Team Online Contract renewed – Happy New Year!

I’m not going to write a long blog entry at the last day of the year. 2012 was a great year but I’ve already wrote about all the stuff that happened in my previous blogs. I want to talk a little bit about poker and that’s it.

I’ll start with the good stuff! My contract with PokerStars Team: Online has been renewed for another year. This will be my 3th year and I can only say that I’m really honored. A lot of sponsor contracts were ended after Black Friday, not only at PokerStars, and I’m still a member of PokerStars Team: Online. It feels great to represent PokerStars another year since it’s still the #1 Poker website in the world! 2012 wasn’t a great poker year for me so that means that I’m even more happy since I wouldn’t have been surprised if PokerStars hadn’t renewed my contract. I feel bad about not pushing myself for playing more poker in 2012 and that’s why I’ve come up with my long list of New Year resolutions (see previous blog). I’m really eager to start grinding and if everything goes to plan I’ll start the 2nd of January. I have to interrupt my online grind with the PCA which isn’t really a punishment. I’m not playing the Main Event, I might not play any tournaments at all. The reason for this is the Dutch tax laws, after my 5th place at the MCOP I was really eager to play some more live tournaments and the PCA has a lot of good side events. I was thrilled to register for some of them but it’s just not doable with our current tax laws. I tried to qualify for the Main Event but didn’t manage to do so which means I’m probably not playing a lot of poker at all, I might do just 1 tournament for fun.

Most of PokerStars: Team Online are coming and we have a meeting with the whole bunch so that’s the main reason for going. Last year I had a blast with a lot of people from Team Online and most of them had their contract renewed as well so will be going to the PCA as well. I’m sure we are going to have some fun again and I’m planning to play a bunch of tennis if possible since I want to start working out as soon as possible in the new year. I’m bringing my buddy again and he will be playing some tourneys and I will be buying some % so I still hope to earn some money as well 🙂 I should also not forget the bet with DaWarsaw, he will have to be my personal assistant for a full day, I can’t wait 😉

This month I played a bunch of LHE cashgames and didn’t do that bad but in the end it wasn’t great either. I was playing anything up to $15/$30 focusing on 4-6 tables which was great to test out some new things. At the PCA I hope to study some more and when I’m back I should be putting everything to practice and I’ll start again at the $2/$4 level and see where it gets me. I want at least 20.000 hands before moving up but especially in LHE this is still a small sample size. 8 tables should be my max which means 20.000 hands should take roughly 50/60 hours. By the end of January I’ll know if I can start moving up again. January is already packed with stuff, as mentioned PCA, TCOOP starts right after and I’m also away the last weekend of the month. I want to exercise at least 3 times a week as well but since I’m not drinking I should get full use out of my weekend.

I can’t wait to get started. I hope everybody will have a blast at NYE and wish everybody the best in 2013!

See you next year @PokerStars!