Yorky Pud

It is that time of year again when every man and his dog sit down and make a list of goals for the year ahead. New Year's resolutions are, for the most part, a load of tripe and completely pointless and are broken within a day or two of them being set. However, that should not put you off setting yourself some poker related goals for 2011.

The main reason that you should set goals in poker is to give you something to strive for to keep you focussed on the task in hand. Grinding out thousands of hands per week or 50-60 tournaments each and every day can turn what is an amazing game into something extremely boring very quickly. By setting goals you can see if your game is developing or not and you can then make amendments to suit.

One of the biggest mistakes made when setting goals is to aspire to make a certain amount of money, something you should try and avoid if you can. The main problem of setting monetary goals is that you have very little control over how much money you earn. We all know too well that you can play perfect poker and still lose and in reality you could play the best poker anyone ever has during 2011 and still finish the year in the red. If you do have to set money goals then keep break the amount down into smaller amounts, so instead of saying you want to make $25,000 in 2011, set yourself a goal of reaching $5,000 then $10,000 and so on. Doing this will allow you to bask in some glory at some point during the year, otherwise you may feel disappointed if you don't reach $25,000.

Another common mistake made when setting goals is to set a target of number of hands played or tournaments played. Whilst you should be looking to play as much as possible, setting goals based on this can often distract you from your usual game and result in you playing sub-optimally. We have all been guilty of wanting to play 30,000 hands in a month and been nowhere near it in the last week so have started playing 15 tables instead of our usual six, which generally is not good for your win rate in the long term!

If you really have to set monetary or volume based goals try not to make them your number one priority for the year, instead aim to set goals that are going to help you improve as a player and therefore your volume and win rate will probably naturally increase as a result. Goals such as spending a specific amount of time discussing hands with like minded individuals, ensuring you finish each playing session with a review of your play or simply getting through a session without tilting once.

Whatever goals you decide to set yourself I wish you the every best of luck in 2011