Well it has been a couple of weeks since my last blog, and alot has happened...this is long so sorry! Christmas was good, but nothing interesting happened other than seeing family and being the only sad soul grinding on Christmas day after dinner on Betfair, (glad I did though was a v profitable).

 Poker:

Well online has been kinda meh in Decemeber. The plan was to put in alot of volume this month, and I think I've been semi successful in that. Currently I think I've played 50k hands this month, and should go up to like 60k by the end of the year. The start of the month went horrifically, I was obviously tilting/4 betting too much and just spewing. Kind of got into a downward spiral which I think was 50% my fault 50% downswong, but managed to clikc out of it and recover.. however it is a $3k dent that has taken a month to recover from. Refined my a game a little too,my non showdown winnings were getting a little out of control and effecting my showdown so I've altered that a little and now showdowns are up a little more and I've curbed the agression a little. Very happy with my game atm + results at $100nl.

Also I moved up to 200$nl for a while like 15k hands or so, and that went medicore. I think I played ok, and was up a few buy ins but then had a -$1k day and that put the breaks on. I definatly ran below ev and distinctly rememberr running KK into AA 4 times in a day. I soon realised that the swongs of $1/2 were effecting me and decided to just grind $100nl, 7 tabling. In hiensight prolly wasn't the greatest idea to increase volume and stakes in a month where I wanted to book a solid win rate. But live and learn.. till end of January I'll only play $100nl. Don't think though that the games were tougher at all, just felt that I didn't want to double my varience and play against some new players for 50k hands. 

This month has been super breakeven for those reason and just me playing awful at the start of the month but meh, graph below that im not too proud of. 

Live poker was fun too, found a 50p/1 game in the local casino running on Saturdays and played there a couple of times. Booked a win both times, think only like 50 quid and about 100 but coud have been much more if I held a little more often :) Will definatly visit it again in a week or two.

The live bankroll promo I've totally forgotten about, but should hit the $5k thing if I put in a couple more hours next month. Pretty handy as that pays for flights to vegas, and about $4k in buy ins which I think I'll use on a $2k and a couple of those stimulus events. I know the schedule has been released but havn't had a chance to look at it/plan.

December total breakeven month.. meh you live and learn!

December with $100nl only, I'm happy with this recovery tbh

December in big blinds as I played a range of stakes:

Goals for 2010:

2009 was a good year for the poker, getting back into cash games and actually starting to put solid volume in towards the end of the year. Next blog post I'm sure i'll do a 2009 recap with graphs and such but it's been a very good year to build upon. I won a little (not enough to brag about and certainly not more than previous years) but I learnt alot about how the game has changed and generally just feel like the time spent this year working hard will pay off 3 fold in 2010. So here are some goals for 2010.. some are poker related, some are not. I'm sure if I'm still updating this blog in 6 months time it would be cool to recap them.

• Play 1,000,000 hands in 2010 - This goal is pretty self explainitory but think its a good one, it means averaging about 90k hands a month and is perfectly feasable with a little hard work ethic.
  

• Play higher - Such a generalised goal, and to be honest I don't have dreams of one day playing 200/400 hu vs durrrr etc. Just like to earn a nice tidy profit for the year and get alot better. I also think saying 'I wanna play 5/10 full time' just pointless for me as the higher I move up usually the less hands I play. This is partly due to less tables to begin with/ games might not run as frequently esp on a site like betfair where I don't think I've ever seen 10 '$10/20' games run. So just going to say, play higher for the majority of the year. Prolly 1/2 or something, and I will try to stay at betfair due to the redic rakeback % I get just means that if I did play 1m hands then that's more than most people earn in a year just in rakeback.  

• Go WSOP and play 2 or more events - I've been to the WSOP 2 times and sadly due to being underage at the time couldn't play any of the events, only cash games... sooo.. this year with the live br thing and me having the time I think it's a good goal. The events I'll play are going to be <$5k so they won't be great structures so setting a goal to cash in one is unrealistic.

• Played a few more live tournamnets - Outside of the WSOP I want to play in the WSOPE this year and travel to the PCA, I mean the Jan 2010, as it's a little late to be planning to go in a few days and I have other things going on in Jan.

• Make $100k incl rakeback - This might be a little unrealistic, not sure but it will become apparent pretty quickly. I think though if I hit the 90k hands a month goal that should equal just shy of $9k a month including rakeback @ $100nl. So if I'm moving up later on in the year and such, I don't think it's unachieveable.
  

• Live outside of the UK for 3-6 months of the year - Pretty self explainitory and is covered below :) I like the UK and have done alot of travelled outside of it compared to others my age, but honestly never lived in a different country for any period of time. Now the USA has like a 90 day visa waiver programme and so many countries are in the EU allowing people to move freely it seems a waste to not take advantage of this whilst young with no commitments.

Malta:

Well to add on to the last goal I've decided to move to Malta in January. Not decided but it will prolly be the 3rd week in Jan, and I've got a few places lined up. The actual cost of living out there is a fair bit cheaper than London, and also flights to and fro are also very cheap @ about 150 quid return. I was over there in November for a poker tournament and thorouhly enjoyed it, so after looking 2+2 and asking a few people that live there what it is like I decided to make the arrangements.They have a couple of nice casino's with a lot of live action, something that is missing where I'm currently living... a very solid night life, but it's also a cool place to chill by the sea. The pace of life is a lot less than what it is in London and after the mixed year I've had outside of poker I think this will be a welcome change. 

I'll live there at least for 3 months and more liklely 6 months and then head straight to the WSOP, and not decided yet whether to live with others who are out there (some people have very nice penthouse aparements they are sharing) or to get my own pad. All this will be decided over the next couple of weeks, but it is very exciting! 

The change will do me the world of good and I'm looking forward to it immensly :D

Hope everybody had a good xmas and has an exciting new years planned.