2010 Goals

I think i'll keep my goals for this year pretty simple -

1. Be disciplined - only play on semi-loose to very loose tables with position on a fish
2. Continue to make a profit - let's aim for $10k for the year
3. Maximise my return through rakeback / bonuses
4. Continue to read forums / blogs - both for strategy and entertainment
5. Maintain my interest in the game
6. Stop using the chat box!! (my one lack of discipline which must be improved)

#1 is probably by far the most important - if you get your discipline right with all facets of your game - table selection, bankroll management, tilt then you're maximising your chances of being a successful player.

#2 I wont be too concerned if I miss this goal, but will be disappointed if I don't get at least halfway there. I am moving house shortly which is going to cut my play by a bit, but the one thing that is going to take a lot of my time away is my first baby is due at the end of May. I suspect this will significantly reduce my play on the tables ... It might help with goal #5 though if i'm playing less then the passion for the game is likely to remain high.

I think that's really about it. I'm not too fussed if I move up levels this year or not (although I will hit $5/10 tables when they are fishy), and I am probably still too lazy to learn NL properly.

I only really play a handful of freeroll tournies or points qualified SNGs so there's not much point in setting any specific goals there either.

2009 review

Highlights:

I think I can best describe 2009 as a solid year of poker for me. After a somewhat disappointing start to the year i've still made a reasonable profit of $8k.

More importantly I still have my passion for the game which I think is partly due to the fact that i'm not playing huge hours and never force myself to play when I don't feel like it, so that interest in the game is well and truly alive.

I've maintained my current bankroll theory of withdrawing $1k for every $2k that I increase my bankroll by. I'm due for another withdrawal, but am still hoping the Aussie dollar devalues a bit more sooner or later to improve my return. Bank interest on those withdrawals is now up to about $80 per month, which is starting to become significant when you look at it over a period of time. (I am someone who likes to have passive income that I don't have to work for).

My goals from the start of the year:

Maintenance goals: (a continuation of what i'm doing now)

•Results: Average approx $1k per month total return (inc rakeback). I will be more than happy with a bankroll of $26k by the end of 2009, with half of that offline in some income earning investment. Ideally it would be good to produce this result with fewer hours played at higher stakes.
Result: A profit of $8k for the year. Whilst less than what i'd hoped for, playing fewer hours limited profits most months - as well as less bonus chasing. The first half of the year only produced $3k, so I had a much better second half - mainly in the last three months.

I had five months where I actually lost money on the tables (compared to two in 2008) although only one was still a losing month after rakeback. Still - this was my first losing month although all losses were recovered in the following month which was reassuring.

•Discipline: Only play on loose tables where I have good position on either a fish or maniac. Result: 100% achieved. I still can't recall the last time i've stayed on a table where it's turned poor, or even sat in on a poor table

•Discipline: Play within my bankroll and keep tracking results.
Result: 100% achieved - and with PT3 i'm now also tracking Cake (really should have installed that a lot earlier)

•Bonus chasing: Find at least one other long term site to play on (even if it a site I currently use on an irregular basis).
Result: Cake, Bodog, Fulltilt, and Pacific somewhat regulary. Pacific has dropped off in the last month or so

•Bonus chasing: Continue to research and take up the best bonus deals to maximise my return. Result: Have been a bit slack here as i'm a bit more settled in regular rakeback deals. That being said I still take up all added bonuses and the Fulltilt bonus was a great suprise.

•Research: Continue to check 2p2 and other forums a minimum of weekly for bonuses or specific site news and play advice.
Result: 100% achieved

•Research: check out other's blogs.
Result: 100% achieved although some have tailed off posting

•Motivation: Maintain motivation through occasionally mixing it up with freerolls and double up sitngos.
Result: 100% achieved although I am finding now that playing a lower volume is resulting in me staying motivated for as many cash games as I can get into

Motivation: Do not push myself to play when I don't feel like it.
Result: 100% achieved

Specific site goals:

•Play the Bodog monthly reloads until conditions change making them not worthwhile.
Result: 100% achieved - still playing them

•Play the interpoker monthly bonuses until crypto is no longer EV+.
Result: Unfortunately crypto is basically no more

•Take up the cake reloads whenever offered.
Result: 100% achieved - still clearing although clearance rates have halved, MGR deductions have also disappeared

•Pray for a fulltilt reload bonus .. I mean come on .. once every couple years sux.
Result: Score $300

New Goals from January 2009:

•Tournaments: Finally tabling at least two freerolls (mainly for the practice). Although having this goal probably won't change whether I do or don't enter tourneys. Affiliate tourneys always appear to be good value.
Result: Fail - although haven't had too many to enter this year so volume is a problem. Not a priority

•Reading: Have a read of the harrington tourney books so that I can at least see the reasoning of why i'm making particular moves and apply it consistently.
Result: Fail - and still not a priority

•Stakes: Get back into more $3/6 tables and at least take a couple shots at $4/8 on Bodog (and with any luck stay permanently there!).
Result: Achieved. Have played a bit of $4/8 (approx 3,500 hands) on Bodog where I initially ran super cold but am slowly clawing it back. Have also played a few $5/10 when the tables look good and results have been good so far.

•Results: Improve my BB/100 by focussing more on seat selection than I did last year.
Result: In theory successful. In practice failed, although the last few months have been very solid.

•Other: Am I going to get into no limit cash games? Doubt it.
Result: Haven't

•Tracking: Get round to converting my PT database to SQL ...
Result: Completed with my PT3 upgrade. Much better than before. Should have done it earlier.

I was hoping to have another $10k+ year, but didn't achieve that, however, i'm not actually disappointed with my results. I've achieved or mostly achieved the majority of goals that are a priority to me, so am happy with that as well.

From my midyear goals:

Is there anything that I want to add for the last half of the year? Well, not really. I'm hoping that my table and seat selection will start to show through in some more positive results on the table, and would like to also play a bit more at the $5/10 level, but those goals are both really encapsulated in my goals from the start of the year.
Result: More positive results were actually achieved in the second half of the year.

Current bankroll: $24,050
2009 profit: $8,250

December 2009 summary

Between xmas eve and the 30th I hit a 120BB downswing, on average somewhere between $2/4 and $3/6. I've had a small recovery today up 55BBs on a $1/2 table, but still down from my peak for the month.

Just as well I started the month running so hot as it's still been a great month results-wise. In terms of volume, I put in 50 hours which is closer to what I was playing in some months in 2008 and by far my biggest month with a total of 11,914 hands.

Clearing a few bonuses and a chunk of rakeback has also limited the damage done.

Is it just me or is the volume of players on ipoker much smaller these days? And a lot tigher? I dropped $300 on william hill clearing a $25 bonus .... although admittedly a lot of it went to a couple huge fish on massive heaters.

For December the goals in order of priority were:

• Clear the remainder of my Fulltilt bonus (done)
• Clear some more of my Cake reload (cleared $50, a bit more still to go in Jan)
• Qualify for the Cake and Fulltilt freerolls in January (done)
• Play the December Cake and Fulltilt freerolls (done and got shafted)
• Take up as many xmas freerolls, gifts and bonuses as possible (grabbed a few)

The profit of $1,700 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/vip/rakeback: $510

• Bodog $60
• Cake $140
• Fulltilt $280
• William Hill $30

Poker bankroll Interest: $80

Poker profits: $1,110 (less $80 PT3 licence)

Goals for January are:

• Clear my ironman Fulltilt bonus
• Clear some more of my Cake reload
• Qualify for the Cake and Fulltilt freerolls in January
• Play the December Cake and Fulltilt freerolls
• Maybe do the William Hill new year bonus although ipoker has been a little tight

Current bankroll: $24,050
December time played: 50h
December profit / (loss): $1,700

Some ordinary xmas poker

I've played a reasonable amount over these holidays, and started well over xmas, but then dropped a quick 60BBs on the $3/6 tables at fulltilt. I had position on one guy running at -100BBs/100. Apparently the only time he ever had a hand, was when I had something decent but not as good. Annoying.

