2020 Review

As 2020 draws to a close, I thought a review of the year and setting targets for 2021 was in order.

For many 2020 has been a funny old year to say the least. In January, no one had heard of Covid-19 or Coronavirus and the world was normal. The Friday Night Game continued, with wins for me in both January and February for £40 each time. For the most part of the year, though, the UK has been under lockdown or some lesser form of social restrictions. We've been furloughed, or worked from home. Shops and pubs have been closed for months at at time and the Friday Night Game postponed. One of the few industries that has seen a boom during the pandemic has been online poker.

Personally 2020 was the opportunity to really start taking poker more seriously. At the start of lockdown, I had a lot of time on my hands. Although I was working from home, work was quiet and I was scratching around for things to do. I'd considered various options; write a book, learn a new language, start a fitness regime. But I finally settled on Poker. I've played online poker on and off since I was 18 and broken even over that time. A hobby that doesn't cost you any money is a pretty good deal in my eyes.

I discovered the CardsChat forum and began reading others people's posts and noticed there was a couple of different types of people on the forums. There were those that would post questions like "How do you play AA" without any specifics, or asking how they lost with AQ vs 66 on a Q-Q-9-6-4 board. But then there were those that truly wanted to discuss, learn and teach the game in depth. I came across terms like "ranges" and "implied odds" and "equity". Obviously I'd heard these terms all before, but it was strange to see apparently amateur players talking like poker coaches.

I read post after post and response after response and realised that if I were to get good at poker, I would need to start studying the game more seriously. After considering my options, I settled on Jonathan Little's PokerCoaching.com. I'd watched a number of Little's YouTube video's and liked his unpretentious manner and his outlook on life in general. I signed up to a free version of the site and took advantage of a number of the sites free trials for the premium version. Money is tight so it is difficult to justify spending $39 a month on a hobby that is unlikely to make half of that. So I continued to watch YouTube videos and absorb as much content as I could, often during work hours, so that it didn't impact on my personal life and my relationship with my girlfriend too much.

In April, I decided to set myself a Bankroll Challenge. £0 to £100 as quickly as possible. I created a new account on Grosvenor poker and played a bunch of freerolls and then some £0.10 Sit and Go's. Like many Bankroll Challenges before mine though, I gave up. In July, Grosvenor changed their games so every micro stakes game was a turbo or super turbo and the freerolls dried up completely. Without the freerolls and the wild variance of games where everyone was down to 12BB within 10 minutes, not to mention the huge rake, I was going to have to put in a huge amount of volume to reach my fairly modest goal. By the end of July I was done with the challenge having made it just over 10% of the way to my target.

By May I had posted enough on CardsChat to qualify for some of their freerolls. These are great, because the prize pool of $100, although no bigger than most freerolls, you're competing against 200-250 players most of the time rather than 20,000. This means that a min cash would be worth $0.50 to $0.75 rather than $0.01. It was around this time that my girlfriend raised some concerns about me playing too much poker and how much it was costing me. I think she's been talking to her mum, who was worried I was going to spend our mortgage money on gambling. I assured her that I wasn't losing any money and I was only playing for pennies anyway so a big losing day would only look like a couple of quid. Still, to allay her fears, I withdrew everything I had with PokerStars and started from scratch with the intention that anything I won, I could keep to play poker or fund my study. It wasn't intended as a Bankroll Challenge, but as I was trying to build a bankroll from zero, that is essentially what it became. I played a couple of freerolls at the end of May, cashing in one of them for $0.81. My bankroll was off the ground. In June, I didn't play too much on Pokerstars as I was still focusing on my Bankroll Challenge on Grosvenor, but I managed another couple of small cashes. July was when it really kicked off. On July 5th, I played a freeroll on Pokerstars and another on 888 and cashed both, finishing 2nd on 888 for $11. When you only have about $3 to your poker name, that is a big win! The very next day, I final tabled another Pokerstars freeroll, finishing 2nd again, this time for $16. Another day, another final table. 6th for $5.70. a few minor cashes over the next couple of weeks kept my bankroll ticking up, but I wasn't done. Two more final tables in the last few days of the month saw me take a 2nd and 3rd, finishing the month more than £50 up! Now my bankroll was beginning to look like something I could work with.

