A bink for Christmas!

Absolute: Last Month $1607; Current $2661 (+1054)
Poker Stars: Last month $123; Current $104 (-19)
Full Tilt: Last month $118; Current $ (+19)
888: Last month $828; Current $723 (-105)
Total = $3,486 (+949) = £1,937
Profit in the month = -$949 Profit in the year = +$2,999
B&M = £199 (+23)
Betfair = £1,290 (+221)
Total = £1,486 B&M Profit in year +£1,327.

TOTAL PROFIT FOR YEAR = £3,264

Normally on Christmas Eve we go round to a friend's house for a gathering, but this year it wasn't possible because so many of the family were poorly with one bug or another. So I fired up a tournament qualifier on Titan (that a very nice Chinese lady called Honey had phoned me to say was available) and another $15 tourney on Absolute. Damn me if I didn't turn round an win them both (my first ever outright tournament wins and both within half an hour of each other). The Absolute win meant that I could up "Dad's Christmas Poker Bonus" to my two daughters to £400 each, which was enthusiastically received.

The tournament qualifier was a good laugh. There were two "tokens" available as prizes ($320 entry into a $200K Guaranteed Tournament). When we had got down to the last three I had about 20K in chips and the other two guys had 120K each. Not promising. However, I went all in with 77 and they both called me with overcards - clearly hoping that one of the two of them would take me out and that would be the end of proceedings. However the flop came 345 rainbow and the turn was a glorious 6! They muttered away in chat about the iniquity of this for some time. Meanwhile I hit a couple more hands took one of them out and that was it. Nice.

Sadly the tournament itself didn't amount to much for me. I went all in with QQ against 77 and was four flushed. Sigh.

It is interesting to look back at what I posted as my objectives in December last year. These were...


a) Basic game on-line: $11 then $22 SnG's with a profit on year objective of $1,000.

B) Play some MTT's on Stars when I have the time (good for practicing tourney technique).

b) Play on-line games on Blue Square in the APAT leagues. (I'll put $200 into Blue Square to set that up).

c) Play some more B & M tourneys (especially APAT) when they are available. (I'll set aside £200 to fund that).

For the first half of the year I played the sng's as my main game and ground out a steady profit (that is where most of the Absolute bankroll came from). I moved to turbos and never played more than 2 at once (basically because I couldn't be bothered). I moved up to 22's and had some wins there too.

However, over the summer when I had a bit of time, I tried out a few tournaments and, because I was initially successful I decided to put most of my efforts in that direction. Again, I haven't been going mad with it - just two at a time and then some multi-table sng's if I bust out early. These have been profitable and I have a 100% roi for the ones I regularly play on 888.com (Pacific). I like these as they have just the right number of players so that they don't last for ever and there are plenty of donks willing to double you through if you hit something tasty early on. Sadly I haven't actually managed to bink a Pacific one yet, though I have finished 2nd, 3rd and 4th! Anyway - profit overall in the year has been nearly treble my $1,000 objective, so I am well pleased with that.

The main improvement in my game? Definitely it is making a point of NOT calling big bets unless I am holding a serious made hand. I have a "post it" that I put below my screen that reads "big bets = big hands". I still make mistakes (indeed I did in the renewed Bloggerment the other weekend when I called a river bet with a flop of QQx when I was holding KK)...but I don't make as many as I used to.

I've been taking a bit of a liking to the $11 x 45 man scheduled games on Absolute and the $6 x 90 man games on Full Tilt. Both are very soft and provide a good option if I've been eliminated from tournaments. I have the bankroll and the mental attitude now to be able to see off long runs of losing games, which are of course inevitable when you are playing tournaments and multi-table sng's.

I played some of the APAT league games but didn't always remember to sign up. The first division ones are quite tough. I only managed to final table once and that was when I played in the second division by mistake! I've played a couple of the online APAT's as well but no joy there so far.

The cricket club game that I play in on a Thursday night is ticking along nicely now - we regularly get 13/14 players and once got up to 26. My roi is 84%, so I can't complain :-)

Nearly 40% of my winnings this year have come from "matched betting". This is a wonderful method of boosting the Betfair bankroll using my poker funds and the good news is that I still have lots of British bookies "to do" before I move on to the Euros, American facings and then Aussies. A nice little earner for about an hour a week's work.

So what are the plans then?

a) Carry on with the mix of tourneys and sng's as my basic on-line games. Since I should set something that is in the jargon "challenging but achievable" I will go for an in year profit of $5,000+ for the on line play.

b) Play some more b & m tournaments using the matched betting roll to fund them. Let's say 5 including APAT if any of them are adjacent.

c) Play the APAT on-line tourneys and final table at least one of them (again funding this via the Betfair matched betting roll).

A Prosperous New Year to all my readers!