2009 in Review

[Kurn]

What I Learned:

My strength is undoubtedly single table, non-turbo. NLHE SNGs - 709 played, 41.6% ITM, 16.4% ROI. Hourly rate of $23.67 at an average buy-in of $40.76

Moshman's book helped, as can be seen by the improvement over 2008

821 played, 41.8% ITM 12.5% ROI, Hourly rate of $14.52 abi $32.93

The lower number of tournies in 2009 is due to the fact that I played about 300 turbos which convinced me that I should not play turbos.

What this means for 2010:

It is time to stop fooling around with other forms of poker. I've always said that poker is my retirement plan, and while I enjoy being part of a team and shared endeavor, I do not enjoy getting up at 4:15 AM and getting on that damned train every morning and evening. Commuting takes up 4 hours of my life each day.

My goal for 2010 is to build my roll online to the point where my abi can increase to a point where I can realistically consider taking a lower-paying (or even part-time) job closer to home and supplementing my income through poker.

Does this mean giving up on multis and cash games? Not entirely. In 2009 I did reinforce my belief that I am also pretty damn good at low buy-in Stud/8 tournies (33 played, abi $8, 24.2% ITM, 115.35% ROI, 4 final tables, 1-2-3-7), so sure, if my bankroll suggests I can handle it, I may give the $1,500 Stud/8 at the WSOP a whirl.

As for cash games, my intent is to play much less. I tend to play when I get bored with SNGs and clearly, that's a behavior I need to limit.

Thanks again to the membership here for all the general poker insight that has helped me over the past year, and of course, additional thanks to my backers in my two BAPs. Without your support and trust I wouldn't be in the position to even consider the next step.

Happy New Year!

[Wes]

Good luck at pokeretirement Kurn.




At least I didn't put any goals for myself in that thread. Goals seem to perpetuate something that I will invariably fail at.

Poker wise, I think it was a pretty good year. I made the least amount of money since I would consider myself a professional gambler, but I really didn't take poker seriously since I played at WSOP. The beginning of the year saw myself grinding a lot as I saw some need for money, and that probably forced my hand so to speak to actually "work". Then I hit that mark, and didn't particularly foresee much advantage of in working. I see some of my peers buying mansions and getting a brand new car. Although it would be nice to have those things, it is not worth my time invested to get to that point.

On that front, I'm inclined to believe right now that poker is nothing more than an end to a means. Mainly, supporting myself towards something else. It is hard to define what that is at this point, but I do know that poker surely is not the career in the long term.

I did start off with stand up comedy and did do some silly jokes without a message to them. Then I bombed horribly once on stage and saw some comedians after me doing dumb comedy and succeeding. It may have been a manifestation of ego in my loathing towards that comedian, but it did reinforce my opinion that comedians without a point are things that I do not enjoy. So I wrote a whole new set which I think was better than before, even if some of the old jokes are funny.

I'll probably come back to this thread January 1st 2011 and think that the whole comedian thing was pointless. I do know that there is no immediate success to be found in it as it will take years to even get comfortable on stage. How silly to think I'm going to stop playing poker and then derive the notion of being a stand up comedian as a job.

[Robbie Robb]

I don't think that the comedian effort could ever be considered pointless. At the very least you're going to get comfortable standing up in front of a group of people and putting yourself WAY out there. That skill will be invaluable in other efforts.

[MAYHEM45]

Especially for us online poker nerds. Amirite?

[thrash1294]

I just ordered moshans book using fulltilt points so hopefully I can put it to some use.

[Talking Poker]

2009 was easily my worst year ever as a poker player. I started off ok, but hit a gross and ridiculous downswing that really hit my confidence. I don't know that it affected my play, but it probably did. I do know that it made me start hating playing. Combine that with the fact that I could no longer get action i the HU SNGs that were my bread and butter in 2008, and I was forced to try to find a form of poker that would make me want to kill myself less.

I even went back to my roots of 6 max LHE, and while I'm pretty sure my playing style is still at least slightly +EV in those, I lost there too. There are definitely still a lot of bad players playing those limit games, but there are a whole lot of regs too and it's just nothing like the free money machine it was a few years ago. By the end of the year, I was back to 6 max NL for the first time in a long time, and doing ok, but again, the games are much tougher than they used to be, even at the lower levels.

Overall, I think I actually officially had my first slightly losing year on the felt, but when you add in RB and bonuses, I was back in the positive. Add staking on top of that, and I did ok, but it was still my worst year ever total income wise.

I started a partnership with a good friend of mine last month, and we have an interesting idea we are going to pursue very shortly. It's going to require quite a bit of my time, but I'm more excited about this than I have been any other business venture I've considered in quite some time. I think there is a high chance of moderate success, a small chance of complete failure, and an equally small chance of it being a massive success. We're still trying to get all of our ducks in a row right now, but things are coming along. Here's hoping by the time next year, the business will be a massive success.......... I think I'll know one way or another in a month or two.

Here's also hoping that 2010 will be the year of poker legislation bringing us closer to the true golden age of online poker. Can you imagine how good the game will be if we are ever able to play at Bellagio.com and such?