God, has it really been this long?

I can't believe I haven't posted in my poker blog since June. Wow! I guess that was near the time that life got a little rocky and obviously I never got back on track. Well, I've still been playing poker, at least for a few months after that. I have taken a break though from October until now. I guess with all the stuff that has gone on, that it's only been now that I've been ready. I had been just playing a lot of roguelike games lately, and then I thought to myself, if I'm going to invest this kind of time into a video game, why not just invest it into poker? Plus, I still have all that money sitting on various poker sites.

Roguelikes and poker are similar in many ways. For one, you can lose hours worth of work just by making a boneheaded mistake. Another way they're similar is that they both take hours of study to even get close to beating it. The biggest similarity that poker and roguelikes have is that they're the hardest games to beat, period. I take from this that I obviously have a penchant for challenges and an unquestionable desire for masochism.

So now that I'm back, I think the way I want to do this is set some soft goals for myself. I need something to motivate me, because whether I'm winning or losing, it's hard for me to get the motivation to play. Instead, I'll just study poker hardcore (which isn't totally a bad thing) or troll the Two Plus Two boards. So, I think having something to strive for will be good. So here it is, this month's poker goals.

Poker Goals : (February 8th - March 8th)

Total Hands Player: 3,000 (Pretty modest. About 35 hours of play if I just single table it, but I am planning on adding another table again soon once I get back into the swing of things)

Winrate: 2 BB/100 hands (modest again, but what's important is to post a winning month)

What To Watch For: Keep watching out for my nemesis hand, pocket jacks. I feel good playing in just about any situation and with any other pocket pair, but I always tend to overplay and subsequently get burned with this hand. I already made a pretty big mistake with this hand this month, but that's kind of a just-getting-back-into-poker tradition.

Well, that's it for this month. I will undoubtedly see some things to add next month after a month back at the tables. Wish me luck!