Moving forward!

I certainly think I will be profitable for another five years. I love playing poker. It was a hobby before it became a business, and as long as it can continue to be a profitable business for me, it will continue to full time occupation. When it ceases to be profitable, it will revert back to being a hobby. Either way, poker will always have some part in my life.

So what's the plan for the next five years? Well, at the end of the five years I would like to have built up three other revenues streams separate from poker. My family has a background in rental property, so acquiring one or two rental properties seems a good option. I've always had aspirations to start some kind of entrepreneurial venture. In exactly what at the moment I don't know, but I suppose it's all about waiting for a gap in the market.

All these things cost money and I plan on funding them out of my poker winnings, so where is the money going to come from? There's no doubt it's becoming harder and harder to win easy money at poker. Looking around, at the World Series for example. There are just so many good players playing the game for a living at the moment. Having said that, there are now more people playing the game than ever before and more possible ways to make a good income from the game. There's MTT's, STT's, NHLE, PLO, Razz...

For me the best options are PLO HU, 6 max and NHLE MTT's. I think I still have a big edge in both. I'm going to have to move down in levels in PLO cash until I rebuild. In the MTT's I will still be playing the bigger buy-in events. This is largely thanks to my sponsorship deal with Boylepoker which I am very appreciative of and also I shall attempt to satellite in others.

I had an interesting chat with an Australian pro at the WSOP. We were talking about the games getting harder but the fast that there's still a lot of money out there to be made. This guy plays the big games in Bobby's room and the advice he gave me was obvious but good. He said, "To be beating the games, well you got to ask yourself what are you doing that's that extra bit special". It hit me that after four and half years of success, I was sitting back and not doing that little extra bit special.

If I was rating a poker player out of a 100 it would be under the 3 headings.

Poker playing ability 40 marks: You can't make money if you can't beat the games. How badly you beat the games is determined by your skill level.

Drive/worth ethic 30 marks: You're basically on an hourly work rate (which is obviously determined by your skill level), so you only earn money when you're playing. Also, it's very important to be constantly working to improve your ability, as it will determine your hourly wage.

Discipline/bank roll management 30 marks: A lot of the biggest poker winners don't have a cent to their name, as a result of either poor game selections or leaks. Your bank roll is your ability to make money. The ability to build and protect from your leaks it is the bottom line.

I think in the last year I have become a much more rounded and more capable player but this has not resulted in an improved bottom line, as my work ethic has declined. Being honest I view myself as being in the top 10% of professional poker players, as a result I can't make any massive gains but it's all about doing that extra little special bit and squeezing out a few more marks from each area.

While I may sound completely money driven, it's more a mechanism for achieving my overall goal and to go down as one of the great Irish poker players. However, there's only so much I'm willing to sacrifice to achieve these goals. That's the reason I am trying to bring a much more systematic approach to how I play the game and not let it dominate all aspects of my life.

Poker really started seriously for me was when I chopped the Christmas Cracker with Rees, giving me a 30k role. I suppose I end this blog in the same spot that Matt Damon ended up in Rounders, "Back in the same spot I started, with 3 stacks of high society (1 stack = 10k)"!