Gearing up for 2010

Excited about the new year in Poker!

2009 was a blast, but in the interests of self improvement and in spending more time with my family I will be taking the following steps.


Resolutions:

I Will ban myself from poker on Full Tilt every week - Late Monday through Thursday night.

On Full Tilt I Will only play $1 rake-free tournaments (that is, only the Ferguson or the Daily Dollar freezeout.) No more sit-n-go's, satellites or rebuy tourneys. I cash in these about 15% of the time, which is probably profitable in the live arena with a substantial buy-in amount invested but not at micro-stakes online. I've slowly bled out my online winnings - down under $200 after being up almost $400. No need to panic, but micro-stakes are damn near unbeatable with a rake/entry fee that floats around 20%.

Flatline will be Monday nights and Worldline will be every other Wednesday through April - Absolutely NO Full Tilt on either of these nights. (The exception being Monday night IF I bust out from Flatline I can enter the Ferguson Razz, Oh joy.)

Tuesday and Thursday nights are reading nights! ONLY after 10pm. Tuesday is poker content optional, Thursday is poker study only.

Friday night is Video night; ONLY AFTER 9pm. I will either renew my ProPlayLive or try out Cardrunners. I am allowed to play the Ferguson on Friday night, but only after watching a full hour of video - I am not allowed to play the Daily dollar.

Saturday and Sunday I am allowed to play the Daily Dollar/Ferguson only on days without a live event or on days without family plans that involve leaving the house. (Example; a day of yard work and playing with Natalie at home would be okay - going to the Zoo, my sister in law's or brothers house would not.)

Once a month on Full Tilt I am allowed to play in the BLT (The Big Little Tournament) which is a $5 MTT with a prize pool of $250,000.

Once a month I may choose to play a live tournament in an LA cardroom with a buy in of $150 or less- with the wife's full knowledge and consent of course.

My home game will have two games a month, a tournament on a Saturday night and a cash game on a Friday night.


That's about it! At a glance it seems like a lot, but I'm pretty sure I can stick to these guidelines a- and in doing so greatly increase my knowledge of the game and at the same time drastically reduce burn out and insure that my priorities are where they are supposed to be.


Also, very much looking forward to my annual Vegas poker odessy in February. I'm not going to put any pressure on myself to cash - only to have as much fun as possible!

Last year, you may remember, I cashed twice in Vegas, including chopping for first place - effectively negating my entry fees and expenses for the trip. I also cashed quite a bit at HPC.

But having said that - I had my aces cracked TWICE at HPC, both times all the chips were in pre-flop, both times were the end of my tournament life. Once against a pair of nines which spiked trips on the river and the second time against AQ which made a set on the turn. The second instance was particularly nasty, as it was 80/20 pre-flop AND I had a big stack of chips that got tangled up with the only other stack in the entire tournament that had me covered. Yuck.

I also recently lost a heartbreaking 60/40 race with a pair of tens against a bad player's K7os. Very frustrating to get my money in good and have the river rip up the chance for another really good run at the money.

So my eyes are open to the fact that even great cards and correct decisions are not immune to the whim of the poker Gods.

I stand my best chance of having a blast - not by running over the table and somehow miraculously taking down a tourney, but by savoring the experience and finding lots of things to laugh about.

Can't wait!