[MeridianFC]

Before you get to caught up in the poker record keeping you should first sit yourself down and address the fundamental question:

Why do you play poker?

The vast majority of people play poker as a form of recreation. As long as you're playing within your means, losses (or wins for that matter) shouldn't matter all that much. Losses can be chalked up to the cost of a night out. Wins, well that's just gravy. It's still a good idea to have a bankroll and try to maintain it.

Now if you really enjoy your poker and want to get better, you'll want to analyze your play to see if you are in fact improving. No different than any other avocation, the difference is with poker improvement is measured with dollars rather than a stopwatch or handicap.

The third level is if you want to actually use poker to supplement your income or to be your primary source, in which case you need to keep scrupulous records. Read books, play all the time, etc.

Now as far as where you're at. $320 down over 6 months is not that bad (sure it ain't a picnic either), with the big caveat that your income relative to that number is very important. If that's your beer money you're doing fine (as a matter of fact you're not spending enough on beer). If this is cutting into rent, food, tuition, or other essentials you need to re-evaluate. Also it seems like you're doing a lot of tournaments where the upside is very big (if you win) but there's a lot of downside; don't place you get nada. Cash game play is a bit different in this respect. It's more likely you'd end a session down but not down to the felt (though that too is a possibility).

In short as long as your money situation is ok I wouldn't sweat it. Everyone crawls before they walk. You're not going to be raking in an extra $100 a week if you've only been playing for 6 months. I know it's tempting to look at the schlubs on t.v. who wins $1,000,000 having turned a $2 buy in online tourney investment to riches having only played poker for 15 minutes, instead pay attention to the thousands upon thousands of folks not on tv who turn $1000 into nothing playing all year long.