2016

   Last year was a busy year for me poker-wise, so here are some edited highlights.

   JANUARY. At the start of 2016 I decided that my primary online game would be Texas Holdem tournaments. The year before I'd performed poorly in ring games so I figured it was time to try something different. However, while I was still on holiday I decided to try a Sit and Go marathon session. I spent about 6 hours playing in a total of nine $3.50 games. I managed one second place and two thirds in this session, coming out with a loss of US$13.20. This served to confirm that my Sit and Go mojo was well and truly lost.
   FEBRUARY. As chronicled elsewhere ('The Deep Stack Tournament', 26/02/16) I played in the Sky City Casino Waitangi Day Tournament. I played for 6 1/2 hours on day 1A, then managed another 2 hours on day two before being eliminated, finishing in 53rd place out of 105 players. Getting knocked out halfway through was disappointing but I was very happy with the fact that I managed to finish well enough in two satellite events to get a ticket to the main event. It was great to just be involved in a $1,100 buy-in event and I'd love to play again this year. Unfortunately, they seem to be running things differently this year and there don't seem to be any reasonably cheap satellites that I could afford to play in.
   MARCH. This was a very good month in terms of results. I had a couple of good cashes in the micro stakes online tournaments. I came in 1st out of 85 and 2nd out of 76, collecting US$145 in total. There were also a couple of good live tournament finishes: 2/23 for +$85 and 1/18 for +$230. I also won a bit in two ring games this month. So I was able to make a withdrawal from my 888 Poker account and I was able to deposit some more into my bankroll bank account.
   APRIL. A ring game usually starts up towards the end of my regular Wednesday night tournament. This is usually a limited dealer's choice game, the choice being between Holdem, Omaha and Crazy Pineapple. On the 13th I played in this game and lost $20. The loss itself was no big deal but it got me thinking about the nature of these kinds of post-tournament ring games. They are usually structured in such a way that you don't have enough time or a deep enough stack to play a proper ring game strategy. In the end I decided that, despite a couple of wins the previous month, the variance was just too high. So that was the last time I played in a short-stack ring game.
   MAY. This is the month when I decided to look back at the last 12 months of live tournament results. I was interested to find out how often I actually cash in live tournaments. It turns out I'd played in 71 tournaments over the last year. I cashed in 24 of these, or one in every 3. Of these, 6 were wins, giving me a win rate of 1/12. I was pretty happy with a 1 in 3 rate for cashes but figured that I need to do some work on getting more first places. That is still an ongoing project.
   JUNE. Early in June I went to the Clubs NZ North Island Poker Championships in Hastings (see 'The Big Weekend', 12/07/16). After 11 hours of play I came in 14/155, just off the money. I was pretty happy with this result. Two years previously I finished 9th, and the year after I made it about halfway through the field. So I'm usually in the hunt. It's also great to get out of Auckland and meet some new people and see some new places.
   JULY. I'd been going through a bit of a slow patch in terms of results over the last few weeks. On Friday 29th I broke the drought and cashed in a live tournament profiting by $30. My last live cash had been on the 20th May, when I'd picked up +$170.  As it happens, both of these were re-buy tournaments. Maybe re-buys are my best game?
   AUGUST. The winter season (June, July, August) didn't go well overall. My ROI (return on investment) for this 3 month period was -25%. I was looking at overall losses for all my regular live tournaments and a miniscule +US$13 overall for online tourneys. My best result for the winter period was a $70 profit in live ring games; this was the result of a single game played during the Queen's Birthday weekend trip. Winter seems to be my worst season. I don't know why.
   SEPTEMBER. The Onehunga Workingmen's Club held the first of a series of monthly deep stack tournaments with a $50 entry fee. Although we only had enough players for a single table, it was an enjoyable event, especially as I came in second and pocketed an $80 profit. Subsequent games also ended up being single table events and I continued to cash on a regular basis. These games were played on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, which was very convenient for me.
   OCTOBER. I started playing in the occasional micro stakes big field tournament on Poker Stars in the previous month. I had my first cash in this type of game this month, coming in 127th place out of 5093 players. As the buy-in is only US$2.20, I didn't make much, but it was an encouraging start. I've continued playing in these big field events from time to time, but haven't had any more cashes yet.
   NOVEMBER. One Friday night the regular tournament at the OWMC was cancelled as the organiser had a prior engagement. So some of the regulars played a ring game instead. I ended up running it as everyone knows I'm 'the cashie guy'. So I did blinds of 25c/50c, Texas Holdem only, with buy-ins up to $50. A good time was had by all. Although I came out of the game with only a small profit it was great to be able to play in a proper ring game for a change.
   DECEMBER. I came 5th on the overall points table for the Auckland Inter-club Poker this year. Although only the top 3 players win cash prizes I was looking forward to the prize-giving day at Tuakau because the poker tournament on that day had no rake taken out of the prize-pool; it was all paid out. But in their infinite wisdom the organisers decided to pay out the top 18 finishers, rather than the usual top 9. So even though I came in 7/54 I only collected $40 for my troubles, a measly $20 profit. Oh well. Thems the breaks.