2010 Recap and Looking Forward to 2011

So I ended the year just north of my goal of 2.25 million VPP, which is nice.  I really feel like I could have gotten more if I really wanted to, considering I was up to 1 million in March, but I mean I didn't play at all for 6 weeks during the WSOP and after WSOP I was only playing like 1 day a week until WCOOP started (which was probably about another 6 week span).  But between SCOOP in May and WSOP in June and part of July, I had played poker for over 2 months pretty much all day every day and was pretty burnt out on poker at the time.  I picked it up again for WCOOP, but the last couple months I've only been playing 2 or 3 days a week because we always seem to have stuff going on, between getting ready to move into the new house and preparing for the baby.

So here's where I'm at for 2011 so far after 1 short day of playing:

Pretty sad to look at all those small numbers.  :)

It will probably be a slow January and February for me, between moving into the new house and having a baby due in February.  Also I'll be at PCA for 10 days.  This will be my 4th year in a row going, and it's really a great destination for a poker tournament.  The weather kind of sucked last year because it was too cold and windy, but I just looked at the forecast and it looks like highs in the 70s for at least the first few days, so that's nice.

Wife can't go this year because it's too close to when the baby is due, so I'm going by myself this year.  In the previous 3 years I've never played a side event, always just played the main event then lounged and did whatever else at the resort after busting the main event.  But this year I think I'll play some side events if I bust early.  Only side event I know for sure I'll be playing is the $5k bounty shootout on the 13th.  This is a nice once because there's a good chance of getting some TV time, and after barely missing 2 separate chances of getting TV time at NAPT LA, maybe this will be the time.  I've never been on TV for poker except stuff like shots of the back of my head when they were filming another table.  It would be nice for all the non-poker-player people I meet who, when I tell them I'm a poker player, one of their first questions is usually something like "Have you been on TV?".  It would be nice to be able to answer "yes" to it.

Anyway, 2011 goals.  Most important one is to be the best dad I can to our son.  I don't really feel fully prepared for this yet but I'm sure it will all make a lot more sense once he's born.  :)

As for poker goals, it's a near certainty that I'll make Supernova Elite again.  Beyond that it's really hard to even guess.  I really don't know how my poker playing will work with a kid in the house until he's actually born, so it's hard to even fathom a guess now as to how poker will go in 2011.

Also, the hyperturbo sngs that I've played for the last couple years were changed yesterday.  In an effort to help curb collusion, PokerStars decided to change them from paying 2 seats plus a refund for third, to just paying 2 seats now.  Also the buyins are slightly lower now to accommodate the change in payouts.  I'm not sure that I fully understand the change and I do think it will hurt the volume of the games somewhat, and I think win rates in this format will be lower than in the old format just because the strategy is simpler.  But really, the games are satellites to a tournament and were never meant for "grinders" to play in the first place, they were originally meant to try to get more people to play the target tournament.  They just kind of evolved into something that a grinder could play a couple years ago, mostly thanks to myself.

I definitely prefer the old format, but like I've done 10 other times in my poker/gambling career, I'll just have to adjust to something new.  You can never be a successful poker player/gambler if you expect to do the same thing for your whole life anyway.  The games change, people's preferences change, you have to go where the money is.  If I find that these games are unbeatable then I'll just have to find a new game to play.  It's been a nice 2 year run for me in the old hyperturbos, but that's gone now.

It's really hard to say how much this change will affect what I do in 2011.  It mostly depends on whether other people still play them.  A lot of the regulars are threatening to quit playing them but I really think a lot of those are idle threats.  My plan for now is to continue to play them in the new format, but that could easily change in the next month or 2 if I come to the conclusion that these games aren't beatable at a high enough rate.