Yes, I am still alive and the blog of course isn’t closed … but there wasn’t a lot to report recently.

I am still taking time-off from poker as we spend much time practicing for our last competition season in Boogie Woogie main class. Unfortunately - after practicing the whole winter and early spring - things didn’t turn out as expected so far. We missed our first competition in Finland (World Masters) due to my partners flight back from Canada being delayed. Our second competion (Northern German Championship) was also a no-show as I injured my extensor tendon on the left thumb just four days before the competition. Finally our third try - the World Masters in Slovenia - resulted in our first appearance in this season. But it seemed we lost our rhythm (with just one week of practice after the break) and we didn’t made a good result (40th out of 52). Hopefully things will run better in Austria (Langenzersdorf) next weekend.

As I see tournament poker as a kind of sport it also means for me you have to practice or at least have current live experience to get good results in bigger tournaments. As this isn’t the case so far in 2012 I decided to skip Las Vegas and the Venetian Deepstack this summer too. We will still have a nice vacation coming up that will lead us to Boston, Washington, Philadelphia and New York but (except for a small side trip to Atlantic City) there will be no poker during that trip.

So, “nothing to report” isn’t correct at all but there’s not much in terms of stuff that might be really interesting for my readers. I hope to come up with some more interesting stuff from other areas in the near future.

This was definately one of my best years in poker ever. It all started somewere early this year in Kufstein. After a long, long time not achieving much in tournaments I finally cashed and final tabled several tournaments at the Poker Royale in a row. Shotly after, a visit in Rozvadov brought another cash and another final table.

That money was used to enter the D4 Deepstack at the Montesino in Vienna. I hadn’t cashed at any D4 event before but was close once - missing the bubble by 5 spots. This time I hit it and it was enough pocket money for the tournaments I wanted to play at the Venetian in Las Vegas this summer.

The Venetian Deepstacks - another great tournament series were I never had cashed before. Until this year!

Reaching a 14th place out of over 600 players I would definatley call this one of my greatest successes in poker so far. Not only did the win pay for the rest of our vacation but it was still enough to play some more nice events through the fall and still be sure to not going red for tournament results in 2011.

Unfortunately my run was almost over after Vegas. I had another minor cash in Coventry but that was it for this years tournament success.

In my last one - the 6max at the Montesino - I could have played somewhat better but I was also a bit unlucky too. Same was valid in my last side-event there. A bad beat on a 4-outer hit me heavily. Instead of going from chipleader to super-chipleader (and almost sure in the money) I was crippled and out somewhat later.

But that’s part of the game and it would be dishonest not to admit that I had my fair share of luck in those tournaments were I cashed!

Pokerwise it was a great year that ended in the black. Beside the result itself there were so many other things that I just loved. Making those Vegas videoblogs was fun, meeting Annie Duke and Phil Gordon in person was very enjoyable, meeting some new and old friends is good anyway and so much more.

But all this won’t change what I wrote in my last post. Poker will definately not have that much space in my life in 2012 than in the past. It’s a hobby … an enjoyable hobby that (despite other hobbies) can make you some money if you do it right but nothing more than that (at least fo me).

I leave the “becoming rich and famous” stories to those like Pius Heinz who like to devote the needed time to this game. Those are the players that really deserve it. As with every hobby/sport you can only become top of the pack if you do it at least 110% … if not, than you better be aware that your success will be limited.

Fortunately there’s still so much happening in my life that I won’tbe bored anyway. So stay tuned for 2012 … :-)

I am really surprised about myself as I would have called myself a die hard poker fan for a long time. But interests seem to shift a bit. I still love the game, I still will play it and I still will try to be in Vegas during WSOP each summer if possible … but it doesn’t feel so important anymore to me right now.

There are some challenges coming up in different areas but I can’t talk about either of them right now … cheesy, I know ;-) But those challenges not only take a huge amount of time away from the game of poker but also get my brain moving much more than any poker game could do.

So I still will enjoy the coming days in Vienna and the wonderful 6-max game a lot … of course I will tweet and blog about it as promised. But in general those who are here just for the poker content might expect a lot less posts about the game in the near future.

If you are interested in some of the other aspects of my live you might still enjoy this blog a lot. Especially when I will be able to talk about those things that I can’t talk about right now ;-)