Thats it for 2009

Well, its the final post of 2009 and it was all set to be how bad a year its been at the tables and y worst year since 2005, however December turned all that around. Luckily a few good results on MTT's meant I finished the year $5328.03 in profit, $2600 of this being in December Alone.

I guess on reflection it was a poor year, I finished about 13 buyins down overall on the cash tables in a year where I really thought would be my first +ve. However I can look back over the year and those 13 buyins can be put down to a few sessions where I tilted badly, in fact I did have one day where I lost 13 buyins in one session alone. It just goes to show how over the long term a few bad sessions can really add up and turn you from a losing player to a winning player, every pot and decision really does count at cash, so if like me, you tend to be playing cash in the background while fucking around reading forums and playing Farmville, your $ per hour is really going to suffer. Hopefully this can be addressed in the new year.

I had another small tournament win on laddies, not a big win, but it did take over 5 hours and I believe I played very well and didn't make any mistakes during the whole tourney, sometimes this is more satisfying than winning big $$$, well almost lol.



Tried a few different things on the cash tables this month, even tried a couple of sessions shortstacking on 9 tables. I sat with $10 on $50 10 seater tables playing push poker and some blind stealing at the end of the session I had played 3000 hands and was $135 down looool. It was unreal, variance at its worst. Out of the 20 all in pots I got called on I only one 4 !!! losing 16 of them, worse of all I only got it in bad on about 3 of them, with most being an 80/20 fave getting called by lower pocket pairs which spiked there 2 outers.......So that idea got dropped quite quickly.

I finished the month going back to play 6 max and trying to play an optimum style, I managed to pull back all of the shortstacking losses doing this and finished off the month about a buy in up.

The original plan for next year was for volume, I have been practicing 9 tabling full ring on iPoker for a couple of days, sitting with $30 and seem to be doing ok, but it is still a problem with the shortstackers. Although, looking at the forums, there seems to be quite a few rumours that they will be changing the rakeback method from dealt the contributed, which will change a lot of peoples strategy I guess, but hopefully will make for better tables. The other big change on iPoker is winning players getting banned from playing. Victor Chandler, where I am playing the moment have blocked quite a few of the big winners from playing cash because of a new fine system being imposed by iPoker, which is a complete and utter farce. This even includes losing players who make money by rakeback alone, which in essence is me at the moment, so when I do start to win, it might be shortlived and I will have to start all over again on another skin if I want to play on iPoker, I guess I will see how it goes.

So the new plan is now a mix of volume and quality, alternating from multitabling full ring and playing 2-3 tables of 6 max. I also intend to play a lot more tourneys next year and also trying to sat into the bigger events, especially things like wcoop and ecoop etc. I can't go to vegas this year as where I work we are opening a new hospital in June and it will be chaos, we have even had a 2 week leave ban in the middle of the world cup ffs !!!! that could prove interesting when they try and drag me out the pub. lol

So, my goals for next year are basically to have my first winning year on the cash tables. Hopefully this will make the year my most profitable yet, $10k would be an ideal target overall, but that is what I said last year, but you never know.

Thats if for now, I hate new years eve, so will be staying in with the wife, but I love New Years Day, its like a big broom sweeping all the bad behind and everything ahead is positive. I intend to make it the best year of my life so far, lets hope it is yours too.

Goth

Joy Division - New Dawn Fades

A nice XMAS Bonus

A bit over due, but as you can see by last months graph, I now consider myself a professional rakeback monkey, playing crappy break even poker. Starting the month off well, then just getting in to the old calling station rut, I don't know how many times I have mentioned this leak while blogging, but it is still there, I'm prob losing at least 4 buyins a month just not believing big value bets on the river and paying these people off., this month is almost exactly the same. I do however believe that if I fix this leak, I can be a good winning player at the level I am currently playing at, that along with the rakeback should make for a good year next year. So for the time being the crossroads is straight ahead and carrying on playing the cash tables, I will review this after the first couple of months of next year.


It was a tricky decision, as you see by laddies pic, I have also had my biggest win ever playing MTT's shipping €1500 when I took down the monthly Rake the Rake laddies 5k freeroll. I normally would of been running around the room like a chimp on acid, but I was feeling really ill, so when my AA stood up post flop all when heads up, I thought, oh a win, thats nice !!!!!

To be fair, I did get a bit lucky, as when we were down to the last 5, I shoved from the cut off on a steal while fairly short stacked with 10 7 os and got called by QQ, the flop was a total miss leaving almost drawing dead, then the miracle 7 on the turn and the 7 on the river kept me alive, I think once after that suckout my name was on it.

The win saved my year to be fair, taking my winnings to over $5k for the year, which I thought I had no chance of achieving, I guess it just shows that I still need to keep playing the odd MTT to keep my eye in and have a chance for the big wins to give the bankroll a boost.

Saying that, I have decided to take £1000 out of my bankroll to pay for xmas and also put some towards the canada holiday next year.

Hope to get at least one more blog in before xmas, so keep on muffing and gl at the tables.

The Ting Tings - Great DJ