2012 review, 2013 expectations

heres my 2012 review which im pleased to say it has been my most successful year yet.

 we can start things off with poker. when 2012 started i was living in washington and playing the 3/5 nl games at a local casino. the action was pretty decent but i wasnt 100% confident with my abilities yet, but i was rolled for the stakes and so i was playing them. i was only able to play until late april because my summer season of work in Alaska started in may. in that time i was able to make 20k (19,800$) and i was booking a win rate of 32$hr. after the winter was over i felt really comftorable in those games and i would feel confident saying that i was probably one of the most consistant winners in it.

 i put a lot of effort into studying my game off the felt as well. before i would go to the casino i would usually read a few threads from the poker forums or watch a video on strategy. when i would get home from the casino it would usually consist of the same thing. i felt like i improved my game greatly from the year before and i as happy that i had the results to prove it. although you can probably tell that with me putting so much effort into poker i didnt really leave time for other things. in alaska i also played online at one of the merge sites but only played 10-12 hours a week and played 10nl. i was basically just trying to keep my mind up to date with poker. over the summer i walked away with like 320$ from 10nl woot woot.

 after my summer work in alaska i moved to LA because i heard from so many people online and in real life that the 5/10 nl games at the commerce were some of the juciest games. i felt comftorable with where my bankroll was (35k)to grind the 5/10 and decided i wanted to move to LA for the winter. after getting here i found that the casino moved the 5/10 nl game to a different side of the casino, and then they introduced a 5/5nl game with those 2 factors in play the 5/10 went from consistantly having 6-8 games going a night to bairley having 2 going. and the games were horrible because they had all solid regs in them now. the casino did move the 5/10 back to where it was but it never got back going how it was and at best it had 3 games going but it was still filled with good regs.

 it was a tough decision but i decided to just grind the 5/5nl games instead. it was either fight it out with solid regs at a higher limit with more varriance, bigger swings, and not knowing if i was even a winner with all those varriables. or play a game that is lower in stakes but know i have a significant edge in. so i set my ego aside and decided to play 5/5nl and that is where i am at now. november and december went relatively slow for me and because of the lack of volume but my combined yearly total from poker was 23,838$

now for daygame! at the begining of the year was when i actually really started to focus on daygame. prior to that i had been doing a mix of night game and day game just trying to figure out how it all worked and trying to learn it. after the year started i switched primarily to daygame because i didnt really like night game all that much. i started going out saturday and sunday to a mall to run daygame and after about a month i got my first real result. i really pretty blonde hair blue eyed girl named cassi. my skills were still pretty bad at that point but i guess i showed enough confidence in my approach that she liked it enough. about a week after meeting her we went on a fun indoor skydiving date and got smoothies then we went back to my place and sealed the deal. we saw each other about once a week for the next month and a half or so before it kinda fizzled out since i wasnt going to get into a relationship with her. prior to that i was getting numbers but they were flaking consistantly. i also met a couple guys from pick up forums that both turned out to be pretty cool guys. one was a guy that i would go out to the clubs with a few times but we didnt hang out that much because i pretty much stopped doing night game. the second guy was a guy who was brand new to daygame and i met up with him and showed him some basics and then we kind of winged each other for the remaining couple of months that i was there. he turned out to be a pretty cool guy and actually became a pretty decent friend that i keep pretty good contact with now.

my game had improved over the course of the winter with a lot of studying and practicing. if i wasnt playing or studying poker than i was studying or practicing day game.  at the end of the winter i was getting decent with being able to get a girls numbers but my skills still needed work and because of that a lot of the numbers would flake. when i got back to alaska for my summer job i would go out and do daygame on the weeknds. alaska was pretty horrible for trying to find a girl but i got lucky to pick up a girl within the first couple of weeks i was there. we went on a few dates before she stayed the night at my place and we sealed the deal. over the course of the summer we would see each other about once a week and it turned into somewhat of a relationship but we werent ever boyfriend/girlfriend. i still did daygame on the weeknds just so i could keep practicing and keep my skills growing. over the whole course of the summer i think i approached like 75 girls which was pretty low but given how muched i worked (6-7 days a week 12 hours a day) it was ok im just happy that i continued to put effort into improving.

