Royal Poker Blog

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone is have a safe and enjoyable time during the holiday season.

The Royal's traveled back home to South Dakota to visit family. We're just getting ready to take off and head back home to Michigan. Hopefully Northwest has the luggage situation rectified. We got caught up in the melee that has been bombarding the news the last few days. Fortunately our baggage (gifts!) only arrived 6 hours late. It sounds like some people are getting ready to travel back home and have yet to receive there luggage from the trip out.

Oh the Humanity.


Back on the Band Wagon

The recent Party Poker bonus has got me back working towards my 10,000 hands at the $1/$2 limits. I still need to download the last batch of hands to Poker Tracker, but it looks like I'm at ~5,000 hands down. After a dismal start many months ago at these limits I had bounced back great during the last few weeks.

...and then came the typical frigid steak. In the last 600 hands:

AA: 0 -2
KK: 1-3 (The one win merely stole the blinds. Damn it felt good!)
QQ: 1-5 (The one win did make a set / boat for a big hand.)

18% overall - my normal win percentage for these hands at these limits is close to 70%.

I've found the level of play to be much better at these limits. The biggest difference is players not seeing as many flops. My normal $0.50 / $1 games saw 7-8 players seeing every flop. The typical $1/$2 table is more like 4-5 players seeing the flop. Once in awhile you'll stumble onto a really loose $1/$2 game, but they are few and far between.

Maybe I'm not looking hard enough or not playing at the right time?

Anyway, the speculative suited connectors that were profitable at $0.50/$1 are a complete black hole for me on the $1/$2 tables. Thanks to Poker Tracker I was able to recognize this leak at around 3,000 hands and I tightened my play up significantly. Losing that big hand hurts even more when you've been playing tight. The universe will correct itself though...

...or maybe my parent's computer is just cursed!

Goals - Part 1

Though 2004 is not quite over it is close enough to review the progress of my annual goals. You can check out the original post from Jan 5th, 2004.

Personal Goals:

• Eat Healthier: Grade = C

This bad trend needs to be straightened out. I'd give the Royal family a grade of A for the first six months and probably a D or F for the last six months of 2004. Even with the baby we continued to do a good job of eating relatively healthy. The problems started as we bought the new house and started the move. Our normally chaotic (yet controllable) life was turned even further upside down. It's just so much easier to eat out when you're short on time.

This will be a goal again in 2005. I know we can do better.

• Continue to improve the yard around our house: Grade = B

We did a good job of upkeep on the old house and that resulted in a lot less rush work once we decided to buy a new place.

• Continue investing: Grade = A-

We're extremely fortunate enough to have enough money to buy the things we need, many of the things we want and still usually have money left over to invest for our future. Most poker bloggers (being a cut above the average player) understand that managing their bankroll is crucial to success. Well, for most of us managing the normal household expenses is even more crucial. In 2004 we were able to continue investing in our 401Ks, Roth IRAs and other investments.

While not exactly an investment, we were also able to continue funding a scholarship we established at our alma matter a few years ago. Mrs. Royal and I were both fortunate to have financial support for college. I'm not sure I'm a huge Karma believer like Otis, but now that we're doing well it just seems like the right thing to do.

Poker Goals:

• Have a profitable year: Grade = B

I will make money in 2004, but barring a huge tournament money in the next week I won't do as well as last year. Overall I'm doing better in ring games and those profits have allowed me to take some shots in bigger tournaments. I haven't had the huge (for me) money finishes like last year and that is the difference in the bottom line.

I also went through about three months early in the year where I didn't get much chance to play and when I did the cards were ice cold ice.

Overall I'm please with my 2004 results.

• Play more Omaha hi-lo (O8): Grade = C

I ended up playing more O8 though not as much as I originally planned. With the limited amount of time I have to play poker this goal ended up not being that important.

• Re-learn to play limit Hold-em: Grade = C+

Those that have been following this blog for the last year know that my quest started at $0.50/$1 and I planned to go up each level after I had played 10,000 hands and reached a certain profit structure.

I breezed though the $0.50/$1 level and then got bogged down in $1/$2. To be honest I lost interest in wading through 10,000 hands. Well, I'm back at it trying to get to 10,000 hands at $1/$2. In reality I probably ended up close to 10,000 hands at $1/$2, but many of those hands were on sites not supported by Poker Tracker.

• Make the final table at 5 events with greater than 100 entrants: - Grade D

I made 3 final tables under those qualifications. I never finished in the top 3 though. As projected baby Royal made tournament play difficult and ring game play preferred. I know my limit ring game play improved in 2004, but I worry my NL tournament play regressed.

Conclusions:

Part 2 in January will discuss what I want to accomplish in 2005. Overall 2004 could have been better and could have been worse. It's time to look forward to 2005 with a fresh start!