I Guess All I Had to Do Was Complain

 Things really picked up after my last post.  Unfortunately I haven't run too well this trip, I started out in a $25K 275 Big Bet Downswing.  I've since won about 26K and 200 BB's.  I was pretty rusty the first few days here.  I put no studying or work into my game the three months I was home from Costa Rica and I definitely paid a price.  It's the first year I didn't spend my off time working on my game.  It's a lesson learned and I don't intend on jumping back into the games cold again after any extended period off.

I'm leaving Toronto tomorrow, heading to Boston for Christmas, then back to San Fran for New Years.  It's looking more and more like I'll be heading to the Philippines at the beginning of next year.  As anyone who reads my blog knows, I love to play pool so it seems like an ideal place to go.  My only concern is the time difference which might force me to be up for most of the night.

In other news I started learning/studying PLO after my last post.  Every time I've looked at the PLO lobby there are games running at virtually every limit seemingly around the clock.  Ideally I'd like to be proficient at that game so that when things are slow in the limit world I have another option.  It's obviously going to take quite a while but I've already started reading and have watched three videos so far.  I played about fifty hands of 50 cent/$1 last night and felt somewhat comfortable.  It's one of those things that I know if I put the time into, I'll be rewarded.  So the plan is to keep studying and improving and playing whenever possible.

Happy Holidays.

This Pretty Much Sums Up My Canada Trip to Date

Back to Playing

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, I just haven't been in a blogging mood, really it's been this way for the entire year.

I'm heading to Toronto next week to visit a friend for three weeks and will be back playing on Stars.  I haven't played a single hand of poker since I've been home and have spent almost no time thinking about poker so it should be interesting.  I fired up the Stars lobby today for the first time and watched some of the games for a couple hours to try to get in the right frame of mind.  I'm actually looking forward to playing.  I don't anticipate I'll be grinding too much since I have no chance of reaching the next milestone on Stars - so the VPPs will be for naught.  I'll be taking more of a targeted approach playing most of the high stakes games that run.

I haven't decided for sure where I'll be going to play poker next year but it looks likely that we'll be in Playa Del Carmen Mexico for a couple months to start the year and then possibly Thailand or somewhere else.

Good luck to everyone that's still on the SNE Chase.  Month to go!

Streaming Pool Match against Efren Reyes

To anyone interested in pool, I'm playing Efren Reyes this Tuesday and Wednesday One-Pocket at The Broken Rack in Emeryville, CA.  The match is being streamed here: http://www.povpool.com/

Efren is the greatest pool player of all time and even now at about 60 years old is one of the top 2 or 3 one-pocket players in the world.  He's one of my idols and I am absolutely thrilled and honered to play him.  I have no delusions of winning at all but it should be a competitive game if I play well.

Statistical Year In Review

I thought it would be fun to do this and also serve as a good reference in future years.

Here's a statistical breakdown of the year:

General:

Hands Played: 510471
Money Won: $296971
Rakeback Earned: ~$120,000
Total Money Won:$416971
Money Won Per Hand:$0.82
Total Hours Played: 2082
$/Hour: $200.27
Average Hours Played per Week: 58

% of Hands Played By Limit: 

10/20:  24.4%
15/30: 29.5%
30/60: 24%
50/10: 12.4%
100/200: 6.5%
200/400: 2.6%

Average $ Won Per Hand By Limit Including Rakeback:

10/20: $0.39
15/30: $0.64
30/60: $0.84
50/100: $1.06
100/200: $1.86
200/400: $3.15

Streaks:

Biggest Downswings in BB's:

860 BB's (In 13K Hands!)
690 BB's (In 31K Hands)

Biggest Upswing: 2400 BB's over 130K hands (No downswing more than 250 BB's over that stretch)

Longest Breakeven Stretch: 173,000 Hands

Biggest Downswings in $ (Excluding Rakeback):

102K over 30K hands
70K over 24K hands

Biggest Upswings in $ (Excluding Rakeback):

203K over 169K Hands (No downswing more than 28K over that stretch)
98K over 47K hands

Longest Breakeven Stretch: 

238,000 Hands

Misc:

Approximate money lost to power outages and internet disconnects:$16,000
Approximate money paid/to be paid in taxes before deductions: $175,000

SNE #4 and A Great Finish

I made it for a fourth consecutive year.  It's quite a relief not to be forced to play.  I'm hoping not to play another hand this year but there's some chance I may play while visiting a friend in Canada later this year.

I had another incredible month, running at over 2 BB/100 for 60K+ hands.  I actually ran at 3.5 BB/100 for about a 30K hand stretch at the beginning of the month which is very possibly the best 30K hand stretch I've ever had.  My last 120K hands or so of the year were played at 2 BB/100 which is really remarkable.  The most well-known high stakes recreational player was absent during that time so I'm extremely fortunate.  I'm planning on doing a review of the year at some point soon but suffice to say it was a miserable year by my standards up until the last seven weeks.  This was the first year I didn't exceed the income of a previous year but I did end up having a very respectable year when it was all said and done.  Time to relax and forget about poker for a while.

Good luck at the tables.