago, his results have exploded. Through just my first session with him, I have learned enough to make me feel 100 times more confident in my game and make me scrutinize my game to a greater degree. So, am I emasculated by working with someone who is younger than me? No way, I'm humble and I'm willing to learn from whoever is willing to coach me, be they 15 or 90. If they have words of wisdom and a killer poker mine like Bodeye has, I am wide open to learning from them. Speaking with him just a few days ago, I learned that no matter how confident you are in your game, the best players are those that evaluate and find out why they made the plays that they did, not those who claim "I did everything right and still lost, I'm so unlucky" without looking within and seeing if they really did make the best plays they can make. If however, you look into yourself and evaluate your play and find out that, yes, you did make the best possible play, then you take the loss as it is. As long as the right plays continue to be made, you will be a winning poker player over time. Sometimes it takes a while for variance to even itself out, and the winning players are those who realize that and don't devert from the best plays regardless of whether they feel unlucky or have a hunch. Making the best plays = winners. Its as simple as that. With Bodeye's and Nick's help, I fully expect to post great results before the year is even out. With that in mind, lets take a look at some goals of mine for 2010 and beyond.

I'm going to bunch some of my goals into groups and explain them from there, as a lot of the goals can compound on top of one another.

Goal #1:
Play 1,000 games in one month
Play 2,500 games in one month
Play 5,000 games in one month.

With the system I am working on being based largely on volume, acheiving these goals as quickly as possible is key. 5,000 is a lot of games in a month, especially playing primarily 180 man tournaments at this point. But as I am allowed to sprinkle more 45 and 90 mans in there, and by uping the number of tables I can play at once, I feel it is an attainable goal in 6 months.

Goal #2:
Begin playing $4 tourneys
Begin playing $10 tourneys
Begin playing $20 tourneys
Begin playing $30 tourneys

This goal is more up to my coaches than me, but my results will determine how quickly I move up in limits. The more I raise my ROI, the faster it will become profitable to move to higher levels.

Goal #3:
Win a 1000 person MTT
Win a 2500 person MTT
Win a 5000 person MTT

For those not in tune with the poker terminology, MTT stands for Multi Table Tournament. A tournament with multiple tables that normally hold thousands of people. The world series of poker is run as a series of MTT's. Anyway, MTT's are the great equalizer, and the big chance that all poker players are looking for. Winning a large person MTT can be the ticket to tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I have every intention of winning a big one in 2010.

Goal #4:
Win a satelite into the WSOP
Play in the WSOP main event
Play in one preliminary WSOP event
Win a WSOP bracelet
Win the WSOP main event.

Ok, so the majority of these fall into the Loooooong term goal category. However, the first one is not a pipe dream and I feel is very attainable before the 2010 WSOP.

I have more goals that I want to get to in a later post. Most of those deal with much more in-depth statistics related numbers, so for now, lets leave it at this. Play more tables, play higher stakes, win the big tournaments, and satelite my way into the big one. I can do all of these, and I have confidence in myself to the point that I know I will continue to improve every time I sit down as long as I am honest with myself and openly evaluate and critique my own play. Why I am making the plays I am will be more important to me than what plays I'm making and what the final results of those plays are.

Do not be results oriented, the results will come in time. Play well, play hard, and play smart. Always make the right play and you will be a winning player.

Next time: More info on my first few weeks, why I chose Nick, and how I got to where I am.