2009 Review : My Annus Horribilis

2009 has been both my best and worse year poker-wise since I started playing poker...

I'm not going into detail of the games I played or a month by month analysis - basically in a nutshell: its been awful! I'm starting 2010 totally busto.

I lost far more than I have won, I even lost the wee bankroll I started this year on which had been accumulated over the previous 2 years. For the first time in almost 3 years of playing I finished a year 'deep in the minus' category. Despite cashing well in the final 6 weeks where I won an €1,475 approx in various live MTT's in Voodoo, local pub games and Fitzwilliam - but it still wasn't enough to get me out of the red...My saving grace as to be all the various dealing jobs that I have done in festivals around the country this year, without these I would have been in serious debt.

Looking at my first post of 2008, I had some resolutions:

1. Stay away from the cash tables till I get some coaching. LOL! I tried, lord I tried...
2. Play all the IDP events, the UK Deaf Poker Open and two of the Swedish Deaf Poker tournaments. Yes, Yes and No... :( The Swedish Events clashed with other commitments. I became Chairperson of IDP in a difficult year, as with the mainstream poker, we have seen a drop in numbers.
3. Play at least two of the big tournaments on the Irish Poker scene LOL! Had the IPO in mind but got asked to work at it (wasn't flush enough to buy-in either, aimed to get a ticket for 'Poker in The Pub' league game and failed by a measy 1 point(!)
4. To show an 100% increase on my current poker profit for 2009 LOL!
5. Improve my tournament game more This, I am proud to report, was my one success in 2009.

My learning curve rose very sharp in 2009. I getting better reads on players and making far more hero calls and re-raises than I used to... I'm bluffing more and getting away with it 90% of the time. I am making better use of position, pot-odds, M factors and percentages to determine if my hands are worth shoving for. And best of all: I no longer lose it when some ass slowplays me or calls my pre-flop raise with spanners and hits good... I just laugh!


For 2010... I've just three 'small' resolutions:

1 - End on a Profit... even a €100 will be an improvement on this year!
2 - Stay away from cash games... and stop playing prop bets in Mythical
3 - Keep that learning curve growing... Keep telling myself: Every fish will get her day!



Happy New Year everyone... see you at the tables!