Checking him out on pokertableratings showed me he was overall running at -40BB/100, however, I was basically top of the list of losers against him. Even more annoying.

Anyways, the last couple days i've pulled it back even, and should have a couple half decent rakeback credits to come as well. Hopefully i'll have one or two more decent sessions to finish the year off.

Current bankroll: $24,200
December time played: 38h
December profit / (loss): $1,850

An early xmas present on the tables

I'd lost all 26 hands on one table in my session last night after seeing over 50% of flops with basically premium starting hands almost every time. My W$SD was 0% from 10 showdowns with a mixture of strong to weak (A high) hands.

Then I got paid off with the following hand -

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
5 Players

Stacks:
UTG $145.38
CO $268.50
Hero (BTN) $108
SB $72.50
BB $140.50

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is BTN Jd Js
1 fold, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, SB 4-bets, 1 fold, CO calls, Hero calls

Flop: 6s Jh Jc (13.0 SB, 3 players) hehe not often you flop the stone cold nuts
SB bets, CO calls, Hero calls i generally wait for the turn to c/r in these situations

Turn: 7h (8.0 BB, 3 players)
SB bets, CO calls, Hero raises, SB calls, CO calls nice to get two calls to my c/r

River: Ac (14.0 BB, 3 players) surely this helps someone ...
SB checks, CO checks, Hero bets, SB calls, CO calls nice. two callers again.

Final Pot: 17.0 BB
SB shows TwoPair Qs Qd
CO shows TwoPair 4h Ah him hitting the flush draw might have been even better
Hero shows Four of a Kind, Jacks Jd Js

Hero wins 16.5 BB (net +11.0 BB)

And all is right with the world again.

Current bankroll: $24,200
December time played: 31h
December profit / (loss): $1,850

Any more xmas bonuses?

Now that Fulltilt is out of the way it's time to find some more xmas bonuses. They seem to be a bit thin this year, but hopefully something comes up.

In the meantime i've still got $100 of my last Cake reload to clear which will take a while, and i'll probably up my ironman to gold for fulltilt which means I need to do another 3 days of 100 fulltilt points (about half an hour per day). After that though, i'm not really sure.

I noticed Bodog has opened a $3/6 6max table, so I gave that a shot last night, although it broke up pretty quickly. I have to really have a closer look at Bodog, as I believe they have a much higher rake structure than somewhere like Fulltilt. (In practice its a solid 0.5BB/100 higher over about 40,000 hands).

Add to that the fact that i'm running at about 0.4BB/100 over 40,000 hands (after a 30,000 hand breakeven stretch ...) at $1/2 on Bodog compared to over 1BB/100 everywhere else i'm not sure what to think.

This month i'm running at a profit at $2/4, $3/6, $4/8 and $5/10 but a loss at $1/2. Can't complain about that at all - wish it always happened that way.

Current bankroll: $24,100
December time played: 30h
December profit / (loss): $1,750

Not enough bonus chasing?

Having a look at my monthly graph for this year shows a big drop in the amount of bonuses i've been clearing on a month by month basis when compared with 2008 (the red part of the results graph).

There's probably a few causes of this -

1. I've been playing a lower volume this year which will result in fewer bonuses
2. Any months with losses at the table should show as red due to the way the graph works
3. I haven't been actively chasing as many bonuses this year through sites like Pokersource

I think the main contributor #1, as the lower volume has meant i'm not raking back as much - particularly if I look at this month and the last month where i've played more like the volume I put in last year, my rakeback/bonuses have increased significantly.

That being said #3 allowed me to pick up 100%, 200% or even more in rakeback by doing hit and runs on various sites through Pokersource. Basically easy money, but only for $100 or $200 per site.

I'll have to think about it some more for next year as i've gotten fairly comfortable just playing on a few sites that give regular bonuses that are probably close to 50% rakeback, rather than chasing the bigger deals (percentage wise) on different sites.

Current bankroll: $23,950
December time played: 28h
December profit / (loss): $1,600

Sunday, not my day

Played in the Cake freeroll on the weekend with about 100 entrants and the top 20 paid. I received a number of premium hands early but didn't get any bites so basically just collected a bunch of blinds. The only time I did get called I was holding KJ, and whiffed the flop, but a 1/3 pot cbet was enough to take it down.

At about the 40 minute mark I was a little above average with 2,200 chips, and looking at AA in middle position. UTG had raised a bit over a third of his stack with 400 chips (8xBB) so I figured I'd just push all in and hope he'd call off the rest of his stack. The table muppet who played most hands to date then called all in for 2,000 chips with QQ, a short stack with 200 chips called with 84o and the utg raiser also called with KJo.

Flop 922r, turn 9, river obviously has to be a queen to basically punt me out. Not happy, as I would have been chip leader if my hand held up. Next hand its folded to me in the CO with QJo so I push all in - muppet calls with QQ again and i'm out. FFS.

I then went out mountain bike riding and was cruising downhill when my brakes fell off, so I had to lay the bike down to stop which turned out to be fairly painful. This was really not my day. Particularly given i'd had my brakes repaired on Friday.

The cash tables were reasonably generous though so it wasn't all bad, and I ended the weekend a couple hundred in front. It could easily have been more, but my last session lost me about 30BBs at $1/2 where the river suckouts kept hitting thick and fast to the aggro retards who kept three betting the turn when behind and hitting 2 or 3 outers on the river. I was disappointed I had to close the table while those guys still had cash.

Completed my Fulltilt bonus bonus and have qualified for a silver ironman. I'm thinking of playing the 100 points per day for the next 5 days to qualify for gold to increase my end of year bonus.

Current bankroll: $23,900
December time played: 27h
December profit / (loss): $1,550

Sometimes things just go right

Had a nice little session last night, and although I didn't get a huge number of premium hands I still scored a nice little profit.

This was mainly through three or four hands in a very short period where I ended up calling down with an average, but not strong hand heads up against a fairly aggresive opponent, and won them all. They were the type of hands that you don't expect to win often, but just often enough to make the call down worthwhile. String a few of those together that pay off, and your session will end up pretty good.

Of course by doing this you'll occasionally feel pretty silly calling down with your pair of tens versus trip kings, but as long as you're winning your one in six or one in eight and the odds are dictating a call, then it's worthwhile.

Might not get in much poker over the weekend as i'm off to golf and out mountain biking as well. I'll make sure I get in enough to just complete my fulltilt bonus before it expires.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $282
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $18
Days left: 3

Current bankroll: $23,700
December time played: 22h
December profit / (loss): $1,350

Poker table ratings

I've seen a few guys reference pokertableratings in their blogs, so thought i'd check myself out.

For some reason on Fulltilt it only shows a little under 10,000 hands and gives me the following ratings:

Overall: 47/100 (higher is better)
BB/100: 2.85 (must have recent sessions in it as that is running very well)
Tilt score: 32/100 (lower is better)
Bot score: 4 (lower means more inconsistent)

What does it tell me?

Not much. I'm a little surprised at my low overall rating (I assume 47 is low?) whilst running pretty hot. And also a bot score of 4 apparently means i'm hugely inconsistent which is probably even more surprising as i'd consider my play to be very consistent, although opponent dependent.

I checked my Bodog stats as well which gave me an overall rating of 21, with only my results at $4/8 recorded which is where I basically started with a 150BB downswing. I've clawed over half that back, but haven't played on Bodog for a while. Given my play would be exactly the same on both sites, but the ratings are so far apart I have to assume they are more results driven than actual play style driven. This would mean the rating aren't all that useful until they have logged thousands of your hands - probably hundreds of thousands.

