Another new year year rolls in...

Well what a year 2005 turned out to be. It was my first full year playing poker, the year before I made over $30,000 from the March onwards. The optimist in me was expecting that to increase with the extra experience and time I had this year. Unfortunately not. With a big swing late in the year I got it up to $18,000 profit for the year. However I feel this year has been more of a learning year than the first. My experiences have been awesome and for a long while I was not playing seriously.

Remember I started playing poker in March 2004. It seems so long ago now that I downloaded VC for the first time. Since January I have played in the World Poker Tour Caribbean adventure, 2 EPT's and 1 WSOP event, cashing in the Deaville EPT. I have come close in a few other €500+ events without having a big win.

I have started this website with Tom and I have also started Green Joker Poker running over 50 tournaments in 2005. Vegas for the World Series was a great experience and covering the EPT's and Pokerevents tournaments has been great too.

So what's next?

Well firstly my own poker playing needs to move to another level. Towards the end of the year I moved into cash games online and my 6 player NL figures have been good. I plan to play a lot less online tournaments and STT's and concentrate on these. I want to comfortably be playing $10/$20 by the summer. I have reset my spreadsheet and will keep figures updated on here as and when I see fit. So far I have won $600 online in two sessions. I have my entry to the Irish poker championships paid and will be trying to qualify for the rest of the EPT's and the WSOP as and when I have time. I only plan to play events €100 and above live this year.

Green Joker Poker will be expanding this year so look out for a tournament near you soon!

Antes Up is also going from strength to strength and you will see some of the changes shortly. Our mission still remains to give Irish Poker as high a profile as we can and provide entertainment for you along the way.

Happy New Year to all. May you win all the time except against me.

PS: All my family are fish especially Richard who was delighted to knock me out of two torunaments at new year with the monsters of 10 3 and J 3 both offsuit and calling all ins! Carling black label has a lot to answer for, now he thinks he is a poker pro! Stuart did seem to pick up the game pretty quick and could become a good player if he puts his mind to it. Dad needs to learn that calling a 1000 raise because you already have 50 in the big blind is not good. Philip wants to run tournaments but he better learn the rules first :) Oh and I deliberately lost so you could all feel good!