The Year in Review

It's time to look back and see how 2009 was. Last year, 2008, was a very good year for me on the Poker front. This year, not so much.

Let's start with the good stuff.

Once again, the Home games in the CPMG were very good to me. I was up $2120 in Cash games. Most of that came from the main game, $1/$1 NLHE ($2010 in 36 sessions). The rest of the games end up in a wash.

The tournament numbers were also good: 52 tournaments, 5 wins, 14 cashes, $1880 buy-in, $2400 cashout, 27.66% ROI.

The biggest issue that I have with my tourney numbers is that my five wins all came in small fields ranging from 9 to 23 players. I haven't won a tournament with over 30 players since early in 2007, and I've never won a tournament over 39 players. This is a hole in my tournament 'game', and I wish I knew how to fix it.

And then there is the Casino side of the ledger. Some of the numbers are good, some are bad, and some are very, very ugly.

On the good side is tournaments: 22 tournaments, 4 wins or chops, 5 cashes, $1965 buy-in, $2115 cashout, 7.63% ROI.

Yes, it's only $150 profit. But the important thing is that this was the first year that I've actually made money in Casino tournaments. Hopefully, a sign of things to come.

The Cash games were also profitable to me, $1965. That number seems respectable, but it's a mix of good and bad. The good was from the $1/$2 & $1/$3 games ($4875, 67 sessions). The bad was $2/$5 (-$1967, 7 sessions) and various Limit Hold'em attempts (-$889, 10 sessions).

The ugly part of the numbers happened in the Pit. I lost $2332 on various Table games, and $655 at Video Poker, although I did win $220 in Slots. These numbers are disgusting, and I really can't defend them. But I did learn not to play certain games as the year went on, and was up $40 at the Table games for the last three months of the year.

I would like to say that I just won't play in the Pit anymore, but I know that ain't gonna happen. I just need to do it in moderation, and play games that seem to work for me.