Happy New Year everyone! I hope you all enjoyed yourselves responsibly last night (and last year, for that matter), and that you are striding confidently forward into a new year.

Yesterday, I revisited my 2009 poker resolutions. Now, it’s time to make some new resolutions and set some new goals for 2010.

Resolution One: Play NLHE Cash Games

Particularly in the big games, virtually everyone is good and getting better. It’s not enough to be better than they are at the start of the year; if they keep improving and I stagnate, then they’ll be owning me by year’s end. So this year my focus will be on putting in hours at and away from the table.

Goal 1: Average 15 Hours/Week Playing My “Regular” Games

If I wanted a job, I’d get one. I want to have plenty of time for other things that are important to me: friends, family, travel, volunteer work. Then again, most of those things require (or at least benefit from) money, too.

I’ve found that 15 hours/week enables me to earn a pretty healthy income, far more than I could make at any real job I could get, without impeding too much on my lifestyle.

I consider my regular games to be anywhere from 2/4 NL to 50/100 NL as well as big tournaments like the Sunday Majors, the FTOPS, and the WCOOP; time spent playing any of these will count towards my goal.

Goal 2: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games

It’s very tough to predict or control what I will earn playing tournaments. With cash games, though, it’s mostly a question of game selection and putting in hours. It’s not something I’m going to announce publicly, but I am going to set a target, and I am going to put in extra hours towards the end of year if I’m on pace to come up short.

Goal 3: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars

I gave up on this goal last year, largely because Stars doesn’t have deep stack or ante tables. I don’t want to sit in bad games just to get VPPs.Poker Stars is continuing to sweeten the deal, though. In addition to the cash bonuses that can be purchased with FPPs, they’re now offering up to $1000 in bonuses just for earning VPPs.

My plan for this is to table select as usual in the beginning of each month, and then assess my progress towards the end of each month. If I’m on pace to come up short, I’m going to put in extra hours above and beyond my weekly goal just grinding 9 tables of $1/2 NLHE (or smaller) until I hit my VPP target for the month. Hopefully this is something I can do relatively stress-free, just an hour or two at a time, when I’m not in the mood to put in a proper session in higher stakes games. To be honest, my hourly rate should still be quite good multi-tabling SSNL, so hopefully this will incentivize me to make a little money in what would otherwise be downtime.

Resolution Two: Diversify My Income Streams

This has been a long-term goal of mine, and I feel like it’s well underway now. Not only is it nice having some guarantee, variance-free income, but it’s a fun and rewarding break from grinding to coach aspiring MSNL players, write for Two Plus Two Magazine, or make videos for Poker Savvy Plus. It even helps me to cultivate and demonstrate other skills, like writing, teaching, and marketing, that would prove useful should I ever decide to seek proper employment.

Goal 4: Monetize This Blog

I know I keep saying it, but sooner or later I really am going to look into making money a little more directly from this blog. I feel like it’s right on the cusp of being pretty profitable. That doesn’t have to mean ads, though it might. Maybe I’ll…

Goal 5: Write a Book

I’ve talked about this before, but this is the first time it’s ever been an explicit goal. I’ve already got some downtime sketched out in the next few months to work on this and have been kicking around some ideas in my head. Rather than trying to write one big, expensive e-book as a lot of people have done, I’m thinking of doing a series of smaller, modular works that could be purchased separately or as a set. Those of you who read this blog regularly are going to be a big chunk of the target audience, so keep an eye out for posts in the next few weeks soliciting your input about what you’d like to see in a poker book authored by yours truly.

Goal 6: Average One Blog Post Per Day

I know it’s been a little quiet on here of late. Part of that is the holidays, and part of it is just laziness. I want to get back to posting once a day. There will probably be more non-poker content, and not all of the poker stuff will be equally in-depth, but overall you can expect to see more and better content here.

The other part of the problem is that fairly often during the week, I’m staying somewhere where I don’t have a reliable internet connection. I’m pretty sure it’s possible for me to write stuff in advance and schedule it to post on a particular day, though, so that’s really not an excuse.

Goal 7: Average Five Hours of Coaching Per Week

Coaching was extremely fun and rewarding for me last year. So far, except for my group seminars, I haven’t done much to market myself as a coach or actively solicit students. I’ve mostly just worked with students as they’ve come to me, and so so far that’s kept me just about as busy as I’d like to be with coaching. I want to ramp it up a bit this year by setting a monthly goal and actively soliciting students if necessary to ensure that I’ve got a regular stream of students.

By the way, if you’re interested, check out my poker coaching information.

Resolution Three: Improve My NLHE Skills

There are so many good reasons to make an active effort to improve my NLHE. In addition to the obvious benefit of getting better and winning more money, studying can give me new material for blog posts and book reviews, introduce me to new coaching and video producing techniques, help me to monetize what would otherwise be downtime, restore my focus and confidence during a downswing, and help me keep up with what my opponents may be learning and trying at the tables.

Goal 7: Average an Hour a Day of Dedicated Studying and Improvement

I’m going to be very broad about what this can include: reading books, watching videos, reviewing hands in Hold ‘Em Manager, talking poker with a friend, and even blogging (when it’s related to reviewing my play).

