Hello everyone, 

I am 30 years old and started playing poker seriously (strong hobby) starting at the end of January.  I still have a full time job that pays well, but I've been pretty slow at work lately and can work from home.  The last time I really played poker was when I played sit n gos and tiny cash games in college (2005-2006) when I was a broke college kid paying for some extra cash on partypoker and absolute. My biggest win back then was a $22 multi table tournament for $400 (1st out of 81 ish).  I actually didn't play much on stars or fulltilt since the easier games seemed to be on party poker.

Here's what i'm looking for:

1) Review of my performance year to date and discussion of my learning plan I've set for myself?  My biggest interest is bigger MTTs but I know I will and do lose most of these, live and online.  I live in Chicago and so Bovada is the only place I play online.  I play mostly live at Horseshoe in Hammond, Indiana.  I've been trying to take every opportunity to play live in MTTs, trying to ignore the relatively high cost of learning.  Fortunately, I am playing with house money as I continue to learn.

2) Discussion on my area of focus. This could be based on results or just exploration of my goals (not sure what they are besides become better and better).  I have a very detailed log of every single session from Jan 20th- April 20th.  

3) What kind of coaching plan I could sign myself up for?   My winnings aren't huge, for now I'm really looking for guidance as I start out on playing more seriously.  I have three 4 figure scores, and one 3 digit score from MTTs and I am eager to increase that to regular 4 and 5 digit wins over time.

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So far this year, I've been on an absolute grind.  When I am not playing, I am reading books, reading forums, watching videos, discussing hands etc.  I have kept a log of every single game and tournament I played since January 20th (very rusty and was restarting my poker muscle memory- whatever litte I had).

Jan 20-31- started playing cash games and some online

Feb 1-25 – grinded 105 hours of cash games and qualified for a 100k free roll for the Chicago Poker classic for the top 100 players in hours played (1-2NL, 2-5NL, and 1-2 PLO).  I ended up getting 18th/100, a $2000 CPC main event seat and $500 cash. Top 10 received 5k in tournament tokens (I forget what they're called) and $600 cash.  That's why even though I lost money grinding, it ended up being worthwhile for me.

In february I managed to win a 30k ($55) guarantee for a 6.8k score which has funded a lot of my play since.  I wasn't going to play poker that day (at least not cash), but I took a nap and shipped it.  I was 1-tabling here.

March 1-31- I played event 1 x 3, event 9 x 3, and main event, and final event (giving away WSOP Main event seats) and was not able to cash any of them.  I did bubble 2 of them though.  My goal wasn't to min cash, but to give myself the best chance to make a deep run.  This was quite disappointing but I was very encouraged by the way i played and the unlucky situations that was required to bust me out.  The experience was great.  

April 2-5- I flew to vegas and played poker all weekend long.  I averaged $30 an hour on 1/2NL, and played the Aria daily tournament (great structure) and only $125 (10k chips, 30 min levels). I figured this was the most cost-effective way to practice live tournament play that wasn't essentially a turbo.  I was able to chop it 8 ways (blinds got too big) on the 4th attempt for $1.4k score, which netted about $1k in 4 tries. 

For the most part this month, I've just continued playing online tournaments and starting to play higher quantities.  My only other wins are a 1st in a 2k ($16.50) guarantee, and a 2nd in a 5k ($44 buyin) guarantee last week ($1k).

I am very hard working and determined.  I need a coach to just guide me and work with me on accelerating my learning.

Thanks for your time and appreciate the replies to both this post and the general forum posts.

Madpenguin