Stephen Groom Taking a shot at becoming a Poker Pro

2011 wrap-up and looking forwards into 2012

Here we are at the top of 2011 and for the last 4 months I've been considering myself a "Professional Poker Player".  My risk-of-ruin had been pretty high from the outset and already once I have recovered from being pretty close to busto.  For this reason I am very happy that for now at least, I have managed to survive in this game.

The poker is the main talking point of this blog nowadays and what 95% of the content will be about in the future but as it is a pretty fun and important part of the year I can put that to one side for a few paragraphs.

2011 has been a very good year for me all in all and for once as I reflect I am happy with most if not all of the choices and decisions that I have made.  I am now 21, I have a BA degree with 2:2 hons, I have a new car and flat, a good circle of friends with similar interests, a new job (some might not call it that yet) which so far has been very rewarding and I have a better quality of life than I can ever remember having.

2012 for me is going to be about next-steps.  Taking everything that I have now and making a conscious effort to improve on what I would call a good solid foundation which I worked towards in the latter half of 2011.  I have already decided on a few achievable and measurable goals for what to achieve in the next 12 months and this post should hopefully allow me to revisit them and see how I am doing at achieving them and sticking to the famously useless New Year's resolutions.

What I want to achieve in 2012

• Play around 700,000 cash game hands on Sky Poker at stakes no lower than £0.20/£0.40 over 11 months
• Spend a full month of poker playing MTTs and play at least 600 individual tournaments
• Make £18,000 total profit (inc: bonuses) from Sky Poker
• Move up a limit on sky and be a consistent winning regular at £0.50/£1.00 on Sky
• Get onto Team Sky Pro
• Have a regular fortnightly home game
• Travel around playing a small, select sample of live poker games inc: bimonthly long-weekend trips to Nottingham for the deepstack festival
• Increase my bankroll enough to be comfortable playing £2/£5 live cash games
• Buy/adopt a Staffy dog
• Have at least one holiday abroad
• Increase the amount of socialising that I do in my spare time

I will use this list throughout the year to check back and report on how I am doing with my achievements.  I expect that I will probably review my progress quarterly.

As well as all of the positive things which I'd like to achieve and improve upon in 2012, there are ofcourse the negatives which ought to be addressed too.  This part is usually tougher:

2012 New Year's Resolutions

• Gambling
  I'm not sure of the best way to address or measure this but I certainly want to reduce or totally stop indulging in -EV gambling (casino games, fruit machines, slots, bookies etc).  This hasn't been a major problem for me but I have definitely spent/wasted/lost more money than I would like to have over the last few years. I think getting in control of this while I still play small will help me to stay away from such games when I have the ability to punt away large amounts of potentially life changing money.  I will start by saying that for the foreseeable I will totally stop all of the above activities.
• Health and Fitness
  This is a must-have on everyone's list but all jokes aside it will be very important for me this year given my working situation.  My diet could actually be far worse and I know a great many people who spend 6+hours a day in their home office who have far far worse diets than I do.  I don't overindulge on takeaways, I don't sit all night and munch on convenience-food and unhealthy snacks either.  I always have at least breakfast, one big meal and some smaller in-between meal snacks per day.  Now obviously this isn't ideal and I should be aiming to have breakfast + 2 meals per day but I find it tough when I am awake at night to be motivated to make a big meal at 4am.  I also have problems motivating myself to cook for just one person.  If there was someone else around I know for sure that I would eat more consistently and also cook better meals with more variety.  That is the thing which I would like to improve on more than anything else.  Quality of my meals.  I often find myself digging around the freezer for a quick 20-minutes and done meal to throw in the oven but really this isn't very satisfying or healthy.  There is nothing better than having your own home-cooked steak dinner but as I mentioned earlier it is tough to justify the expense and effort when eating alone.

  In terms of exercise I made a small start earlier in the year when Ben and I chose to start jogging.  Our laziness and Ben's injured foot means that this didn't last very long.  I will keep this up and maybe have a view to joining a Gym, swimming pool or some kind of sport to keep me busy.  In addition to this, if all goes to plan and I get my puppy (yaaaay), 3 walks a day will ensure I don't become heavier than my age in 2012.

I have now basically typed myself out so to all readers, friends, opponents etc I hope you had a very good Christmas and hope you have a Happy New Year!

Stephen
x