New Year's custom at Harrier's: Instead of joining in with the big fireworks after midnight, which we typically just watch, we do our fireworks at 7 PM on New Year's Day, in honor of my father who passed away at around this time on January 1st, 2018.
After that, it is usually time to reflect on my own goals and plans for the new year. And now that we have a brand new blog, which also goes a little beyond poker, the time for this is better than ever. So what are the plans?
Poker
Starting with poker, you may have read on my old blog (https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?postid=3446431#post3446431) that 2023 was not exactly a successful poker year, with the exception of Open Face Chinese poker. In general, I didn't play a whole lot at all. Before setting any specific goals, I suppose I should just aim to just get out of that slump.
How exactly do we do this? Well, for OFC, it is exclusively technical problems that are holding me back. My poker client, which is an obscure crypto site known as SwC, has simply stopped working some time in December. I suppose a re-installation will be required, but I was having problems with the uninstaller, while a newly downloaded setup file yielded a Windows Defender warning, which may or may not be a false positive. I have had my break from this game, now I would like to get back and get this sorted out, so that in the future, the only issue impeding me should be terrible traffic.
The meat of the grind was always supposed to be MTTs and SNGs on Pokerstars, however, and these games have been on a hiatus now too. Main issues are bad traffic at SNGs, and difficulties to fit the MTTs I like into my schedule. I will probably have to do a lot of de-rusting now as well. Figuring out a good way to re-introduce poker will be the big riddle to solve for now.
Shall we set some goals, with that many questions left unanswered? Let's do it for reference, but only combined profit goals across all formats. $500 will make me consider it an okay year, $1K will make it a good year, and playing for monthly withdrawals again in addition to that makes it an excellent year at that front.
Sports
This was the big success story of 2023. Remember the Troll Challenges? All three DLRG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Life_Saving_Association) swimming badges, a Bronze lifeguard badge, a successful 5K meters run after dedicated practice and the German Sports Badge (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Sports_Badge) in Gold were more than satisfactory achievements. Where do we go from there?
Even though my lifeguard course was not such a great experience overall, mostly thanks to an inconvenient schedule, I would like to shoot for Silver this year. This one will be tough, especially because my performance in the Bronze was only barely sufficient in some areas. Still, let's give it a try, but with a different schedule. An alternative would be the Snorkeling badge, for which I am now eligible after getting the Bronze lifeguard badge. It's what it says on the tin, you are getting trained in the area of diving and snorkeling in order to expand your skill set as a swimmer and lifeguard. I would like to get at least one of those badges in 2024, ideally both.
The German Sports Badge, still known as the "Trollympics" here, shall be back for its second "Trollympiad". Let's get Gold once again, now that I've shown how achievable it is. Repeating this will not necessarily be as easy as it sounds, though... I may have gotten lucky with the wind in the 100 meter dash and the sling ball throw events last year. Nevertheless, Gold is definitely the goal, and I would also like to beat at least two of my PBs from last year.
As for other sports, tennis will continue this spring, and I intend to stick with it for at least one more year, I can review my plans afterwards. I would also like to add some new sports, however. Right now, I have plans to get started with karate, I am still in discussions with the local dojo about when new courses will become available, and how to carry on from there. If everything goes well, I would like to complete at least one belt graduation exam this year, if given the chance.
Maybe, just maybe, Primrose and I, or at least one of us, can compete in some kind of public race? A 5K run, 10K maybe... possibly even a half-marathon? Or beyond? ♠_o: I don't know... but if we get a chance, this would be a very cool additional achievement.
What else?
Primrose and I will stick around on Duolingo, also continuing some of the language-related challenges we have set for each other, there are some creative projects I would like to get into, some new spreadsheets to prepare, and of course, I hope that things will continue to go well at work, where I will be looking to get some more convenient work hours for me, which may require some experimenting. That's just some of the other stuff, my main goals will be poker and sports-related, I think - but let's see what else 2024 brings.
Most importantly, let's all just stay safe and healthy, 2023 was a bit of a doozy, and I think people from all kinds of worldviews could find plenty of reasons to be concerned about the upcoming year too. As long as we are all sitting here safe and sound on New Year's Day 2025, peacefully reflecting on what went wrong and what went right, I believe we will have a lot to be grateful for this year, right?
With that out of the way, I will continue my best wishes to all of you guys. Primrose has already shared some of her personal plans, maybe she will have some more goals to add later.