** 750th Post - My Poker Goals **

For my 750th post here at CardsChat, I thought I would write about the single thing that has affected my game the most. A lot of people have asked about the poker goal numbers I have in my signature, so here it is.

First, let's rewind to July, 2008. I had been playing and winning for some time, but I never seemed to make any headway. I'd either win at the cash tables, then lose it all back at SNGs, or vice versa. I would get bored playing games that were profitable for me, and waste hours losing money playing HORSE and RAZZ. In short, I had a half-way decent game, and knew I could be a winning player, but I lacked the discipline and consistency of a pro. I was becoming disillusioned with poker, and wondered exactly why I was still playing. So, after searching for a solution, I came across this article on CC:

http://www.cardschat.com/poker/lessons/goals

I suggest reading it if you haven't already. Don't worry, I'll still be here when you get back.

That article made a lot of sense to me, so I decided to set goals for my poker career. I had already been tracking my stats via PokerTracker, but by adding goals I could hold myself accountable for success or failure. A losing session was no longer just a waste of my time, it also put me back on the road to my goals; which was no longer acceptable. I learned from the article that goals should be concrete, and measurable. I also wanted my goals difficult enough to give me some satisfaction, but not so difficult that I went months on end without a victory. After all, it was meant to be a reward for a job well done.

It started simple enough. My bankroll at the time was in the $150 range, so I set a goal to reach $250. Now when I won $6 at the cash tables, I wasn't so quick to play a $5.50 45-man SNG. I stuck with the games I was good at to achieve my goals. Then, as I reached a goal, it naturally led to another one behind it. Once my BR hit $250, the next goal was $500. Alongside this, I had goals for profit; daily, monthly, and overall. To focus my ring games, I added numerous goals based on my performance there. Things like: "Post Monthly Profit over at least 5,000 hands at $0.05/$0.10." That kept me from wandering off to another game in mid-month. It also gave me a sense of satisfaction at the end of the month when I had achieved one or more goals. Having a winning session gives a poker player a good feeling. Sticking to a long-term plan and succeeding gives a poker player a great feeling.

Before I knew it, I had created a monster. I was adding every goal I could think of. My last section was even a wishlist of goals that I wanted to achieve, but realized might never happen. What had once been a tiny text file turned into a color-coded spreadsheet. In order to track my goals, I had to keep rigid stats about my bankroll, something that I should have been doing from the beginning.

Missing goals didn't provide solutions, but they did point out some holes in my game. For instance, I was profitable at $5 SNGs, but not $10 ones. Had I not played enough to get a valid sample? Was I playing on scared money in the higher buy-ins? Was the competition that much better? I still had to do the hard work to plug leaks in my game, but the goals definitely helped highlight some of them.

Probably the biggest benefit stemming from my goals was the growing sense of confidence in my poker game as time went on. Was I capable of posting a monthly profit playing just $2 Sunday Quarter-Mil satellites? Yes I was, and I had the completed goal to prove it.

Then, in January of 2009, I hit a wall. I had been trying to break into 50NL for ages, and my game just wasn't good enough. I went on serious tilt and played even worse. To avoid tilting more of my hard-earned cash away, I withdrew most of my BR and went back to less than $150. Again, my goal list helped me maintain focus. Now I could work my way up through the micros, grabbing every missed goal along the way. Restarting wasn't a failure, it was an opportunity! Now every goal was like a badge of honor, and I went after as many as I could, no matter how seemingly menial. It gave me a sense of having paid my dues; like a baseball player who tears up the minors before finally making the major leagues, or a musician who plays hundreds of bars and clubs before landing that elusive record deal.

Fast-forward to today. My bankroll is at its highest point ever, as is my overall profit/loss. I have achieved 89 of my 167 goals. Even though I still have a lot of holes to fill, I know my game is good and that confidence makes it better. Without further ado, here is my current list of goals, as of 17/05/2009. Since I had to backfill some of the goals, the dates are not 100% accurate, but they are close. I also have a lot of tournament summaries yet to import into PokerTracker, so many of my in-progress SNG/MTT goals have actually been completed.

