This is the third part of my Setting Effective New Year’s Resolutions for Poker Success series. If you haven’t already, please check out Part 1 and Part 2.
Goal 3: Make a Name For Myself
I feel like I am right on the threshhold of becoming a minor poker celebrity. That’s not something that’s intrinsically valuable to me, but it does seem to come with some nice perks: sponsorship deals, invites to juicy televised games, better book sales, etc. It’s something that I feel I ought to make a bit more of an effort at and see what happens.
Post Once a Day on the Blog
If I fall behind, I’ll settle for a one/day average, but I’m sure it’s a lot better for you all if they are evenly spaced. Plus I’m more likely to do quality work this way ;-).
Even without any advertising revenue, I get so much out of the blog. It’s a nice impetus to review my own play, I enjoy interacting with the intelligent and diverse community of readers we have here (That’s you! Post more comments. I respond to nearly all of them), and virtually every opportunity I’ve had away from the tables has been at least indirectly a product of the blog. I’m never going to be the hammiest guy on camera, but I do write purdy, so that’s going to have to be my entree to poker notoriety.
Make the Blog More Interesting
I know that hand discussions are what a lot of you are looking for, and there will always be plenty of those, but I want to keep it fresh. I enjoy doing things like Book Reviews and The Poker Ethicist, and I’d like to add some more new features. I have a few ideas, but I’d love to have some more. What would you like to see on the blog that you don’t see now?
Play 2 Live Poker Events Besides the WSOP
The Main Event is a given, and while I can only stand so much live poker, bagging a live win and getting on TV is an essential part of making a name. It also produces some of my best stories and is a nice change of pace from grinding online. Obviously this will still be a woefully small sample size and isn’t likely to produce a major win, but it’s probably all I’ll be able to tolerate this year. We’ll see, though.
Write 1 Article Per Month for 2+2 Magazine
This doesn’t pay anywhere near as well as the rest of what I do, but it’s a small time commitment and a big honor. The 2+2 Magazine is definitely one of the premier sources of free poker information on the internet, and I like being affiliated with it. It’s one of the few opportunities I have to get paid directly for writing, which is something I enjoy doing. Increasingly I find that I am able to tie together things I am doing on my blog with videos I produce, articles I write, and my private coaching to create an integrated set of materials on whatever poker topic is most interesting to me at the time.
Average 2 Hours Per Week Participating in Strategy Discussions on 2+2
Pretty much all the time I spend on 2+2 right now is on NVG and other low-content forums. Granted the quality of the strategy forums has declined, but that’s kind of a chicken and egg thing with quality posters departing. Most of my poker friends are people I met through 2+2, and of course I owe the beginnings of poker career to them as well. This should gel nicely with my other resolution to improve my skill at some non-NLHE games. If I’m off-track towards the end of the month, I’m not going to allow myself any time in the low-content forums until my strategy posting is done.
Join a New Poker Forum
I’ve dabbled elsewhere, but 2+2 has always been my home. Right now I don’t even know what’s out there, but I’d like to find a new forum for meeting poker players. So you tell me: what else is out there? What forums do you read? Why? Where would you like to see me posting?
Average 1 Interesting Tweet Per Day
I’m @thinkingpoker. I don’t use Twitter too much outside of posting WSOP updates, but I’d like to start. I’ve found some interesting people to follow, and I’m trying to learn from how they use the medium. I’m going to take it slow at first, because I don’t want to tweet crap just for the sake of getting the old tweet count up, but hopefully I can average one worthwhile tweet per day by the end of the year. God I hate having to say “tweet” so much, there’s got to be a way around that.
I must say Andrew, you have a gold mine here and I mean that in the purest sense. I read a lot of different poker content weekly. (Wayyy 2 much! In fact that is my goal for 2011-streamline my sources for poker content and poker learning) But what I mean is that you provide a great insight into poker and the poker world for me, “the average joe, non-pro, low/micro stakes grinder”. If I miss other sites updates, no biggie but I check out this site daily to see what news/hands/information you are posting. Good luck this year and keep up the great work on this great site.