I made a few more BBs on the tables last night, although finished the session with a bad beat on a $80 pot which was disappointing. The fact that I was disappointed with a winning session may mean i'm getting a little too comfortable with this current upswing. I need to make sure I keep concentrating and playing my best without tilting through overconfidence.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $272
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $28
Days left: 4

Current bankroll: $23,450
December time played: 20h30m
December profit / (loss): $1,100

Bubbling

Again another reminder of why I don't play MTTs. I figured i'd give an Aussie Millions gold chip semi final qualifier a shot on Cake as I had the day off work and nothing better to do.

I triple and quadrupled up early on when I saw the number of muppets on my table shoving with stuff like 92o preflop, and they were more than willing to call a preflop shove from me holding KK. At the one hour break and end of the rebuy period I had about 12k chips after starting with 1.5k and was near the lead.

After that I was completely card dead, and met some big resistance to several steals so had to lay down some half decent pots which was disappointing. Towards the two hour mark, there were 12 players left, with the top 10 getting a ticket. Unfortunately I was in 12th.

The guy in 11th then pushed all in from the cut off, with me in the SB with AQo. I was guessing his range was pretty wide here, and somehow convinced myself to call all in with about 11,000 chips left and blinds of 1,000/2,000. I'm not sure its the right move, although when he flipped over A2o I was miles in front. Obviously the river was a 2 which sent me packing, and for no result after two hours.

The cash tables started on fire with me picking up pots left and right, making a quick couple hundred. I played on and off for the rest of the day, but didn't do much more than break even, and that was including a fairly long session against a huge fish who just kept on hitting. He scooped two massive pots holding the mighty 54o and another with 52o (versus my AA).

Can't complain though as it was still a profitable day.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $265
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $35
Days left: 5

Current bankroll: $23,350
December time played: 19h
December profit / (loss): $1,000

Failed another freeroll

Hit up a fulltilt freeroll and lasted about an hour before crashing out for no return. Ended up having to push KdQd utg with 10BBs and got looked up by JJ. Diamond flop but no help and i'm gone.

I've got the day off today and am about to enter a semi final qualifier for the Aussie millions on Cake. Not really holding out too much hope but I guess you never know.

Got in a bit of play over the weekend and made sure I hit my fulltilt poker points targets. Running a very hot 16BB/100 at $1/2 over 900 hands so far this month, but only about 1BB/100 at higher stakes.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $258
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $42
Days left: 6

Current bankroll: $23,100
December time played: 14h
December profit / (loss): $750

Where'd the aggro pills come from?

Struggled a bit to find decent tables last night on fulltilt to get my 100 points, so ended up playing a few where there were only one or two fish that I didn't necessarily have position on. What that meant was that I had a few more run ins with LAG/TAGs three betting and making positional raises against me.

However, several of them were taking it a tad too far. One guy 3 bet my CO raise with J7o and then capped a flop of AhKhJh. I had an A but no heart and called down his turn and river bets. River was a heart as well even, but neither of his cards were hearts.

A few hands later my AKo UTG raise is three bet by aggro with A6o on the button. Flop AQ7r and again I get capped on the flop and even raised on the turn before I decide to call down and win.

Admittedly it did backfire for me on one hand where I got to see a free flop in the BB with 63s on a flop of 643. Aggro boy capped the flop, bet into a turn of 7 and bet into the 5 river. He then flips over 86o for the runner runner straight.

All in all a reasonable session for me though, winning a few BBs at the $3/6 and $2/4 level which could have been a lot more, but also winning about 25BBs on a couple $1/2 tables where a couple fish were giving their money away.

Home game with the boys tonight which should be fun. A busy weekend though so i'm not sure when exactly i'm going to get in my 100 fulltilt points worth of play each day.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $239
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $61
Days left: 10

Current bankroll: $22,900
December time played: 11h
December profit / (loss): $550

Cake gold stacks

Cake poker have just implemented a new rewards scheme called gold stacks. It's basically just a small additional award that is allocated based on how many gold chips you collect. (Gold chips being an existing awards scheme).

At first the rewards are just gold chips, but after that they become pending bonuses that you then clear like a reload bonus, and as you get even higher they become purely cash bonuses.

Some guy on 2p2 worked out that the impact is about a 2.5% to 10% increase in effective rakeback depending on how many levels (ie stacks) you've already completed.

I'm not sure if i'll get too far through it, but hey, its some more free money so I won't complain. (although if they stop doing reload bonuses I will be very disappointed).

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $230
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $70
Days left: 11

Current bankroll: $22,800
December time played: 10h
December profit / (loss): $450

Fulltilt lagging

Seems like a bit of a flurry of fulltilt posts from me lately.

Last night was a horrible experience. Tables were lagging and sitting me out, although luckily it only started when I was about 10 points short of my 100 points for the day. It also didn't appear to cost me much as I didn't actually lag out on any hands that I wanted to bet or raise with. Very concerning nonetheless. I had a look on 2p2, but there didn't seem to be anyone reporting the same issue.

I'm hoping its all working fine for tonight otherwise I might have to ditch the idea of clearing my bonus and qualifying for ironman completely.

Just in case it's pokertracker related i've set all my database maintenance running. Will try it withouth pokertracker if my problems continue. Obviously though, timing out makes it unplayable.

I still ended up with a small profit for the session so can't complain too much as it could easily have turned out much worse if the lag had cost me a large pot or two.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $225
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $75
Days left: 12

Current bankroll: $22,750
December time played: 9h
December profit / (loss): $400

Reimbursement from Full Tilt Poker‏

Received a nice little email from Full Tilt last night:

"The Full Tilt Poker Security department has recently concluded an extensive investigation and we have determined that some of your opponents were in violation of our site terms.

We have permanently closed all of the offending accounts. In cases of proven cheating, 100% of the confiscated funds are returned to the players who were victimized. The reimbursement calculation is based on the number of tournaments or hands played against the offending players, and the amount won or lost against them.

We have determined that you are entitled to a refund of $17.60 which will be placed in your account in the next 72 hours. "

Admittedly not big dollars, but it is reassuring to know Fulltilt do look at cheaters, even in the $1/2 to $3/6 fixed limit games.

I have played almost four hours since Friday, clearing my 100 Fulltilt points each day. A couple of those hours were single tabling whilst watching TV so all up not a huge volume.

I'm trying to remember any interesting hands, but nothing much comes to mind - I probably shouldn't be even playing when i'm not fully focused and watching TV. I do remember one hand where I held KK on a AKK flop, and villain capped the turn and river which was nice of them ... particularly as he was holding A6o.

No big swings either in that time to speak of, just a series of small wins in each session with only one table where I ran memorably cold winning only one hand in 56.

I guess bigger things are happening away from the tables, with my house purchase settling yesterday which has taken a fair bit of my attention over the last few weeks, particularly dealing with the bank which could most generously be described as painful. Now that's done we'll be moving in late January which will result in less poker that month too.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $220
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $80
Days left: 13

Current bankroll: $22,650
December time played: 8h
December profit / (loss): $300

Change of plan on Fulltilt bonus clearing

I realised last night in order to qualify for the iron man bonus I should be aiming to stretch out my current bonus clearing for as long as possible to obtain the best January bonus.

So for the last 17 days or so, i'll be simply clearing 100 fulltilt points per day. This means that i'll probably throw in some Cake, Bodog and maybe another site into the mix once I get the 100 points each day.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $195
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $105
Days left: 17

Current bankroll: $22,450
December time played: 4h
December profit / (loss): $100

Stomach ache plus online poker doesn't work

...... Particularly when you need to make a quick exit.

I guess you could try Amatay style, and play on your laptop and take it to the bathroom with you, but I think i'll pass on that option.

Since my PC is a desktop I ended up having to go with the quick clicking sit out on all tables.

I guess it would be worse again if you were playing live.

