Number 1 finally!!!

So after a long struggle (which began on the 13th December 2006! when I first became ranked) I finally made it to the coveted number one spot on pocketfives. Obviously the system has its flaws (every ranking system does) and it doesn't mean I'm the best mtt player in the world but hey I can't be that far off and It was a huge long term goal for me in online poker so I'm pretty happy right now.

2008 pokerwise has been great for me. I've established myself from a solid grinder to one of the best players out there. I'm not quite sure how I actually made that final jump as a player but I would put a lot of it down to hard work. I listed my poker goals at the start of the year and here are a refresh of them and an analysis on how I'm getting along with them

• Top 5 ranking (made number 1 was secretly my long term aim but didn't want to publicly aim too high)


• A significant Live Result (yet to come near miss in the gukpt Luton if only I didn't hero call sigh)


• Roi on all 3 main sites (Stars, Tilt, Party) above 50% (the year so far full tilt 143% roi weeee , stars 34.54% sigh, party 98.26% love you party donks)


• 100k cash hands on ipoker/full tilt ($3/$6-$10-$20) with over 5bb/100 (bb/100 was sick good shame I haven't managed 10k hands yet lol)


• Top 10 of OPOY on cardplayer (56th shows how good I run in those Sunday majors/ftops)


• Top 10 on internetpokerankings.com (smashing the euro schedule with an unassailable lead and 6th in the u.s race)


• $500k profit (should do this providing I don't go too crazy with my wcoop rebuys lol)


• Top 5 in p5s yearly plb (number 1 by a distance atm)


• Win a Sunday Major (negative for life obv)


• Win the January Monthly Plb on p5s (any month would do actually) (its more fun coming 2nd and 3rd every month imo, ok I'll be positive and predict a September win when I take down a wcoop and a Sunday major lol

So overall I'm pretty happy with how my goals for the year are taking shape and there is still time to turn around the ones I haven't been so successful with. I'm planning on playing quite a few live comps between now and the end of the year (finally got a new passport appointment sorted lol) My tentative live schedule for between now and the end of the year includes the WSOPE, EPT London, The masters Classic in Amsterdam, LAPT Costa Rica and EPT Prague. Will maybe sell %s for some of these if I don't hit anything big before then.

As far as my future plans are I'm still going to play a lot online but I will definitely be cutting my volume a bit and trying to focus more on live poker. Having said that I gotta try and hold on to that number 1 spot for a while to prove its no fluke so I won't be retiring just yet :)