2K5: A Year in Review

I came a long way playing poker in 2005. I started the year having never played online and I made a small $30 deposit on UB in January, foolishly thinking that I could build a bankroll from there. Of course, I didn't know what I was doing, had no concept of bankroll management and quickly lost it. I didn't deposit again until shortly after Spring Break in March.

Over Spring Break I had lost $200 playing Limit Hold'em on the riverboat and I decided to buy SSHE so I could learn to play limit. I read the book, but didn't fully digest it, and I deposited $100 on Party Poker, with a 50% deposit bonus available after 125 raked hands. My reading of SSHE hadn't gotten me to where I needed to be, because by the time I cleared the bonus playing .5/1 and 1/2 Hold'em I had lost $94. I now had $56 in my account and decided to play SnGs. I started out playing $5 SnG's and had enough success to build my a bankroll up and play $10's after a couple of months. By midsummer I had a bankroll of around $600 when I simultaneously decided to take a shot at $20 SnG's and I hit a downswing. I quit the $20's showing a small loss in them, but couldn't seem to regain my stride in the $10's either and my bankroll was bleeding away. It was around this same time in mid-July that I had also decided to quit the summer temp job I had and play SnG's until school started again. I had decided that if I played enough hours I could make enough to cover expenses. I was having trouble and the pressure was on so I decided to try a new site. I moved my money to Pokerstars and quickly lost another $100 or so on their SnG's. I decided then that I had nothing to lose by giving Limit another shot.

With less than $350 left in my total bankroll, about $250 of it on Stars and $75 on Party I started playing 1/2 and .5/1 limit on Pokerstars strictly following the tight game guidlines in SSHE. I made enough playing limit to cover my credit card bills (which I in turn used to cover August's rent) until I could get a new job and then later school started in mid-August. From there, I starting posting in and reading the Strat forums on FCP and I got Pokertracker through PSO and started building a bankroll. I've played on many sites this year and had success on most, but really only at the micro limits of LHE. According to Pokertracker, since late-August I've played approximately 42k hands of limit hold'em on Party Poker in 642 hours and made $2,272.81. I've also played limit on a few other sites that I don't have on PT, mostly with marginal success if at all, and mostly clearing bonuses.

There is one other part to this story. After getting fed up with Pokerstars, and I decided to move the $63.50 I had left on the site to FullTilt to play Tournaments and SnGs. I've had 3 final tables and one win since I've been playing on FTP. My first final table was a $5.50 MTT and I won about $100 for finishing 5th. My next one was my victory in a $10+1 with 299 entrants that paid about $750. Then, just a couple days ago I finished 2nd in a $5.50 of a little over 300 players for $280. I've of course given some of this money back in the form of other tournament buy-ins and NL cash games which I've found to be my biggest leak so far. But, the $750 score allowed me to buy nice Christmas presents for my family and all in all it's allowed me to continue to play Tournament style NL which I really enjoy and thik I'm fairly decent at.

This year I've cashed out $910 from online poker, which in and of itself is a nice little profit on my $100 investment. I still have quite a bit more than that to my name however. Here are my current balances as of the end of the year.

PartyPoker: $2281.10
FullTilt: $282.62
UltimateBet: $306.99
FullContactPoker: 85.54
Pokerstars: $11.20
Total: $2966.93

Adding $910 in withdrawals and subtracting $130 in deposits, including bonuses my 2005 online poker income has totaled - $3746.93. That's a damn good year for someone who didn't really start til almost four months and played micro limits for most of the year. I've just recently moved up to 2/4 and I hope to be playing 10/20 with 5 figures in poker income to report by the end of 2006.