Anyways, played a bit last night, cleared some more bonus, dropped a quick hundred, before gaining it back and then some. I should really try to hit an ironman bonus on fulltilt this month so that would give me another bonus to clear in January.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $185
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $115
Days left: 18

Current bankroll: $22,400
December time played: 3h
December profit / (loss): $50

FT bonus clearing quickly

So far i've cleared almost $160 of my bonus, so only $140 to go. The last few sessions have been fairly painful though and i've been dropping BBs quicker than the bonus has been clearing - more or less purely through a couple muppets who seemed to hit more than they missed.

eg the 99/14 guy who went to showdown 60% of the time and won 50% of those showdowns. Having him on my right would normally be a massive advantage, but this time it was crippling.

The losses at $2/4 have been somewhat offset by small gains at $3/6 and $5/10 - hopefully I can find my muppets again tomorrow and win some back. Doubt they'll have any cash left though. Plenty of other fish in the sea though.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $158
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $142
Days left: 20

Current bankroll: $22,250
December time played: 2h
December profit / (loss): ($100)

November 2009 summary

Well, the first day of November started with a $300 loss. Since then I haven't really looked back and started the month bonus clearing on Cake before switching across to the new Fulltilt holiday hundred bonus which turned out to be the holiday three hundred for me. It's going to take a fair chunk of December for me to work my way through it, and Cake also just gave me another reload so there's already another bonus to clear once Fulltilt is done.

I finally got round to registering Pokertracker 3, so i'll stick with that for my database and HUD for a while.

For November the goals in order of priority were:

• Make a profit again (tick)
• Put in some more volume than August and September and October (significantly more)
• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible (cleared a bit, then got sidetracked with Cake and Fulltilt bonuses)
• Clear some more of my Cake reload and see if I can score a few more gold chips and qualify for the freeroll again (tick)
• Play some more Pacific or Microgaming if it seems fishy (Cake and FT took over so missed this one)
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash (fulltilt?) (too busy clearing bonuses. Maybe in January .....)

The profit of $1,600 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/vip/rakeback: $380

• Bodog $80
• Cake $140
• Fulltilt $160

Poker bankroll Interest: $70

Poker profits: $1,230 (less $80 PT3 licence)

Goals for December are:

• Clear the remainder of my Fulltilt bonus
• Clear some more of my Cake reload
• Qualify for the Cake and Fulltilt freerolls in January
• Play the December Cake and Fulltilt freerolls
• Take up as many xmas freerolls, gifts and bonuses as possible

Current bankroll: $22,350
November time played: 34h30m
November profit / (loss): $1,600

Tis the season for poker bonuses

The next month or so always seems to be the best time of year to play poker. The sites seem to all throw out great bonuses and other freerolls and incentives to ensure the casual players hit their site in particular during their holidays.

The casual players drink more and are relaxed more and give their money away more easily as well.

All in all, a win win situation.

After Fulltilt's bonus the other week, Cake has now pumped out a nice little reload which i'll also take up. Only 25% to a max of $100, but since they don't deduct fees, it's free money to go along with my rakeback. From memory their bonuses expire in 90 days which is tons of time to get it cleared. If anyone could confirm that would be handy. They're also running some other promotions in the lead up to xmas.

Looking forward to seeing what the other sites have to offer.

Has anyone heard anything about wbcoop this year? I haven't heard a word. Surely Stars are running it again???

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $88
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $212
Days left: 23

Current bankroll: $22,400
November time played: 31h30m
November profit / (loss): $1,650

Optimum stakes for clearing FT?

From memory the optimum stakes for clearing the Fulltilt bonus were at $2/4 for fixed limit holdem. I'm not sure if it's still the case but I will just assume it is.

Actually i'm playing a mix of $3/6 and $2/4 as i'm not finding enough fishy tables at either level to have a solid four or five tables running. Admittedly I did get up to six tables last night at one stage, but I'm too far out of practice with six and found myself cutting it fairly fine on timing out. (I did time out twice but thankfully it was where I would have folded anyways).

What I do find with fulltilt is that the fishy tables tend to tighten up fairly quickly, and what started off as a fantastic table to play at can suddenly turn into a TAG fest within a couple orbits. I use the colour coding available in fulltilt to mark each player, so that I can quickly see when I need to quit a table - for example when the player on my right turns from a green fish to a red TAG.

Last night's session ran pretty hot throughout and I was never really down. Ended banking a solid 50BB win to more than make up my loss from the night before and am now past a quarter of my bonus cleared.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $83
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $217
Days left: 24

Current bankroll: $22,350
November time played: 30h30m
November profit / (loss): $1,600

Bump in the road

Got hammered on the $2/4 tables whilst clearing my FT bonus last night. Dropped a good 50BBs within probably half an hour which is a fair effort. The $3/6 tables ended up a few BBs, but still a decent loss, partly offset by a rakeback credit.

Also found I have a small problem with Fulltilt in that it freezes my machine when I load it up, and has now frozen it once in play - which is far worse. Not sure if anyone knows of anything that would cause this, but a solution would be helpful.

Hopefully get in a bit of play tonight when the mrs is out at netball. Its probably going to be a fairly light weekend this weekend so I need to get in front on my FT bonus clearing.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $65
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $235
Days left: 26

Current bankroll: $22,100
November time played: 28h30m
November profit / (loss): $1,350

My xmas present

My Xmas present fresh out of the packaging from my lovely wife arrived from ebay the other day. It was a little large for me to miss .... hadn't put the cupholders in when I took the photo, but still looks good to me. Best present ever ... well almost. Apparently i'm not allowed to use it until after xmas though. No home games scheduled between now and then so that's okay.

Played a little poker last night and made a few more BBs. Nothin much to write about though. Also had a mate of mine ask if there were any decent poker PC games - anyone know of any? I can remember WSOP on xbox that I had a few years ago, but am not sure if anything has been released lately.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $53
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $247
Days left: 27

Current bankroll: $22,200
November time played: 27h
November profit / (loss): $1,450

My monthly reminder

Played my Cake freeroll on Sunday morning where I lasted 45 minutes or so.

I'd built up my stack slightly from the starting stack of 1,500 to 2,500 early after the super loose aggro table muppet who played every single hand pushed all in versus my nut flush with his complete air.

At about the 40 minute mark I would have held about the same number of chips thanks to a few blind steals but other than that being pretty much card dead, until I ran into another super loose short stack with 900 or so chips. He open pushed all in from the cut off and after seeing some of the trash he was playing I called in the BB for 700 chips with AJo. He flipped over K5s and when we both whiffed the flop and turn, obviously he has to river his K.

Very next orbit and i'm in the BB again and this time with 88. Min raise from the cut off of 400 is called by the SB, so I decide to push with my 7BBs. Open min raiser folds and cold caller then calls and flips over 77. Happy days. River 7. And i'm out.

At least I didn't spend hours playing for nothing, but it does remind me why I generally don't play MTTs. The frustration is huge.

I kicked off my Fulltilt bonus as well on the weekend so will keep track of how i'm clearing to make sure I clear it all before it expires in 30 days. With a total bankroll of $550 on Fulltilt I was hoping to not have to deposit as that would incur fees which hit my rakeback. My start was poor though, dropping a quick 20BBs at $3/6 and another 20BBs at $2/4. I was looking like I needed to deposit or i'd be restricted to 2 or maybe 3 tables. A few massive fish turned it around though and I made it back and in the process cleared $40 of the $300 bonus.

Fulltilt bonus cleared: $40
Fulltilt bonus remaining: $260
Days left: 28

Current bankroll: $22,100
November time played: 26h
November profit / (loss): $1,350

Frustration ..... off the tables

For the past couple weeks i've been trying to get a home loan approved.

Home lending company requests your information, you send it in. You get approved. Simple right?

