Poker is rolling on for me in 2022 - right at this moment I'm in a mini-slump in not having cashed for half a dozen tournaments or so, and I also have a couple of losing live cash sessions under my belt. Not that big a deal, and also I did have a fantastic past couple of months online, especially in Cash, being able to cash out over $1000 in profit - so really it's all good.
Still, I feel like it's a mini-downswing so I have been on a mini-break for almost two weeks and am very much looking forward to returning to the live felt soon; on tap is a cash game in my garage on Friday, a TOC in one of my Moose Leagues on Saturday (a free-roll so that's nice) and a monthly tournament also in the Moose (a different league) the very next day.
I do truly love the game more than ever and I look forward to playing for the rest of my life, but I'm also pondering what the next step is for me as I feel like I want to change it up a bit, as far as what my priorities and goals should be.
I am super happy to look back on the past decade plus - and see on my Hendon Mob page that I've had a lot of good and fun results playing really very few poker tournaments over the course of a year. Really, my "results" on this page are pretty amazing considering a couple of things -
- I almost exclusively only play very small buy-in tournaments (almost always under $500 entry), and then only a few bigger events over the course of a year. Probably I average 3 tournaments a month in a card room, one or two in slow months and then 4 or 5 on a weekend trip to Vegas
- There is a limited number of casino tournaments that are even recorded on the Hendon Mob. I play in a bunch over a year that don't even count here - and I cash in them often. The Hendon Mob page also obviously doesn't include home games, and that's for sure where I have my best results.
Truth be told - if nothing changes in my approach going forward, I'll be ok with it. I like playing fairly infrequently, though it's more frequently these days with my daughter away at college. Right now in 2022 I'm averaging two poker sessions a week, usually this also includes a cash game session. If I played for another ten or twenty years and nothing changed - I would likely have a similar continuation on the Hendon Mob and I would be truly happy.
I've tracked my results for over 10 years, and I'm up over 50K in profit - mostly from tournaments. But in my limited cash game play, I have way more winning sessions than losing sessions. If I was forced to make a living at this game, cash games are for sure what I'd stick to.
Anyways - I don't feel restless, I don't feel unfulfilled - but I still do feel like I should push myself and reach for a bit more. Goals I think are a good think in poker, if you set them as aspirations to aim for rather than do or die achievements that if you don't make mean devastation.
I forever plan to be an amateur and not try to earn a living at the game of poker. However, I think it's worth my time and efforts to aim high and put a good amount of the work in...
Here are a few of specific goals that I'd like to reach in my lifetime.
- Make the money in a WSOP (or big series equivalent) Mix Game bracelet event.
- Hit a five figure score in a tournament with a three figure entry.
- Hit a six figure score in a tournament with a four or five figure entry.
- Make a final table in a WSOP bracelet event.
I think these are all realistic goals - but I don't think I will necessarily reach them with the same study and play schedule that I've been keeping for the past decade.
Of course the ultimate goal would be winning a WSOP bracelet, but that is very unrealistic even if I were to quit my job and play tournament poker full time, so I'm happy to set that aside in favor of more directly achievable goals. And who knows - in aiming for the goals above, there's always a chance I might bink!
Anyways - in terms of ramping up the study and play.
I think I can do this rather easily.
Studying sucks, but I have done it in the past and I can do it going forward. One thing that always kick starts my studying is attending a poker workshop. I've been to four in my lifetime - a WSOP Academy in 2015 which saw a drastic improvement in my game, and three LearnWPT workshops, in 2017, 2018 and 2020.
There is a workshop coming up in Vegas early this December. If there's anyway I can make this happen, I'm going to do it. Unfortunately work might be an obstacle, I likely won't know if it's possible until the week before. In any case, if I can't do this one - I'll make every effort to do the next one.
Going to a workshop always helps me re-set my focus on studying the game. In this case, tournament poker of the No Limit Hold-Em kind.
But you may have noticed that my first goal is to cash in a Mix Game tournament event. Ideally making the money in a WSOP bracelet tourney would be the best, but I would consider my goal met if it was at the Wynn, Venetian, Aria, Bike or Commerce or some such, for a $500 entry or more.
I feel comfortable in mix game tournaments, I've played more than a few in the last year or so since we came back from Covid. But I'd like to play more going forward, and in doing so really focus on studying and improving my mix games enough to be a force in tournaments.
Unfortunately there aren't too many study resources, at least in comparison to NLHE tourneys, when it comes to mix games. Still, if I can do the LearnWPT thing, and then shift directly to mix game study (using perhaps UpSwing or a similar training sight that offers mix game tutorials) I feel I can make the same leap in quality in my Mix game as I did with my NL Hold-Em in 2015. After my WSOP Academy workshop that year, hosted by Brian Rast, the spike in my results was crazy good. All of the sudden I started crushing my home game. I also went on to cash the Colossus in the WSOP, my first bracelet event cash in that arena in 5 years of playing, not once, but two years in a row.
