Predictions....

So last time I set a goal it was to play 30 hours online and win $5000 in a week. It has been two weeks since I set that goal and I am just now to the point where I have profited $5,000 online. I don't know how many hours I played in that time, but I am sure it was more than 30 and it took me longer than the week it was supposed to.

Recently, I have been talking to a few different really successful poker players whose approach to the game I respect a lot. We discussed a lot of stuff that was very interesting to me, but I was really surprised at how much money these guys claimed to have won and also how much they said they had spent on unnecessary things during their poker careers. I like to spend my fair share of money, but I have nowhere near the spending problems that these guys have. I feel like these players that I have been talking to are all great players, but I don't feel like they are THAT much better than I am. This line of thinking raised a few questions for me.

1. Why have they won so much more money than me?
2. How can they still have so much money despite outlandish spending habits when I have relatively low spending habits?
3. What makes them so much better than me?

Thinking about all of these questions made me realize that my work ethic and/or desire to make serious money is way lower than all of theirs. When I say serious money I mean the kind of money that goes above and beyond what it takes to live the very comfortable lifestyle that I currently live. These guys are all grinders that play way more hours than I do and at higher stakes. I feel like I am certainly good enough to beat the stakes that they are playing, but I don't want to put in the time to get comfortable playing those same stakes. I have moved up in limits since I moved to Vegas, but it has been an amazingly slow progression (in my opinion). I remember feeling incredibly uncomfortable when I was trying to move up and become a regular 2/4 NL player online. I felt totally exposed and as though I was playing my hands face up. I felt the same way when I tried to move up by taking shots at the 5/10 NL live games. I played so tight that it was almost impossible for me to book a winning session without putting a huge cooler on one of my oponents. Now I feel like I am the best player in any 2/4 NL game online or 5/10 NL live game that I play in and couldn't be more comfortable than I am in either of those games. This is getting to be a bit of a ramble, but it boils down to the fact that if I want to make serious money I need to make a serious effort at putting in more hours at higher limit games. I simply have to get more comfortable playing these higher stakes to make the kind of money I know I am capable of. Hopefully, I am going to start playing some more 10/20 NL live and a lot more 5/10 NL online.

Today, I felt like I played really awesome online and had some good results to show for it. I ended up winning a little over $3,000 online and over $1200 live. It feels good to have a $4,200 day and I think that shouldn't be too uncommon for me if I am able to get comfortable playing these higher stakes.

I predicted to Matt today that I can feel a big 2-3 week heater coming up and that today was going to be the start of it (this was predicted early in my online session today). I am really going to try to cram as much poker as I can in for the next two weeks solid and see if I can put up some of the types of figures these guys were talking about making. I am setting a lofty goal for myself of making $20,000 before October 11th. It will be very hard to get there, but I feel like it can be done. I always set goals that I know are very attainable, but this time I am purposely setting one that is very difficult and should I reach it I will feel a real sense of accomplishment.

So if I count today as my start this is how my progress towards $20K in 2 weeks looks:
Online: +$3,051
Live: +$1224
Total: +$4,275
Amount needed to reach goal: $15,725