2009 was easily my worst year ever as a poker player. I started off ok, but hit a gross and ridiculous downswing that really hit my confidence. I don't know that it affected my play, but it probably did. I do know that it made me start hating playing. Combine that with the fact that I could no longer get action i the HU SNGs that were my bread and butter in 2008, and I was forced to try to find a form of poker that would make me want to kill myself less.
I even went back to my roots of 6 max LHE, and while I'm pretty sure my playing style is still at least slightly +EV in those, I lost there too. There are definitely still a lot of bad players playing those limit games, but there are a whole lot of regs too and it's just nothing like the free money machine it was a few years ago. By the end of the year, I was back to 6 max NL for the first time in a long time, and doing ok, but again, the games are much tougher than they used to be, even at the lower levels.
Overall, I think I actually officially had my first slightly losing year on the felt, but when you add in RB and bonuses, I was back in the positive. Add staking on top of that, and I did ok, but it was still my worst year ever total income wise.
I started a partnership with a good friend of mine last month, and we have an interesting idea we are going to pursue very shortly. It's going to require quite a bit of my time, but I'm more excited about this than I have been any other business venture I've considered in quite some time. I think there is a high chance of moderate success, a small chance of complete failure, and an equally small chance of it being a massive success. We're still trying to get all of our ducks in a row right now, but things are coming along. Here's hoping by the time next year, the business will be a massive success.......... I think I'll know one way or another in a month or two.
Here's also hoping that 2010 will be the year of poker legislation bringing us closer to the true golden age of online poker. Can you imagine how good the game will be if we are ever able to play at Bellagio.com and such?
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