1031 was slightly larger than the figure I had in mind so here goes..
Hey guys,
Long time no update. Had a bit mixed year last year. Poker volume and results weren't great. The world cup and great summer meant I took a lot of time off, I had a great time but not the best decision in the current poker climate. Me and the missus also bought a house. Absolutely over the moon with it. We'd really struggled to find a mortgage lender who would lend me any money. We'd nearly given up when we found, I think, the only lender in the whole country that would give us a mortgage based on her wage and have me on the house deeds as a dependent. Had to put a 60% deposit down as they'd class me as a dependent and minus avg living expenses from what they would lend Leah. We've been renting in a little village for a couple of years and have really settled here, so after a couple of possible houses had fallen through we were very lucky for this one to pop up round the corner, and to find the mortgage at the same time.
My poker roll obv took a pretty large hit, and the back end of last year I ran pretty bad. Not in the sense of running way under ev, or dropping tons of money quickly, but just not getting hands or making hands. I think it was prob around 100k hands, and honestly towards the end I was really fed up. I wasn't looking forward to playing, i'd cut sessions short, I'd find excuses to not play. I was just flat out bored. Not with poker as a whole, as if I wasn't playing I'd be studying, but just with having to play, having to just take shit day after day. I started playing NL again to try reignite the passion, and I even started playing tournaments for a couple of weeks, going so far as to fully apply for BitB. I withdrew the application at the final stage as I didn't want to tied down for a full year with no way out.
Thankfully Party decided to in essence bring back a form of Supernove Elite. Their own version and this has been a great boost for me and my motivation. Knowing I can play 5k hands a day of 1/2, 5 days a week for 10 months of the year and be guaranteed $120k at the end lifts a big weight off my shoulders, esp with what happened the end of last year. I've been 9-12 tabling 1/2 and have been loving it. Haven't checked my results in ages, really feel in the zone playing that many tables. I'm really really enjoying playing again. I'm still comfortably rolled for higher but I'm trying to get this focus and mindset ingrained into me before moving back up. There's still a few bots knocking around but there's a decent chat group set up between regs to try and regulate it, and Party have actually been fairly decent at investigating and banning the botters. Fair play to them, they've kept to their promises they made last year.
I've also been really getting into golf recently. A few guys from the village played casually the end of last year and after a few beverages at the put I made the bold statement that I reckon I could hit 80 within 4 months of taking it seriously. Wagers were taken and I am firmly in the shit. I started having lessons at the end of Jan, so have until the beginning of May to get it done. I got a membership at the local club, which has two great courses. However they at the minute have only one proper coach, so I've been limited to a lesson a week as he is so busy. Originally I had a very wide take away that really opened up the club face, as you can see on the pic (top one is now, btm one is at the start). This would also cause me to come over the top of the swing plane, and my natural shot was a tad slicey. We've changed my grip, take away and got me shallowing the club out more so I come under the swing plane, causing a nice draw. Gotta work on being less handsy in the downswing now. I tend to release the club way too early in the downswing, and despite having long arms and generating tons of power, I'm losing it all by flipping the club out. This is also causing me to thin the ball sometimes, and my ball striking is way off.
You can see it here with my driver. The club is flipping out half way down, and even on a good day, I'm only hitting it 250 yards max.
http://www.hudl.com/technique/video/view/VHDcYGEUThe tail is wagging the dog as they say.
This coming week should be one of the best of the year. We've got The Masters, starting on my birthday, and the WSOP-C at DTD. Going to be watching and betting on every second of the golf, while hopefully winning some money. Let me know if anyone is going to be at DTD and you can buy me a birthday beer