The World Series of Poker
After much anticipation, the Main Event finally turned up on ESPN and I tuned in every week to see the thousands of players get whittled down to the November Nine. Actually, the coverage started when the money bubble had already burst and there were only a few hundred players left. It was still pretty entertaining to watch, although neither my wife nor I are quite as enthralled by it all as we were when we first started watching this event four or five years ago. The most interesting thing for me was to watch Daniel Negreanu go deep in this tournament again. He's the only one of the old guard of poker professionals to consistently do well in this massive tournament. In the end he just missed the final table, coming 11th for the second time in recent years.
I saw the start of the final table and then, because it was being played every day, I missed an episode or two and caught up again when there were only three players left. It was pretty obvious that Joe McKeehen, with his massive chip advantage, was going to win. The fact that he kept hitting good hands didn't hurt either. I was rooting for Neil Blumenfield to win, partly because he's an amateur, partly because he's an old bugger like me, but mostly because I liked his hat. But in the end he had no chance and only collected about $3 million for third place. How sad.
PokerNZ
For a while now I've been considering the possibility of starting up a poker website that would be a resource for Auckland and/or New Zealand poker players. I've been keeping an eye out for a site that provides information for local players for quite a while, but have seen nothing. I was even planning to check out web design courses in the new year. Then I discovered a new website: www.pokerNZ.co.nz . This site features a New Zealand map with flags pinpointing local tournaments and showing details of each game. I had a bit of trouble using this site at first, due to my habit of not allowing websites to know my location. It turns out that keeping your location private means that you don't get to see the location of games on the map. But having sorted this out, I had a look at the site and found it to be very interesting.
There were quite a few games listed in places like Tauranga and Rotorua, but nothing in Auckland, other than the Sky City Casino. It turns out that the site organiser lives in Tauranga, so most of the listings come from that area. So I registered with the site and set about rectifying this state of affairs. I started by listing some of the club tournaments that I'm familiar with. Then I listed a few pub tournaments that I'd seen advertised. With Christmas coming up I've given it a rest for a few weeks, but will continue after the new year. There are still a few more club games to list and then I'll probably start with the National Pub Poker League games. The way I see it, the more games I list, the more likely it is that this site becomes a useful resource for poker players. And the more players that use the site, the more likely it is that some of them will also start listing games. This is my cunning plan for finding more live poker games.
The Verdict
With December comes my annual summary of the year's results. To put it into a nutshell: it could have been worse. I ended the year with a slightly lower bankroll balance than I began with, showing a 2% loss for the year. Looking at the individual game types, I showed a 17% loss for both the online game types; the micro ring games and the single table Sit 'n' Gos. At least I'm consistent. Once again it was the live games that saved the day. In live tournaments I showed a 16% return on investment, not nearly as good as previous years, but a positive result nevertheless. Live ring games showed the best results of all, at 49% ROI, but unfortunately I haven't spent as much on these games during the year, simply because there haven't been that many available. As a result, it wasn't enough to bring me back into the black overall. These results only go to confirm a trend that has been obvious for a while: I do much better in live poker games than I do at online games. So I will continue to try and find live games to play in, especially cashies.
Interclub
After building up the final Interclub Tournament as the big decider (see the previous post), it turned into a bit of a fizzer. Without going into too much detail, we ended up trialling a new format at the end-of-year game, which meant that there were no more points to be had at that session. The results remained the same as they stood at the end of the November round, which means that my team finished in second place, netting $720 between the 11 of us. Better than a slap in the face with a damp haddock I guess. One of our team-mates also came third in the individual points for the year and got some prize money. It turns out that I finished in fifth place overall, which I was pleased to hear. I also placed in the top ten last year so it's good to see I'm showing some consistency.
