Secrets of the Amateurs

I'm not even dead in blogging terms. I don't have anything specific to blog about right now but some of you may be wondering why I've been so quiet over the last few months. Particularly why there was no end of year post.

Unsurprisingly, that's partly because I didn't have a great year. I did still make money, and it was still more than I ever made in a regular job, to put things in perspective, but I certainly didn't have anything like as good a year as 2008 or 2009. Looking at Sharkscope I'm on a $50k downswing. Looking back a little further, I'm on a 1500 tournament break even run. But looking back further than that, I made great money in the previous 4000 tournaments.

Make of it what you will. In one way it's the most testing period I've had since going pro, but in another way it's not. What I mean by that is my bankroll is more than robust enough to handle it at this point. If I had broken even in 1500 tournaments straight away, or worse still gone on a $50k downswing (even half of that), I might never have made it at all.

Trying to analyse the situation is very, very difficult because of course variance just swamps everything. I finished 7th in the Party Million in May after taking a beat when even 2nd place would have made it a very good year, and I had a few other spots that could have made a big difference. It's big scores that make the big money and I haven't had one for 18 months and counting. I hope this doesn't come across as complaining, those are the facts, them's the breaks and I definitely had more than my share up to that point.

One positive is that I've been trying a lot of different things over the last few months and have learned a lot by doing that. For example dropping down in stakes and realising that there are still loads of chronically bad players at the 22 rebuy/55 freezeout level. However tough HSMTTs might get, and they are getting tougher there's no doubt about that, there's always the option to step down (even temporarily to regain confidence).

And stepping back I am gradually coming to terms with the fact that I won't ever be a Pocket Fives top 20 superstar. Not even top 100, unless I bink two Sunday majors in quick succession or something like that. You have to put in sick volume to do that, and that's difficult to do in this timezone. I have full respect for Chris Moorman and the other guys who do it, but I think I can take a lot of satisfaction in what I've done while maintaining a life balance, keeping my health and keeping my nose clean, poker-wise. And the start of the day (not the end haha) I can still lie in till 12 whenever I feel like it. Can't be that bad.