The end of the calendar year is the traditional time to reflect on the previous year and think about what you want to achieve in the new year. It is no surprise that I will therefore do just that :-)
It is particularly important to do a review regularly (probably more regularly than annually) when you are treating your Poker like a business, but having the year end as also a financial year end and strategy start point is a good psychological break as well.
So first my financial results....
I've only played Pokerstars and Black Belt Poker this year (mostly BBP of course)
PokerStars
My years results for Pokerstars shows a total loss of $191
$49 loss from cash games
Hold' em $35 loss in 9 minutes playing !
Omaha HL $14 loss in 65 mins
$142 loss from tournaments (just over 71 hours played)
$12 loss from 75x 8 game tournaments
$4 profit on 1x Hold' em
$103 loss from 8x HORSE ($77 of which was from 3x games)
$31 loss from 2x Omaha
I generally view my Pokerstars account as a "messing about" site, where I can kick off something for a bit of fun after a heavy session on BBP, so not to worried about it, but can improve my results by simply not playing the higher stakes games or any cash ! 2011 will see me stick to the low stakes 8 game or HORSE games just for fun.
Black Belt Poker
Black Belt Poker has obviously been my focus for 2010, first with the Grading II January-March then the Grading III in October. As these gradings made me focus on Cash games (which I am still no good at!) it reflects in my results and posted my biggest ever yearly loss of £1930
Jan-10 -610
Feb-10 -289
Mar-10 -443
Apr-10 -12
May-10 143
Jun-10 216
Jul-10 42
Aug-10 14
Sep-10 -116
Oct-10 -861
Nov-10 41
Dec-10 -55
Sadly, it's quite obvious the months where I concentrated on Cash games :-)
Tournament Results
Played 356 tournaments over 280 hours and posted £682.36 profit for the year
350x Hold' em
5x Omaha HiLo (profit £23)
1x Omaha (loss £7)
Of the Hold' em tournaments
12x 2 seater was £3 loss
108x 6 seater £314 profit
143x 10 seater £49 profit
87x 20+ seater £305 profit
These results exclude my sponsored tournements, but pretty much broke even on those anyway
I'm pretty happy with these tournament results and intend to continue in the same vein for 2011
Cash Results
Hold' em 878 hours showed £2413 loss for the year
Omaha 16 hours for £130 loss
Omaha HiLo 34 hours for £60 loss
Stud 13 hours for £8 loss
The holdem cash is obviously ugly reading and correlates to the two gradings. I don't begrudge the time nor money for the March grading as I got a lot of good learning experience and additional benefits by having taken part, but was very disappointed with myself for the October pre-grading activities. I think my horrendous playing in October was due to my not being ready for the stress, having only just come out of the other stresses in my life. The better news is that this forced me to rethink my cash games and why I am now focused on Omaha and Omaha HiLo cash games rather than Hold' em and certainly am more relaxed about life in general as well now. Clearly I am still learning these new games and making some bad mistakes, but believe I have the tools and patience to improve over time.
The main lessons from 2010 are to improve my cash play (maybe I should stick to Stud where I have a better loss per hour rate :-) ) and to perhaps concentrate on 6 seater STT and MTT to improve my hourly rate on my tournaments. Re-reading my end of 2009 musings, I think I pretty much achieved more than expected (including the more than expected financial loss!) but overall feel I am in a good place right now.
Looking forward
So what do I want to achieve in 2011 ?
* Keep to my Poker Plan
* Continue with my tournament play as is
* Play max of two cash tables for NL HE $0.50/0.25 and aim for break even month on month
* Use learning tools and other resources to learn and improve my Omaha and O8 cash games, aiming to break even by end of 2011 at $0.20/0.10 level (also max of two tables)
* Avoid entering any BBP grading process !
* Win a BBP league :-)
2010 has been a tough year for me, but firmly believe my Poker game has improved dramatically and aim to capitalize on this during 2011. Hopefully 2011 will be my breakout year for my online Poker results and maybe even my live play as well, but whatever happens in 2011, I will be aiming to enjoy my games and playing as much as I can.
Happy New Year to all