The $2/$4 Spreadsheet

Six months ago my struggle with micro poker was interrupted by the sudden, shocking arrival of paid employment. Although it's hardly a well-paid job (agency rates, folks) it certainly sucked the point out of scrabbling around at the 10c/20c tables for a few bucks here and there. So my poker account lay dormant, apart from one night when I got a bit drunk, took my $20 to a no limit table, lost it all, bought in for another $15 and lost that too.

However, the job's been ticking along reasonably well, I've managed to save a bit of money, and it occurred to me that I might throw some of it at the poker tables. The aim of my micro-poker adventure had always been to earn enough to play $2/$4 limit holdem - hardly high stakes, but that's the point at which a winning game can deliver a useful income supplement (say, $100 a week, if you double-table). Maybe I could use some of my savings to jump straight to the main event without having to grind my way up from virtually nothing....

Now, a bankroll for $2/$4 is about $600-$800 (£400-£600) and although I didn't have that kind of cash at my disposal there was no reason why I couldn't buy in for £100 and see how it went. If I lost the hundred I could either give up or wait until I had another £100 and take another shot. If my total losses reached £400 it would probably be time to admit that the game was too tough for me and take up bus-spotting instead.

So with this rough-and-ready plan in mind, I spent a couple of weeks watching the $2/$4 tables at PokerStars and making notes on the various players (Stars has an excellent feature that allows you to do this; if you make a note it's there to be read whenever that player's at your table). I also set up an Excel spreadsheet to track my progress. You can't play poker and not have a spreadsheet. In fact, creating a spreadsheet is one of the main reasons to play poker in the first place. It's all about the spreadsheet, poker. Spreadsheet.

Sorry, I got side-tracked. Anyway, after work on Monday night last week, I clutched my debit card nervously in my hand and forked out the hundred quid. That gave me just over $160 which, serendipitously, was a standard amount for two sessions of $2/$4. So at one minute past midnight on 1 May I started to play. Since then I've clocked up about 32 hours at the tables (that's "table-time", rather than "real time" - one hour playing at two tables counts as two hours; in real time I've probably played about 20 hours) and so far things have gone pretty well. There's certainly been some ugly sessions along the way, but the overall trend is     gratifyingly upward.

An extract from the spreadsheet is below. I can't get the formatting quite right, but the basic info's there. If you want to see it properly, it is here (I find it views better if you're logged into Hotmail). I'll keep you posted, probably about once a week.