April

I won and lost a lot of money in April. I finished the month with a decent though not spectacular bottom line, but given what I spent on tournament buy-ins (thank you very much, SCOOP), I’m impressed that I was up at all.

Resolution One: Keep Grinding NLHE Cash Games

Goal 1: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games

Getting very close (to being on track, that is). If I can maintain this rate for the rest of the year, I’ll be happy. And if I manage a respectable tournament score to boot….

Goal 2: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars

I’m well on track now. The SCOOP was worth a lot of VPPs, so I’m glad I grinded up to Platinum last month. Were I to hit Supernova in the next two months, which I won’t, I’d be eligible for a free suite upgrade at the Palms during my WSOP trip.

Then again, this goal is going to a breeze now that Stars is offering 100,000 VPPs to their satellite qualifiers who actually play in the WSOP main event. Now I all have to do is win one of their damn satellites.

Resolution Two: Diversify My Income Streams

Goal 3: Monetize This Blog

Baby steps. In case you missed them this month, I wrote a review of Deke Castleman’s Whale Hunt in the Desert and pimped some ways to get your The Wire fix. If I ever get my act properly together, I may have a few advertisers soon.

Goal 4: Get Back Into Coaching

As of last night, I’m more than halfway through my first group session. I’m very happy with how it’s going, but that’s got a lot to do with the individual students who comprise the group. With a well-chosen group, though, I think this model has great potential to provide affordable coaching for smaller stakes players while still getting me fair compensation for my time.

Goal 5: Market My Writing

There’s a fun little development here that’s a 99% done deal, but I’ll wait to announce it until I know for sure. Be warned, though, that it’s only going to be genuinely useful to a very small fraction of my readers. I think it’s cool though.

In the meantime, check out my interview with Part Time Poker.

Resolution Three: Improve My NLHE Skills

Goal 6: Use Poker Tracker More Effectively

I played with a HUD up over the weekend for the first time in weeks, but I just didn’t find myself using it much at all. Of course, as soon as I turned it off, a spot came up where I did actually want to see some numbers. All in all, though, it still feels like more of a distraction when I’m multi-tabling. I do want to at least use Poker Tracker for more self-analysis of my game.

Goal 7: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL.

I’m currently at a not-too-impressive 1.32 BB/100 over 86,065 hands. The best way to get this up will probably be to play more 5/10 Heads Up, where I’m currently scoring better than 10 BB/100 over 10K hands.

Goal 8: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE

I’ve logged just under 20K hands so far, at a 4.11 BB/100 win rate. No wonder it’s getting tougher and tougher to find action. Also of note: I’m currently working on a Heads Up series for Poker Savvy Plus.