Past, Present, and Future

OK, I said I would give a rundown of how 2009 went for me but I'll try to do it without getting overly detailed or turning this into a brag/look-at-me post. Those of you that have known me for a while probaly know I'm fairly modest in reality and in fact I'm still not convinced I'm all that good at poker. Still, I think it;ll be good for me to review where I started from and up to where I am now. Perhaps this should have been done sooner but but better late than never.

Like most, I started by dumping a few bucks onto a poker site and playing here and there. I started with limit cash games and did fine. As with most things I start to do I wanted to "do it right" and learn how to play properly. I found a few sites on the internet and even joined a teaching site called Cardrunners for a couple months. There I learned the basics of 6-max No-Limit cash games and did well playing those also, though I still only played a low volume.

I had seen a couple videos on playing SNGs on Cardrunners and I realized I might like that game more than cash. Eventually I decided to start playing them on Absolute Poker and started at the very bottom with the .60 games. I did very well in them, more likely because the competition sucked more than it was my own skill... I probably was the only guy that a least had a clue.

Naturally I wanted to improve and be able to play the bigger games... like the $5 ones. This is where I contacted Jennifear and had my first lesson with her. Four hours later I realized there was a lot more to this poker than I had ever realized. From this point on is where I began to really take the game more seriously. Lucklily for me I found a great friend in Jen, a friendship that has gone beyond just the poker aspect of things. I'm happy it ended up that way too.

I took another formal lesson with Jen in July of 2008 and this became the "Aha!" moment of my poker career. We covered a lot of the "games beyond the cards" stuff at this point and it just made a lot of things that we had talked about fall into place. There is still a ton of stuff that I can see I still don't fully understand but it was at this point my eyes were really open up wide about how the game works.

In September of 2008 Jen showed me the cashout plan that I've been using and which I've outlined in my plan. The structure of it was a bit looser than it is now but it still gave me an idea of where I was, where I could go, and better yet gave me an idea of how much I could cash out based strictly on how much I played. I never played above my head before, in fact the plan actually helped me understand more where my top-end game actually was (I tend to play too low sometimes... which is better than too high, but whatever).

My bankroll had climbed to around $750 from the $100 I started with at this point. As I played more and used the plan I had I managed to not only cash out some of my winnings but grew the roll to just short of $1300 by the end of 2008. A good bit of this was the fact I really played more games than I ever had previously, but I had learned a lot about the game as well.

That brings us to now. Early 2009 was a struggle to be honest, I had doubts as to what I was doing and really had to wonder if I was good at all. Despite that I kept at it and still showed small profits for both January and February and even had won my first MTT during this time. March thru July proved to me that I had some idea of what I was doing and even managed a few larger scores, moving my bankroll to around $3000 with help from a $600 cash in one of the Daily Doubles on FTP at the end of May. Because of the bigger bankroll I was now playing bigger buy-in games than ever before.

In early August I won the Bodog $16.50 turbo for the first time which pushed the BR over $4000. At this time things went south for a while and showed me for the first time that the bigger games truly can produce bigger swings. When you are playing $1 SNGs, a loss of $5 in a day deoesn't seem bad. However, when you sit down and play $500 worth of tournaments overa weekend and end up down most of that it can get downright sickening the first time you suffer throught it.

Come November I saw my roll drop to under $2800 again. Fortuneately I was still learning what I could from the game and keeping to my "MDFR" mantra. I was constantly checking my play with Jen, Stu, and others to be sure I wasn't the cause of my own demise. Things started to turn around for me at this point and during Thanksgiving weekend I had a huge swing in my favor, winning three different MTTs and ended up profiting close to $2000 in those couple days. Calling this a "confidence builder" might be an understatement but it sure did help knowing that by playing your best all the time, everytime, eventually your luck will catch up with your skill... at least that's what I hope it is.

December started rough but I stuck to it as always and found another big MTT win (as mentioned in my blog already). Which brings us to now, where I stand at a bankroll for a little over $5800. To be honest, I thought getting to about $3000 would have been terrific. Nearly doubling that was far above what I could wrap my mind around at this time last year. In 2008 I had a profit of around $1500, it was $6100 this year, a good chunk of that came in one weekend! Playing tournaments is like that, at least now that I've been through both the ups and downs of it I'll be able to handle them when they come again... and they will.

So here I am, looking to up the ante again by increasing my volume even more than I have in the past. The swings will be bigger but I understand that now. I'll be able to handle whatever comes my way because I have a plan in place. I'm excited about the new year and the challenges it will bring. Let's just hope I can meet those challenges.

Wish me luck! The fun starts in about seven hours. Weeeeeee!

By the way...

I went into my options and I think I have it set up where anyone can leave a comment, it might have been set to where you had to have an account to do so previously. If you have something to say (good, bad, indifferent, silly, whatever) feel free to do so.

I always listen to advice and I'm always open to answering questions of all types. If you would like to know something, just ask me.

Change in The Plan

I've updated my Plan, you can see what I've changed in the first post on this blog. I've decided to make the multi-table SNGs my main grind as opposed to the SNGs. As a few suggested to me, when it comes down to what matters the most is dollars per hour of profit, not so much how much I can cashout in a period of time.

