2009?

Well, it's here, and it's pretty darned real. For the first time I'm doing a new years resolution. In fact several. I'll keep this blog about the poker parts, but sufficed to say poker played a part in a few points.

I'll start by discussing 2008 very briefly. January I joined Cardrunners for the videos and thought that was a big step. I really wasn't playing the game well at all, and I can now explain why, even if I still can't explain how to play "really well". By about March or April I had improved enough to be consistantly beating any game I played in, even if small. I then started finding bonus sites and soft games, and my bankroll steadily climbed, reaching $2.5K. I started withdrawing money, and getting up the courage to grind NL100, which I had played just a bit, when I fell into HU. I ran pretty good and with bonuses and playing made it to about $3.5K roll, ready to grind either $55 HU SNG's or $100 cash games. Unfortunately, my ideas of how to play were still rather immature. I only managed to keep my bankroll from freefalling, but consistantly lost money, and then mixed in drunken play and ... Cashed out, grinded again from at one point about $17 I think. I since added a couple of hundred, but overall, have won since then every month, with strong winrates, and a really improved game, after admitting to some pretty massive leaks.

So I won't actually repeat my resolution, but will put a list of goals together. So the first point is to look at what turned my game around. It was definitely playing the game, and not the money system. There is a secondry lure around the rebates sites give you. Your winrate is this + rakeback. So if I play a lot, or a lot of tables, then my rakeback improves, and I can get away with winning less. Only, if you 6 table, when you should only 2 table, you will lose far more in one poorly played pot each hour than you will get in total rakeback, so you really must be on top of the grinding ability before deciding it's an easy way to make money. Likewise grinding higher rakeback games like turbo HU or multitabling SNG's. It's possible to win big and get great rakeback, but make sure you are a winner there before chasing the big rakeback. Now I will definitely still chase bonuses, but not to the point where I know I'm a losing playing trying to chase it. Maximising profit means playing the weakest players, not getting the most rakeback. Saying that, I'm planning to still "chase" rakebacks if they are profitable enough to do so, but don't want to be sucked in to thinking I have to 5 table NL100 to finish a bonus. It has to be a profitable decision, that won't cost me more bankroll than bonus in expected rates.

Secondly, I'm splitting my drinking and poker. Both are great fun to me, but now poker is too serious to allow me to drop $50 trying to push people off top pair at NL10 while playing like a complete maniac. This works one night, and suddenly you think it's the way to enjoy a few drinks. Guess what, 40/38 style is very hard when sober. Yes you will win some nights, but most times, you will lose in the long run, no matter how well you play postflop. So if I think I've lost $20 equity by playing for 3 hours drunk, and my bankroll is only $500 I get upset. Some nights I work hard to win $20 sober, and lose $50 drunk. Why? So I will be strict this year. Poker and alcohol do not mix, not even freerolls. I have to drink a little less anyway, so will pick some non-poker nights to have some drinks and apart from that happily grind sober and ready to crush. And nights I drink, I will be happy to call poker free.

On top of that I have to set a playing goal, and my medium term goal, which I realistically want to be very close to by say April, is to be taking money out of poker each month. Now I'm not going to do that now, as I'm only making enough to build a bankroll, so a couple of things need to change. I need to be grinding NL100, and I need to be playing 4 tables. NL100 alone will take a bit of time to achieve, but I played 3 tables the other night, and it wasn't too crazy. I think given a couple of months I'll happily be at 4 tables, and playing well. I figure 4 tabling NL100 with a decent winrate puts me at about an $800 withdrawel from poker each month, which is a great start. This is definitely an aim of mine, and from there when I feel like I'm crushing that all the time, I will look at moving up levels, and will hopefully move up one or two more this year.

Lastly, my game. I am happily moving forward right now, but I really just want to get inside the poker knowledge base. I feel like I know so much more about every aspect of the game just in the last 3 months, but I want every bit of that to grow a lot. I expect to look back at this blog and laugh and how I thought I knew quite a lot. But I won't let that ruin my confidence at the tables now, as all I plan to do in the short term, is play on tables where there are worse players than me. I don't need all the skills in the world right now, just enough to make me better than other players at the table, and that feels like a real strength of mine right now, leaving unprofitable tables. I want to learn more and more how to exploit fish, and more and more about how to find those fish. It really is that simple.

So 2009 is here, and it's looking promising from just about every aspect of my life, and poker is a big part of that this year I think. Here's to running good in January and all year.