I would love to get that kind of boost for my Mix games, and in doing so I would hope that such a drastic improvement would translate to even better results - as unlike NLHE, mix games have not only far less players, but far less players who study. A much softer field overall. Right now I feel I'm squarely in the middle of the pack. If I could somehow work up to being in the upper 25% (very achievable) and then (dream big) perhaps the top 10% (maybe not possible, but who knows), the future could be very very bright for my mix game tournament efforts.
My interest in improving my mix game stems from two things.
- I love playing them. I get the biggest charge from the variety and break from NLHE.
- There are a lot less great mix game players out there than there are great NLHE players.
There is however, one big downside to mix game tournaments - and that is simply that results are VERY dependent on good or bad cards. Much more so than NLHE events.
If you run not so great in a NL Hold-Em tournament, you can still very likely make the money, and sometimes (against a soft enough field) you can even take it down. I myself have done this - won an entire live tournament at South Point in 2021 without a single premium, save AK a few times and JJ and TT once each. No AA, no KK and no QQ. It's in this blog, it can happen.
If you run bad in a mix game tournament, you are well and truly screwed.
So the key I believe, is to get as good as you can, so that when you do run decent you are winning the maximum with your bets (be they fix, pot or no limit) and losing the minimum. The idea, as is also true with No Limit Hold-Em tourneys, is to not squeak into the money, but to make a mountain of chips so you can with stand bad beats and also make a deep run into the top half of the final table.
So as far as Goal #1 - the plan is to Live Workshop, then pay for a training program online for Mix Games. Unfortunately it likely won't be online training for tournaments, as they really don't exist - but if I can gather info on how to best play cash and when deep and mid-stacked, my tournament training at this point is more than sufficient enough to carry me through the later stages.
As for the remaining goals - the cashes and the final table - I feel that if I shift my study and playing focus to mix games, there will still be plenty of NLHE and plenty of opportunities to have real shots at achieving those benchmarks.
I don't ever see myself abandoning NLHE and exclusively focusing on Mix tourneys. First of all, there simply aren't enough of them (Mix events) to do that. And second, I really feel that if I'm workshopping and studying and playing Mix, it will still keep me sharp on the Hold-Em stuff. The very best players in the world that I follow, consistently, are always bouncing back and forth. Ivey, Hellmuth, Negraneau, etc. They are all Hold-Em and Mix players. I really feel that to get great at poker, you've got to play all of it.
So, that's the plan! Play all of it!
Also, ramp up my frequency. Truthfully, since my kid moved into her dorm, I've kind of already done that. I think that's one reason why I'm on a break now actually, playing every single week is not something I did when she was here, and now that she's at college I have for sure increased my playing time.
This is good for my game, and the wife so far is ok with it - but I also have to be cautious that I don't overdo it and get burnt out (like I did recently to go on break) or lose that important life/wife balance.
That said, I know my goals won't come within range if I don't keep up my playing frequency. So for now, that's what I plan to do - ever mindful of my family and work needs. I love the former with all of my heart and I like the latter very much, so I don't want to damage either. I think a big part of that is to keep my intentions and communication wide open and frequent. That's what I'm doing here, and of course that's what I'll do with the wifey.
Looking forward to the LearnWPT workshop in Vegas (hopefully I'll be able to swing it) and then also there's a good amount of poker to play at Commerce in November as they are doing a tournament series (LA Poker Open) that has a good amount of Mix Game events. Going to try and carve out some time for those, and make my home game and the Moose a bit less of a priority. I will for sure have a higher cashing rate playing softer players, but I won't necessarily get better or have a chance at a bigger score, which is after all, the goals I wrote down above.
There will also likely be a good amount of poker tournaments in the second half of December, as I'll be devoting the long weekends to that pursuit as well, especially as work slows down a bit.
After that, going into 2023 it will all be about the WSOP preparation. Ideally I would like to finagle a 3 or 4 day weekend springtime trip to Vegas to play in some smaller buy-in events. I've got my eyeballs out to find a smaller series somewhere like South Point or Orleans to fit the bill for that.
In my garage home game in April and May I'll be running WSOP satellites for me and my friends, including a single table $1200 satty for the mighty WSOP Main. Hopefully I will get enough players to make that happen, and then hopefully I will be the one to win it!
Failing that, I will carve out a 4 or 5 day weekend in the WSOP itself, and I will devote my days to Daily Deepstack NLHE events - PLUS a single WSOP Bracelet Mix game event, hopefully H.O.R.S.E. or some such.
This really helps me to pound out my thoughts and aspirations on this here keyboard. If you're still reading, good for you! Mostly this one was just for me - but I appreciate your interest!
Hopefully my next post here will be from a nice big juicy score in November at the Commerce!