Apparently not. At least four different times over the space of 10 days I've been told this is the last thing you have to do before getting approved, which I have then provided within the space of minutes. It's also a week after our "subject to finance" clause expired for the purchase of the house, so i've been getting grief from everyone including the vendor). I reckon i've spent a good six hours on the phone or emailing various numb nuts in that time, and my customer service officer has gone missing for at least four business days out of the last seven. We finally have approval but it feels like i've been running a marathon for days.

Fortunately for me though, poker has been running reasonably well with a 4BB/100 return so far this month on the tables. I try not to let poker influence my mood too much, but when you're having a good run, its hard to resist - especially when other things in life aren't going as smoothly as they should.

Only played a little last night, and made a few BBs mainly from one aggro muppet who's first hand after I sat down was a raise with Q9o from MP after one limper was already in. Second hand he capped 66, however, I hit a runner runner K high flush to take a nice pot after whiffing the flop. As happens more often than not with these guys, they don't last long, and being midweek on Aussie time the tables tend to dry up quickly.

I also picked the wrong day to leave my mobile at work, where one of my mates was messaging me about a freeroll for the Aussie millions on either party or cake, i'm not sure which. Apparently the winner got a seat, but there were seats to plenty of the other events for lower placing players. Ack.

Current bankroll: $22,000
November time played: 23h
November profit / (loss): $1,250

My bonus gets even better

Checked my bonus on Fulltilt - it's actually $300. Not sure if i'll even be able to clear that much, but i'll give it a good crack!

I then had a quick look on 2p2 - it looks like a lot of people are getting $100, but a number are also getting up to $500. $300 seems good enough for me - more than happy with that.

Played for nearly half an hour last night, and found some muppets on microgaming as well as pacific. The microgaming guys jagged a couple big pots off me but I ended the session about even with a full house on the last orbit that someone raised the turn and then even the river against me.

A $3/6 table on Pacific donated me a solid $100 when a super aggro fish kept betting with complete air. I called him down with mid pair a couple times successfully. Unfortunately though he quickly ran out of money and left the table which meant time for me to leave as well.

Current bankroll: $21,950
November time played: 22h
November profit / (loss): $1,200

Fulltilt holiday bonus

I received my Fulltilt bonus email last night. Good to see they are finally offering bonuses at least a little more regularly. Since it expires in 30 days, i'll probably take it up on saturday morning which will allow me an extra weekend to clear the bonus.

That basically means i'll be playing a ton of Fulltilt, a chunk of Cake, and maybe a little Bodog next month, and that's about all.

I played for an hour last night, but wasn't concentrating 100% as I could only find a couple tables at best to play on. I was running super hot on one table though, and won 45BBs within half an hour, where it seemed every hand I played would hit. Even if it didn't everyone else would fold to my cbet.

No really huge pots as there was a lot of folding by the loose fish post flop. The biggest pot I won was 87s in the big blind with three limpers on a board of 6h7s8h. I bet, get raised and called by the other limper. Turn is Qd and raiser bets which I decided to call. River was 7h completing the flush and also giving me my boat which I check/raise the river with the villain showing down 54o for the flopped low end of the straight.

Received my monthly bodog reload bonus as well, although I'm not sure I received all of it and will need to check tonight.

Current bankroll: $21,850
November time played: 21h
November profit / (loss): $1,100

Interesting comment

"zero to hero said...
just letting you know fulltilt have a xmas promo running, similar to the last $100 bonus, no deposit needed and 1 month to clear, i hadnt received an email but saw it on the system chat updates, just go into requests and check bonus offer and it should offer it to you "

I'll be checking this out tonight. Free money on Fulltilt is always a good thing!

Played another hour last night and won a few BBs here and there. It was a real struggle to find tables worth playing on, and most of the time I was single or double tabling. Hopefully that Fulltilt bonus works to give me some more options on a high volume site.

Current bankroll: $21,650
November time played: 20h
November profit / (loss): $900

Chippin away

Played a few more hours on the weekend, so this really is turning into a large volume month for me compared to recent times.

This time there wasn't much to write home about ... the usual few nasty beats in huge pots, followed by a stack of TPTK hands holding up. I found one nice little loose aggro fish on a $2/4 table who seemed to raise his top pair on every street, no matter what the board was like. Needless to say with him on my right, he paid me off on several very large pots to keep me in front for the session.

Scored a nice little rakeback credit as well.

I've been playing a lot on the Cake poker network lately. I've still got about $30 in bonus cash to clear, and with my 33% rakeback its basically getting an equivalent of 50% rakeback. I highly recommend the site for the casual type player, as stat tracking is not permitted on Cake, so you won't be at any huge disadvantage if you're not using a tool like Pokertracker3. Any bonuses are also paid out in $10 increments, and take 60 days to expire.

Now that I have Pokertracker3 I use it to track my own stats on Cake, which allows my to find leaks in my own game. Other than that I rely on my notes that I take on individual players and generally look to find tables with at least a couple known fish.

If you're interested in signing up feel free to use my link: RakeTheRake. There's generally a nice freeroll each month, and a rake race if you're planning on playing any significant volume.

Current bankroll: $21,600
November time played: 19h
November profit / (loss): $850

Brief flurry of flopped monsters

Had an interesting couple sessions in the last two days. The first session, albeit brief, saw me flop monster after monster. It's often tricky to work out how to play them I find, although nine times out of ten (or probably more) i'll just bet the flop if i'm the preflop raiser, as i'll normally bet whether I hit or whiff.

Within two orbits i'd had and won:

• AT versus my opponent's AK on a flop of KQJr
• Ac9c on a flop of Jc7c2c
• TT on a flop of AcTcTd

The only flop I decided to just check was the TT one where I only had one caller preflop. He was then kind enough to call my turn and river bet. Funny thing is, i'm usually pretty wary when the reverse is done to me. If a preflop raiser checks the flop and then bets the turn its often not a very good sign.

In my next session I was quickly down about 15BBs on a juicy, but aggressive $4/8 table. One opponent had hit a 2 outer followed by a 5 outer the next hand which quickly dropped me down about 10BBs alone. The next hour was spent gradually getting those losses back, and eventually I quit all of 1BB up as one of the fish to my right had just been replaced by a solid tag.

Completely unrelated, can someone tell me if the hours total reported in Pokertracker3 is your actual hours played? I believe it probably is, as the individual table hours don't actually add up to the total hours. Also is there any tab which shows you your average number of tables played simultaneously? I seem to remember that statistic being on the front page of Pokertracker2 but can't see it quickly on PT3. Maybe i'm just blind.

Received a decent chunk of rakeback from Cake yesterday as well, so the bankroll is still looking fairly good this month, even after the poor start.

Current bankroll: $21,500
November time played: 16h
November profit / (loss): $750

Misread the board again

Only played a couple orbits last night, and soon found myself in the following hand. My wife had come into the room and started to chat with me just after the flop had come down, and I suspect that as a male, I can't do two things at once ....

I also had a big pot going on a $1/2 hand at the same time as well.

$4/$8 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG $96
UTG+1 $51.44 (39/0 afq 26 hands 33)
CO $491 (43/9 afq 35 wtsd 31 w$sd 70 hands 136)
BTN $277.15 (66/13 afq 34 hands 15)
SB $205.90 (50/3 afq 37 hands 279)
Hero (BB) $372

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BB 8c 8s (nice to have as the first hand of my 2nd orbit)
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, 1 fold, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG+1 calls (calling here for set value)

Flop: Jd 4c 8d (8.0 SB, 4 players) (sweet! hit my set. Not a huge fan of two diamonds but as long as there's no diamond on the turn i'm looking good. At this point my wife comes in to chat, but i've already decided i'm capping this flop, but will cry if any diamond hits on the turn or river)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG+1 checks, BTN bets, SB calls, Hero raises, UTG+1 3-bets, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero 4-bets, UTG+1 calls, BTN calls, SB calls

Turn: 4d (12.0 BB, 4 players) (at this point i've basically gone arrr crap, that diamond makes the flush. surely one of these 4 was on the draw)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG+1 checks, BTN bets, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG+1 calls (still talking with the missus, but calling for one bet with outs is a no brainer)

River: 9c (16.0 BB, 4 players) (blah .. missed my outs to a boat or quads)
SB bets, Hero calls, UTG+1 calls, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG+1 folds (made the first crying call here in such a large pot for 1 bet, although since i'm still talking, i'm not really concentrating. Not happy with the check raise from the SB at all and I suspect i'd fold here usually).

