Friday, January 19, 2007

An Update Finally!

Since the end of December, I've been on an extended break from online poker. I did play some NL$100 last month, but ran into a really bad stretch on PartyPoker while clearing a bonus. I don't think I played poorly, I just had a run of bad luck where I took a few bad beats, had big hands run into even bigger hands (especially with big pocket pairs not holding up), and never got any action when I made monster hands. So that was probably the main reason I decided to take some time off from poker.

I was also just too busy with real-life to have any time to play online. For one thing, it was the Christmas holidays, and there were a bunch of social events I had to either attend or host. One of these events, though, was a poker tournament that I held at my place. It was a STT with ten people, and I made it a deepstack tourney with a $20 buy-in, unlimited rebuys first hour if you bust (just to help out any novice players -- turned out only one guy had to rebuy and he was the maniac at the table). Anyway, everyone seemed to enjoy the tourney, and I especially liked the structure 'cause it gave me plenty of room to manouevre. I played well and ended up taking down first place. I think I only sucked out once the whole game.

Other things also occupied all my free time. I had a bunch of work to do on the house, my kids got sick for much of the holidays and it was exhausting taking care of them (man, are they whiny and needy when they get sick!), and my wife kept wanting to watch a movie almost every night (I have a fairly large DVD collection, so there's a lot to catch up on). BTW, here's a few movies we watched recently which I would recommend:

The Descent - a good horror movie about a group of women who go on a cave exploration
Little Miss Sunshine - a very funny road-trip movie about a family taking their little daughter to a kid's beauty pageant
Love Actually - a nice comedy about several interconnected stories on love
Finding Neverland - a good Johnny Depp movie about the creator of Peter Pan
Saw - a good thriller about a serial killer
Lost In Translation - an amusing Bill Murray comedy; also, Scarlett Johansson's pretty cute
Spanglish - a more intelligent Adam Sandler comedy; also, Paz Vega is pretty hot
Stay - a good, David Lynch-type thriller with Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts
My Super Ex-Girlfriend - a decent superhero spoof with Uma Thurman
A Life Less Ordinary - a quirky romantic comedy with Ewan McGregor and Cameron Diaz
The Last Kiss - a decent comedy/drama about love and commitment, starring Zach Braff from "Scrubs"
Munich - a good Spielberg thriller based on the aftermath of the terrorist acts from the Munich Olympics

Anyway, I'll slowly start to play more cash games again this month. I've also started a SNG challenge which I'll detail below. Plus, the Booya league will probably start again at the end of January, and a PSO league will probably start soon, too. And I'll probably try a few of the Mansion $100K guaranteed tourneys this month, since they regularly have around $50K in overlay.

Bankroll Update and Year In Review

I played the $1+$0.10 CPT satellite at Booya, but didn't cash. I also played some NL$100 at Mansion Poker during December, and squeezed out a $20 profit. For the PartyPoker reload, I ended up losing $560 during that bad run. So, my total earnings up to Dec. 31, 2006, stand at $11,555.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my progress during my first year of poker. I exceeded my goal of $10,000 for the year by a healthy margin, and I think I've made great strides in my poker game. I started the year off as a total novice at the game, with $500 of my own money, and playing micro-stakes limit holdem games. I was profitable at the game from the start, thanks in large part to bonuses and PSO promos, so I was quickly able to withdraw my own money and just play with my winnings. I made the switch to NL holdem partway through the year, and my profitability improved because of it. I moved my way up the limits and am now comfortable playing at NL$100. I concentrated mainly on full-ring cash games, but near the end of the year I started playing more tournaments by joining the leagues at PSO and Booya Poker. My tournament game has improved steadily, and I finally won my first MTT last year.

Goals for 2007

  1. Reach at least $30,000 in career earnings by Dec. 31, 2007.
  2. Move up to at least NL$200 by the end of the year.
  3. Cash at least $1000 in an MTT.
  4. Win at least a $1000 seat to a major event, live or online (preferably the WSOP Main Event).

SNG Challenge

Titan Poker gave me a free entry to the $2+$0.40 Dirty Dozen Jackpot SNG last week, so I played that and ended up winning it for $12. Then I played in a $5+$1 Maui Jackpot SNG, and ended up winning again for $25, bringing my bankroll there to $31. So with a mini-bankroll established now, I decided to start a SNG challenge by continuing to play the Jackpot SNG's there until I either bust, or work that bankroll up to $2000.

I played some more Maui SNG's after that, and ended up 4th, 6th, 2nd, 6th, 6th, and 1st, bringing my bankroll to $35.

Earnings to Dec. 31, 2006: $11,555
SNG Challenge Bankroll: $35