Year End Review and an Exciting New Year to Looking

Well last year wasn’t my most productive year in poker, at least not in the way of dollars made. Between our new baby and moving to a new home, my free time was utterly drained between wife, baby, moving, and “real” work. That being said, still another profitable and productive year.

My poker:
In terms of performance, I ended the year fairly strong. I had a positive finish in 7 out of my last 8 months, included my last 3 in a row. While my games/hours had dropped this year, I am now pretty well settled and expect to gradually put in more time and effort into my games. I also finished the year at my highest average buyin level pretty much ever at $141 average buyin per game/(sit in go). Most of my focus has been $150-200 double up sit in go tournaments in which 5 out of 10 players get double their money back when the first 5 get eliminated. I’ve been tearing these up pretty well cashing about 57-60%. That might not seem all that great, but I would venture to say it is in the highest ranks for that limit. Going into next year I have got my niche pretty well figured out for now.  I will also probably play 1 or 2 events at the WSOP again this year depending on this success and hopes I should have a renter for my condo.

Here is my latest qoute from the David Apostolico’s book based off Sun-Tzu war strategies “Tournament Poker and the Art of War”: “Now the general who wins a battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses a battle makes few calculations beforehand. Thus do many calculations lead to victory and few calculations lead to defeat: how much more no calculation at all! It is by attention to this point that I can forsee who is likely to win or lose.

This year I also rarely had time to research my and my opponents play hand-by-hand. This year I hope to work out a few more leaks with my increasing spare time.

My buddy “dawgonu” has had a great year as well, cashing in some big tournaments and improved the leaks in his game all around. He has already won a trip to play in the Aussie Millions in a couple weeks and I expect us both to have another great year.

My poker related investments:
I plan on buying another 37″+ TV to use as a 4th monitor and get a Verizon hi-speed internet plugin as a backup internet connection. I’d also like to get a heavy duty power backup “UPS” that could endure any long lasting power outages. Typically it’s not a problem here in sunny CA, but it has happened before and if I’m playing 3 $200 tournaments and registered in 2 more and I lose power, I could potentially easily lose $1,000 and my short term sanity!! Too me it’s worth the investments.

My financial investments:
I pretty much cashed out all my stocks last year so I could take off 3 months of work to support my wife during her pregnancy. This was a very good decision, obviously for the time spent with my wife and coincidentally the stock market has plunged over 30% since then. I hope this years’ success will give me an opportunity to rebuild that account and hopefully by then the markets have turned around.

My real job:
As with most people, my real job is not something I love with all my heart, but it pays the bills in a time where people are getting laid off, so I can’t complain. I’d love to quit and play full-time, but it makes sense to keep doing what I’m doing. To me it’s like paid exercise during a time in the day when my favorite game doesn’t fill well anyways. I actually like doing my job which has me talking to alot people I’ve known quite a while and I get to drive around and do things on my own schedule in my company car. The only real downside is dealing with increasing administrative work and catching heat from management, especially over things you don’t have much control and rarely getting any kind of compliments for a job well done the other 99% of the time. So I’ll keep on for now until I am able to line up a better scenario.

My family:
Despite my desire to play poker 24/7 365 days a year, I realize if I want to at least maintain my current routine I will continue to try to be a good dad and helper around the house. While it makes obvious sense based on my results $ per hour etc., my wife still has a hard time seeing my time playing poker as equal to time working my real job or helping around the house. She says she understands, but when I’m sitting in a tournament with hundreds or thousands of dollars at stake and the baby is crying or the house is a mess, etc., you can tell it goes right out the window. In a way I can understand and unless I am asking for a divorce, I have just got to deal with it. I am young and already have more than most people twice my age and am very grateful to have a nice home, good family, good wife and blessed with a healthy child.

My Poker blog:
I started this blog less than a year ago with no experience or expectations what so ever. I didn’t really expect to make much money off of this, but I’m glad I am able have my experiences documented and at least do something positive for others with all the experience I have in this way of life. I expect to do more reviews on mostly poker related stuff and continue to network myself around and get to know more people in the industry. I do enjoy writing but since it is something I don’t really get paid for, I prefer to use my valuable free time to play. I do hope to continue to improve my content and have gotten some good comments and advice this year.

All in all I think I’m in a great spot to have a good year. The only obstacle I really see is my playing time is still at a part-time level, which should at least continue to improve with time and set me up to have a spectacular year hopefully by 2010.  Time will tell my fate I guess. Good luck at the tables. Please keep the feedback coming (email, comments, and questions). Donkeyherder