Final Pot: 22.6 BB
BTN shows 2d Kd
SB shows Ad 6d
Hero shows 8c 8s

Hero wins 22.6 BB (net +16.6 BB) (hang on ... the chips are coming my way ... duh ... i'd turned my boat)

So basically i'd gone from making what I thought was a fairly poor river call with trips, to fairly poorly playing a turned boat. However, if I had raised the turn, I wonder if they would have raised the river? I may have cost myself a few bets, although thanks to the river checkraise by the SB maybe I didn't.

Still .. its a bad sign when I misread a board, so I quit at the end of the orbit. Won't complain though. I guess the moral of the story is .. don't talk to your wife whilst playing poker .. but if you have to, try to accidently win a huge pot.

Current bankroll: $21,300
November time played: 14h
November profit / (loss): $500

Whoa, another 4 hours played

This is turning into a big poker month for me - only a third of the way through and i've almost played as much poker as I have in each of the last three months.

I had the day off work, so was able to put in a few hours, although day time here is really the offpeak time for poker so the tables were pretty dead. Early morning is the best time, but I just can't be bothered getting up. I'd rather sleep.

Suprisingly though, I still had 3 or 4 tables running for most of the time, although they probably weren't as fishy as I usually play on. That said, my most fishy table cost me the most BBs where I was down 45BBs ... but only at $1/2.

That was mostly made up on another table where I was up around 35BBs (again at $1/2).

The rest of my games basically were fairly even ($3/6 and $2/4 on Cake), apart from a nice and juicy $4/8 table where I was up maybe 10BBs in about two hours of hard slog.

I was having a few connection issues as well yesterday and got dropped out a couple times, but it never cost me. I suspect that may have been caused by the extreme heat here which may have caused a few issues with Telco equipment. I quit for a while after each issue just to minimise the risk of a drop out costing me a big pot.


Current bankroll: $21,200
November time played: 13h30m
November profit / (loss): $450

Comment response

"Yorkshire Pud said...
Can I ask why you seem to play $3/$6 when you are
rolled for $20/$40

Is it you don't feel ready to play even say $10/$20,
I'm just interested that's all "

There's a few reasons why i'm not playing higher but probably mainly because of the psychological effect of having even a minor downswing at those stakes.

If I were to lose say 100BBs at $10/20 then that's $2,000. If I could see it as just chips, that wouldn't be a problem, but at the moment, $2k is $2k to me. Let alone what would happen if I went on a 300BB downswing which I have done a few times at $1/2 on hugely fishy tables.

So say if I drop 300BBs at $20/$40, that's $12k or over half my roll. I suspect that would be crippling psychologically. And it is not really an 'if' but more a 'when'. Sure I could easily win 300BBs before that happens, but i'm absolutely certain that the 'high' that i'd get from winning that much would be nowhere near how far negative the 'low' would be if I lost that.

That being said, I was checking out a $8/16 table the other day, but it just wasn't quite fishy enough for my liking. If i'd jumped on then, that would be the largest stakes i've ever played.

I'm probably playing more $4/8 that I have been in the past now, but also probably more $1/2, mainly as i'm playing a lot on Bodog at the moment where there are never many tables running and their 6max tables are limited to $1/2 then $4/8 then $8/16.

I suspect i'll start playing more $5/10 in the near future though, and play a bit more on the larger networks which have more table availability to actually increase the chances of finding more fish.

I'm still not concerned with how quickly I rise through the stakes - I play for the fun of the competition as much as anything so as long as i'm enjoying the stakes i'm playing, i'm happy. (and winning doesn't hurt either ....)

A swingy weekend

Well, I finally put in more than an hour or so on the weekend, and probably played a solid 5 hours all up.

I started with a super heater - up a good 30BBs on a single $4/8 table and something similar on a $3/6 table on Cake. At the same time I was down about 20BBs on a $1/2 table but that was somewhat irrelevant at the time.

Next session, I started off dropping 30BBs on a $4/8 table against some huge fish. At one stage i'd played 50 hands and only gone to showdown 4 times, winning none of them. All up i'd only won 3 hands without a showdown. However, my fishy friends then paid me off consistently until I ended up around 10BBs.

My last session started again horribly, down 35BBs, however this time I couldn't recover completely and finished around 25BBs down.

Overall, a fairly decent weekend.

Current bankroll: $21,150
November time played: 9h30m
November profit / (loss): $400

Hit n run

Only a brief session last night - tables just didn't keep running so I ended up playing only one or two orbits each before leaving as it seemed every time I sat down the fish got up. I pretty quickly just spat the dummy and quit searching for new tables.

Made a few BBs though as I won a few hands right off the bat, and with a small rakeback credit i'm almost back to square for the month.

Hoping to get in a decent session of play this weekend and with any lucky i'll be in the black again soon. I have accrued enough rakeback that I probably am now, but won't count it in the bankroll until I actually receive it.

Current bankroll: $20,700
November time played: 4h30m
November profit / (loss): ($50)

Cake crashes

A more than irritating problem with Cake Poker for me at the moment is that when I close a table there's a fair chance the whole application will crash. This usually isn't a big problem as I don't often have too many Cake tables running at the same time.

However, last night I had three running and closed one whilst I was halfway through a hand holding KK. It was a $2/4 table and i'd had three callers preflop and another two on the flop before cake crashed. I tried to get back in but only made it just in time to see the river betting, with one guy winning a $40 pot with a pair of 6s. ARGH.

I played a bit on a Bodog $4/8 table where I had found one muppet running at 70/60. I quickly found myself 15BBs down when his 84o crushed my JJ and then his 42s flopped 35Kr rivering a 6 versus my AK. He'd raised both those hands preflop and i'd 3 bet them. Annoying. Given he was so aggro both pre and post flop though I figured i'd eventually be able to get my money back, and kept 3 betting preflop and by waiting for the turn to check/raise on several occasions he did pay me off and I ended up making a few BBs. He actually got up and moved from my right to my left, so I figured that was time to leave.

The $1/2 tables were another story where I was playing on a couple tables where every flop had a good 4 callers - even to my utg raises. Unfortunately for me, with my big hands I whiffed most flops and had very few limping hands to call for multiway goodness. Ended up dropping 25BBs there.

Current bankroll: $20,600
November time played: 4h
November profit / (loss): ($150)

Slowly catchin back up

Only a brief session last night, but another small win booked which is helping to recover from a fairly terrible start to the month. It should have been even better but my fishy mate hit a runner runner in a $80 pot on one hand and the very next hand rivered a gutshot for a $60 pot.

He then donated quite a lot to the rest of the table, but I couldn't seem to win a hand off him. An overaggro tag did hand me some fairly decent pots though when his whiffed AK was not up to my flopped top pair, and later he bluffed into my nut flush.

At one stage I found myself on a 3 handed table and had clicked auto post blind before i'd realised a couple guys were sitting out. First hand both opponents limped into my Q3o and the flop was KQ3r. One guy bet into me, but then folded to my turn bet. I was tempted to stay after seeing the limping but I still don't have a lot of faith in my super short game so figured i'm better off just unchecking autopost and leaving. Stole the big blind on my second hand and then folded my button before quitting for the day.

