November Summary

In some ways, November was a non-event for poker.  I am overloaded with work stuff -- thankfully pretty interesting -- and towards the end of the month with the holiday season getting underway.  That resulted fewer hands than normal, and I don't play a lot of hands to start with.  I also made very little time for anything other than session reviews:  two videos, almost zero forum activity, very few blog entries and comments (sorry, guys!), etc.  

Actually, on that last one...if I've ever made a comment on your blog, I have  been keeping up with it (Google Reader FTW), but I'm doing most of my blog reading on an iPhone, which makes it harder to leave comments.  As things slow down, I should have more time to check from my PC instead, so hopefully I'll be able to comment.  But, I am at least reading!

OK, back to the summary.  Even though the number of hands is few, I have got my game back on track.  I had slipped into some semi-bad habits after running like crap for a bit, and I was making a cold stretch significantly worse than it had to be.  One of those bad habits was slacking off with my own hand analysis, including sending a few to Jared each time.  We used one coaching session for a PT/replayer review.  For those of you with coaches, I would really suggest you dedicate a session to review every once in a while.  Had some hands in that review that I would not have thought to single out for comments for one reason or another, but which I was misplaying.  It underscores one of the reasons I think a coach (or mentor, if you've got a good poker network) is so valuable...we all have blind spots.  So now, even though it cuts even more into my playing time, for the most part, I am not starting a new session until I've done at least a cursory review of the prior one.

I'm still off my bankroll high by about the same percentage as my 401(k) plan is off its portfolio high (boo!), but my immediate prospects are good, if I can maintain my review and play discipline.  Hopefully this month I will have some time for a few more videos, as I've got a few tagged I would really like to study.  For now though, I have to turn my attention back away from poker because there are a couple monthly work project updates that need doing.