"We Do What We Must Do"
Or, the 2008 Recap  

I.so.wish.I.could.escape.writing.this.post.
But alas, I cannot; 'we do what we must do'. So here goes nothing.

2008 is no more... And, I curse through my teeth my only too common human nature and that stupid 2-hockey-period-timespan-memory of ours, which, at the end of the... year, puts me right in that famous spot: "I can hardly remember how I built my bankroll, but I can't stop thinking of how I lost it" (Mike McDermott, Rounders, 1998, John Dahl). Hehe. I also hear Knish's voice sometimes, going "It happens to everyone. Time to time, everyone goes bust" (ibidem). But that's the thing now, is it; I get myself all worked up like that and I haven't even gotten busto. What does that tell me about me, I wonder... Time to take a fscking hard look at meself in a mirror, I think... And what better than a quick wrap-up of 2008.

Maybe I'm focusing too much on the last few weeks, but I must say I feel I failed in 2008. Thing is, I always sucked big time at setting and reaching personal objectives... The irony is, of course, that I am nevertheless quite introspective... And thus, last January, I found myself caught up by the notion that I might had overgrown this flaw of mine, and overblew it a little with this humongous list of goals for 2008:

• Play at least 50,000 hands of online poker
• Play way more live, and find a personal comfort zone
• Settle at NL10, then NL25 and NL50 by the end of the year
• Develop a proficiency for another game (Razz, Stud or Omaha)
• Start dabbing at split games
• Win a tournament
• Pull a major stone-cold bluff
• Hustle some poor schlob in a pub or hustle myself a date :P
• Visit every Montreal poker room
• Take a week-end trip to Atlantic City
• Run a tight blog :P
• Keep the mailing list/discussion group alive
• Stay aggressive, uncompromising and unapologetic at the tables, while remaining affable, lighthearted and zen
• Create myself a slick avatar
• Create a Poker course
• Keep taking bad beats with the reverence and awe of a devout
• Write my Poker & Self-Enlightenment piece

I only managed to crush and achieve one, namely playing at least 50k hands. Actually played in little over 100k online cash game hands in 2008, which is pretty satisfying to me. Among the other numerous objectives, I think I can still say some of them are half-successes;

• I believe I kept a somewhat tight, entertaining blog;
• I probably pulled a very decent bluff, and probably much more, as a matter of fact, but must say I now consider this one the fruit of my Hollywood-based upbringing and that romantic notion that bluffs must be for all the marbles, in a life and death situation, or something... lol bluffaments :D!
• I did not play more than 40ish tournaments, mostly Sit'nGos, in which I kept a positive RoI%.
• The mailing list and poker course thingy might have taken a new bloggish form (to be continued)...
• And lastly, though I had to step back from NL50 at the stroke of midnight, almost, I did get to NL20 and then took a roughly half-decent shot at it, so I can't really rule that one as a total failure.

Still, lots and lots learned... hopefully ;-). And while I do remember I suck at setting up objectives and fighting to accomplish them, I will try and refine and mature from this last year, and manage to set better targets for 2009. I'm thinking: broader... And a lot less of them ;-).

"Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up."