2008 Poker Goals

I have been thinking over the past few days what I want to accomplish out of poker in 2008. 2007 was really non-existent as far as poker goes. I don't think I really played any until October and then I spent WAY too many hands at the Microstakes Limit games. In fact, it was only a few days ago that I finally pulled my head out of my ass and started playing NL. Then I started making money.

In 2008, I want to play strictly no limit poker. The variance is reduced and I actually win when playing NL. Limit is more fun and you can break even and still have a pretty nice bankroll too, but NL is where all the donks are these days. I'm still in the $25NL games, but I've almost got enough bankroll for the $50 games. I think I'll spend another 10K hands at $25NL and then move up. I'm making $14/hour at the $25NL games 6 tabling. Of course this is over a small sample size, but my win rate seems pretty standard and according to PokerEV, I'm running below expectation.

I also want to get out of the microstakes ASAP. My bankroll isn't ready for that yet, and I doubt my game or mind is ready for higher stakes games, but I will working on that as much as possible. I'm going to spend a lot of time studying the game and working on various aspects of my game and I'm going to spend a lot of time grinding. My goal is to be comfortably bankrolled and playing $1/2NL by the end of the year. If I can make $15/hr playing $25NL, why not make $60/hr playing $1/2? That's a little tongue in cheek, but I really have no clue what a decent hourly rate for $1/2 would be right now. I've never played the games and I don't know how difficult they are and such. I think staying at Full Tilt is also the best idea as well. I get 27% rakeback which will help the bankroll as much as anything. I don't play enough hands to warrant a switch to Stars. The good stuff on Stars comes if you are Supernova or Supernova Elite. I doubt my volume of play is enough for those rewards.

I want to play a bunch of hands in 2008 too. My goal for the year is 200K hands across all limits. I'm going to focus on cash games exclusively, so I'll probably steer clear of most tournaments, but I might play a few to break up the monotony or take advantage of an overlay. 200,000 hands equates to just under 17,000 hands per month. That's towards my upper boundary of the number of hands I can get in during a given month, but that will also bring me to my next thing I want to change in 2008 when it comes to poker...

I want to treat poker like a 2nd job instead of a hobby. This will be a part time job of course since I already have a full time job sucking the life out of me. My goal is to log 12-15 hours a week. I'm not sure how many hands those kinds of hours translate to though. It might be more than 17K hands per month, it might be less. I'll just have to see. I'm assuming 60 hands per hour per table, so if I'm 6 tabling, that's 360 hands an hour or 5400 hands per week for a 12-15 hour week. My calculations could definitely be off there, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, I got a spreadsheet set up that will act as my "time clock". I'll clock in at the beginning of the session and then clock out at the end and this will help me keep track of my hours played, my bankroll, and my hourly rate. Right now I have to rely on Poker Tracker for an hourly rate, but I'm not entirely sure how accurate that figure really is.

Next, I want to play the entire year. I usually start slacking around spring time and then eventually quit playing during the summer. If I'm going to treat poker like a job and actually make some real money this year, then I need to play the entire year. This will take some discipline. However, if I spend my time playing poker instead of watching crappy TV, I should be fine. Even if I continue at a $15/hr rate for the full year, I'm still going to make $10K. However, I'm assuming I'm going to move up and I'm assuming my hourly rate will increase. If I can double my rate, then we are talking $20K. I can't imagine the $50NL or even $100NL games being that much tougher than the $25NL games, so I think a $30/hr rate is feasible. So that brings me to my last goal to shoot for...

$25,000... that's my goal for poker winnings during the year. This seems like it's do-able if I just put in the time. $25K would really be awesome as well. I don't really intend to go much higher than $1/2 as far as the games, so a big portion of that will go to my savings instead of staying in the bankroll. $4000 would be a decent bankroll for $1/2 I guess. I'll probably keep half of my winnings in the bankroll and the other half in savings or some other investment. I'm not entirely sure how I want to manage my winnings, but I'll figure that out as I go along.

My main goal for all of this work is to set up a wonderful 2009. Let's assume I make my $25K goal playing poker. Add that in with money I intend to make in other aspects of life such as my job, investments, and other projects. I would like 2009 to be the year that I exceed my job salary with poker and other investments that generate a passive income. Then hopefully in 2010, I can tell the boss to fuck off?!? Wishful thinking. I can't imagine wanting to play poker full time, but I would have so many other options, I could still swing it.

That's all I got. So Happy New Year everyone. Here's to making 2008 the best year ever! I'm going to donk around here at the office for a little while and then head to Charleston for New Years Eve festivities. See ya next year!