Sadly, the hot streak didn't continue. Break even months in August and October with small wins in September and November followed. Which brings us to December. I'd been inching slowing closer to the $100 in my Pokerstars account, but seemed to have hit a brick wall. Every Dollar I won I would lose in the next MTT. I've got to say, at times it was demoralising. Even though it was only a few cents, every loss cut like a knife. Where were the final tables? Why couldn't I replicate the results of July? I wasn't being greedy. £50 a month wasn't a lot. As Christmas drew near, I came to terms with the fact that I'd have to wait to hit the magical 3 figures.

On Boxing Day CardsChat were running a $1000 Freeroll for their UK based Platinum members. After a bit of convincing of my girlfriend, I was allowed to play it. To cut to the chase, I made it to 8th and cashed for $40 and smash through the $100 mark on my Pokerstars account. However being knocked out in 8th felt like a massive defeat. I'd shoved with A8s from the Cutoff and was called by AQ in the BB, which is all fine and fair enough when ICM isn't a consideration, but I'd been 4th in chips with 2 very short stacks at the table, and I think that really I should have let that go and laddered up to an even nicer payday. I sat there feeling dejected and annoyed at myself for about 10 minutes, but then gave myself a little shake and thought, this is your biggest cash of the year, be proud of yourself! I smiled, shutdown my computer and went to enjoy the rest of my evening with my girlfriend and daughter.

I should also mention the CardsChat league that was a new experience for me in 2020. In October, I was drafted into the Ringo's Reckless Razors, along with TJ, Thiago, Mike and our captain, Jeff. Essentially each player would play one game a week against one player from each of the 30 teams in the league and points would be accrued based on your finishing position, one point for last and 100 for first. It was my first season in the league, but the team made me feel very welcome and I have to say that after 11 weeks, I can easily count all four of the guys as friends. The team played well all season, but just missed out on a prize, finishing 6th out of 30. Personally, it was a success for me, finishing 6th out of 150 players and the teams MVP with a 1st, two 2nd's and 6 final tables out of the 11 games played. I am really looking forward to the next season and hopefully I will be able to join up with at least a few of the guys again.

Overall, 2020 has been a success for my in terms of poker. Outside of poker, life has been hard. Not seeing friends and family, not going to the office, not being able to pop into a coffee shop when you feel like it, all really takes its toll after a while, but I also have a lot to be grateful for. I still have a job, a roof over my head and food in my belly. We have Zoom to help us stay in contact and of course, I have poker to keep me occupied. I think it's fair to say though, that although she doesn't mind me playing poker, sometimes my girlfriend can feel like she comes 2nd to poker. This is obviously not true, but, I guess perception is key and I have experienced more than a few rants about me playing poker all the time over the last year. I'm sure lockdown and the inability to see her friends as much as she normally would is a factor in this, but it's only been in the last few days that this has dawned on me and that although she gets just as much attention from me as she did before, right now, she needs more because she is so detached from the outside world. This was a pretty hard realisation for me to make, particularly because I've been telling myself for the last few months that she's being unreasonable and I shouldn't have to change my plans for the evening because she wants to snuggle up on the sofa and watching a movie. This brings me on to my goals for 2021.

- Firstly and most importantly, my number one goal is to make more time for my girlfriend, especially during the continued lockdown and social restrictions. I will limit poker and poker study to one night a week until she is able to go out and socialise with friends again. I will communicate this much better so that I'm not thinking I'm playing poker, while she's thinking we can have some quality time together, meaning we should be able to avoid the conflict that invariably occurs whenever this happens.

- Secondly, study more. I have been guilty of just playing poker and when I'm out, I'm out and that's it for the night. I really need to spend more time studying the game and reviewing my hands. When I get knocked out early, I need to take the opportunity to use that time to improve my game. I will play until I'm out, but then I will study until 10:30pm when I will go to bed. Hopefully, later in the year, I will be able to devote more time to studying, but not at the expense of the first goal.

- Thirdly, play more. This year, I have recorded 269 games. in 2021, I want to average a game a day. This is more than achievable considering I barely played in January or February in 2020. This will mean playing 7 tournaments a night when only playing once a week, but I think this is possible, especially as I expect to be able to play more later in the year.

- Lastly, I would like to start streaming some of my games. I don't know exactly how I go about this, so I will need to get some advice from some friends, but hopefully I can make this happen and provide some enjoyable content for you all.

That's it for this weeks blog. Sorry it's a bit longer than normal, but hey, it is the end of year review. As it's the end of the year, I have included my results graph for the whole of 2020 - gotta love that uptick right at the end!

If you like what I've written, please take a minute to hit the like button or leave a comment. I really do appreciate it.

I wish you all a healthy and prosperous 2021!

Matt