Year end summary

Well December has ended the year in pretty disastrous fashion. From an opening balance of $2710, the month ended with a deficit of $665 to end on $2045. The stats suggest that there was a significant cooler going on at 2/4, with W$SD of under 40%. But I suspect I have not been playing my best at times, with VPIP and PFR creeping a little too high at 34 and 22 respectively.

Unfortunately I missed my year-end target of $3000, but on the upside I had another successful live satellite and played well in the $1100 buyin Aussie Millions satellite, finishing pretty close to the big package places at 33rd.

Overall the year has been quite a ride, and pretty successful given my modest beginning. I started on about January 10th, with a $10 no-deposit bonus at VCpoker. The first week I must have hit quite a heater, as I managed to turn the $10 into $70 playing 0.1/0.2 and 0.25/0.5 limit. i broke $100 within three weeks, but then went through some crazy swings after joining Tower poker: down to $30, back up to $100, down to $17, up to $50, down to $20. Finally I managed another upswing, followed by cashing (just in time) a $96 bonus on Tower along with a couple of quads promotion bonuses ($50 each).

By early March, I had a BR over $250. By mid-April I cracked $400, and bought into Pacific via Pokerlistings for the 50% $150 bonus. Pacific was another rollercoaster, where I started with a huge run of bad beats. On one day in particular, I had a huge succession of big pairs from JJ through to AA cracked time after time. I hit a low of $150, before recovering via a couple of heaters and finishing the bonus. By the end of April, I was close to $600 and feeling pretty confident.

May was something of a landmark month, where I had quite a bit of tournament success. My first foray to the casino was a $60 satellite for the $100,000 Sapphire series final ($1100 buyin). I won through to the top four places out of 100 to make the final. Also in May, I came second in a 100 player tournament for a $200 cash, won a 94 player freeroll and cashed in a few SNGs. May was also when I cracked $1000 for the first time.

June through August were a flatline online, though I did play another live sat (busting top 3rd with AA aipf) and then the Sapphire series final (where I scraped into the top half in a pretty dry run).

Finally in September I had a really big $1k month. This coincided with the discovery of William Hill and kickback bonuses. October was also pretty good overall, with over $700 profit. Since then it hasn't been good hunting online, but the sub-satellite win and playing in the Aussie Millions Satellite were probably the highlights of the year. I also had a break-even shot at live 10/20 limti, which I was quite happy about. The year ends with a BR of around $2050, having taken $350 in profit dividends through the year.

On the whole I am pleased with the year, especially the satellite wins. My aim overall was to build up to playing serious stakes poker, and in a sense I have achieved that with the live tournament finals and a few shots at 5/10 online and 10/20 live.

I'll post my New Year's goals in a few days time.