There's nothing worse than self-delusion when it comes to correctly analyzing your poker decisions.

Playing in a cash game with half your roll at a time?

Not smart. I mean, not even taking into account the last few weeks, just as an outsider looking in, I think any rational poker player would say that playing with half your available funds is a recipe for disaster for a multitude of reasons.

I'm at zero at this point. No big loss, I realize...it's not like I couldn't just deposit 80 right now, and start right back where I was a few days ago. But, I'm not going to do that. Not now. Because I would be repeating the mistake.

If you're going to play in a 40.00 buy in, you need a tremendous amount more than 80.00. And, seeing as how 1/2 limit is the lowest limit they have for HORSE, I won't be playing there any time soon.

Road to WCOOP: Report 2.

87 - 49.

Yep. You read it right...I went from 87.00 to 49.00. What went wrong? Really nothing bad believe it or not. No seriously bad beats. Just CONSTANTLY getting in with good hands that turn bad. CONSTANTLY. I felt like I played too many hands...I didn't. I could've probably played about 5 percent more hands, but on those hands I never drew further than I should have.

I would start with 4 to a flush by 4th street in Stud Hi/Lo (even have a low going for that matter) and not get one more heart. That happened a few times. And, those were the type of hands that were occurring. Looked good initially, quickly went bad.

So, that sucks horribly....but it's not something I can't get back. Tomorrow I'll try again, we'll see what happens. One thing....I picked a bad table. Table selection is always key, and I have to have patience to find the right table. The one I was at was overly tight, and this especially hurts my stud hi/lo game. I would say it also hurts the Razz part too. It is good for the limit hold 'em part, however, I never got a hand in the LHE. O Hi/Lo went okay...but I continued to get drawn out on there even (I didn't play as many hands in O Hi/Lo).

I can't make it all back in one day. But, I could chip at it over a week, and if I do, I'll be right back in the hunt for the goal.

Road to WCOOP: Report 1

Didn't do great, but made a little. Part of the problem was that I was doing well in a NLHE MTT while playing a HORSE cash game. But, I can still multi-table, it's just there was drama going on at home while I was playing. That usually doesn't help your game.

80-87.00

Balance: 87.00
Average/day: +7.00
Needed average/day: +5.40
Need total: 215.00
Amount left to go: 128.00

Oh no!!! It's been 20 days since I've written!

Believe it or not I've made 4 final tables, and won a rebuy tournament (as part of those 4 finals). All events were like 220 or less entrants. It is SO much easier to play in smaller entrant fields. That's obvious, but I'm just saying it over.

Okay, so I have go all over the freaking map on goals. Today is no different.

I want to play in AT LEAST one WCOOP event.

I've picked the 215 HORSE event on 9/23, and I'll explain why.

First, 215 is the cheapest that you are going to pay for any WCOOP event. The following are 215.00 entry events:

Razz
Heads up play (NLHE)
NLHE (w/rebuys)
Limit
HORSE

Secondly, I have reason to pick HORSE. It goes into how I'm going to pay for this event, and in fact, it ties to this entire goal.

The goal: Make enough money playing limit 1/2 HORSE cash games to pay for the event by 9/23/06. I currently have 80.00 on my Stars account (on the other site, I actually have much more, but I don't want to take money off there).

Therefore, I have to make 135.00 in limit 1/2 HORSE over the course of about 25 days in order to fill this goal. I say 25 days simply because certain days I might not play if my emotion is off or if there are other things I have to do.

So, that means I have to average approx 5.40 every day that I play limit 1/2 HORSE. If I were playing as tight as I possibly could, even, I would think I could average that. I realize there will be times when I'm outdrawn, and I have losing sessions. But, there will also be times when I walk away from the table like 35.00 to the good.

I have to play fearlessly. Yesterday, I played, and I thought, I don't need the money on Stars. I can play smart, and fearless, and if I'm outdrawn, I'm outdrawn. I played extremely well probably taking in about ten bbs over the course of an hour. That's a little high to expect all the time...I'm saying that you would have to average 5.40 in a day.

I think I can do it. And, if I do, then I'm going into an event that I've pseudo prepared for, for the past month. I realize there's a huge difference between a touranment and cash game, especially since blinds will increase, and I'll probably be playing better players.

Now, if I cash in the WCOOP event (I'll be playing to win), new opportunities open up. But, I would think that those wouldn't open up unless I made about 1500.00 in the HORSE event. This is mostly because I would want to play the 1050 NLHE event on 9/24. HOWEVER...a new question arises....if I had that much in my roll, would I be better off just keeping it and trying to build with it instead of spending most of it on a NLHE event where I will face players with a huge edge on me?

We'll see. I think it would be a game time decision, and I'm highly lean toward not playing the more expensive event at this point in my play.

Two final tables out of two tournaments played in two days.

I don't play many tournaments per day. I should, it's just, I don't do it currently. I think I will eventually get to that. So, I don't have so many final tables because I just don't play that many tournaments at a time.

But, on 7/30, and 7/31 I got two final tables in a row. Both were in rebuys, and both were on the same site.

Now...here are some things about both tournaments. One, the number of entrants was manageable. 300 or less.

I played a little tighter. But, when I thought I had best hand I was generally right about it, and I bet it hard. There were times when my best pre-flop hands were not getting called at all though. So, the tables were paying attention to me somewhat, and giving me credit for good hands. On Stars, I would have certainly been called. I don't want to say that the players are worse on Stars, it's just everyone is in much more of a hurry. And, rightfully so. It doesn't excuse mistakes, I'm just saying, people feel threatened by time on Stars. The blinds are not horrible...there are just SO many entrants. You'll win more when you win, but you just won't final table as often on Stars.

Recently, an author came out with a book on tournament speed, and how these "fast" tournaments should be played. I somewhat agree with him (The Poker Tournament Formula by Arnold Snyder) however, I just think that you really need to play optimally always and you'll eventually win. You'll lose more often if you are playing 1000 person entrant tournaments than if you're playing 200 entrant tournaments, however, when you DO win you'll win more.