Sunday, January 03, 2010
December and 2009
Contains yearly results (aka brags) so if you don't want to see it, look away now ...
I will gloss over December ; to even call my effort in the month half-hearted would be overstating the case. Oh well, I probably deserved a bit of time off. 2009 overall was a strange one. On the surface, it looks competely in line with previous years - in fact my Net $ per tournament is insanely consistent, being $179 in 2007, $182 in 2008 and, believe it or not (I wouldn't) $182 in 2009. The insanity comes in because more than half of this year's profit came in one tournament.
It wasn't the only time I went deep in a Sunday major but it was by a large margin ($131K compared to $81K) the biggest first prize on offer for an online final table, and obviously binking it made a huge difference to my final total. The six months following that were very sketchy ; mostly I'm sure I wasn't running, let's say, as good as I usually do, but even so I think my play has been a bit sub-par. I've been watching a lot of cash videos and while I've learned a lot, it has kind of screwed with my tournament game because the play is so different (especially compared to high limit cash). The bottom line was I made $253K online which was about $20K down on last year and $50K down on my target.
I broke even live results-wise, meaning that I profited by the money people gave me to play with (for some reason known only to them). If I was lucky in my biggest online final I thought I was a bit hard done by in the TV final (the one Roberto Romanello won) so maybe it does even out to an extent.
Moving onwards and upwards I'm not going to deal in targets this year, I'm just going to play as many Sundays as I can (being one of the few people in the online MTT world who is actually rolled to play them) and apart from that as and when I feel like it. Live isn't a priority ; I'll have a look at what comes up regarding UK TV tournaments, and maybe play the odd satellite online if it fits my schedule, but I'm definitely looking to tone down the sponsorship angle and just try to GIQ (for a change). I think there's no point learning online NL cash by now, that ship has sailed. Maybe PLO or Mixed Games but every time I do start on these I give up pretty quickly !
Outside of poker (this is as good a place as any I suppose) I'd like to take more care with what I eat ; I get plenty of exercise with the golf so that's no problem. And nuts to football, as I said in that blog a few weeks ago. Apart from that, just remind myself that life is good, as we all have a tendency to take things for granted after a while. I might take a few bad beats or have a few months where not much goes right but it beats heading off to work at 8-30 on a Monday morning !
I will gloss over December ; to even call my effort in the month half-hearted would be overstating the case. Oh well, I probably deserved a bit of time off. 2009 overall was a strange one. On the surface, it looks competely in line with previous years - in fact my Net $ per tournament is insanely consistent, being $179 in 2007, $182 in 2008 and, believe it or not (I wouldn't) $182 in 2009. The insanity comes in because more than half of this year's profit came in one tournament.
It wasn't the only time I went deep in a Sunday major but it was by a large margin ($131K compared to $81K) the biggest first prize on offer for an online final table, and obviously binking it made a huge difference to my final total. The six months following that were very sketchy ; mostly I'm sure I wasn't running, let's say, as good as I usually do, but even so I think my play has been a bit sub-par. I've been watching a lot of cash videos and while I've learned a lot, it has kind of screwed with my tournament game because the play is so different (especially compared to high limit cash). The bottom line was I made $253K online which was about $20K down on last year and $50K down on my target.
I broke even live results-wise, meaning that I profited by the money people gave me to play with (for some reason known only to them). If I was lucky in my biggest online final I thought I was a bit hard done by in the TV final (the one Roberto Romanello won) so maybe it does even out to an extent.
Moving onwards and upwards I'm not going to deal in targets this year, I'm just going to play as many Sundays as I can (being one of the few people in the online MTT world who is actually rolled to play them) and apart from that as and when I feel like it. Live isn't a priority ; I'll have a look at what comes up regarding UK TV tournaments, and maybe play the odd satellite online if it fits my schedule, but I'm definitely looking to tone down the sponsorship angle and just try to GIQ (for a change). I think there's no point learning online NL cash by now, that ship has sailed. Maybe PLO or Mixed Games but every time I do start on these I give up pretty quickly !
Outside of poker (this is as good a place as any I suppose) I'd like to take more care with what I eat ; I get plenty of exercise with the golf so that's no problem. And nuts to football, as I said in that blog a few weeks ago. Apart from that, just remind myself that life is good, as we all have a tendency to take things for granted after a while. I might take a few bad beats or have a few months where not much goes right but it beats heading off to work at 8-30 on a Monday morning !
# posted by Andy_Ward @ 1:15 PM 
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Comments on your year. Yhe similar average return per tournament masks, as you observe, a big difference in distribution, which implies increased volatility. That implies increased risk which necessitates a larger bankroll (a lesson HBoS could have taken to heart in the 2000s). In other words, your real return on capital employed is significantly lower in 09 than in 08. Nothing wrong with that, of course, since you are adequately bankrolled to withstand those higher levels of volatility. It might even do you a favour if it affects other high-level tourney players as well -- because some of them will go broke.
The outside of inside of poker dichotomy is probably a bit misleading; it's all part of a single life. Your poker life and life in general is probably more balanced than mine, but I am focusing on getting the diet, fitness, general attitude to life a bit more in stasis. I'm not sure that it's possible for any professional poker player to achieve it, because the thing that makes you a good poker player makes you bad at those other things which people succeed at. Being good at life in general probably dooms you to not being a great poker player. The trick (on both sides of the divide) is to go with what you have got and make the best of it.
And I dream of going to work at 8.30 on a Monday morning. That's virtually lunchtime!
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The outside of inside of poker dichotomy is probably a bit misleading; it's all part of a single life. Your poker life and life in general is probably more balanced than mine, but I am focusing on getting the diet, fitness, general attitude to life a bit more in stasis. I'm not sure that it's possible for any professional poker player to achieve it, because the thing that makes you a good poker player makes you bad at those other things which people succeed at. Being good at life in general probably dooms you to not being a great poker player. The trick (on both sides of the divide) is to go with what you have got and make the best of it.
And I dream of going to work at 8.30 on a Monday morning. That's virtually lunchtime!
# posted by 
: 8:47 PM
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