As for the venue; it was the first time we'd been to the Tuakau Cossie Club. It turned out to be a pretty nice place and a good time was had by all. I even managed to get a ring game going, although I showed a small loss this time. Meanwhile there's a lot of talk about whether the competition will continue with 8-player teams or whether we're moving to 5-player teams. The decision is yet to be made but either way my wife and I will continue playing next year. It looks like we're hooked.
Woop woop woop, 'Pull up, pull up!'
As detailed in previous posts, my summer poker season was disastrous in terms of results. I showed a loss in every single game type and lost a big chunk of my poker bankroll. Since then, I've been gradually crawling my way back up towards my previous bankroll level. It's been a long slow climb, but I've recovered nearly half of the money I lost. Looking back at these results, it's pretty clear that the reason I lost during this period is that I had a losing season for live games. And the reason that I've been able to claw back some of those losses is that my live poker games have got back on the winning track. So the way ahead is clear: play as often as possible in live poker games (especially ring games), and minimise the damage in online games. This may seem to be something of a defeatist attitude when it comes to online poker, but I consider it to be a case of facing reality. My online games have shown a negative ROI in three out of four seasons this year. So in future games I will be playing at the micro level to minimise my losses.
The Holiday Project
Regardless of the pending decision over whether to play 5-player or 8-player teams in the Interclub Tournament my wife and I will continue to play for the Onehunga RSA. With this in mind, I volunteered to make some poker table-tops for the club. The hosting club needs at least 9 tables to accommodate the players in this tournament, and the RSA has only three (these table-tops were left over from a few years ago when the NPPL used to host games there). So we have to borrow tables from the club just up the street, which is less than ideal. Our team leader didn't seem too bothered about this embarrassing situation, so I put my hand up to sort the problem out.
So I've bought some plywood, which I had delivered to my workplace, and I'm in the process of cutting it into six table-tops. I'm going to make four of them octagonal and two round tables. I figure that the round tables can seat nine people which could be useful for the tournament and also for use as a ring game table (I still haven't given up hope of getting a cashie started). Next I have to find some felt or card table cloth. There's a local supplier that has 'speed cloth' for sale but it's pretty expensive, working out at about $50 per table. So I'm checking out possible sources of supply next week, while I knock the table-tops into shape. I've got about three weeks holiday over Christmas so that will be my holiday project. My club is hosting the first tournament in mid-January, so there's no time for messing about.
Game Plan
As usual at this time of year I've been thinking about what sort of poker game(s) I want to play in the coming year. I'm talking about online games here as I will continue playing in any available live games that are within my buy-in limits. Looking at my results for both online Sit 'n' Gos and online ring games, I can't really see myself continuing in these game types, at least not in the short term so, where to next? Well, I think it's time to return to playing tournaments online. I've played in these types of game in the past, with mixed results, but I figure that it's the game type that's most likely to have weak players, especially at the micro level. So for the next year at least I'll be playing in multi table no limit holdem tournaments on 888Poker. In particular, I want to play in games with no re-buys or add-ons. I've identified a couple of tournaments that are played mid-afternoon on weekends and I plan to make that my regular weekly online game. They are also quite cheap tournaments, well below my maximum buy-in level, which means I'm limiting the risk of losing a lot of cash on yet another online game shambles.
December
I've had a couple of good wins in the last week. I came first in the Wednesday night tournament and then my wife and I finished in the top two on Friday night, splitting first and second prize between us. That's the first time we've ever been in the money together. So that's given my bankroll a nice boost. There's been a lot of friendly rivalry on Friday nights as players try to win the big yearly prize of $1000 for the best overall points-scorer of the year. I was sitting in third place but in the end the two front-runners were too far ahead for me to catch up. I believe that there's prize money for first and second so I just missed out on a Christmas bonus. Nevermind.
My wife and I are off on holiday for a week over Christmas so I'll have to somehow survive a week without any poker games. Actually, it'll be nice to have a break from poker for a short time. We're planning to return to Auckland on New Year's Eve, and I'm hoping to find a live game to play that evening. What better way is there to see in the New Year?
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