Year in Review - 2005

Ok.. no suspense here... no "hold that thought"... no "more on this later".. I'm just going to spit it out.. I'm just going to come right out and say it.. I lost... Pure and simple, I lost.

After enjoying a great first year.. or least part of year in my first year (Mar-Dec) where I brought my bankroll from $60 to $9,600; my 2005 was a down year. The bankroll had a high point of $13,895 in August; but slipped down to $8,571 at the end of the year. So as you can see, I was down a little of $1,000 for the year.

Soo.... having said that.. let's look at some of the highlights and lo-lights..

First... some more stats...

I had 27 up weeks and 26 down weeks.
Jan-Jul I was up $3400... August thru Novemeber I was dwon $5700.. December I was up $1400
I had 190 up days... and 81 down days

Day of the week breakdown (as bleak as it was)

Monday... -736
Tuesday... +2,176
Wednesday... -1,031
Thursday... +1,550
Friday... -12
Saturday... -824
Sunday... -2,148

So there you have it and there you are....

Boy, doesn't matter how you break it down.. just not a very good year.

The first part of the year found me continuing to play limit poker. I was exclusively at the 5/10 level and not really doing that well.. Call me stubborn; but I was bound and determined to figure this ring game thing out. At the same time, I continued to play SNG tournaments mixed in with a few Multis. Basically, the SNGs were keeping me afloat while I was sinking money into ring play.

I started reading blogs (before that.. I didn't even know what a blog was) around March time frame and by the time June rolled around, I decided to ante up and start my own. You can read my first post here. Now, I've never been a journaler.. or writer... In fact.. I stink at both; but blogging was a great way to do both and who knew how fun it would be to not only write a blog; but read other people's blogs. Due to the latter, I was able to meet many people who share the same "addiction" that I do... So... GCox, Tripjax, High, Scurvy.. I want to really thank you for welcoming me into this blog thing.. I would also like to mention a couple of new bloggers that I have really enjoyed (CC and fairguy ). I also discovered some St Louis bloggers which I won't mention here; but will soon have them linked up really soon. I know that I am missing some people; but just letting everybody know how appreciative that I am to be amongst some great people.

So finally, in July when I was about fed up with playing ring play because it had been kicking my butt, I decided to play SNGs and SNGs only. What transpired was 282 SNGS ($50 level) and a profit on of $890. I really found my niche as SNGs seem to be my "specialty". I used to think that these were a waste of time; but obviously think differently now. I also found that SNGs have the same degree of variance that ring games do... Who knew? All together, I made almost $4,000 playing SNGS. So why don't I just play SNGs? Good question... I don't have an answer for that one. I guess the easy answer is that I really enjoy ring play and the fact that it has kicked my butt even makes me more determined to figure it out.

So what does a bad ring player do? Of course... he moves up levels and that is exactly what I did in August. As with 5/10, I enjoyed sucess at it for the first month making over $1,000 playing 15/30.... but then the fit hit the sham and I went it the worst funk of my brief poker career dropping over $8,000.... GULP!!!! Again, it is really hard even just typing that in. I finally came to my senses and dropped back down limits.

So starting in Decmeber, after reading as much as I could on the subject, I started playing short handed. Now, this probably makes just as much sense as jumping levels because as bad as I was at ring play.. shorthanded ring play was a huge weakness of mine; but after a little study, I was able to move into short handed play with confidence. The good news is that I am enjoying some early success as I have totaled over $3,000 since December 6th (which includes bonus and tourneys). Hopefully, this trend will continue into 2006.

So.. there you have and there you are.. There is a brief look into my 2005. So what is in store for me in 2006. While I haven't set any concrete goals, more of the same is probably in order. In the short term, I will playing on Full Tilt as they have an "Ironman" thing going on where if you play 28 straight days during the month, you will be entered into a $10,000 freeroll. You only have to have 50 Full Tilt points a day to qualify. This could be tricky as I will out of town one weekend.. We'll see how it goes (I've got 2 in a row.. so I've got that going for me)... I do have plenty of bonus there to work off so at least I will get that done. Other than that, I will have to put some thought into it and perhaps will post them in the coming days.

Of course, there will probably be a trip down to Okie-Vegas in June to meet some of the above mention clowns.

I hope everybody had a good and safe New Years and here's to success on the virtual felt in 2006.