The quest never ends, though. As I hit some goals, I add others. Some goals I have removed from the list, deeming them unnecessary or pointless. The total number changes, but my percentage of completed goals increases slightly with each one I achieve. This may not work for everyone, but for me it has helped my game immensely. Feel free to create your own goal lists, or even steal mine verbatim. And I would be interested to hear if any of you have any suggestions for goals that I may have missed.

And finally, I'd like thank the whole CardsChat gang. Had I not done that google search for "why is pokertracker not ^*%!*&!$% working" (or something like that), I never would have found the site, and I wouldn't be half the player I am today.

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Nice Post, PokerVic - I am definitely going to be writing down some goals for my own game after reading this. And, sticking to games, levels that I am profitable in.
Good Luck on the rest of those goals !!

Nice post! But why don't you have 133-136 if you have 137?

Finaly my curiosity is cured .

Some pretty intresting goals and looks like your doing a good job achiving them.

Good luck with the rest of your goals and thanks for sharing.

Because I didn't expect to final table a big MTT so soon. It'd take some the fun out of playing the smaller field ones if I wiped out all the goals at once. Plus, I'm adding a "win an MTT" goal for each size grouping after I make a final table. (hence 139 and 140)

So technically, 137 should read "Make a final table in an MTT between 2500 and 4999 players." It doesn't make a lot of sense, but that's the way I do it. I do think I have one too many groupings, though. Between 1000-1500 is unnecessary.

Congrats on the 750th Post, and it is a great 1, i have not read the article yet but as i start to get more time on my hands i will also begin to read it and start my own goals..

Excellent Post

Congrats on you 750th post VIC

Thanks for sharing your poker goals with us

You've done a great job achieving many of them good luck on achieving the rest

cool list pokervic, will you continue to add to these?

EDIT sorry just read the top bit

Cool. My goals change as I go along,.... too hard to even predict what I might think I'd want to be achieving down the road here where I sit today. I'd like to think I'd be a reg. in online MTT's avg.buyin $100, playing a volume of perhaps a dozen per week. (knowing too though, without the volume this will be difficult to get to or to stay at). Hoping to do so by late 2009. Who knows though... by then perhaps I'll be wanting to play a dozen per day?? (or none at all, lol).

Nice job of being diligent. There's a lot of tracking/goal setting/reviewing/studying that should be a part of any but the most casual poker player's practice. I think most of us are not diligent enough with them.

CONGRATs on your 750th post

Man you really take this game seriously to do all that stuff, I play for fun & all that doesn't look like fun HaHa Looks like work to me

Thanks for all the support, gang.

As for the work, it's not all that much. I'm tracking my ring and tourney results anyway. Once a week or so, I'll comb through my active goals and run a few filters through PT to see if I've completed any. Then, at the end of the month I'll check for any monthly goals.

Like I said, it's not for everyone, but I guess I'm a bookkeeper at heart.

Wow PokerVic...very impressive and interesting. I bet all your socks are lined up in a row in your sock drawer Am I right??? Good luck with remaining goals

Vic this has helped in more ways than you can imagine.

I have been feeling, I guess for lack of a better word, lost when it comes to my poker game as of late. I cashed out a lot of my money and decided that I would start from the ground up again to work my way back instead of just jumping back in

After reading this and your blog you have definitely inspired me to create my own list in order to always keep things in perspective + keep my head in the right direction. It's just so easy to play poker and not really think about where you want to take it, but having these goals really seems to help with the focus.

Thanks

The screenshots are from a plain-old Excel spreadsheet. I got the idea for a few from that CC article (linked above), and the rest I came up with myself. It's changed quite a bit from the start. For instance, the poker book goals were just recently added.

In the spreadsheet I've got a tab for my bankroll (PS account and FPP balance tracked daily), one for my goals (seen above), another for tracking my FPP earnings (ie, how many sats I've played, and the T$ value of them, and another tab for a selection of incredibly ugly graphs.

Beau Akita, my socks are usually on the floor. I'm only this neat in the digital world.