June Goals

I'm a very goal oriented person, and perhaps as a result, it's easy to be results orientated. In poker however, one cannot be results orientated and expect to improve, or stay sane for that matter. This is because we don't get a reasonably accurate picture of the true "results" until we have played hundreds of thousands of hands, due to the effects of variance. All one can do is make sure that the correct decisions are being made, and the results will eventually take care of themselves.

Because of the nature of poker, I'm not going to set goals which have anything to do with earnings or winrate anymore on a monthly basis. As I'm only playing typically ~50k hands per month, doing so just doesn't make sense as the matter is only partially in my hands. It's completely feasible that my winnings of $3.2k in the month of May (4.6ptBB/100) could have been $1.6k simply by running rather poorly. Worse luck than that is very much possible. Thus, while an earnings goal might make sense on a bi-yearly basis playing at my current rate (or perhaps bi-monthly if I was to go pro), they certainly hold little value for me on a monthly basis currently.

All that said, here are my goals for June:

Play 50,000 hands
I played 60k last month, and I only started 12-tabling (from previously 10-tabling) one week in. It seems I say this every month, but I don't expect to have quite as much poker time in June, so 50k seems like a good number to push myself towards without going overboard.

Be comfortable at $100NL
I don't think this one will be a problem, but I am moving up stakes this month, which is exciting as always. From my brief experience $100NL plays very similar to $50NL, and just about all the regulars agree there is little to no difference. It sure would be nice if I was able to run well enough (or average enough), to have my first $4k or $5k month. As long as I'm comfortable with my play at the $100NL limit however, I'll be happy with results.

Loosen up in position
I think I can increase my winrate a little by open raising more speculative hands from the CO and BTN. I'm going to start working suited one-gappers and maybe even some two-gappers into my game at these positions, and hopefully it'll help. This should also make me a little more difficult to play against for the few regulars that think well and are paying attention.

Big Blind: Be more aggressive!
I've improved my small blind play some lately, and while it still has a ways to go I'd like to start playing better out of the big blind as well. I think one of my bigger problems is I'm not aggressive enough with small/medium pairs and hands like KQo, which I've been simply checking to see a flop. Raising these hands will sometimes allow me to steal a few limps right away, or give me initiative after the flop to hopefully take the pot down with a c-bet.

That'll do it for my June goals. I guess I'll end this by whining about how bad I run (after a withdrawal too, doomswitched obviously) after being 5 buyins below equity on Sunday (though I did still make money at $100NL over the weekend, despite the horrid luck). Ah well, at the very least the donkeys are plentiful.