I may even hire a coach. It’s funny: many of my students expressed some concern about the cost of coaching when we first discussed working together. After a few hours with me, though, these same students have always told me that coaching was far more valuable than they expected and that in retrospect they considered it a very good investment.

Yet, cheapstake that I am, I still balk at paying hundreds of dollars an hour for a high-stakes coach. I probably ought to just suck it up and purchase a few hours. To be fair, though, I do charge less than most comparable coaches. Plus, I don’t have the option of hiring someone who coaches as well as I do :-).

Goal 8: Use Hold ‘Em Manager

I switched from Poker Tracker to Hold ‘Em Manager last year. PT2 is great, but HEM is just better. For the last part of the year, I was playing without it on my laptop. It does get in my way sometimes, but I’d rather learn how to work with it than insist on playing without it.

Goal 9: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL and/or Higher

Same goal as last year, since I didn’t achieve it but still think it’s very viable. It might be cheating a little, but I’m going to allow myself to count my results from bigger games towards this goal or not depending on whether I do better in them than I do in 5/10 (this was the cast last year). Basically, if I am at 4 BB/100 over a big sample at 5/10, then I don’t care how I’m doing in bigger games. If I’m not doing quite that well at 5/10 but am at 4 BB/100 if I also count bigger games, then that’s certainly a fine result as well.

Goal 10: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE at 5/10 and Higher

Last year, my win rate at heads up was twice what it was at ring games. Plus, it’s a great way to improve poker skills in general, and at stakes above 10/20, it’s often the only way to get action.

The only problem is that I can’t play as many tables at once, so my hourly rate isn’t necessarily better, plus it’s tough to get action from people I actually want to play. Unlike with my other goals, I don’t want to resort to playing smaller stakes just to hit this goal. I will try to be more diligent about starting tables and maybe even playing some people against whom I don’t necessarily have an edge, since part of the point here is to get better.

What About You?

How did 2009 treat you? What are your goals, poker or otherwise, for 2010?

Pure Donkey

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

CO ($1000)
Button ($1726)
SB ($801)
BB ($1299)
UTG ($930)
Hero ($1388)

Preflop: Hero is MP with Qc, Ac.
1 fold, Hero raises to $35, CO calls $35, 2 folds, BB raises to $145, Hero calls $110, CO folds.

Flop: ($330) Qh, 7d, 4h (2 players)
BB bets $245, Hero calls $245.

Turn: ($820) Jh (2 players)
BB bets $565, Hero raises to $998 (All-In), BB calls $344 (All-In).

River: ($2727) 3h (2 players, 2 all-in).

Final Pot: $2727 Villain wins with AA.

Yuck, fold pre-flop. I’ve got no defense for this one.

Big Draw

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold’em, $25 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Button ($3303)
Hero ($2916)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Ad, Qd.
Button calls $15, Hero raises to $90, Button calls $65.

Flop: ($180) 7d, 8s, Jd (2 players)
Hero bets $125, Button raises to $250, Hero raises to $1075, Button calls $825.

Turn: ($2330) 7s (2 players)
Hero bets $1751 (All-In), Button calls $1751.

River: ($5832) Th (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $5832 Villain wins with J8.

Maybe check back the turn? This one is probably fine/unlucky.

Cooler

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $50 BB (2 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Hero ($5250.25)
BB ($17039.75)

Preflop: Hero is Button with Qh, Ah.
Hero raises to $150, BB calls $100.

Flop: ($300) Ks, Js, Ts (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $250, BB raises to $750, Hero raises to $2500, BB raises to $16889.75 (All-In), Hero calls $2600.25 (All-In).

Turn: ($22290) 5h (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($22290) 5c (2 players, 2 all-in).

Final Pot: $22290 Villain wins with a flush, don’t recall his cards but it doesn’t matter.

Carried Away

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (5 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

Button ($2982)
Hero ($1000)
BB ($1000)
UTG ($1000)
MP ($1000)

Preflop: Hero is SB with Ah, Qh.

3 folds, Hero raises to $30, BB raises to $100, Hero raises to $275, BB raises to $1000 (All-In), Hero calls $725 (All-In).

Flop: ($2000) 9h, 3d, Tc (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: ($2000) Kd (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: ($2000) 6h (2 players, 2 all-in).

Final Pot: $2000 Villain wins with AA.

Tough spot in a blind battle. Against a regular this would be fine, but this guy was an unknown, so probably just calling his 3-bet and getting away on the flop is best.

Defending My Squeeze

Full Tilt Poker No-Limit Hold’em, $10 BB (6 handed) Hand History converter Courtesy of PokerZion.com

MP ($867)
CO ($1191.20)
Button ($636)
SB ($1000)
Hero ($1015)
UTG ($247)

Preflop: Hero is BB with Qs, As.

2 folds, CO raises to $35, Button calls $35, SB calls $30, Hero raises to $165, CO folds, Button folds, SB raises to $1000 (All-In), Hero calls $835.

Flop: ($2070) 7d, 2h, 3c (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: ($2070) 7h (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($2070) 6s (2 players, 1 all-in).

Final Pot: $2070 Villain wins with 88.

Fine call, unlucky result. It’s super unlucky this guy has QQ+, AK after overcalling pre-flop.

Not surprisingly, there are some coolers and lost coin flips here. Significantly, though, there is also some bad play, and none of my five biggest losers were bad beats. What’s your biggest loser?