First Half of January 2022 Poker Frenzy

With a new year comes new resolves, new opportunities, new ways of thinking. 2021 was another disappointing year for many due to COVID, but my poker year seemed especially brutal. I had the worst run bad of my poker life, which led to some poor playing on my part. In retrospect, it was almost like a type of poker depression, where you are buried deep and can't seem to fight your way out. I look back at some of the horrendous beats I took and find it hard to believe that the poker gods weren't conspiring against me. I finally seemed to break out of it and play better as the year wore on, but the damage was done. My only saving grace was that I messed up my poker tracking system early in the year and didn't keep track of my performance. Thank goodness!

With the new year starting, I read that my poker friend Mr. Ben was using the Poker Bankroll Tracker app to keep up on his wins and losses, so I downloaded the app and made an effort to use it regularly. It's actually been great motivation for me as my year started off with a bang! I started out with a couple of modest wins before I had a really good session. My strategy for 2022 has been to play frequently and keep my sessions within reasonable limits. Although I have three local poker rooms from which to choose, I have played only at the Arena Poker Room at Talking Stick Resort in 2022. I do, however, plan to play somewhere else this weekend for special NFL promos.

Early on, I was shocked to see that my win rate per hour at $2/3 NL was $175/hour! This was largely due to the one great session I had but also because I had four winning sessions to start the year. Since then, I have had mixed results with only one really bad session. That one came to a crashing halt when I pushed all in after the flop with an open ended straight flush draw. My opponent flopped trips and called. We both bricked the turn and river, and bam - I was felted for the first time in 2022. Looking back, I suppose I could have just called his raise after the flop and then reevaluated after the turn, but I also wouldn't have minded if he had folded. I was guessing that he had two pair and didn't know that he was so strong after the flop.

So today we are just about halfway through January 2022, and in the first 14 days, I played ten poker sessions! This was what I was imagining retirement in Arizona would be like back when I was still employed. Fortunately, I have a very understanding wife who has her own life and has always been pretty good about my playing poker, road tripping to Las Vegas, ...

I don't usually like to publicize the exact scope of my play for personal reasons, but I will say that I have won seven out of the ten sessions I have played so far. I have either come up with a good formula for winning at the Stick, or the pleasant side of variance has hit me so far and I am living in a fool's paradise. Whichever it is, the poker has sure been fun, as winning is so much better than losing!

I hope your poker year is looking as promising as mine. Thanks for reading!