Results for week 5/13-5/19

Results for 5/13-5/19
-$12.80  Profit or loss from tournaments
     0.89  Rakeback
     1.00  Bonus
 --------
-$10.91

I can't be a winner every week.  I still have a good shot at a $100 month.  There is a part of me that doesn't even like to put down weekly results, because it's such a small sample size that it doesn't mean a whole lot.  But I put down weekly number for a couple reasons.

1. It's a blog.  No one is going to follow a poker blog when they only see numbers once a month.  Eventually I'll start talking more about good or bad days, milestones, and other things that happen inside of a month, but that's for my readers (including my wife), not for me.

2. It's a benchmark to which readers can relate.  Weeks are something that everyone understands.  Most people get paid every week, or every two weeks.  And my current poker site, americascardroom,com, posts rakeback amounts once a week.

I've done a very good job of training myself not to care about short-term results, so much so that it probably drives my wife a little nuts.  I'll be in the office for a few hours, come out and watch TV or eat dinner without saying a word to my wife about what happened and how I did--because I know I can't even think about short-term results.  In fact, a lot of poker players train themselves not to think about results at all.

I'm pretty close to having that mindset, and once I have enough of a bankroll to generate some income, unless I get a really big tournament score, I will barely care about how I do.  That may sound strange, but I know that poker is a high-variance game.  Some have estimated that it's about 80% skill and 20% luck.  Another way to put that is that 20% of the time, what happens is beyond my control--I either get good cards or I don't.  I'm at an unusually soft table or I'm not.  I can't control any of that.

Of course, I won't have tough tables all the time, and I won't get bad cards all the time. That's why poker is a long-term game, and you absolutely can't have a short-term mindset.  Right now I don't worry about days or weeks, but my monthly numbers are a little more important to me than they should be.  I'm really anxious to get enough of a bankroll that I can play the games I really want to play, take more chances, and relax and not worry about having a losing week or two, because I know I have the bankroll to ride out the storms.  I never had a real bankroll before, and I'm really excited that that admittedly short-term goal is in sight.