One Year and Counting ...

August marks the 1st year anniversary of my online poker odyssey.

Much like any other relationship, it has had its share of ups and downs. Some days you feel invincible as nobody can touch you, other days you bang your head on the table and just want to throw your laptop into the toilet as you can't seem to catch a break. Hot streaks and bad beats come right after the other with no logical reason. It is the ultimate love-hate relationship.

But overall, I have to say that I am quite satisfied with the way things have progressed so far.I know that my game has improved since last year. Better hand selection, better post flop play, better feel for the game. I also managed to pick up a few tricks along the way and have even learned to play Omaha and Stud. But I also know that I've only scratched the tip of the iceberg in terms of poker learning.

Luckily, my donkeyness has led to a decent positive ROI so far. From what I read, only 30% earn money playing poker, the rest are losing. My net profit playing online poker for the past year has been modest but fairly good. I would not have thought one year ago that I could earn that much extra money on the side playing what is essentially just a computer game.My bankroll has also increased significantly along the way. But my choice of limits and games has pretty much stayed the game. Still NL Holdem with some Omaha thrown in every once in a while. Still playing mostly low buy in SNGs. The main difference I would say is that I now play MTTs more often. Just ones up to $25 buy in max, But I have won a few here and there and that is also some validation of my improvement.

So what's next for me ?In a past post, I have outlined some goals that I would hope to achieve including playing in the WSOP, earning 1 million pesos, etc. I know some of them are long shots, but it's worth having some long term goals to look forward to.

For my next playing year, I'm pretty much set in my priorities. This will still be a hobby kind of thing for me. I will continue to play a few SNGs per night plus the once in while tourneys during the weekends. I will try to increase my limits some since my bankroll can already handle it. I would also like to try a few of those big Sunday guaranteed MTTs and maybe try to qualify for a WPT or WSOP tourney thru satellites. Some live tourneys in the Metro will also be a possibility depending on my schedule.

The most important thing is that I need to realize that I have a long way to go. Sometimes I get impatient when I read about these online poker "wizards" who earn tens of thousands of dollars every month. But one must understand that these guys play poker exclusively with thousands of games under their belt. I haven't even breached the one thousand game mark yet.

Slow but Sure. That should be my poker mantra. No need to risk my bankroll trying to go for the BIG win even though I'm basically freerolling with the amount that I have right now. I should be more critical about my play and always analyze how I could have played a hand better. Do not just attribute losses to bad donkey plays by opponents that suckout. In most cases upon further analysis, you could have avoided these coinflips altogether.

Burning out is also a concern as working the whole day 6 days a week, trying to be a good father to active toddlers and playing at night does takes its toll. Sometimes I have no energy or drive to even open my PC for poker. Taking a break for a day or two usually does the trick of recharging me. But again, once you start winning some, its like you feel sometimes na sayang yung opportunity if you don't get to play.

I guess it's all about keeping a sane perspective as to what poker is to our lives. It is not the end-all. It is just a highly entertaining competitive game that you play for fun which just happens to give you some side income. So I cannot be too stressed out if I bust out early or I get sucked out or missed some tourneys that I already qualified for because I couldn't wake up early enough.

I earn a comfortable living without poker and I can certainly live without it. But I am also highly competitive in everything that I do and working hard to be good at poker or anything else is something that I cannot help. It's always been in my nature. I'll probably die early due to some heart ailment because of this personality trait, but what can I do ? heheh

Well that's about it for my one year retrospective. I look forward to another year of playing poker and certainly hope to see some of you guys around. Good Luck to everyone.