Happy New Year! 2011 Year in Review

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I started the year 16 tabling 6 man ST SNGs on FTP.  I still wasn't playing as many of the $300+ games because I didn't think enough +EV games ran to really bother with the extra variance.  I ran pretty below EV in the 6 mans but still made a good amount of money in rakeback.

In February I started to study HU.  For the time being it would help me HU in my 6 man games, but the idea was that I would evenutally switch over to HU SNGs full time.  Making the switch to HU SNGs is something I should have done a long time ago, but I was too big of a change nit.  While I crushed HU in 6 mans, the competition was usually very weak when it came to HU poker.  6 man SNG players are pretty awful at HU in general.  If I wanted to crush HU SNGs I had work to do.  Around mid March I started to play some HU SNGs part time, starting w/ $50s & $100s, and quickly starting $200s & $300s shortly after.  I had studied my ass off and was definitely ready, although I still had plenty to learn before I could crush the highest levels.  I played well and ran well starting out, making over $13K pre rakeback playing HU SNGs part time for 2 weeks in March.  As I played more and talked to more HUSNG players, I learned that high stakes is mostly about being able to open sit and not get sat by other regs.  Not many regs sat me, I was already much improved, and I clearly had the bankroll, so about a week after starting HU I began to play some $500s.  Toward the end of March I had started to play $1Ks.  In April I started playing HU SNGs full time, rarely playing any 6 mans.  I made another $22K+ pre rakeback playing HU for 15 days in April.

Then came the infamous Black Friday.  I got about $88K frozen on FTP & about $12K on AP.  At first, I was really only only worried only worried about how I would be able to continue to make a healthy living.  I was pretty sure I would get my money from Full Tilt & wasn't really too worried about losing $12K.  FTP was so reputable and it didn't make sense for them not to pay US players when they still had a ton of non-US players as customers.  I considered going to Canada a few days a week to play online, and even discussed the possibility of moving to Costa Rica or another country with my wife.

Obviously as the FTP saga developed, my opinion on getting my money back changed.  However, I still wasn't overly worried.  I had invested my money and if I lost the $100K I would just look at it as having made $100K less during my career.  That's still some pretty nice career earnings.  Whether to large amounts of money on an online poker site is a simple risk vs reward problem.  Keeping a large roll online allowed me to play the highest stakes games.  I earned enough extra income from my higher stakes games that I was essentially freerolling the $100K I lost on Black Friday, as I had clearly made far more than an extra $100K because of keeping the roll online to play high stakes.  That said, if it had been a month earlier, I probably would have had $70K less online.  I hadn't been maintaining a high average stake in 6 mans, whereas in HU I had been playing $1Ks, which require a large bankroll because of the swings.  I still think I could have been a little more cautious and kept about $50K less online.  If my online roll got really low I'm sure I probably would have been able to get money online.

After Black Friday, I fiddled around with 6 mans on Cake and Bodog for a while.Then I went to Lock Poker on the Merge network and the traffic was surprisingly good for a US site post Black Friday. I started playing 6 mans there as well.  I was talking to LiarzDice on AIM and he said that he knew the owner of Lock and thought I was worthy of a pro deal. He introduced us through email.  I pitched myself to the owner and Eric Lynch, and within a couple weeks I signed a contract as a Lock Elite Pro.  Lock has since become the largest US site accepting US players.

Since I had stopped playing 6 mans, I was curious how the top 5 all time single table SNG sharkscope total profit list looked when combining player screen names from all sites.  In late May I put together the list.  Here's how it looked:

All Time 5-10 Seated Sharkscope Total Profit (as of May 25, 2011)

1. jorj95: $814,309

Pokerstars

2. Jared Hubbard: $555,761

Global Alias

3. Spacegravy: $438,864

Pokerstars

4. Gramps: $435,038

Global Alias

5. Scoss: $434,183

Global Alias$179,425

I was #1 until 2009 when jorj95 decided he was going to become an absolute BEAST.  Congrats to him again.

In June I started playing HU on Lock.  At the time, the highest stake on Lock for HU STs was $254.  Lock's HU ST structure starts with 30BBs, which I think I like better than 25BBs because it is still quick and good for hourly rate, but allows your opponents to make even bigger mistakes.  My HU game was definitely rusty at 1st, especially when playing tougher regs like phmerc and skilled_sox, but I worked on it and improved.  In late September Lock added $500 & $1K HU STs, which was very exciting.  

In October, Lock's CEO Jennifer Larson was kind enough to rent out an entire castle in France for the 1st ever Lock retreat.  I won't go into any details since this has already been done, but if you missed it, here's a couple links: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-update-lock-pro-retreat.html & http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/10/september-monthly-update-lock-pro.html

When we got back from the Lock Pro retreat I played some Canterbury Fall Classic events for a change of pace, which is the biggest live tournament series in Minnesota.  I played 5 events total.  Before the main event I didn't cash in anything, although I had a nice stack going and bubbled the $500 6 max event.  I ended up winning the $1K main event for a little under $71K.  It was only the 13th live poker tournament I've ever played, and also my 1st cash.  It sure felt good after Black Friday.  You can read more about the win here: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/10/2011-canterbury-fall-classic-main-event.html

Up until November I was 4-6 tabling HU and mixing in some 6 mans.  In November I stopped playing 6 mans.  I focused only on HU and had a monster month, making over $61K pre rakeback.  The $500 & $1K action was ridiculously good, with one monster fish accounting for over half of my profit.  

