It’s that time of year again. A time for reflections and resolutions. Working out why you didn’t achieve last year’s goals, and setting yourself some brand new ones that you will definitely stick to… at least until February...

I’m pretty sure my main target last year was to increase my playing volume. I didn’t set myself any quantifiable targets but regardless I know for sure that I didn’t really achieve what I set out to do. There are various reasons for that, but I guess the main reason is my increased involvement in Poker Encore. Things are getting really busy and as such playing has been pushed down the list of priorities.

The second, albeit related, reason is that towards the end of the year I took on a small mentor group for online PLO. This is as demanding as it is rewarding, but something that I will be focussing more and more on. One of my main resolutions is to increase the time I spend with the group. Not only does this help them but it also helps me. Teaching help keeps the mind focussed and I’ve definitely learnt more about my own game through this process than I ever thought I would

For the sake of putting something down, I’m going to try to play a minimum of 10k hands per month online. Whilst full time online pros will, quite rightly, point out that this is still pathetic volume, I will increase this target if and when I can but at least it gives me something to focus on

I also want to increase the amount of online tournaments that I play. I’ve never really played online tournaments, despite some success early in my poker career. They’ve never really held much attraction, I’d always rather play live tournaments and focus my online game on cash PLO. Again, whilst I will never be putting in the volume that full time online guys do, I will be trying to play more online events. Now in fact is a great time to start, as Poker Encore’s “Winter Sales” promotion is about to start which are basically a bunch of guaranteed tournaments that run every month, but in January the buyins are being reduced whilst the guarantees stay the same. Should be great value, and I’ll probably update on here as to how my plan to play as many of them as I can goes. Full details of all the Winter Sales events are here http://pokerencore.com/promotions.php?id=22

As an extra incentive (not just for me!) but for everyone, I’m creating a leaderboard for all players who play these events on Poker Encore and adding a £1k seat to next month’s Palm Beach event for the winner. If you’re interested you need to email me your alias to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it so I can get you added to the leaderboard, and track your results

January and February are looking like busy months. Along with a few live events planned, I’ve got a house move thrown in as well, just for fun. As such I’ve decided against making the big trip to either Australia or the PCA. Australia was a great trip last year and hopefully I can do it again next year, but maybe it’s a bit much to do every year. Instead I guess I’ll look forward to Vegas instead which will come around quicker than you think, it always does.

Speaking of Vegas, whilst it’s pretty pointless to set any targets it would be nice to get a big result out there this year. Making my 1^st WSOP final table (WSOPE’s count, right?) was probably my poker highlight of 2010. I was soon brought back down to earth afterwards though, when I was playing a live event up in Birmingham. A guy on my table who I didn’t recognise said to me shortly after we started playing that he recognised me and said well done at the world series. Before I had time to thank him his mate walked past the table. “Look John, it’s James Akenhead”

FML