2009

I'twas a good year for me and poker. I remember coming into 2009 very bored with poker. I was almost exclusively a SnG player. Mainly on Pokerstars, but alos bits and bobs at other sites. I was profitable and made steady cash, but nothing decent.

I liked to play the odd MTT, but tbh the feilds on Stars were just so big, that you needed an incredible amount of luck to make that big score and for me, it didn't happen.

I concentrated on the $10 45's on Full tilt for a short while and then moved onto the iPoker SnG's, but the lack of ability to multi0table really frustrated me. I was Making ok money in both, but once again not really enjoying them that much. So, I tried again at stars, but realised the SnG's (1 and 2 table) so were stuffed with multi-tabling regs that any decent ROI was pretty much non-existent. To actually make a bit of cash you had to play massive volumes, something I just didnt have the time or inclination for and so I made a choice....

For quite a while I have wanted to make some big improvements to my post flop game, as TBH in SnG's, it's simply about making +EV shoves at the right times, pre flop, and not much else. I decided to give cash games a go.

I spent quite a bit of time watching training vids and looking at hand histories posted, trying to get myself into a decent line of thinking through hands.

I then started playing. I started at NL20 on iPoker and then NL50 (6-max) on Microgaming. Pretty much breaking even TBH and not getting far. I started off just plying 3-tables and it was a struggle. I had seen so much about this "LAG" style of poker being the most profitable way to play, so I went for it. Jesus the swings were pretty rough I couldn;t seem to get it going. It was great when I was hitting flops, but when I was missin, I was losing way too much bluffing and trying to push people off hands. I realised it was a very hard style to adapt to and I would have to build upto it my own way.. and so the journey for me began!

I predominatntly played on Everest (due to softness) and Purple Lounge (due to rakeback), I dipped and dabbed in others, but nothing of any volume.

It's a been a long learning curve and I still have quite a way to go, but I am getting there slowly.Hopefully 2010 will see me stepping upto at least NL100!

Anyways, here are the cash results:

MicroGaming: 27,760 Hands = $531.94 Profit. + $969.61 Rakeback. = $1501.85

Everest: 19,686 Hands = $1552,09 Profit.

So for 2009 my cash game was:

47,446 hands = $3053.94 Profit

Obviously I wasn;t playing cash all year, so the volume wasn;t huge. I was averaging between 8k-12k hands per month, less on the months where I worked nights.

Overall I have to admit, i enjoyed it. It can be tough at times, but I am determined to stick at it and move forward!

SnG Results:

Pokerstars: 1068 Games played =  $264 loss

Full Tilt: 289 Games played = $438 Profit.

iPoker: 159 games played = $456 Profit.

Everest: 16 Games Played = $106 Profit

Overall SnG Results:

Total Games Played = 1532 for $736 Profit.

MTT's

I am struggling a bit to find the exact results here, apart from what I can get from OPR. They no longer track exact results, but tbh I am pretty sure I am a losing player in MTT's this year. I wouldn't say by huge amounts because I don;t play enough of them, but I haven;t had any big scores.

This is actually something I need to work harder to track as I am a bit pissed off I can;t find actual figures.

So overall 2009 has been ok, not brilliant, but still profitable.

lets hope 2010 is a $5k + year.

Hope you all have a very happy new year and see you in 2010!

BurnleyMik