High On Poker

With 2009 almost in the bag, it’s time to look forward to 2010 and establish some new poker goals. 2009 has been a good year for me, poker-wise.

I hit my goal after falling well short in 2008, and I’ve come to a new realization about what I need to do in the future to keep growing.

My first goal of the year is to simply earn five figures for the year playing poker. That’s it. It would be more than any previous year, but not such a leap that success would be difficult.

Of course, if I am going to increase my annual profit goal, I’ll need to either play more, play higher or play better. I hope to do all three.

Tournament poker, particularly at the Tuna Club this year, has been a boon for me in live games. I’ve dabbled in some WSOP Circuit events in the past, but if I am going to hit a big score, I’m going to have to increase the frequency and buy-ins to my tournaments. Tuna Club is a far stretch from the WSOP. At Tuna, it’s a $150 buy-in or so, and maybe three tables. WSOP is $300+ minimum and likely 300+ players, as a conservative estimate.

The plan, as of today, is to play in the following events:

The Borgata Winter Open – There is a two-day Omaha 8B tournament that starts on Saturday, January 23rd. I love O8, but I don’t love love it in tournament form. Still, it looks like the best option for a weekend warrior and the O8 aspect adds a nice twist. I expect most of the year to be NLHE, wall-to-wall. It doesn’t hurt that Riggstad and probably AlCantHang will be on hand to hang out after I win the tourney.

Foxwood’s Mega-Stack Challenge XV- From O8 to Oh My! Sadly, all the Indians in Foxwoods are too drunk to work out an exact schedule, but Foxwoods is holding its 15th iteration of its Mega-Stack Challenge from February 9 through the 15th. That means there is only one weekend covered by the event, Feb. 12-14. My main concern is that Foxwoods will load up the high buy-in events for the weekend, since it is near the end of the series. If that’s the case, I might be on the sidelines. From a quick perusal, though, it appears as though last year, Foxwoods held a $500+ event on the Saturday of the February Mega-Stack tournament, so if I do well in January, I may just play that, assuming they have it. Or, more likely, I’ll head over to Borgata for their weekly $300 buy-in weekend tournament.

WSOP Circuit Caesars AC – I’m not a fan of Caesars AC in general. Their table game minimums are too high, their poker room is merely adequate and the whole place has a douchey feel. But if there’s a WSOP event in town, I’m willing to suffer. This year’s WSOP Circuit event at Caesars AC runs from March 3 through March 14, covering two weekends. God willing, I’ll be playing the Friday, March 5th or Sunday March 7th $340 events, both NLHE. Of course, that will require me to either miss a day of work on that Friday (the tournament starts at noon) or on Monday, in case I make it to day 2 of the Sunday event. Worst case scenario, I’ll simply play the one-day Turbo event for $230. If anyone has any experience with WSOP Circuit Turbo events, please let me know how they play. I can deal with short blind periods. In fact, it would probably be an advantage to me, since I am so used to underground and lower buy-in tournaments. But if its a real clusterfuck, I’d rather skip it and spend my money elsewhere

That’s all I have tentatively scheduled for now. But it’s a pretty nice schedule, if I do have to say so myself.

Until next time, make mine poker!