2007 Recap, 2008 Poker Goals, and the Aussie Millions

First of all, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and I wish you all the best for the new year. 2007 has come to an end, which is kind of sad for me because it has been the best year of my life, for many reasons. One of those reasons is that it was the most profitable year of poker in my career. The funny thing is, in my 7 years of playing, I played the least amount of poker in 2007. I probably played less than 1/10th of the amount of hands I played in 2006. The biggest reason for that is I haven't played any online poker since around May, other than the random tournament here and there. Another reason is that our house hasn't finished being built yet, and I hate playing online poker from my laptop. I need a couple of high resolution monitors to really be comfortable if I'm multi-tabling. One of my New Year's resolutions is to play more online poker in 2008.

Considering how few tournaments I played compared to the big name pros, I'm very happy with my performance in 2007. I finished 3rd place in Canada and 47th in the world, ahead of the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Barry Greenstein, and Phil Ivey to name a few. While this means nothing unless I can do it in the long run, it's a pretty cool stat. =D Here are my results for 2007:

2007 EPT Prague Main Event - 20th place - $17,710.00
2007 WSOP Circuit - Harvey's Lake Tahoe H.O.R.S.E. Event 7 - 1st place - $11,916.00
2007 North American Poker Championship (WPT) Main Event - 25th place - $51,065.00
2007 WSOP Event 31 - World Championship Heads-Up NL - 33rd place - $9,212.00
2007 EPT Grand Final Championship Event - 2nd place - $1,413,291.00
2007 Aussie Millions Main Event Championship - 6th place $240,000.00

This translated into just under $2 million Canadian in live tournament proceeds. I still don't think it has sunk in yet. I always knew I would make a good living from playing poker, but not like this! I remember back in Monte Carlo in 2006 after my first ever final table when I was knocked out in 4th place. I was feeling so deflated after getting eliminated, and my cousin Steve, who was with me said, "Don't worry man, this is nothing, you can do this every time." I said, "No way man, this was my shot, what's the chance of me going through another large field and playing for 40-something hours and making a final table again?" Fast forward to a year and a half later, 3 more final tables, and a WSOP Circuit H.O.R.S.E. Championship. whowuddathunkit?

Here are my poker goals for 2008:

Play in at least 10 major tournaments
1 WPT/EPT final table
1 WSOP final table
Tournament proceeds of $400,000 or more for the 3rd year in a row
Net profit of $1,000,000 or more from poker for the 3rd year in a row
Increase the number of magazines/newspapers I publish articles to
Play on one of the high stakes TV shows

It's weird how all of the focus has turned to tournaments, when at heart I am really a cash game player. I miss the old days on the Tain network, when one of my friends would send me a text message when my big fish was online, and I would race home from whatever I was doing so I could play him. I also really miss playing the live games at the Bellagio in Vegas. I can't wait to go back.

Well, this has turned into one long brag post, but I earned it! As far as my next tournament goes, I was supposed to be in the Bahamas this week for the EPT event, but all of the hotels in the area were booked solid, so we skipped out on it. Instead I will be again heading to Australia for the Aussie Millions in Melbourne. I love Australia, but that 30 hour flight with 3 connections is torture.