I finished off SNE about a week before the end of the year, allowing for a pretty nice break from the tables. Unfortunately pretty much as soon as I finished I came down with the flu and have only just started to overcome it — so most of my break was bed ridden and medicine fueled. It was great nonetheless and Xmas/New Years was spent quietly in and around home without much extravagance.

The month of Dec poker-wise was pretty bad and I lost money pre-RB, but it’s crazy how difficult it can be to actually show a net loss when you add up all those yummy yummy FPPs.

Looking back over the year I must pronounce it an overall resounding success. Aside from being my most profitable year at the tables and re-achieving SNE I was also able to have somewhat of a balanced life and enjoy many holidays and activities away from the tables. Here’s a quick recap of my year through blogging:

The first major thing to occur was obviously what has come to be known as Black Friday — The day online poker left the US market. Since then things have taken a bumpy ride for online poker but when all is said and done we’ve come back to a fairly happy place. Online poker regulations in the US continue to proceed positively and hopefully in 2012 we will see the game become regulated and spring back into action.

May saw me head over to Madrid, Spain for the EPT Grand Final. The trip was a lot of fun and mildly successful in terms of poker results. I look forward to heading back to Europe for another EPT event this year — which one is so far undecided.

July was another overseas trip – this time with Puneet where we headed to the US and Mexico for the WSOP and a holiday. The highlight of the trip was definitely Playa Del Carmen where the weather was perfect, food amazing and we got to swim with turtles. Turtles! TURTLES!

Some of the more avid readers of this blog might remember my excitement when I created a little pot plant herb garden for myself shortly after returning from Mexico. Well, I am sorry to report that about half of the plants have since succumbed to death. It was quick and painless for Mr. Coriander who never stood a chance. Dill and Parsley hung on a lot longer and were able to provide many meals worth of refreshing herbtacular help until they too finally saw the grim bright light of death. The worst was Mr. Black Russian (the heirloom tomato plant). He hung on the longest. He was staked and re-staked and was looking really healthy for a while but eventually the small pot and broomstick handle stake took their toll and I had to pull the plug only a few weeks ago. The rest are still going strong and will hopefully continue to serve their country (ie this household) well for the foreseeable future.

Throughout the whole year I was continually cooking and expanding my culinary horizons, and reporting many times in this blog. There are far too many to post but two of the highlights would definitely be my Bone-In Steak on a Cast Iron Pan and my Thomas Keller Style Roast Chicken. I’ve recently acquired Heston Blumenthal‘s cookbook and am excited to try new recipes over the coming year — many of which I’ll be sure to post ITB (in this blog — I just coined this acronym, probably not the first to but it’s the first i’ve heard of it).

Lastly I have to mention my beloved Wine Fridges. They are still going strong and edging closer and closer to capacity. I’ll need some people to help up the consumption rate — any takers?

All in all it has been a fantastic year. I have much more to say but this post is long enough as it is. I’ll be looking to make a few more posts over the coming days on our recent house redecoration and furnishing, my thoughts on the new Stars rake system (now that it has been made official), goals for 2012 and also some restaurant reviews (something I plan to do more of in the coming year).

I hope everyone had as great of a 2011 as I did — here’s to another great one ahead.