Pud's Poker Progress / Matthew Pitt / 21 December 2011 /

If I had to sum up my playing of online poker during 2011 in a single word it would have to be "disappointing" mainly because non-existent is essentially two words! In cash games I bet I have not played 35,000 hands across the year and counting all forms of tournament poker collectively would see me arrive at a figure of less than 300. Disappointing.

My plans at the start of 2011 were to play a lot of poker but for one reason or another it just has not worked out as I had anticipated, especially over the past few months were I have seem to have done nothing but work, work and work. But fingers crossed that there is a little lull over the next six to eight weeks so I can make up for lost time and get this show back on the road.

One of the main reasons for the lack of volume, the last few months especially, is my workload. Taking the PokerNews gig and a sports betting role have proven to be time consuming but enjoyable so I shouldn't really complain and working on the World Poker Tour, although immense fun, is massively time consuming and simply does not allow much free time to do anything other than work or sleep.

For example, I recently covered WPT Venice which saw me away from home December 12-19. Two complete days were taken up by travelling then the rest of my time was spent working in the casino 1300-2330 and beyond every day, not to mention sites such as Betfair Poker are blocked by our Italian cousins so I couldn't have played even if I could have kept my eyes open long enough to play a few orbits. But other people manage to fit poker into their schedules so why haven't I? Honestly, I think I have simply been more motivated to do other stuff instead of playing. Why that is the case I do not know but I just have not had the urge to play much poker and I think a lot of it is down to my lifestyle.

Once Christmas is out of the way I will be making some sweeping changes to my lifestyle that I hope will give me a renewed enthusiasm for life and get me back on track to where I would like to be in the poker world. I am going to incorporate some exercise into my life which in turn should help me to lose weight. I've become such a bum lately that it is not even remotely funny and I want to lose two stone at least, possible as much as three, and be back down to my so-called fighting weight. Something that will help me do this is cutting down on alcohol, possibly even stopping drinking all together, that last part freaks me out a little if I admit it because alcohol has been part of my life for so long in one way or another, but that is for another blog post altogether, maybe I will write about that later this week but for sure before the end of the New Year.

I've actually got the urge to play poker right now but I have a few pieces of work I simply have to get finished that are on my to-do list, something else I will write about in my next post. Hopefully I will get to play a few tournies tonight because I have just checked my OPR for Betfair Poker and I have only played 13 MTTs! That is ridiculous and something I am determined to change and change sooner rather than later. I am not making any volume based goals at all, I just want to sit down and get back into the swing of playing poker, reading more books and improving my writing and I think all three of those are heavily linked.

So watch this space because I am going to get everything back on track and it should be a very interesting and colourful time ahead!

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