Hello all
My name is Gary
Most members will have come across me in some shape or form in the past few years. I have been a PokerStrategist for over half a decade. For over half that time I was an employee of PokerStrategy, starting off as a voluntary moderator, before becoming a SuperModerator (we were paid back then) and then becoming a HeadAdmin after the greatest person I've ever worked with IngridN unfortunately left the company.
From then on big changes occurred. Corners were cut, and even them corners and further corners were cut! Surprised there's any corners left in Gibraltar! At any rate enough of that!
2014 was the best year for me poker-wise while being up there with the worst for me on a personal level. Why am I writing about this right now in a new thread you may wonder? I must slay these demons from 2014 and start afresh, clean slate.
Poker in 2014:
I started with Hyper Turbo Satellite SNGs and I played them from January until the end of February. I had coaching and my game improved ten fold over a number of short weeks but I was getting destroyed by variance and I'm not ashamed to say it got the better of me in the end and I stopped playing them and poker for a few weeks.
Fast forward to March 17th and in the wee hours of the morning I late registered into an $11 MicroMillions event. The rest shall we say is history. 8 hours, one 50 minute car journey, 4200 later people I entered the Final Table whilst playing on my mobile phone 8th out of 9th. With some folding and laddering soon I was 6/6 and I managed to find a few hands to shove before I openshoved AJ from UTG and got very lucky vs AQ. From then on I navigated my way to 2nd place and $5,242.
For the next 2 months the heater continued. I had another 2nd place in an $11 for $1.7k. 16 hours later I came agonizingly close to another final table in the Hotter $16.50, collecting $550 for my troubles. During the Carnival week in May I had another deep run finishing 13th out of 15k runners in the Bigger $11 for $450. I finished 3rd in a $5 Hyper Turbo for just shy of $1k. On top of this I had many deep runs, had an excellent SCOOP where I finished up $700 in profit and came close in a MicroSeries (French version of MicroMillions)
Life was good. Poker was good. I was playing well and hitting the cards.
PokerStrategy in 2014:
One Monday morning in May I woke up to an email saying that my position no longer necessary and that I was being let go. Literally, like that. So that news was incredibly demotivating and kinda ignited the dark side of me. I reacted badly to the news after spending 3 years joining an excellent team, watching great people come and go, at one stage cultivating a great team of my own and then having to leave them behind. Not only that but I lost a considerable amount of income as well.
I made some mistakes and lashed out at people in the intervening months. I still have disagreements with some people about the direction of this here community. I will no longer engage with certain people after being hounded on Skype whilst at my job. There is certain people I'd like to speak to but the mere sight of them on Skype drives me into a rage.
Back to Poker in 2014:
After my few months heater the inevitable happened. Downswing city. That, coupled with cashing out to cover costs that were previously paid for by my work for PokerStrategy and then very poor game selection and consequently a poor mindset led me to more misery and by August I made the decision to stop playing MTTs and revert to 180 MTSNGs.
I made a great start and made $400 in no time. Volume was always low and I fell out of love with them after a few short weeks. I did meet some great people and cultivated a very, very helpful study group thanks to 2p2. I played one MTT schedule for my birthday weekend in September and I was hooked again! FFS!
October and November proved fruitless again on the MTT front. Loads of nice runs but once again kept falling at the final hurdle! In the end I took a few too many risks and my bankroll was back to where it was in August and this is where I am currently at.
2015:
So, the lights go out on 2014 in just a few hours. I am enthusiastic about starting 2015 strongly. This year passed has hopefully taught me a few hard lessons. I have came on in leaps and bounds poker wise in 12 months. If I do the same again next year I will be very happy.
I am going to start by playing $2.50 180 Man SNGs. I have 370 games of experience in these since September 2014 and I have profit of $461 and a ROI of 50%. I am currently playing 9 tables at a time but I am pretty sure I can add 3 more by the end of the month.
My one and only goal for January is to play 400 games. 400 is alot, it equates to 13 a day, I cannot play everyday but it's time I challenged myself and stop coming up with excuses.
I truly apologize if you've managed to read your way through this whole wall of text.
I would like to wish each and everyone of you a very happy and prosperous 2015! I hope that this post has put the darker side of me to bed forever!
Ciao e buono notte,
Gary
I had a piece of it and as I recall now, it was a wild ride
VS