Current bankroll: $20,600
November time played: 3h
November profit / (loss): ($150)

Finding leaks

I really need to head on back to 2p2 to have a look at how hands should be played. I'm sure I made a mistake last night. I'll have to grab the hand history, but I played way too passively.

I had a flush draw on the turn on a AA6 board where my opponent had tried to steal my blind. I elected to just call his bet instead of following through with a check/raise which basically cost me the hand. Annoying. (obviously I missed the river).

I'll have to post a few stats from PT3 as well. After a quick look at some of my key statistics, I think i'm playing reasonably, although folding my BB a little too often. Haven't gone through all my stats in too much detail, but i'm sure it will highlight a few leaks. I'm sure my game has changed over time, so i'll probably also need to narrow the timeframe that the stats are displayed for.

Played about half an hour of poker last night, and couldn't find many active tables - although the couple I found were full of somewhat aggressive fish. Started poorly with KK < 99 followed by JJ < AQs on a T72r flop versus the same opponent, but the session quickly evened up when I 3bet a button steal raise with QJo and flopped J92r. Opponent raised my flop bet, but then just called me down after I hit my Q as well on the turn. He showed A9o and complained about the 3bet. His PFR was about 25% so I figured his range was pretty wide there and QJ was fairly likely to be in front.

Current bankroll: $20,550
November time played: 2h30m
November profit / (loss): ($200)

Horror Halloween weekend

What a cracking start for November. My first session was a little over an hour for:

$1/2 = -78bb
$2/4 = -15bb
$3/6 = -23bb
$4/8 = -7bb

This was all on some fairly fishy tables too. At least the main disaster was at the $1/2 tables where I did not win a single showdown in 160 hands. I didn't win too many without a showdown either - every cbet seemed to get called. Every river catch for my opponents seemed to hit. Ugly. Just ugly.

My second session then started in the exact same fashion - down another 25BBs in no time. This one did recover however, and after having been down over $500 for the weekend at one stage, I made a small recovery to end down about $300 all up. Bodog is just not my friend at all. I seem to be playing against the fish, but my win rate is horrendous - much worse than any other site. I'll stick it out though ... surely it will turn around .... surely.

One other thing I noticed over the weekend was that the fish were back on Cake. And they were back in force and playing at all levels of stakes. I even had one guy with K8 on a 679 flop say afterwards he thought he had a straight when the turn and river were A and Q which went nicely with my A9.

Anyways, time to suck it up and work the rest of it back again. I should get in a few hours later this week.

Current bankroll: $20,450
November time played: 2h
November profit / (loss): ($300)

October summary

All in all, a decent result for October, and my bankroll is back up to an all time high. Finally got off my ass and installed Pokertracker3 and upgraded my database as well which was one of my goals for the year.

I've also just signed up to buy a house which was a bit of a time consumer over the past month with organising all the paperwork etc etc.

For October the goals in order of priority were:

• Make a profit! (tick)
• Put in some more volume than August and September .... (same hours as September)
• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible (haven't cleared as much as i'd like to but still going okay)
• Clear some more of my Cake reload and see if I can score a few more gold chips (played more cake this month and qualified for my freeroll again as well)
• Play some more Pacific if it seems fishy (didn't get on there as much as it wasn't as fishy as i'd thought)
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash (fulltilt?) (should have played at least a session or two but didn't)

The profit of $850 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/vip/rakeback: $220

• Bodog $150
• Cake $50
• Pacific $20

Poker bankroll Interest: $60

Poker table profits: $570

Goals for November are:

• Make a profit again
• Put in some more volume than August and September and October
• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible
• Clear some more of my Cake reload and see if I can score a few more gold chips and qualify for the freeroll again
• Play some more Pacific or Microgaming if it seems fishy
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash (fulltilt?)

Current bankroll: $20,750
October time played: 13h30m
October profit / (loss): $850

Where did everyone go?

Jumped on for an hour last night, hoping to find a few big fish, even though midweek is normally pretty quiet on the tables.

Quiet would be a huge understatement. Cake had one table running between $1/2 and $5-10. I can't remember ever seeing it that empty. Maybe they'd just had a reboot ....

Bodog was the same with literally no 6max tables running so I sat down at a 10 handed $2/4 table which only had five seats filled so was effectively playing six max.

I then opened Pacific - no tables running at all for 6max $1/2 to $5/10. Argh. Then opened a microgaming site, and they had 2 E1/2 tables going although one was surprisingly full of TAGs. This was my first attempt on Microgaming since installing pokertracker3, and it would not import properly. Afterwards I decided to read the instructions, and this was easily fixed - clearing the database after importing is apparently extremely important.

I ran fairly averagely when I did get a seat, and really should have kicked off a Fulltilt points sitngo but didn't think of it.

One hand cost me a fair few BBs where I had TT on a 88T flop when the river was another 8 and of course my boat doesn't hold up ... but apart from that there weren't many big losers or winners.

Current bankroll: $20,700
October time played: 14h
October profit / (loss): $800

A few more software battles

Played about an hour in total since my last post, with a bit friday night and monday night. After the wedding I went to on Saturday I was just too knackered to play on Sunday at all.

I went to try to play pacific, and then found i'd accidently deleted it in my rush to get my PC working when my database had completely filled my hard drive causing it to grind to a halt. Simple enough, you'd think, just download and install again. Apparently not. First time I downloaded it, I got a slightly different version which installed itself to a slightly different directory. This version was particularly annoying as it had a different log in screen which required me to select cash or play money, as well as having a number of options blanked out.

Went to click uninstall, which then came up with an error, and so just deleted it manually, then deleted a couple remaining files from my previous email. Downloaded the software again, and installed from scratch. This time it has installed the correct version, with all options available. Go figure. But finally back in business.

In my couple sessions I struggled a bit to find decent tables whilst messing around with software. Started really well ... down about 40BBs before recovering them all from a couple fish at $3/6 and $4/8. Pretty non descript sessions though as I lost a couple big hands when my full house was beaten by a bigger full house, and another ran into quads. However, I also then won a few big one's when a couple aggro muppets decided it was a good idea to bluff and raise into three other players on every street where they were drawing basically dead to my top set.

Current bankroll: $20,700
October time played: 13h
October profit / (loss): $800

HUD stats - and how to use them

After a bit of thinking I believe i'll set up my HUD with two rows of stats. The first row will be VPIP, PFR, AFq, WTSD with the second row 3B, ATS, FBBTS, FTCbet.

I'll quickly describe the first four now and what i'm looking for and the next four in my next post. Mostly because I am too lazy to type it all out now. Please bear in mind they are all for 6max fixed limit holdem.

VPIP - volutary put in pot. This is probably one of the key stats to determine if you're up against a total fish. Anything much above 40% is pretty loose, and means they're playing a wide variety of hands. There are exceptions, say if they have a 25% PFR to go with their 40% vpip, then they might not be too bad. I like to have someone with a 50%+ vpip on my immediate right with a low PFR, and even another to their right if possible. Anyone with a 90% vpip is a dream come true. That being said I don't mind having fairly tight guys on my left that I can steal blinds from.

PFR - Preflop raise %. A decent player is normally around 20%, and I really like to have passive players on my right - less than 5% is perfect. If someone is say 2% it means they are basically only raising AA and KK, and I know to get out of their way.

AFq - Aggression frequency - How often they bet compared with check/calling. I understand that a decent player is around 40% - 60%. Anyone under that is passive, which is what i'm looking for. Anyone over that is very aggressive and is often betting fairly poor hands - I will tend to call these guys down more often with weak but winnable hands. Sure they have the good sometimes, but often they don't.

WTSD - Went to showdown - How often a player does go to showdown. A high percentage here often means they're prepared to call down with fairly weak holdings. A decent player is around 35%-40%. If someone has a high vpip and a high wtsd i'll try to get in as many pots against them as possible as I know they are likely showing down trash fairly often.

