Clearing The Decks

Last week I received an email from a very good friend expressing some concern for my welfare.

Among the criteria he cited as the basis of his concern were: non-attendance at the pub; lack of blog activity.

It's pretty difficult to argue with the facts here. Over the entire festive period and into New Year I was properly drunk once - albeit to such a spectacular level that it went way beyond properly drunk and more into the improper level. The blog activity speaks for itself.

There hasn't actually been any dark reason behind my disappearance from both the real and virtual social scenes. Just a vicious combination of work pressures, family issues, and ill health. At this time of year I seem to attract more bugs than the average UK prison.

Time to put things right!

It's symptomatic of the state the blog has fallen into that I can kick off the regeneration by doing the almost obligatory year-end review/New Year resolutions post in mid-February.

To do so, I had to go back and remind myself what the 2007 resolutions actually were. I was expecting abject failure, and was pleased to actually find a tickable box.

For 2007 I was comparatively unambitious in my online poker goals. I set only two, yet contrived to miss them both spectacularly.

Clear $6,000

2007 was a bad year! I didn't play anywhere near as much as I expected. When I did I either played badly or ran badly. Eventually time constraints and a lack of motivation drove down my table time.

I won a touch over $1000 for the year. Which is gravely disappointing, yet in a way still feels like a victory. 'Only' making $xxxx in a given time period has to be better than losing $yyyy in the same time period?

Deepen Experience of Other Poker Variants

This goal was basically sacrificed in pursuit of trying to remedy the shortcomings in the previous one. Trying to get a high volume of hands in at the table doesn't really lend itself to variants other than Hold Em.

Anyone who has tried multi-tabling HORSE, or even mixing Hold Em and PLO, will be able to attest to the mind altering possibilities of such a strategy.

Do Some Interesting Poker Related Stuff

Box ticking time. On 1st January 2007 I wrote:

A deliberately vague target. This could mean that long anticipated Vegas return. It could be satelliting into a decent size UK event. It could be a trip to one of the EPT events.

Much as I have no desire to live the life of a poker pro, I am envious of the travel opportunities it affords. Doing something along those lines would be a nice segue between poker and my wider ambitions in life.

On 9th October 2007 I landed at McCarran Airport to commence my second Vegas visit.

More than enough was written about that on my return. Suffice to say, I consider this box well and truly ticked.

The Vegas trip pretty much put a cap on my poker time for the year. I think subconsciously I may have burnt myself out by getting a bit too results oriented.

Another lesson learned and not one that will put me off in the longer term (gotta love that phrase). Without poker I wouldn't have gone back to Vegas and got the chance to do this...



For this year I'm not setting any real poker goals. What I am aiming for in the non-poker area is a progression of my aims in terms of simplifying my life and keeping my finances on course for early retirement.

I don't see any point expanding on this at present, as I hope to write more about it soon. Time will tell whether I keep to my resolution.