I was shown a post from Blonde with my first mtt win in and asked if I'd have expected my game to come along like it has done. It's nearly a year ago now since the first win. My reply was a bit long and winded but I'll post it anyway.

Ah my first mtt win :) That's a nice memorable read, thanks for digging it out. The PRO was good back in them days. I was thinking on how I've developed over the last year not that long ago. I've certainly come a fair way on I think. I used to stick some money in my Betfair account, play a few £1 or £3 stt's and a load of £2 mtt’s, reload once I'd lost it and do it all again. The cash in that mtt meant I didn't ever have to redeposit into Betfair for poker again. I carried on playing the same games and snuck in the odd £5 or £10 mtt and earlier in the year managed to win a £10 mtt which really helped my bankroll along.

Strangely I haven't won that many mtt's. I've managed to cash in quite a few though which is always nice. Not sure why I haven't won many, in fact I haven't even made that many final tables on Stars. My biggest mtt wins seem to come on other networks which is quite annoying as I'd like my bankroll in my Stars account! I'm putting it down to the volume of players that play my tourneys on Stars though. 1200-2000 people playing all sorts of hands is hard to beat. I'm also not a fan of the 20% payout thing - paying 300 people $3 each seems pointless. When I started, I loved it, it was another buy in, but now, it's just taking $900 out of a decent prize fund.

I'm considering playing $20 and $50 mtt's and funding it separately if I don't cash in the first few I play. The cash games have really honed my game. It's made me think a lot more about what I'm playing and why I'm playing it. The thought of losing all that money in a single hand really concentrates my mind. The cash games also go well for my mtt game. The game play needed seems to compliment both games more than playing stt's. I'm not sure I'll go back to stt's now, they don't appeal to me at the moment. I'm enjoying the cash games, they get the heart pumping. I quite often feel my heart rate increasing when there's a nice pot involved. They also don't seem that difficult to make some money out of at the level I'm at. If you play sensible and respect other peoples big raises, you seem to do ok. There doesn't appear to be much bluffing at this level. I'm playing well outside my bankroll though on the 50c/$1 tables. They say you should have around 20 buy ins for cash (or was it 100) anyway, that's $2000+ for the level I'm playing. That would be nice but I've only got $xxxxxish and I only sit down with $xxxx at a time too. It does mean that a bad night will see a massive dip in my account but also a good night sees a huge rise of course. The thought of this a year ago would have been, well unimaginable, I just wouldn't have played cash games.

So I've gone from reloading weekly to play £3 games to not even remembering when I last actually paid money from my bank account to play poker to possibly $50 mtt's and cash games with a $450 EPT sat final on the way!

I guess when you start playing the learning/experience curve is quite steep, then it probably slows down so the next year may not be quite as exciting. For now Silver status is my goal and I should make that this week hopefully. See, there's another thing, when I started on Stars, I perhaps earnt 100 points a month, now I'm doing that a night! Actually, since I started cash games (the last deposit bonus time) I started earning points, so it's still quite new for me.

What does the next year hold? Who knows! I'm going to try and get some more W$ as I’d still love to play an EPT/WPT/WSOP event. I'm just going to store them up for now. If I manage to qualify for one too then that's great but I don't think I'll play any finals for now, I'll take the money probably. I'm going to have a decent bash at higher levels mtt's and continue to play cash games. Hopefully I can increase my account to a couple of thousand and then we'll have another think about goals. I also need to play more live poker but getting the time isn't easy as I'm out a couple of nights a week already and can't leave the missus alone even more! Plus I also have a funny thing in my head that say I want to be playing big events and not £10 rebuys in my local card room. Snobbish perhaps or just stupid. I loved it when I played there last but I really enjoyed the Blonde Bash game with over 100 runners and a couple of big names there etc etc - I want to be on that stage, I just can't afford it! The WSOP next year? I used to laugh at the thought of playing it when I started. Now, well I can't think of a reason why not? I'll certainly be trying to qualify. I don't think qualifying is out of my range. I guess it depends on what the WSOP set up will be next year with the new USA laws. Hopefully it won't be my first proper live major event then either.

Well, that's a load of waffle. I did think a couple of lines would sum it all up but I seem to have gone on for a bit longer and still don't think I've covered it all. I just love playing poker. Even the bad days make me want to play more. I admit my bad days are only losing a couple of buy ins on the cash tables but to me that's still quite a bit of money. I just enjoy it. I wish my wife would play. She doesn't like it and doesn't like all the time I spend playing it. She would like it if I could win a big event though! I'm also paying for a trip to Edinburgh to a mates wedding this weekend through my poker winnings. If she could see more rewards like that coming though then I think she'd be happier. I don't think the laptop I bought recently to play poker on really does it for her! I'd also like to get my couple of mates that play poker more involved but they seem to be happy playing the $1.50 turbos once a week. I can't help but feel I bore the arse of them talking about things a lot. I just don't have anyone to discuss hands with. At the moment, I try telling my little girl - she's only two and doesn't have a clue but she smiles and says 'yes' in the right places :)

I'll finish there, call it part I ;) Bet you wish you'd never asked now!