Next Year ....

Enjoyed the break from poker in December. Had a bit of a dabble on SNG's on Pokerroom but that has been about it really.

As we approach the end of 2006 I thought I'd get out there with one of the first of probably many, goals/targets for 2007 posts.

Huge post. Apologies.

2006 Achievements
This year was a good year financially, $12k cash profit from poker, sports whoring and casino whoring, in addition to a $7k Mansion PokerDome package and a $3k Mansion trip to watch England v Paraguay in the World Cup.

I achieved my goals of making $1k/month and winning entry to a live major tournament. Unfortunately I was never able to take up the opportunity to participate in the Mansion Pokerdome as my Daughter was born on the day I was due to fly to Las Vegas. Oops.

I also had intentions of learning other games such as PLO/8 and did have a dabble at the beginning of the year. Mixed results but generally down overall and I really couldn’t be that arsed or get myself motivated to pick up other poker variants.

With hindsight it was a Foolish really as I don’t even know HE well enough, let alone NLHE. I’ve plenty of time to spread out into other games but for the time being I should focus upon HE/NLHE

2007 Goals/Targets
Whilst I am not entirely sure that setting goals/targets is a good thing I certainly think that going through the process and putting this blog entry together has made me do some thinking in relation to poker that otherwise would not have taken place. Okay, this is another goals for the year post but it has its benefits for me and at least I have the public failure (even though there are probably no readers of this blog) if I do not deliver on them.

It is now clear to me that my previous poker play over the past 2 years has been entirely profit focussed and I believe this has been to the detriment of my abilities as a poker player. There is no doubt about it that I am an out and out poker bonus whore and whilst this has served me well financially over the past 2 years it is no longer fun 4 tabling with other bonus whores. I've been playing ABC poker and as I've not stepped up in levels I have never really stopped to assess my game and plug leaks.

I also acknowledge that I am risk averse and this is why I was initially attracted to Limit games rather than no-limit. Never really liked the thouight of putting everything in front of me on the line. I am not sure if I have been kidding myself that the variance in HE is less than NLHE but from what I can see at the low level NLHE cash games I have been playing there is probably less variance.

I truly think I am going to be playing poker for life and I don’t want to be whoring the $1/$2 limit games to grind out bonus money forever. I appreciate that it will take time to become a good player who can consistently win at the higher levels but I have the rest of my life to achieve this and 2007 is going to be the start of that journey. All of my poker play to date doesn’t count for shit.

So 2007 is not going to be about the money at all and whilst I was hesitant to add a goals in terms of profit from poker I decided it was still worthwhile (although I would not be pissed off if I achieved the other goals and not the profit).

What 2007 is going to be about is NLHE Tournaments, NLHE Cash Games & NLHE SNG’s. Moving up in levels as my bankroll permits, and moving back down as required. This moving up and down should force me to assess my game so that I can win at the next level when I step up again.

1. NLHE Tournaments – Punters Lounge Best Poker Player (BPP)
I was going to take it easy here and suggest a top 5/10 position on the Punters Lounge Best Poker Player (BPP) table. However I am going to stretch myself and go for the top spot.

There are some very good players on PL and a number of them have progressed from low limit tournaments to higher buy-ins. Achieving BPP would be a significant achievement for me and would require a considerable amount of time and effort.

I would imagine I would need to play the BPP tourney every night for at least 30 days to have any chance. Top 5 spot would be acceptable, anything less wouldn’t.

2. NLHE Tournaments – 20% ROI from all tournaments
Having done a quick google search on reasonable ROI’s from MTT’s it would appear (from 2+2) that 15% is a good return. Therefore to make this a tougher target I am going to aim for a 20% return.

What I hope will give me a chance of achieving this is that I intend to focus my tournament play on the added value tournaments. The Sporting Odds champions league being an obvious example as well as the Punters Lounge added value tournaments. There are also going to be a number of freerolls included, such as Virgin V points, and whilst variance will be high, the ROI will be stonking ;)

This goal will also obviously include the tournaments from 1 above and I expect to be playing between 15 and 30 tournaments a month.

