Friday 1 January 2010

Goodbye 09, Hello 2010

Happy New Year!

2009... Not my best poker year ever. I've struggled in both finding motivation to play and in running well. The two probably go hand in hand somewhat!

I've always been a tournament player at heart however have for some reason lost the will/ability to play the bigger mtt's. Even now that im back into the swing of playing sngs, i rarely feel like playing mtts. I feel a little lost almost with them and quickly find myself asking why i bothered buying into it as i cant be bothered to play and just donking off my chips, the first reasonable excuse i get to do so... Its quite frustrating as i learned my poker game in the MTT's and have got some reasonable scores over the years. I just cant motivate myself for any length of time.

Ive even dabbled in cash games this year and do for some unknown reason plan to do so again in 2010 at some point... Despite never getting on with them! If i can learn to love them though, i can see an easier and more flexible 'grind' with better long term profits. This won't be till later on in the year i'd imagine though as i need to build up a healthy roll in the sngs first!
Ive played the sngs consistently throughout the year and especially towards the end of the year. Its obviously where ive concentrated all my efforts and can see that being the case for most of 2010. Ive made a reasonable profit in November and a lackluster profit in December but thats down to being pretty lazy and not playing for half the month and also a prelonged breakeven stretch as i'll come onto in a minute...

so to summarise... 2009 was largely a write off play wise apart from a couple of good months in the summer and a reasonable end to the year once i discovered i could multitable sngs profitably so didnt have to play 4 tables max at a time anymore! lol Ive learned a lot in the latter part of the year and i think it sets me up for a good and profitable 2010.

2009 Total Profits: +$4723.71

Hardly anything to write home about but not too shabby considering how much i played for most of the year.

Sharkscope graph - Pokerstars, all games 2009.


Most of the sngs i played on Stars have been from the last 2 months of 2009 and 2 months ago i was actually down $250 for the year!

As for December, So much for me making Platinum star... I quickly realised i wasn't putting in enough volume so just had a quietish month and hit goldstar again a few days before christmas and then pretty much took the rest of the month off apart from the odd game here and there for fun. The last few days ive had a nightmare with internet connection. Im only getting speeds of 0.13 mb/s so im waiting for a BT mechanic to come out on Saturday to hopefully put it right! I'm 95% sure its not my pc or router as ive tried a new router, changed every setting and piece of hardware under the sun and checked the speed through various other means with no joy. As a result its meant ive got no confidence in the connection so dont want to do any multitabling which is going to delay my start to 2010 grinding a little!

Once again, i have no Holdem Manager graphs to post as they're split over pcs... Im hoping to upgrade my setup very shortly so if i get around to it in Jan i may end up with split graphs again. Im sure putting them together is possible but it seems like far too much hardwork! lol

December Totals: +$574.55

Although i did lose a $100 in that prop bet with my friend which ive not included which does drag my actual profit for the month down even more which is quite worrying!

so...

Plans for 2010..

With business not going too well in the current climate im not sure what that spells for the future of my company so im kinda expecting to end up taking the plunge into becoming a full time poker player as opposed to just a rec player (even if i do spend more time playing these days than i do working) this year. As a result, im starting 2010 with the mind set that poker is my main source of income. Luckily, my girlfriend of 6 years is fully supportive aslong as i can bring in atleast a couple hundred a week at the moment as her jobs quite well paid so its not as if i starve if i fail. I just have to get a real job. This is not in the plan though as i dont do failing :)

I'm going to play almost exclusively at Pokerstars grinding sngs, as ive been trialing for the past 2 months.

I plan to shoot for Supernova this year. It should be achievable with some commitment... We'll just have to wait and see how that goes at the moment as a year in the poker world is a long time indeed. Many things can happen in the space of 12 months so fingers crossed they'll be of the good variety!

GL in 2010, See you at the tables!

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