A year in review... (part 1)

This was the first year that I dedicated myself to playing poker, not just as a hobby, but asa source of income. It was needless to say an interesting year as I had the great freedom that comes with being your own boss and being able to set my own hours of play, along with the added stress of having to rely on poker for part of my income. I'm hoping to recant my year as closely as possibly with the hopes of not only learning from mistakes, but also showing my successes so that I can build confidence for the coming years ahead. Before i begin I'll say that i am relatively happy with my year. Before i set out I determined that for me to actually be successful i would have to clear at least 40grand USD to consider poker as a reliable source of income. I acheived this and more, but am still disatisfied with some of the decisions i made and feel like I let myself get burned out part way through the year which caused a bit more stress on my bankroll then there needed to be.

Regardless I will try to retell the year in four parts, with the good and the bad...

part 1
It begins...

The year for me started off pretty well, I made the switch from tilt to stars after enjoying some good success in sng. For me stars was just more attractive because of the fact you can play mroe tables, so I felt starting the year at stars and giving it my whole playing tiem would be best because they have a great rewards/rakeback program which I could take advantage of if I played there the whole year.

For the first few days things went pretty well. I was focused on playing the 16 dollar turbo's exclusievly and was making the transition to playing 20 tables from 16, it went pretty well. then I went on a downswing, and it turned out to be a pretty bad one. About halfway through the month my bankroll had over 100 buyins for the level i was playing, a week later, after a few cashouts, my bankroll had about 20-25 buyins. It ended being about a 75 buy-in downswing when all was said and done and to get out of it I ended up playing 12-16 tables for a week, but eventually I built myself back up and by the end of the month I had a more secure roll to play with.

Beginning in Feb things started to click for me a little better, my roi for the month was much better and I was 20 tabling consistently. I also believe this was the month I final tabled the 10rebuy and finshed 8th netting me 1500 or so and giving me a decent roll to play with. This actually ended up being a pretty big development as it let me take some shots at the steps which led to a big score later in the year. All in all, the first two months were pretty crazy, I had a huge downswing which made me question if i should even be playing this game, and then bounced back to post decent profits in the first two months and ended up with a big final table as well. With my mian game being the 16 turbo's my goal for the rest of the year was continue grinding, build up my fpp's and take some shots at bigger tournies...

New focus, the same but not really...

So i kinda crapped out on the 5 grand thing before i finished but i just got too sidetracked with other life stuff...

I am still grinding but am going to start taking some more shots at bigger tournies and probably move up in stakes for a bit. I also want to play the steps more often, but it can be a long time between scores so i will probably just try to build up lots of step 2's and 3's until scoop comes along.

Looking forward to playing more MTT's though and hopefully a bigger score will come my way soon. In the meantime i will keep posting some results and daily thoughts,

thanks for reading

days 18 and 19...

played three sessions and ran pretty well...

66 sng's: +$235

would like to put this challenge over by the end of the week so i can stop updating totals everyday which gets to be a bit of a pain. i also managed to win a step 6 ticket on pstars and will probably use it for a PCA step 6 where the winner gets a trip package (worth 15 grand) and second and third get $1400 or so. I might wait till i win another step 6 to play just so if i lose i won't feel so bad knowing i have a backup...

Total:
1509sng's:+$3701

Day 16 and 17...

played 7 sessions over the past couple of days

154 sng's:+$333

Total
1453sng's:+$3466


another good solid day, could have been even better but my last session ended with about 5 or 6 horrible beats and ended up being a losing session, still, doing well and only 1500 from the 5k goal, and have maintained close to a 15% roi through the challenge, going to try and complete it next week, hoping i can get in 5 sessions a day starting monday again...

Day 14 and 15...

Played 6 sessions over the last two days, before that i had been playing steps almost exclusively, no luck though as i am still trying to qualify for either the costa rica tourney or the pca. I played in the 700 pca tourney but got horribly unlucky when i had qq allin vs K8 and 1010 and the board made a straight for a chop, then i was short and got in jj vs aa and 77 and the 77 hit a set :(

132 sng's: +$320

total:
1299sng's:+$3130

going to try and bring this home soon, even though i can't make any promises on volume cause i will still be adding in steps, steps are great too cause you get more vpp's in general from the higher steps so it lets you build the fpp's up faster, i wish they had a few more outs though as getting to step 6 from step 1 can be soul crushing at times...

Day 13...

I took a day off playing and then yesterday, monday played steps for about three hours and played two sets of sng's, one set of my regular 16's and one set of 6 man sng's. These both went very well, and the 6 man's were even softer than expected. Sometimes when the 16's are very heavily filled with regulars or other good players i will try out different games, from now on i will probably look to the 6 man's as my second option...

38sng's: +$432

total:
1167sng's:+$2810

Day 12...

played 4 sessions today played pretty well and i have covered a few of my biggest leaks i think, although there is still a few spots i probably need to cover so i can't say i'm playing perfectly, but i am pretty happy with my game right now. motivation is probably the biggest thing keeping me down right now. i will probably just play when i feel for the next couple days as i am just a little tired and semi burned out, not really from poker, but having to concentrate for 4-5 hours a day leave you with not enough energy for the rest of life i find sometimes, so i may just take it easy for a while and then return to finish this challenge in a blaze of glory, we'll see what happens...

90sng's: +$147

total:
1129sng's:+$2378