3. NLHE Cash Games – Turn $10 into $2,000
Ladbrokes kindly gave me $10 for free earlier this year and from dabbling at the $0.1/$0.2 NLHE tables over a few thousand hands I have got that up to $190.

As I have nothing to lose I want to build this $10 up into a $2k balance whilst at the same time moving up in stakes. I have decided to move up each time I have 10 buy-ins for the next level and step back down upon losing 5 buy-ins at that level. I would have preferred to be bankrolled to 20 buy-ins but given the number of hands I expect to play it would take too much time to move up. I would expect to have to yo-yo between the levels and plug leaks in my game before giving the next level a shot.

It is also unlikely I will continue with the challenge solely at Laddies. Once I am up to $250 I amy move over to Party as there are more games on offer. I'll datamine a few nights first to see what the quality of play is like.

I estimate that it will take approx 50,000 hands to get to the $2k figure (assuming BB/100 of 10, 7 & 5 for $0.1/$0.2, $0.2/$0.4 and $0.5/$1 respectively). Therefore by the end of the year I hope to be sitting down at 4 $1/$2 tables with $200 at each in front of me.

I’ll need to put in 5,000 hands per month to have any chance of achieving this. At 200 hands/hour 4 tabling about 25 hours/month.

4. NLHE SNG’s – Turn $0 into $1,000
Pokerroom is a site I haven’t used for a while but having built up a few player points there when I was bonus whoring I had enough ‘player points’ to get a free buy-in to 3 $10+$1 SNGs.

Obviously a good prompt for another challenge to see what I can turn this free money into and as I have managed to build this up to $102 already through play in December (38 SNGs for a 20% ROI) I am going to see where I can get to in 2007.

The first problem is I only have 9 buy-ins so this could all be over in a couple of nights anyway as I will always 4 table. I think that I need to continue 4 tabling as I move up the levels so that my true hourly rate is comparable. No point having a 10% ROI 1 tabling 50's if I can make a 20% ROI 4-tabling 10s.

I am also concerned that there may not be enough volume of tournies going on at the higher buy-ins at Pokerroom so again I may move the bankroll over to Party.

I am going to step up once I have 20 buy-ins for the next level and step back down again after losing 10 buy-ins. I certainly don’t think this is good bankroll management and I could easily go busto before I step up to the $20s.

Based on my estimates for ROI at $10s, $20s & 30s (25%, 17.5%, 12.5%) I reckon it is going to take about 600 SNG’s to get to the $50s (assuming I never have to step down).

Intention here is to go for 100 SNGs/month and see where that gets me. 25 Sets of 4 is going to take about 25 hours play a month.

5. Entry into major buy-in live poker tournament (and participate)
Ok, so I kind of achieved this in 2006 but never managed to play becuase my beautiful baby daughter, Maggie, decided to come along. This is a nice to have rather than a must. It's unlikley that I will actively pursue this and it is more likely to come along through winning an Inside Edge or Poker Player tourny again.

Tempted to go for the WSOP $1,500 NLHE this summer but it would mean using a week of holiday away from the family and I am not sure I want to do that yet.

6. Make $6,000 from the above – poker alone
I'm really not arsed about the money this year but I can't have a goals post without putting some monetary measure on it. This could come from one good cash on an MTT or from a consistent monthly return. I think I am unlikely to hit this target unless I get a good 'cash' in an MTT.

The poker alone comment relates to the fact that a lot of my profits over the past couple of years have come from bonuses and sports and casino whoring. The $6k target is from the poker play alone.



So I'll be keeping the blog updated with my progress against each of these targets and expect I'll start off with lots of determination, which will diminish as we move into the summer, before coming back again in the Autumn. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have made some progress against these goals.

What concerns me most is that this is a lot of poker, 50 hours/month for SNG and Cash Game target, and once I add on MTTs I do not know if I will have the time to put 70/80 hours a month.

Wish me luck.

FBF