Please click image to enlarge.  My HU stats for the year:

The biggest change I can think of now compared to pre Black Friday is that I rarely play mornings anymore.  I have to play a lot more nights.  Before April 15th I basically worked around my wife’s schedule.  While I certainly wasn’t maximizing my hourly or anything, I was still able to make a ton of money and live a nice balanced life.  Now most of the players are from the US so it’s tough to get good action in the mornings.  I still play during some dead times, which I think is a must if you want to live a balanced life, but a lot of the time when my wife works a morning shift and goes to bed I will start playing & then play late and sleep in.  It’s what most single poker players do normally but it’s a change for me.

I led the entire Merge network in Sharkscope SNG profit this year, with almost double the profit of the 2nd place player.  Running above EV definitely widened the gap between myself and 2nd place, but I would have still finished #1 running at neutral EV.  Needless to say, the transition to HU SNGs has gone pretty smoothly.  I've had people tell me they're amazed at how I got so good at HU so quickly.

Please click image to enlarge

Despite Black Friday and putting in my lowest # of hours in a year as a professional poker player, I had my 2nd best year in terms of total profit.  Making almost $143K pre rakeback between October and November helped out with that.  When you just look at the number without thinking, 1,395.76 hours sounds like a lot, but that's less than 35 40 hour weeks.  That's like taking 1/3 of the year off completely.  Now that I'm playing HU I'm not sure that my total playing hours will be higher next year, but I'll be spending plenty of other hours on poker-related activities like studying, and social media in an effort to promote Lock and myself as a player.

Please click images to enlarge

Here's the media on me this year:

http://pokerupdate.com/interviews/lock-poker-s-jared-hubbard/

http://www.mnpokermag.com/2011/10/31/farmington-mans-poker-success-is-more-than-a-lucky-streak/

http://www.mnpokermag.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/NovemberIssue2.pdf

http://www.anteupmagazine.com/issue/ante-up-magazine-november-2011.htm

http://pokernewsboy.com/interviews/jared-hubbard-talks-with-pnb-about-his-career-and-changes-since-black-friday/10196

http://www.pokerxfactor.com/podcast.htm

For more of my media, please visit http://www.jaredhubbard.com/#/media/4554797893

My Favorites of the Year:

Comedy Movie: Horrible Bosses

Kevin Spacey's character was absolute money and Colin Farrel's was pretty damn funny too.  I can't think of anything that really competes here.

Non comedy movie: nothing really jumps out here...Tv series are way better than movies anyway

Best TV Series: Dexter

It's hands down the best show on TV.  The beginning of this season wasn't as good as the past seasons but the end of the season was epic, as usual.  I wouldn't have a beef with anyone arguing for Boardwalk Empire here.

Best Comedy TV Series: Curb Yoour Enthusiasm

It's my favorite comedy series of all time and it gets better every season.  Larry David is a comedic genius.  Please make more episodes!

Best Rap Album: Jay-Z & Kanye West: Watch The Throne

The album wasn't really as good as I expected from these 2, but it's tough to not have a really good album when Jay-Z and Kanye are teaming together.  I don't really think this one is that close.  I guess the Eminem & Royce Da 5'9 CD deserves consideration but that's about it.  Lil Wayne is overrated and his newest CD was highly overrated.  Hell, I'd take Nicki Minaj's CD over Lil Wayne's CD in a heartbeat, and she's a female rapper.  Oh yeah, Drake is overrated too, although he's probably the best of the next generation of rappers, which is pretty sad.  The fact of the matter is rap gets worse every year.  Once Eminem, Jay-Z, & Kanye retire rap is going to get even worse, unless somebody else comes along, but I'm doubting it considering what rap has turned into with some of the new guys.

Best Rap Song: Jay-Z & Kanye West: Ni**as In Paris

There really weren't a lot of great rap songs this year.  I'd actually give the top 3 to Jay-Z and Kanye, with H.A.M. & Otis being in my top 3 as well.  Jay-Z & Kanye might have a couple other songs I'd put in the top 10 too.  I know I'd definitely put Gotta Have It in there.  I would put Lil Wayne's Mirror up there, but let's be honest, it would probably be the 10th best song on most Eminem albums.

Best Country Album: Eric Church: Chief

There's a lot of good songs on this CD.  My favorites are creepin', drink in my hand, homeboy, Jack Daniels, & Springsteen, in no particular order.  Kenny Chesney's CD was reasonable but his new music simply doesn't match his old music.  Brad Paisley is a little too obsessed with guitar solos for me, although he does come out with some good songs.

Best Country Song: Luke Bryan: Country Girl (Shake It For Me), Jake Owen: Barefoot Bluejean Night, Eric Church: Homeboy

Pick any one of them.  It all depends what mood I'm in.

Best Rock Album: None.  Rock died 20 years ago.  At least classic rock was so good that it never gets old, because there sure as hell isn't any new stuff coming out.

Best Rock/Alternative song: Foster The People: Pumped Up Kicks

I don't listen to enough new rock or alternative to even have an opinion on this, but I like this song a lot.

Santa & Mrs. Claus made a surprise visit to my mom's house on Christmas Eve:

For an individual look at each of my other 4 years as a professional poker player please see these posts:

2007: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/new-series-look-back-year-in-review.html 

2008: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/look-back-year-in-review-2008.html

2009: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/look-back-year-in-review-2009.html

2010: http://jhubpoker.blogspot.com/2011/12/look-back-year-in-review-2010.html

We had a New Year's party this year, which was a great time.  We got a keg of Amstel Light and had plenty of mixed drinks & shots.  About 30 or 40 people showed.  We might make it a yearly tradition.

2011Results:

1,395.76 hours played

Pre Rakeback SNG Profit: $165,048.78

Live MTTs: $68,209

Total Pre Rakeback/Sponsorship Profit: $233,257.78

Thanks & GL,

Jared

http://www.jaredhubbard.com/

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