2009 Recap

Overall, 2009 was a great year for me. Although I didn't make as much as I did in 2008, poker was still quite profitable for me. I still ended up making around 2-3xs more playing poker than I could have made if I was using my business management degree in some type of managerial position. A few of the likely reasons for my profit decline in 2009 were actually major reasons why 2009 was such a great year for me life-wise.

My first year as a full time pro in 2008, I worked extra hours and extra hard at my game because I had not proven over the long-term that I was capable of doing poker for my full time job. The result of all that hard work was the best profit I've ever had in a year. However, I was very focused on my poker game and really didn't do anything to enrich my life in other ways. Of course I still played hockey, hung out with friends, went hunting, and went to sporting clays shoots... but I stayed within my comfort zones in regards to my social life as well as traveling.

In 2009, I decided to alter my priorities a bit and I'm glad I did. I made it a point to travel around the U.S. visiting friends and making new ones. Before 2009, the majority of the places I had traveled to in my life were due to either family vacations or sporting clays shoots. I had really only traveled to a few significant places on my own agenda. In 2009 I ended up spending time traveling to Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Kentucky, and Chicago.

While I was in Vegas in March, I finally warmed up a bit to the whole club/bar scene and started getting a lot more social. Before, I guess I was like any normal person... I would go out with my friends for the night and mainly just hang out with them and speak to them only. I've always had a healthy number of friends and been decently outgoing with that group. However, in March, my friends and I just started randomly striking up conversations with strangers and it really made "going out" at night to a club or bar a lot more fun for me. Before it had been kind of boring because generally there's only so much you can discuss and talk about with some of your best friends you've known for years... especially if you've been hanging out with them a lot recently. So adding random people into the conversation mix not only makes going out more fun, but allows for the opportunity to meet new friends.

This probably sounds weird to some naturally outgoing people... but talking to total strangers with the intention of getting to know them wasn't something I did on a regular basis before 2009. Now I have a bunch of cool friends that live all around the U.S. (and a few in the UK too!) in addition to my closest friends from home.

The best trip I made in 2009 was the 36 days I spent in Vegas during the WSOP when I lived in a house with 6 other online poker pros. I spoke about it in previous blogs, but basically we played poker, went out a ton, and I ended up meeting some really great friends from that experience. We've already booked a house again for during the WSOP in 2010 so I'm looking forward to June for sure.

Getting a lot more involved in poker coaching was another great thing that happened to me in 2009. In 2008 I only had a few students, just for the last 2-3 months of the year. But in 2009 I coached over a dozen students and now have over 20 former students. I had a lot of fun coaching them and it was pretty rewarding to see most of them improve their games. I hope to re-start my coaching services perhaps sometime in March of 2010.

And of course the cherry on the top of 2009 was my move to Chicago. Although I miss my family and all my great friends in ND, I think it was time for a change. I had accomplished about all I could in ND and the city is just not anywhere near as entertaining or fun as a bigger city like LA, Chicago, or San Diego. I love Chicago so far and I hope living here is a springboard for 2010 to be the best year for me both poker-wise and life-wise yet!

I'm going to create some solid poker-related goals as well as life-goals for 2010 sometime this weekend. I didn't really have any specific goals for 2009 and I think a little more direction will be helpful to motivate myself to always play my best at the poker tables.

I'll end this post with my biggest losing and winning poker hands of 2009.


Biggest loser


Biggest winner



I wish everyone the best of luck in 2010!