Taking stock

I think this is pretty good time to look back over the previous year or so and what I have and haven't achieved in poker and beyond. Why now? Well for one it's just coming up to halfway through the year so good as time as any to do a bit of a review but also because this time last year a significant point in my poker career occurred and yesterday a significant point in my life occurred.

This point 12 months ago I was in Los Angeles, it was where I spent my summer. I worked in Universal Studios Hollywood, it was a chance for an escape to somewhere different and also the weather was a lot better! I and the 2 other people I went over with spent first the few weeks looking for somewhere permanent to live. It was around this point we found an apartment on Hollywood boulevard. It was about a 5-minute walk away from the Kodak Theater, which hosts the Oscars every year. I hadn't been playing poker since I arrived 3 weeks earlier as I was on a public network in the hostel where I stayed and I am fairly paranoid about playing on 1 but more important I was too busy searching for apartments on Craigslist. I never had to really search for a place to live before and I finally understood the stress involved in it. It was not a pleasant experience. Anyway, we found somewhere reasonable and I was free to play poker again.

I'd be playing 25nl on or off since October (lol) In my defence in that time there was 2 spells where I didn't play for at least 2 months due to "final" year and I had only put 25k hands in. This was back in the days when I 1 tabled. I am not sure how I did it looking back. I am nothing if not disciplined. I always bankrolled for higher levels namely 50nl even before I started playing at that level so I wasn't playing it because I had to but I was playing it as I seen it as starting a fresh. I played MTT's previously but I was reading more and more on cash games and finally this post inspired me to make the move
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054920511

But while having the right bankroll is important, being able to beat the level is as important for me so I set upon the idea that I wouldn't move up unless I knew I could beat a level hence my continual grinding at 25nl.

So, what is the significant point in my poker career that occurred at this time last year that I stated at the start? simply put I moved up levels. I made the move to 50nl in July. This was the first of 3 increases in level. In October I moved up to 100nl and in December I moved up to 200nl and being there since for the most part bar the occasional shot at 400nl and 1 week where I moved down to 100nl again. In general I have been very static about what levels I play which looking back I am not so sure is that great an idea. But that is where I am now. I want to be playing 400nl regularly by the end of the summer but I am likely to adopt a more fluid view of levels and play different levels across different sites.

I have been reading a lot of the Vegas blogs seeing as there is quite a lot of people over there due to the imminent start of the main event. I have to say I am quite jealous. A large part of me wishes I went over now. I could have done it. I even looked at flight costs to LAX but I just felt it could cost me too much money and too much of my roll as a lot of my time would have been spent going to shows, visiting the Grand Canyon etc. This has left a void in my summer, which is pretty apt as the rest of my life seems like a void at the moment and the reason is something I hinted at above.

The significant point in my life that occurred yesterday? Well my exam results came out and I passed so I now have a degree in computer applications. As I said in a previous post I am fairly ambivalent about the degree itself but being in college has defined me for the last 5 years. Pretty much everything I have done or not done has at least an indirect connection to DCU and usually it's a very direct connection. I still live at home because my home just happens to be on the very road that DCU is at. I have spent 2 summers in the US working, both times on the J1 visas which I got cause I was a student. The first time I ever played poker was in DCU pokersoc and so on and so forth. I have to face a future not tied to the place and I am really not sure what that will entail. Something else which occurred to me yesterday was I was going through daft.ie as I occasionally do, I have nothing really keeping me at home bar home made dinners and clothes washed (which I admit is pretty handy). The idea of moving out 20,30 minutes whatever away from my house just to share with a stranger really doesn't appeal to me. I mean what's the point? There is nothing keeping me here. I have no debt. I may just leave and not sure if I will come back. I could travel for a while. I could just go somewhere and settle there. I could do both; travel around until I find somewhere. But it would be something. I admittedly have only really started thinking about this so none of this may happen but something has to happen. I am not sure why I am only thinking this now and not a month ago but it's like the results coming out have set a light bulb off. To make this happen I will have to be playing and beating 400nl successfully. I think it's the only way I could make it work and afford it.

So that is where I stand at the moment. Lots of ideas and thoughts but nothing definitive. Hopefully this point next year I can look back and be happy with what happened!