Poker Million's Past and Present

Usually at this time of year I’d be writing a blog about how the Poker Million final went for me. Unfortunately this year I just had to content myself with watching it on TV again.

I played the Poker Million every year from 2005 to 2009 but opted to give it a swerve this year. It was a tough decision as I’ve obviously got a lot of fond memories of the tournament, but I just couldn’t bring myself to play a tournament with a $1 million 1st prize and $60k 2nd prize.

Whenever I finished 2nd in 2008 we had already chopped up the prize money so the King on the river which cost me the title didn’t actually cost me anything in financial terms, but I still felt gutted when I lost.

I can’t even imagine how bad it would feel to finish 2nd this year and make $30k profit after getting so close to $1 million. Luckily the guy that finished 2nd this year doesn’t need the money anyway, and probably won’t lose too much sleep over it.

I had intended to go to Galway for the UKIPT but decided against it because of the weather. Belfast to Galway is a bit of a hike at the best of times, never mind when the country is covered in a foot of snow. I was toying with the idea of going to Prague for the final EPT of the year, but I’ve decided against that too.

I said after Amsterdam that I wouldn’t play any big buy-in tournaments until I feel a bit better about poker. I actually was feeling a good bit better last Thursday after I played a small online MTT just to kill a bit of time and ended up winning it. It was only a small 1st prize but it still felt good to win something for a change. However, things quickly went downhill from there.

I owed Nicky Power €1,500 and was going to send it to him on Boyles. Since I had $1,430 in my account, I decided just to win the other $70 rather than deposit. To be fair, most of the time I do something like this it works out okay and I get the money that I’m trying to win, but it’s really annoying when it goes wrong, and overall it really isn’t worth it. I don’t think I need to tell you what happened…

I felt pretty sick afterwards, and I decided there and then that I definitely wouldn’t be going to Prague. I’ll be pretty glad to see the end of this year, and the good news for me is that next year can’t possibly be any worse for me in terms of poker.

I’ll have a break now for a couple of weeks, or possibly more. I might play a few more MTTs for fun if I’m bored, but I’m going to try to play as little as possible and hopefully come back firing on all cylinders again next year.