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You may remember that I started this blog back on Jan1 as an aid to my record-keeping for my poker P&L. Not that I intended to necessarily put up detailed records on the blog, but as a part of a disciplined approach to keeping score it seemed a useful idea.

That was before I realised that I was going to decide to retire to play poker. And when I made that decision, I was in limbo between the old-way where poker was clearly 100% recreational and the new-world where I certainly wanted to be in profit. So I suspended accounting during February.

I won't feel mentally totally ready to be in the new-mode until I have actually left work but I have decided that March 1st will be the start of the new accounting era.

Part of the reason is that I am going (almost certainly anyway) to play in the London leg of the GUKPT - starts 6th March. That is a significant expense (£1,060 buy-in) and I suppose I might play some cash at the Vic whilst I'm there.

A tournament buy-in of this size is clearly to come out of my "professional" poker bankroll so I may as well get back into good habits.

Of course it's a shame that this means I will very likely start in the red. It is accepted that even the best pros cash in at most 20% of tournaments and as a matter of fact, 90% of the runners are guaranteed to come away with nothing.

Although I have not kept records this month, I think I'm roughly even (so that probably means somewhat down). I was up until last night when I took a big hit playing Omaha at the club.

I was really never on my game. I put this down to mentally still thinking about a hand that came up in the tournament earlier.

It was the regular £75 freezeout and I arrived about 25minutes late so I had lost 225 chips off my starting 4,000 stack.

I had decided that I would play very aggressively and as I sat down, I announced to the table that I was going to raise every hand. Fortunately, my first hand was on the button (the flip side is that it means I had just missed my blinds) which was obviously ideal for this purpose.

I picked up 83o and duly raised to 4xBB and picked up the pot.

Next hand A2. 2 limpers. I raised, and got 2 callers. Flop was something like T85. Whatever. Checked to me and I bet 2/3 of the pot and took it down.

Next hand, I only called and folded on the flop.

THEN, I picked up Aces. Fantastic ! An EP player limped for 100, I raised to 400. One of the blinds called and now the original limper re-raised to 1,300 total.

Well, I don't think I have EVER not re-raised pre-flop with Aces but I have been thinking lately that I do need to do that occasionally so as not to give my hand away. Plus, I thought there was some chance the other caller might re-raise behind (he does that kind of thing).

In any event, I decided to flat call and hope this was a better way to get the limper's whole stack.

The 3rd player folded and so we saw a flop heads-up. 22J.

I am slightly worried that he can have JJ but it seems most likely I still am miles ahead. He checks to me and I bet 1,500. He dwells up and calls. In fact, he now has only 800 left so it's obviously going in no matter what. The turn was a Jack which was a pretty bad card but I bet it anyway and he calls.

Over go the cards -- some ooh's and aah's at my monster holding. But the other fella shows 22 for flopped quads !!

I think it may be a while before I flat call with Aces again ....