after the move to LA and getting settled in i started doing quite a bit of daygme. and just over the month and a half that i had been here my skills have grown dramatically. i had proably approached just as many girls here that i had in alaska just in the weeks that i was here and i dont even remember how many numbers i got but within that time frame i already went on 4 dates which included an attractive 39 year old, a blonde haired blue eyed nurse, an ex ballet dancer with a really nice body, and a hungarian low budget film actress. i havnt had sex with anyone yet but its getting close. i also have a couple dates lined up within the next couple weeks. day game here isnt like a paradise by any means, there is just more people so theres more opportunities plus my skills are getting pretty decent and thats where i am at as of right now.

the only thing left to talk about is my life outside of everything. well when the year started i was putting A LOT of effort into poker and daygme like i stated. besides going out a few times here or there and the dates that i did, i really didnt leave much time for anything else. sometimes thats how it goes. you have to sacrafice some things to benefit from others. so needless to say when i was living in washington there wasnt a whole lot of excitment. then i came back up to alaska and worked a lot and really didnt have time to do anything which was super draining but i got my monies!! and then i moved to LA with my friend. since being here we have had a lot of fun. including going to a few amusement parks, movies, beaches, entertainment activities and other fun stuff. plus my dating life is really starting to kick in so all the dates i will do will just add to the list. since the life category was pretty univentful up untill moving to LA. that is pretty much all there is to talk about it haha.

finally its time to talk about my 2013 expctations. after getting settled into LA i have a pretty good idea of how this winter is going to go. since my friend is here and my dating life is starting to get really active and we are living in a really exciting city there probably isnt going to be a whole lot of volume put into poker and daygame. dont get me wrong. i still am going to try and put in 120 or so hours of poker a month and im still going to try and daygame on the weeknds or when i can but for once in the past 3 years it is kinda the other way around. instead of being really focused studying and practicing the things i want to get good at, i can finally enjoy the fruits of my labor. which is how i for see this winter going.

i do plan on trying to make as much money from poker as i can which i think 20k is reasonable. and i would actually like to find a girl that i can see for most of the winter while im here  maybe even a couple ;) then i will go back up to alaska for another season of work which i plan on pretty much doing the same routine i did the year before. hopefully since my game has improved i can find a girl up there as well for the summer and then after that im not 100% sure on where im going to live after that but the choices so far are london if the opportunity comes up, florida, or las vegas again. when i do move. for next winter im pretty sure i will be back in grind mode since i wont have my friend with me this time. if i move to florida i found out that they have supposibly the softest poker games in the country at the moment so i will play 5/10 there. wherever i do move to i plan on putting a lot of effort into poker and daygme again so we will see when the time comes.

i dont really have any "2013 new year resolutions" but i do have some realizations that im trying to be more aware of in 2013.

i find myself really pressured to succeed. i feel like it has something to do with being known by society as a success or something along those lines but thats why i was so driven in the past couple of years. every poker player wants to win, its hard to win at poker and when you do you feel validated that you are a winner. you want to be that poker player that people will look at and be like wow he is good and successful at poker. the same goes for daygame. being good with women is looked up to. it feels validating if people look at you and think wow hes really good with women, then it is the same validation. i really feel like society has somewhat brainwashed me into these thoughts over my 25 years of life and i have lost the  true genuiness of living life. it kind of took me moving to LA and having fun to realize it but i do now. that is also a big part of why this winter i am still going to put effort into a lot of asspects of my life but i am trying to really focus of enjoying life this winter and actually living life.

i do like how driven i can be at times and i like how it does make me want to succeed. i like succeeding and i like improving but i need to learn to be able to appreciate other things besides success and hopefully i can learn that this winter. i know this post has been way long but if you read any of it i appreciate you reading my material because i like writing it. all in all i think 2013 will be a good year and will have plenty of positive memories. so untill next time cosmonauts, stay tuned :)