Another month, another monthly review of progress towards my Yearly Resolutions.
Goal 1: Average 15 Hours/Week Playing My “Regular” Games
I’ve found that 15 hours/week enables me to earn a pretty healthy income, far more than I could make at any real job I could get, without impeding too much on my lifestyle.I consider my regular games to be anywhere from 2/4 NL to 50/100 NL as well as big tournaments like the Sunday Majors, the FTOPS, and the WCOOP; time spent playing any of these will count towards my goal.
About 7 hours ahead of pace. I actually lost ground on this in March, which surprised me, because I really felt like I was packing the hours in. I’m still hopeful that April will be a big month, though.
Goal 2: Earn $X in NLHE Cash Games
It’s very tough to predict or control what I will earn playing tournaments. With cash games, though, it’s mostly a question of game selection and putting in hours. It’s not something I’m going to announce publicly, but I am going to set a target, and I am going to put in extra hours towards the end of year if I’m on pace to come up short.
Pretty much exactly on pace, given the number of days that have passed. Considering how many hours I’ve played relative to that yearly goal, I’m actually slightly behind pace.
Goal 3: Earn Supernova status on PokerStars
My plan for this is to table select as usual in the beginning of each month, and then assess my progress towards the end of each month. If I’m on pace to come up short, I’m going to put in extra hours above and beyond my weekly goal just grinding 9 tables of $1/2 NLHE (or smaller) until I hit my VPP target for the month. Hopefully this is something I can do relatively stress-free, just an hour or two at a time, when I’m not in the mood to put in a proper session in higher stakes games. To be honest, my hourly rate should still be quite good multi-tabling SSNL, so hopefully this will incentivize me to make a little money in what would otherwise be downtime.
As of today, pace for Supernova would be 25,479. I’m sitting on 28,780. I think this might really happen this year!
Goal 4: Monetize This Blog
I know I keep saying it, but sooner or later I really am going to look into making money a little more directly from this blog. I feel like it’s right on the cusp of being pretty profitable. That doesn’t have to mean ads, though it might. Maybe I’ll…
Snail’s pace.
Goal 5: Write a Book
I’ve talked about this before, but this is the first time it’s ever been an explicit goal. I’ve already got some downtime sketched out in the next few months to work on this and have been kicking around some ideas in my head. Rather than trying to write one big, expensive e-book as a lot of people have done, I’m thinking of doing a series of smaller, modular works that could be purchased separately or as a set. Those of you who read this blog regularly are going to be a big chunk of the target audience, so keep an eye out for posts in the next few weeks soliciting your input about what you’d like to see in a poker book authored by yours truly.
No progress, but I’m expecting to have some time to get this straightened out this month.
Goal 6: Average One Blog Post Per Day
I know it’s been a little quiet on here of late. Part of that is the holidays, and part of it is just laziness. I want to get back to posting once a day. There will probably be more non-poker content, and not all of the poker stuff will be equally in-depth, but overall you can expect to see more and better content here.
Only 29 posts in March, falling slightly further behind….
Goal 7: Average Five Hours of Coaching Per Week
Coaching was extremely fun and rewarding for me last year. So far, except for my group seminars, I haven’t done much to market myself as a coach or actively solicit students. I’ve mostly just worked with students as they’ve come to me, and so so far that’s kept me just about as busy as I’d like to be with coaching. I want to ramp it up a bit this year by setting a monthly goal and actively soliciting students if necessary to ensure that I’ve got a regular stream of students.
Very little this month, which was unexpected. Two of my students had personal issues some up and needed to go on hiatus, and I haven’t had time to fill those spots yet. I’m in the process of lining up new students, so if you’re interested, check out my poker coaching information.
Goal 7: Average an Hour a Day of Dedicated Studying and Improvement
I’m going to be very broad about what this can include: reading books, watching videos, reviewing hands in Hold ‘Em Manager, talking poker with a friend, and even blogging (when it’s related to reviewing my play).
Way behind. I haven’t done as much with Leakbuster as I thought I would, so that review is still in the works. Maybe this month?
Goal 8: Use Hold ‘Em Manager
I switched from Poker Tracker to Hold ‘Em Manager last year. PT2 is great, but HEM is just better. For the last part of the year, I was playing without it on my laptop. It does get in my way sometimes, but I’d rather learn how to work with it than insist on playing without it.
Still getting better, slowly but surely.
Goal 9: Finish the Year with a 4BB/100 Win-Rate at 5/10 NL and/or Higher
Same goal as last year, since I didn’t achieve it but still think it’s very viable. It might be cheating a little, but I’m going to allow myself to count my results from bigger games towards this goal or not depending on whether I do better in them than I do in 5/10 (this was the cast last year). Basically, if I am at 4 BB/100 over a big sample at 5/10, then I don’t care how I’m doing in bigger games. If I’m not doing quite that well at 5/10 but am at 4 BB/100 if I also count bigger games, then that’s certainly a fine result as well.
3.88 BB/100 at 5/10, 3.06 if you add in bigger games. This still looks doable, but these games can be tough!
Goal 10: Play 50,000 Hands of Heads Up NLHE at 5/10 and Higher
Last year, my win rate at heads up was twice what it was at ring games. Plus, it’s a great way to improve poker skills in general, and at stakes above 10/20, it’s often the only way to get action.
Didn’t play as much this month. I’m at 12K hands now, with -5 BB/100. Got to put some more hours in and hopefully start winning!
How did March treat you?