2014 Year Review and Plans for 2015

Hi everyone! 

This year review is coming a bit late since we're already in February. But you know what they say... Better late than never! So let's start!

2014 was a great year for me not only on a professional but also on a personal level. As most of you probably know, my boyfriend André Coimbra proposed to me last summer. We've been together for many years and we've lived together for most of them so getting married won't really change much in our daily lives. Still, we both wanted to get married somewhere along the way and the time has come!

Poker-wise there's not much more I could have asked out of 2014. The first and biggest thing that happened was that I got accepted in PokerStars Team Pro Online. I was ecstatic and couldn't believe my good fortune. Being a member of Team Pro Online has given me a lot of opportunities to travel to places, meet people and do stuff that otherwise I wouldn't do. All in all, it has been an awesome experience so far!

At the tables things went quite well too. Here's my graph for the year:

There's a bit of a downswing towards the end of the year as you can see, so things could have ended a little bit better, but that's okay. I finished almost 20k up pre-rakeback which is pretty good by my standards! :D

As far as VPPs go, I mentioned around November last year that I wanted to go for 300k points. Unfortunately there were a couple of unexpected things that came up in December and threw me off an already tight schedule. Add to that the fact that I was going through the above mentioned downswing (around 8k, ouch!) and you get why I gave up on that goal. I did feel a little bit disappointed with myself that I didn't make it to 300k VPPs. There were definitely some spots during 2014 where I could have worked harder and make it happen. But on the other hand, I finished the year with about 255k VPPs which is more than I've ever done before in a year. As long as I keep improving, I'm happy.

Another improvement that happened during 2014 was at the stakes I was playing. I started by playing mostly $12 and $18 satellites in January. Towards the end of the year I was a solid regular at the mid-stakes (having left the $12s completely behind) taking shots at high stakes.

As for 2015? I can only hope it will be as good as 2014 (or better!). I kind of had a late start this year because André and I spent about two weeks at the Bahamas during the PCA. When we came back, there was a lot to do (and I'm not just referring to the piles of laundry). Since we have a wedding coming up, there's a lot to organize. Finding a church, choosing a place for the wedding reception, hiring a photographer, discovering the prettiest wedding dress... There are so many things to be done! I spent two full weeks occupying myself with wedding stuff which felt like a full-time job. And trust me when I say I'm not nearly done!

I basically blinked, and it was February already... But before I could throw myself back in the poker action, there was one more change to be made... My working space! André decided to move to an office with other poker players. That pretty much left me working all alone at home. It didn't take long before I decided that it wasn't going to work. I felt so counter-productive slouching around in my pjs all day long. Procrastination became my new best friend. I really didn't think that André going to work someplace else would affect me so much, but it did. The result was... That I decided to move to that office too!

The office

My corner

For now I'm there on a trial basis... I've been working at home for over a year, so there's a lot of stuff I need to change in my daily routine because of this move. But I want to think of it as a positive change. There are 7 more players at that working space other than André and myself. That's pretty cool cause it's a new dynamic for me. I've worked in corporate offices with a lot of people at the same space and I've played poker at home with just my boyfriend. Playing poker in a room full of people that are doing the same is something I haven't done before. Sounds exciting!

As for my plans for 2015... I'm going to stick to the hyper-turbo satellites. The road got a bit bumpy last November for all of us hyper-turbians, but fortunately PokerStars decided to roll back the changes they made. So nothing changed really and I'll go on playing my favorite format!

I would also like to go for at least 300k VPPs, something that I missed last year. I'll probably aim for even higher than that, but at the same time I'm trying to be realistic. We have our wedding coming up, which involves not only preparations but also a honey-moon that is going to take some time.

Finally, I want to publish posts more often at this blog. It's something I included in my new year resolutions in 2014 as well, but I didn't do as well as I would have liked to. Being a member of Team Pro Online, I started being a lot more active on my social media (twitter and facebook), which sometimes was to the detriment of my blog. This year I wanna do better blog-wise!

Those are all my news. What about you guys? How did last year go for you? And what are your plans for 2015? Let's chat at the comments!

 I'll talk to you soon with another blog post.

Good luck at the tables!