2006 Year in Review

I might be a little late for my year in review, but if there's one thing you should know about me by now, its that I'm a procrastinator. Better late than never right? 2006 was an interesting year to say the least. I had some early big tourney successes, some lengthy periods of non-play, some horrible ring game results, and the revitalization of my SNG game. Oh and then there was that whole UIGEA thing.

Lets first take a look at the goals I made for myself last year and how I did in regards to those, and then maybe I'll post some of my overall numbers.

1. Move up to $3/$6
   
   At the beginning of the year I was playing $1/$2 limit and having a good deal of success. I had started playing $2/$4 on occasion just to get a feel for it. My thought was I could move up to $2/$4 permanently by the middle of the year and then $3/$6 by the end. It didn't quite work out like that. I made the move to $2/$4, but my results there were horrible, and I ultimately ended up dropping ring game play all together. There were a few factors in my failures in ring game play. I think some of it had to do with my bonus chasing which lead me to play more tables and for longer periods than I can realistically play and still have a positive expectation. I also think don't think I have the discipline to play limit poker very well. It tends to get tedious after a while and I stop paying attention which certainly doesn't help. Or I'm just not good poker player after all. Who knows.
   


2. Play More SNG's
   
   Its funny. I've read some blogs where the writer has complained about not enough time for poker and he can only play 10 SNGs a night. I had a goal of 10-15 a month or 120-180 for the year. And I came nowhere close. I played 55 SNG's total. My best month in terms of quantity was January where I had 14. I didn't even play any in June or July. As we'll see later, its too bad I didn't play more, because SNG's turned out to be quite profitable for me. Better luck next year.
   


3. Win a Tournament with at Least 100 Players
   
   Tournament poker is my strength. Coming into the year I had a number of cashes and final tables, but I had yet to win a tournament with a large field. This goal I actually met, winning a 20 table SNG at Stars in February. I think that if you have the time this is where the big money can be made. If you can cash often enough to stay even, eventually you can get a big win.
   

I have a few goals for this year, but I'm going to save those for another post. Hopefully I'll have that out by March.


Some assorted Stats from last Year:

Winnings:

Limit Ring Games:	-$558.75
No Limit Ring Games:	-$111.73
SNGs:	$418.30
Tournaments:	$1450.00
Bonuses	$175.00
Totals:	$1387.82

Lets briefly look at each of these:

1. Limit Ring Games
   
   I knew I was doing poorly in limit games, but I didn't realize I was bleeding this much until I just now added it up. Maybe that's part of my problem. Breaking it down a little further, I lost $12 at $1/$2, $335.75 at $3/$4, and $211 at $3/$6. I only played $3/$6 twice and if I remember correctly I was satisfied with my play it was just a couple bad beats that accounted for most of my losses. The $2/$4 was just terrible. It got to the point where I was expecting to lose which only made it worse before I ultimately gave them up to focus on tourneys.
   


2. No Limit Ring Games
   
   I don' t play a lot of no limit ring. Most of this was me wasting money on GamesGrid that I had acquired as an affiliate. It was like free money and I was often playing when doing other things like watching TV, so in addition to it not being my best format, wasn't playing under optimal circumstances and I blew through my GamesGrid bankroll pretty quickly.


3. SNG
   
   Towards the end of the year I went on a pretty good run in SNG's. Almost all of these were the $20 variety with a few smaller stakes early in the year and a few $22 turbos later on. (Why are turbo's $22 and regular tourneys $20 at FullTilt?) $418 for 55 SNGs is about $7.60 per tourney. Assuming I'm playing two at a time, which I usually do, that's $15 an hour. That's not too bad for a part time job, right? I plan on moving up in stakes this year, so maybe I can that hourly rate up. No matter what, I definitely need to play more of SNGs this year.
   


4. Tournaments
   
   As I've mentioned repeatedly I'd like to play more large tournaments, but I don't usually have the time required for them. Last year I played in 28 and only cashed in four, but those four included a first and second place finish in 180 player events which accounted for the the majority of my winnings for the year. I'd like to maybe get into some events with higher buy ins this year, but overall I was happy with my tourney play.
   


5. Bonuses
   
   I just can't stop myself from chasing bonuses when they are offered at my favorite sites. So on the one hand, I earned $175 in free bonus money, but I think if I was to add up all of my results when I was trying to earn those bonuses it would be more than $175 in the other direction. I really need to deposit amounts that I can claim through my normal play so that they really are bonuses and not something to make my ridiculous losses not quite so bad.
   

There's my 2006 year in review. Yay.


Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com