Thanks, Doug, I very much appreciate your saying so. Best of luck to you as well.
Andrew,
It would be great if you keep us up to date on any particular strategy threads you participate and think are good.
This would be one good use of twitter, as it makes more sense to post the link to thread via twitter than the blog.
Oooh, very good idea. Thanks!
I <3 crowdsourcing.
I don’t comment a lot, but I read every post. This is definitely one of my favorite poker blogs. Keep up the great work and GL in the new year.
Thanks for reading, and happy new year to you as well. I’ve got a resolution for you: leave more comments at Thinking Poker this year!
I read a lot at cardschat.com. Check it out.
Will do, thanks!
i read a lot of poker blogs as well, and you def have the most consistent high quality posts. your hand analysis posts are very informative and interesting, but i think your live cash game write-ups are the most entertaining. i love your stereotypes and descriptions of the villains. they always make for a great read. hopefully we’ll get some more of these in 2011.
Hey Andrew,
I casually read quite a few poker blogs, and your blog is, far and away, the best I have ever read. There’s a great mix of very high quality poker analysis and strategy content to go along with fantastic writing skills and an understated sense of humor about the (poker) world you live in.
If I had to make a suggestion for an improvement or a new feature I would recommend more stories. I remember quite a while back you used to occasionally post amusing stories from your poker experiences, some of which had poker/strat content, some of which had very little. I think you could make this a weekly or semi-weekly feature that might be a nice break from hand histories and entertaining for us to read, and probably for you to write as well.
But most importantly, just keep up the great work!
Dan
Oh, and it would be awesome to see you posting more in your own coaching site forum… PS+
There’s actually some quality low content material on there too if you look for it
That’s in the plans, thanks for the suggestions!
Thanks, Dan. I wish I had more stories. Hopefully playing a few more live events this year will produce some. I’ve been thinking of posting some more non-poker stories a la the Tales From a 7-11 series as well.
Foucault, Good luck with your resolutions.
I echo the sentiments of the others – your blog is an excellent read.
I also suggest more stories of live play along with your hilarious descriptions of people and situations. Regarding forums, http://www.allvegaspoker.com is pretty good and so is http://www.pocketfives.com. I have also read some of the SSNLHE forum at – http://www.smallstakesnolimitholdem.com but the traffice is somewhat low.
Cool, thanks. You’re not the first to suggest more stories. Unfortunately I just don’t have that many. Not a lot happens to you when you are sitting in front of your computer 10-tabling. Hopefully getting out on the live circuit a bit more will put me in touch with some colorful people- it always has.
Can you give us a little more strategy insight in tournaments for some of the common threats players encounter. IE: countering knowledgeable players who are uber aggressive, countering the big stack who’s playing his chips or playing maniacaly, key methods for stacking opponents early, working against aggression in early and late position, what things to be cautious of when abusing blinds from the button, etc.
I’m always looking for different thought process’ and ideas to use in keeping opponents off balance.
Good ideas, thanks!
I’d hate to see you become yet another a walking billboard for an online poker site.
Writing books and articles is a great way to promote yourself without ever having to actually win anything.
I may have some bad news for you soon…
Ditto all the compliments.
Regarding twitter, you might consider starting by simply tweeting links or updates from the blog. It is an easy way to generate twitter traffic, and it will be one more way to keep the casual blog reader notified when the blog is updated.
Regarding making a name, I say do unto others… Identify quality, interesting, or important people, and promote them. Blog, tweet, and write about these other folks, and their fans will naturally check you out. Here’s a self-indulgent example. During your 2010 WSOP run, I was tweeting ESPNPoker and others trying to get them to cover you. I genuinely wanted you to get the attention you deserved, but it also puts me (a below average Joe) in communication with big media. It also added several followers on my twitter account.
Regarding new features for the blog, I suggest you expand the “thinking” part of “thinking poker”. Blog on how you think about lots of other problems or decisions outside the poker world. You’ve done this some, and I enjoy it. Personlly, I started the game of poker at the age of 40 for the sole purpose of trying to learn how to think better under pressure. Your blog is a goldmine, but dammit you can do so much more. 🙂
Russ