Thought I'd recap how my first "real money" day playing poker went, in case anyone is still listening to me raving about this topic.

So I started the day with $5.10.

Put $1.15 into a tournament... lost it.
Put $0.25 into a tournament... lost it.
Put $0.25 into a tournament... lost it.

So at this point I'm thinking... maybe tournaments aren't for me. I decide to take my remaining $3.45 and put it into ring games (cash tables where people can come and go freely,) as I generally make a lot more money at these.

So I look for tables where the other players have about $1 - $3 each, I don't want to go to a table where everyone has $10 and pushing me around. I find a couple nice tables and split my remaining money two ways: I put $2 on one table, and $1.45 onto another. Before long (like 10 minutes or so), I had worked myself up to $2.76 on one table and decided it was probably time to cash out.

Then tragedy struck.

Normally I'm used to playing with fake money in large amounts, like having $400 or $2,000 in front of me, so when I'm betting it's big rounded integers like $50, $100 at a time. It takes quite a bit of effort going from that, to betting fractions of a dollar. Anyway long story short, I had $1.70 at this table and I accidentally hit $0.50 instead of $0.05. BIG FUCKING DIFFERENCE. Lesson learned the hard way. My opponent takes this as a signal to go all-in for the $0.30 he has left, I really have no option to call... leaving me with about $0.60. I managed to get that back up to $1.03 before deciding to cash out for the night.

So I started with $5.10, and now I'm left with $3.79 *shakes fist @ tournaments* Never again.

What will happen tomorrow? Stay tuned!

Goals for tomorrow:
1. Don't go broke.
2. Get myself back above $5. Best case scenario, get myself above $10 where I can start to play comfortably and afford to lose once or twice.