With that in mind I'll be concentrating much more on the 45-man, 180-man, and "larger field" games. This also means I'll probably be trying to play more MTTs on Sundays since I do have more time than on a weekday night. This change will let me play a few smaller scheduled MTTs during the week like the Bodog 16.50T at 7:30. That's usually no larger than a 180-man SNG so I can play that easily.

You will notice I removed the cashout expectation section in the plan. I figured that section was really pointless, especially with the new structure. Some things just can't be plotted out from point to point. The main goal is to play to my planned volume and play it as best I can. From there we're gonna let the chips fall where they may. This strategy has worked for me up until now... why change it?

In the end, I guess I'm really only changing two things. First, I've decided to commit more of my time to poker and I've merely managed my available time to try and maximize my effort. This blog is the second. I'm putting myself out there for everyone to see with the idea of adding more accountability. This is for my own benefit of course. I hope you enjoy what I write but as most humans people tend to try a little harder to do what they say they are going to do when you tell the world what you are going to do... I'm guessing I'm no different.

Those two changes have me pretty excited. I think it'll be a lot of fun playing those games and I've also enjoyed writing this blog... maybe I'm a bit more outgoing than I thought. Well, behind a keyboard maybe. All I know is I can sure ramble on in this thing.

OK, good enough for now. Tonight I'll let everyone know how 2009 went, mostly so I have a place to put the info as my own data backup in the event my stuff goes kapooie or something. Just a warning, I sometimes go overboard with the stats and info so it might be a boring/tedious read. I'll try to keep it simple.

Winding Down

Today might be the last day I'll play for 2009 as I've come to a good stopping point in regards to any bonuses I've cleared and such. I wrapped up my status on UB today and cleared a bonus along the way. The games didn't go quite as well, I was doing fine for most of the day but took two serious beats in my last SNG and ended up down $20 for the set. Played 14 games, four seconds and two thirds and went zero for my last four, which hurt. Played really well, dominated all the bubbles with my aggressive play... but I don't win showdowns I guess.

Decided to throw in a few HUSTs on FTP since I was really close to clearing another $10 of a bonus there and it went well. Was up $18.25 (7-4) in the $7.25 games and even won a $14.50 that I accidently entered for $13.50 more profit, go me! For the day that brought me to $11.75 to the good, not including the bonuses. I'll take it.

If I play at all it might be some stuff on Stars, maybe some of the multi-table SNGs that I've talked about making my main grind in 2010. In fact, I've pretty much decided that is the way I'm gonna go. I may take a little time to redo my 2010 Poker Plan with that change, but it really doesn't matter. The only thing that does matter is that I get in the volume and do the best I can. If I can do that everything else falls into place. I'm really looking forward to it!

All I need to do is tie up the loose ends for 2009. I was able to finish transfering all my 2009 data from Poker Tracker 2 into PT3 so the entire year is in one place now. I'm glad I did, I found a couple data entry boo-boos along the way. I'll go ahead and request a payout with my rakeback site, claim any points-for-cash that I can on UB and Bodog, and then go ahead and run all the numbers and see how 2009 fared for me. I'll make my final cashout for the year and start nice and fresh on Friday the 1st of January. I'll give a nice rundown of all that for my final entry for the year.

Until then, its off to do something else. Probably the XBox. Who knows. :)

Tuesday afternooon SNGs

Took advantage of the "Power Hour" on UB for the double points and played another 10-game set of $22T SNGs. At first a saw a couple regulars but toward the end they seemed to go away... either that or I was lucky enough to miss their games. I'd rather play people who don't have an idea of what they are doing.

Was a solid session, picked up three wins, a second, and a third for $140 to the good. Need another set of ten to keep my status, I'll likely do that tomorrow afternoon. Looks like I might just have a shot at the monthly TLB top 100 and qualifying for the freeroll again... we'll see. I had a bad stretch of games a couple weeks ago that might have put a hole in my chances. If things look close I'll throw another set of games on Thursday also.

I hear NHL 10 calling me again... seeya. :)

Tuesday AM Report

Yay! Finally a winning session in the HUSTs! Was up $20.50 (17-13) to finally break the losing streak. This also secures Bronze level of Iron Man so I don't have to play them for a couple days if I choose.

I should go to bed but I'm watching my son play Modern Warfare 2 and having a blast... I played a little with him earlier and I just might join him. I really should go to bed however...

Monday HUSTs and SNGs

Took advantage of FTP's 3x Happy Hour to play my HUSTs, lost $6.50 (13-13). I'll beat that rake eventually. I'd complain about all the times I lost with the best hand going in but after yesterday's results I'm not gonna push it.

Fired up UB to play some SNGs and got in 10 of them this evening. One win, two seconds and two thirds made for a $50 profit for the set. Not earth-shattering but a profit is always nice to see. Throw in the Midnight Madness MTT from last night (that was officially on Monday) and we're up $32.50 for the day. Yippee!

Back to the XBox for a bit, then I might see if I can catch up with Jen and watch her play a little, and maybe find a few random games to play myself.

Good luck to everyone else that might be playing... poker or otherwise. :)