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Sometimes you have to play to your strengths, and seeing as though I’ve been winning regularly online for the last year, I thought it best to focus my attentions on my online cash.

Of course, it’s always fun to play a few festivals, but when you are looking to maintain a bankroll, you have to supplement those tourney entry fees via a source of some kind, and eating into my bankroll probably isn’t the best option.

But now, after playing my first session last Thursday instead of taking a potshot at the £500er at the Midland Masters, I’m now back into the swing of things after a 3-4 week hiatus. What’s more, my bankroll is already starting to look healthier, and if I want to stump up the buy-ins for these festivals, then I must make sure that I’m simultaneously sourcing the payment from my online activities at the cash table.

I haven’t published my online results since I started working for blonde (which turned me semi-pro instead of pro), but I suppose there’s no reason why I shouldn’t. So, since recommencing my online career, here’s what’s happened:

Thu 23rd Nov = +$439.19
Fri 24th Nov = +$41.85
Mon 27th Nov = -$81.12
Thu 30th Nov = +$314.97
Fri 1st Dec = +$207.89

So that’s a gross profit of +$922.78 at a rate of $132 per/hour (7 hours).

Although not massive showing for five sessions of $1/2, I feel as though the profit I have churned out this week is due to tweaking the most important skill an online poker player can possess – discipline.

Instead of playing for 2-3 hours, I’m now reducing my session to just 90 minutes. As a result, I have avoided those unforced errors that I was making towards the end of my session.

Of course, a total of 7 hours play isn’t much, but $922.78 per week is more than enough to live off, plus I was hampered by work, the live update at Walsall and entertaining my other (better) half. I’m sure that if I committed to playing a full week, I could easily increase that figure to a few thousand, which wouldn’t be bad for the $1/2 level.

As well as limiting my session time, I feel I am concentrating harder on the game at hand in the sense that I’m not surfing the net simultaneously, chatting to people on msn or watching the box. Also, if I am feeling lack-lustre, then I end the session early, which is what I did on the Monday when I was losing. I was clearly making silly mistakes and uncharacteristically bad judgment errors, so accepted that I wasn’t in the correct frame and mind and simply quit, which is something that I was failing to do previously.

All in all, the key here is that after a huge blip a few weeks ago and a disappointing momentary venture into the tournament arena, I have now returned to winning ways with a new vigour. I feel confident and revitalised and am assured that I am playing well and reading the play better. I have also improved my discipline, which whilst strong, was always vulnerable to hitting the odd hurdle.

Now, if I could just find the time to play more sessions…