Review of 2007

Whilst I have a few minutes spare (a real rarity these days) I thought it might be a good idea to see whether I managed to meet any of my objectives for the year.
All the comments in red, I posted at the end of 2006.

At this point, I am still undecided about my career, do I make poker a more prominent part?

Well the answer to that was a resounding no from a playing sense, I have played less poker in 2007 than in 2006, although I have also started up my Poccer business, so I guess that makes it a more prominent part.

At the moment if you look me up on the internet on poker pages or the Hendon mob web sites, you will see no record of me, I have never cashed in a big live tournament.

Well thankfully that is no longer the case, thanks to the caribbean tournaments in December I now have a record!
http://www.pokerpages.com/players/profiles/104546/clinton-orchard.htm
http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=r&n=95766

My wife Rachael also made it on to the database as well, so that was a nice bonus.

Objective 1) – Cash in a major live event.

I only played one major event the EPT in Dortmund, so the answer to this one is a fail on that front, however the two tournaments at the carribean poker classic enabled me to achieve the main objective of making the databases, so I am going to take the overall objective as a pass. Grade B+

Objective 2i) – Make the final table of the £40k

Definite success here. I have not played it that often but I do now have 3 final tables to my name. Grade A

Objective 2ii) – Win the Sunday £40k

Well this is no. I did manage a 2nd place and you can't get much closer than that. So a good effort, but improvement required. Grade C

Objective 3 MTTS) - To win 10 online tournaments in 2007

Well I just made it
1 x £12k Gtd
1 x $20k Gtd
1 x £6k Gtd
1 x £2.5k Gtd HH
1 x £2k Gtd
4 x $4.5k Gtd
1 x $3k Gtd.

Thanks mainly to the $4.5k which was clearly my favourite tournament!

To Final Table in 40 online tournaments

Another just about, I have 43 that I have recorded, so thats good enough to pass this one.

10 x 1st
6 x 2nd
7 x 3rd
5 x 4th
4 x 5th
3 x 6th
3 x 7th
1 x 8th
1 x 9th
3 x 10th

To cash in 20% of all tournaments played

I have not kept good enough records this year to count this one effectively, but I am confident I have comfortably achieved this.

To achieve a profit of £40k

Well this is a fail unfortunately, unless there is some major miracle over the couple of days that I have left to play this year.
Also this combines all play not just MTTs.
I am currently £300 ahead of last year, at £32.5k. So a definite no, but it would have been a lot worse without September, October and November which generated 55% of my profits for the year.

Overall I have to very pleased with my online MTT play and look forward to continuing this next year.
Grade B+

Objective 3 STTS) - To achieve a sharkscope profit of £5k
To move my sharkscope ROI to 5%
To move my £20 & £30 sharkscope ROI into positive territory

Oh dear, big failure
I still have not got my STTs into profit, let alone make £5k. I will keep trying on this, but accept, I do not have the game or the patience to get this into this region. I will continue to try to move into positive territory, but thats about the extent of my realism in Stts.

My ROI is still -2%,. so a long way away.
£20 & £30 still a way to go.
Overall Fail, Grade D

Objective 3 Cash) - To achieve a profit of £5k
To make a profit of 500 big blinds at each level I play
.15/.25 - £125
.25/.5 - £250
.5/1 - £500
1/2 - £1000
2/5 - £2500

I did ok when I played cash this year, but did not play to the extent I envisaged nor keep seperate records of my performance.

Objective 4 Qualifiers) – These are vital for my plans in 2007, I must play in more live events.
This list will be a ridiculously tough target to achieve and I will have to play occasionally on unfamiliar sites to achieve it however these are my aims.
Feb – EPT Deauville
Mar/Apr - Monte Carlo Millions
May - GBPT Nottingham
Jul - WSOP
Aug - UKPT Luton
Sep - EPT Barcelona
Nov - CPC (or equiv)
Jan - Aussie Millons

Well that was a failure of the biggest proportions! I was not geared up to play these events. Simply I was not able to commit enough time to play these and I was not successful in the qualifiers I did play. I played in the EPT Dortmund and whilst I went to Vegas and the Caribbean only played in small side events. No Grade Achieved!

Objective 5) Defend our Bad Beat dream Team title.

We gave it a damn good go, but ended up in 2nd place.

My next objective is to find a flat screen HDTV to spend my winnings from last night on.

I even failed on this one! All winnings have gone into a new house and starting up Poccer.

All in all its been a good year, I achieved my ambition of making a poker database.
I have not had the time to play anywhere near as much as I would have liked to, but thats part and parcel of it being a hobby and having a full time job and a family to look after.

Every so often I have the desire to try and make more out of this hobby, but lets be honest for a second, there are some incredibly talented players out there and I am quite simply not in their league.
I don't rule out the possibility of playing in some live events this year and with a lot of luck (of the good variety) who knows what might happen.
I have already booked my trip to Vegas in the summer, so I will certainly being playing more live poker next year.

The other thing I would like to do is build up the Poccer business. I get a lot of pleasure from seeing people enjoy playing poker in an environment that is friendly and played in such great spirit. I promise you, you will will enjoy these if you come along. There are a number of people who have played in these events that are very talented people and I would like to help them where possible and see what we can do with them in this wonderful world of poker.

I have always thought of myself as a better teacher or coach than a player, so I am considering a poccer players club this year. Mostly it will depend on how much time I can create.

I also would like to say a big thank you to all my friends both new and old that I have met through playing poker, there really are some nice guys out there amongst the bad reputation that certain players get.
To everyone I play against 2008, good luck to you all.
If anyone is interested in getting involved in Poccer from a playing side or wants to find a medium to play more live events, please let me know.

If I can do anything to help or advise anyone, also drop me a line. Equally if you just want to tell me where to go, then thats allowed to. Nobody can be everyone's cup of tea!!

Merry Christmas poker players of the world.
I hope you have a good one.

ClintonO