A Look Back at 2016

Another year come and gone, and I’m still here kicking and screaming my way through this thing. The end of 2016 marks my 13th year as a professional poker player and I’m proud to say that. There aren’t that many of us that make it this long.

There have definitely been some struggles along the way and I’m doing my best to head into my 14th year in a positive way. I’ve got a regular game in which I like to play and the support of my family at all times. I can’t think of a better profession to be in while also raising a young family and although it’s stressful at times, I almost always love what I do, if for no other reason than the amount of time I get to spend with them.

Speaking of that, my wife and I have added a new member to our family. As I’m writing this in November, our daughter is just two days old and entertaining the heck out of her mom, brothers, and me. Keeping them all safe, happy, and healthy is really my only goal for the foreseeable future. This article, however, is a look back at my goals from this year, so let’s do that.

2016 Goal #1: Get out of makeup (or at least put myself in position to do so).

Oh no, this did not go well. In my original 2016 goals article, I calculated that I needed to try to get to $312,500 worth of buy-ins to have a good shot at getting out of makeup. I came well short of that, only playing two $10,000 tournaments all year and nothing else $5,000 or higher. I’ll have to take a look at a better way to go about this next year.

My family did have some complications that made tournaments much more difficult for me and it’s hard to leave a pregnant wife with two kids and a 30+ hour/week job for very long without incurring lots of guilt and wrath.

Even without playing enough tournaments to really give myself a chance to get out of makeup, I had a decent shot at clearing it all in one go. I finished around 500th in the World Series of Poker main event (my backer ran much deeper, eventually finishing third, way to go Cliff!) and was one cooler away from making a super deep run in it. The biggest reason I haven’t been able to clear much off of my makeup number over the last few years is my lack of success in big buy-in tournaments. If you’re doing well in the $1,500 events but poorly in the two $10,000 you play each year, it’s hard to catch up.

After the score in the main event, I did find it a bit hard to focus on other tournaments. The letdown of losing such a big pot for such huge equity and then playing in smaller buy-in tournaments was very tough. I pride myself on not letting differences in stakes get in my head, but it was tough this year.

2016 Goal #2: Average 100 hours of cash games per month

So far, so good, but I’m not going to get there. I was over 100/month for the first 10 months of the year and then we had a baby. I’m not going to get there as I probably won’t play for the next few weeks and perhaps sparsely from here on out. I made this goal before I knew we’d be having a baby this year. As a result and because I did average 100 hours per month before the baby showed up, I’ll call this one a win.

It’s definitely been hard on me to play some 8-10 hour shifts that end at 2 or 3 am, drive home and be in bed about an hour later and then get up with the kids at 7 am, but it’s the job I signed up for and I can always nap if I need to. Paw Patrol and Tumble Leaf have been my saviors in that regard.

2016 Goal #3: 10 hours of study per month

I really started to ramp this up towards the end of the year, but I definitely fell short of this goal. Making time for family, work, and study is difficult but it’s necessary to continue to improve. I have it as a goal for next year as well and I have put it into the agenda for our weekly family meeting so I should have a better time of doing this next year.

Looking back at this year, I realize now the thing that I really need for next year: An extra couple of hours in the day. Since I don’t think I’ll be able to figure that one out and, if I did, I wouldn’t have to work ever again as my idea would make me super rich, I’ll just make sure to drink a lot more coffee. ♠

Gavin Griffin was the first poker player to capture a World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour and World Poker Tour title and has amassed nearly $5 million in lifetime tournament winnings. Griffin is sponsored by HeroPoker.com. You can follow him on Twitter @NHGG