Results for week of 2/27-3/5

HOURS
Administrative  2.50
Study                     5.75
Playing               32.00
                              --------
                               40.25

I hit all of my goals except for getting 35 hours of playing time in.  I was on my way to doing that when I suddently got very tired around 8 P.M. on Saturday.  I've had jobs where I worked long hours and I got very tired, but poker is different.  If I get tired and make bad decisions playing poker, it immediately costs me money.  With a small bankroll, I can't take risks like that.

Fortunately, I control my own hours, so I can sleep whenever I'm tired, and play whenever I'm not.

PROFIT AND LOSS
Starting bankroll $50.64
Ending bankroll  $53.04
                                    --------
                                +$2.40

Not much of a profit, but I'm at least going in the right direction, and I'm learning something new, or getting better at at least one aspect of poker, every week.  So, on to a new feature of this blog:

WHAT I LEARNED, OR WHERE I IMPROVED
My work habits are getting better.  To someone who is self-employed and has ADD, this is a pretty big deal.  I have two areas on which I'm working.

1. Not getting distracted between sessions.  It's still way too easy for me to go off on a tangent when I'm not playing.  After I eat, I'm just going to catch the news headlines on TV, then when I check my E-mail I see an interesting news story, which has a link to another news story--and then it's two hours later, and I'm still not back to playing.  That happened to me once last week--I lost two hours where I really didn't do much of anything.  If I want to watch TV or do something else, that's fine, but when I just blow off two hours when I intended to play poker, that shows a problem on which I need to keep working.

I'm getting more disciplined in this area, but it's happening slowly.  One of the things I've done is reduce the number of TV series that I'm following.  I decided not to watch White Collar or Royal Pains any more, and I really liked both of those shows.  But until disciplined use of my time becomes more natural to me, I'll have to continue to impose a lot of structure to make it happen.

2. Not getting distracted during sessions.  I'm doing much better in this area.  I've had several sessions this month where I played with no breaks for five or more hours at a time.  A couple times last week when I did get a little bored or frustrated, I stayed in the office and took a short study break on the computer, either on twoplustwo.com or on another site such as thinkingpoker.com. or another blog by one of the top professional players.