Time to put the hours in!

Just a short post. I've just finished my 5th and final bit of coursework for uni! That was 3 weeks of hell and I can actually resume my life again at last. This means its time to put in the hours at the tables like I promised myself I would. Looking back at January's records I've played for a grand total of 15 hours this month. Many times I've had single sessions longer than that! If I want to achieve my goals I need to be making at least £2.5k a month on average and this isn't going to happen if I don't put the hours in. So I'm looking to play nearer 100 hours this month.

Hopefully there will be a few more regular updates to come now that I should be playing a lot more...

2006 Goals

I did want to try and make posting on this blog a regular occurence again, but just recently I haven't had the time to or really had anything to post about. This is because I haven't had a chance to play recently due to tons of coursework I've had to do at university. I've still got plenty more to do until the end of the month... so no more poker till then. After that it's time to put some serious hours in!

Right, so here's my goals for 2006:

• Make at least £30,000 online
• Qualify for another $10k+ satellite package (although it may be hard to find one I'll be available to go)
• Exceed my biggest tournement payout (currently £3700)
• Play live more regularly (probably only not even 10 times last year)

I decided to set myself the same financial goal as what I managed to achieved last year for a couple of reasons. I can't exactly set myself targets lower than what was achieved in 2005 because that would be too unambitious. But this year I think I'll be able to dedicate even less of my time to poker than last. I'm still a student at university, and as of around July time I should be working full time for my placement year of my course (something I'm not looking forward to - but something I've gotta do). This means for the entire of 2006 I'll either be studying or working full-time and unfortunately poker will have to try and fit in somewhere. This is in contrast to this past year where I had a 4 month summer break and not too much work to do. So if I can achieve similar results to last years I'll be happy.

I doubt I'll really have much to post about for the rest of the month as I'm still bogged down with plenty of coursework. Once thats out of the way it's all go on the poker front. So until then...........

2005 Summary

I was meant to make this post a bit earlier than this but haven't been able to get round to it. Had other things to sort out the past few days. Me and a few mates from back home decided to go to Nottingham to celebrate New Years Eve this year. We turned up at my house there to find out it's been broken into for the 2nd time in 2months -not a good start! About 800 quid worth of my stuff nicked. Top this off with 2mins after we get into the house some chav little shit comes up to our kitchen window in the dark and makes stupid noises scaring my girlfriend, when she tells him to fuck off we find a broom handle thrown through our window. So now I find myself on the phone to the police to report two different matters and end up spending the next couple of hours with the police. Great stuff. Stupid fuckin' chavs.

Anyway back to what this post is meant to be about, a summary of the past year. At the start of it I couldn't have really hoped for it to go any better than it has. I started the year with just a couple of grand as my bankroll after losing just about all of the £8k roll I had previously worked up. So I wasn't in such good shape when 2005 started. Around April time it all happened though and I went on a great run multi-tabling $20/40 LHE tables. Over the course of 2months I won a good £20k -this was helped out with a few big pots in PL Omaha. Once the summer came around I was still running good but just stopped playing so much, so of course the profits dried up too. Apart from winning the Carribean Poker Package and coming 3rd in the 35k Gt'd for £3000 my summer didn't really go so well. I endured a downswing of £7k or so in LHE over the course of a few weeks and pretty much gave up on poker for the rest of the summer after that. Since going back to uni in October I've made a pretty slow profit, making about 2-3k a month but spendning it just as fast so I find myself with the same amount of money in the bank. I know in 2006 I need to put a lot more hours in like I use to.

To summarize my achievements of 2005 have been as follows:

• Made 30k profit + £4k rakeback
• Qualified for Carribean Poker Classic ($10k Package)
• Biggest Tournement Winnings: £3700 winning $100 freeze-out on Stars (followed by £3000 for 3rd in Betfair 35k Gt'd)
• Biggest Pot Won: $7,500'ish (don't have the exact figure to hand) in PL Omaha stakes too big for me

So overall the year has gone great considering poker isn't meant to be a main source of income for me being a student. Although being happy with how the year has gone, I'm not too pleased with the last few months of it. Back in July I was running great and just wish I could have kept the momentum going a bit more. I know back then I was rushing and can't expect to keep it up all year but I think I could have done better to come out with more profit than I have since.

So that wraps up 2005, I'll soon post my goals for 2006 ......