Generally I use a combination of the above statistics to work out their range of possible hands. As you can narrow their range of hands you can work out how likely your own hand is to hold up, and whether you should bet, raise or fold. That really is the key of the statistics and the HUD - using the information to better predict your opponent's range of hands.

For example if i'm on the button preflop and someone with a PFR of 40% raises before me and I have AJ, i'm going to 3 bet here every time and try to get it heads up. If i'm in the same situation and the guy doing the raise has a PFR of 3% i'm throwing my AJ in the muck as his range has my hand completely crushed.

Post flop I look to AFq to give me further information on the type of hand they might be holding compared to what is out on the board. If someone bets into me and has an AFq of say 20%, then I know unless I have a very strong hand i'm going to have to fold because he more than likely has the goods. If on the other hand he has an AFq of 65% and i'm holding second or third pair i'm calling down. If my hand is stronger i'm probably even reraising this player.

Okay that's enough theory for now. Pokertracker annoyed me again last night, and decided to creat 200Gb of log files which brought my PC to a grinding halt. I ended up having to delete files just to get my PC running properly again. I then just extracted my hand histories in smaller chunks and now have an up to date database ... I think.

I also found one of those dream players a 95%/0% (vpip/pfr) sitting on a $3/6 table with no one on his left. I sat down, and then got creamed, whilst he was then kind enough to give my money to the other players. My AA got busted by his 62o when he hit quad 2s on the river, and he also just called instead of raising my river bet. A few hands later his 75o was too good for my J9s after a flop of 789 ... obviously the river was a 6. Had a worse result on the $1/2 tables where I dropped about 25BBs in pretty quick time. The river was not my friend.

Current bankroll: $20,700
October time played: 12h
October profit / (loss): $800

Pokertracker3 installed

Downloaded Pokertracker3 last night and installed without any hassles and now have it running as a trial. Converting my existing databases wasn't quite as user friendly as i'd like though.

I started with Bodog where I have about 50,000 hands in my database and hit the convert option from within PT3. The first few hands flew through before hitting the wall at about 1,000 hands where it started to process about 10 hands per minute. Obviously that is never going to finish, so time to implement plan b.

So I fire up PT2 and export my bodog database to text files. This takes all of 20 minutes and then about another 5 minutes to import into PT3. Problem solved. Cake then imports fairly quickly although since I only have a few months of raw hand data, and for those months I haven't been playing much Cake there weren't that many hands to import. Pity really, as I'd like to know how i've been going overall on Cake as it seems to have been a site i've regularly withdrawn from. I do the export / import with Pacific as well withouth incident.

Next up though is the challenge - Fulltilt - about 300,000 hands. I waited until this morning to start this one and figured i'd just leave it running if it took too long. Started my text export and it flies through the first 230,000 hands in about 25 minutes, before suddenly hitting the wall and slowing down to about one hand per second or two. At that rate it's going to take another day or two, but I figure if I just leave it running maybe it will pick up pace again .... I'll check when I get home from work tonight.

Setting up PT3 seems to be very simple with most sites being automatically detected. I ran a couple tables in between exporting and importing, and the HUD came up very quickly on each table. I still need to set up the HUD with the stats I like though. I'm currently thinking VPIP, PFR, AFq, WTSD, FBBTS, ATS. I then may add 3B, FSBTS, FTCbet. I don't really use those three stats, but I really should be I think.

Might post next time about each of those stats and how I use them. I have been using AF in the past, but have to get myself up to speed on AFq asap.

Current bankroll: $20,800
October time played: 11h30m
October profit / (loss): $900

PT3 may be sooner than I thought

My new version of gametime+ occasionally freezes up, which also freezes up my bodog client - a big problem when you're in the middle of a hand.

With this added issue, I think it's time to download the PT3 trial, and make sure that it works perfectly with my PC. Knowing my luck it probably won't, but i'll give it a go in the very near future. Apparently you get 60 days free, so that is plenty of time to check it out and get it up and running correctly before I have to fork out any cash.

When I do eventually need to buy it, i'll probably go through Pokersource as their store seems to be a relatively cheap way to obtain it.

Had an interesting little session last night, where in the first 15 minutes I only won one hand whilst playing on four concurrent tables. It wasn't looking real good, and I was prepared for a very painful session. Being midweek there weren't many tables running so 3 of them were only $1/2 and the other a $3/6 table. At least my single winning hand was on the $3/6 table....

For the next 15 minutes though, I just could not lose a hand - the absolute opposite of my initial run where I was down the best part of 50BBs. All of a sudden, most starting hands seemed to be premium pairs or AK. Even my T2o in the big blind hit quads on the turn. By the time the fish were cleaned out (which didn't take long) I was back to a few BBs up. I then had to quit as my fish had been replaced by TAGs.

I found one really nice looking $3/6 table, but ended up just sitting on the waiting list for the entire half hour, and the seat opened up just as I was quitting. Oh well.

All in all, pretty happy with the session, even though I didn't really make much. It's funny how psychologically you feel pretty good with not much more than a break even session, but it always seems the case when I start off with a horrific run.

Current bankroll: $20,750
October time played: 11h
October profit / (loss): $850

Forgot to reload

Sometimes I'm more scatterbrained than I ever thought possible. Logged into Bodog the other day to check whether my monthly reload had been paid with the plan to reload again if that was the case. Promptly then forgot to reaload and only realised I hadn't done it today. Only missed a couple days, but still, not a good sign that i'm forgetting that kinda stuff. Maybe I need to exercise my brain more.

Can't say I really have played much poker since the weekend. Maybe 60 hands where it was a struggle to find, and stay at tables that were fishy enough to be worthwhile playing at. In fact of the few tables that were running several were in the low 20%s of players seeing the flop. Ugly.

Ended up dropping more than a few BBs on the $1/2 tables, but made a couple at $4/8 to come out only slightly down. Had one interesting opponent that I had to take a note on who was fairly aggro, and more than willing to three bet the flop with top pair and no kicker against my early position open raise. I ended up capping the flop with my top two pair, and he called me down. In hindsight he was probably aggressive enough that I could have check/raised the turn instead .. but as per usual, I generally don't play made hands slowly.

Current bankroll: $20,750
October time played: 10h30m
October profit / (loss): $850

Sometimes the fish amaze me

Played a home game with the boys Friday night, and after that didn't get in a lot of online poker over the weekend. Probably a little under an hour online all up, but in that time ran super hot against some super fish.

Won about 10 BBs on a couple $4/8 tables, and well over 50 BBs on the $1/2 tables in a very short space of time where the fish kept on paying me off.

Add a $100 bonus credit and my weekend was pretty good, even without putting in any volume.

Thought i'd share a couple hands where in the first I was just scratchin my head when I saw what the guys had at showdown, and the second happened where I was allowed to check my big blind with trash ....

Hand 1

$1/$2 Limit Holdem • 6 Players
UTG 105.85
UTG+1 37.26 (very loose fish)
CO 46.07 (tightish but passive)
BTN 31.60 (passive fish)
SB 163.23 (huge fish 80+ vpip)
Hero (BB) 100.00

Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BB with AsKs (not a bad first hand at the table!)

1 fold, UTG+1 calls (could have any 2) , CO calls (tightish overcall .. mid strength hand?), BTN calls, SB calls, Hero raises (well this is going to be a big pot!), UTG+1 calls, CO 3-bets (interesting overcall then raise ...), BTN calls, SB calls, Hero 4-bets (no turnin back now - if this hits it will be a monster), UTG+1 calls, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls

Flop (20.0 SB, 5 players) 7s4s2d (happy with a flopped flush draw here)

SB checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 raises, CO 3-bets (hmm .. a big pair .. surely not 77 with the 3bet preflop?), 1 fold, SB calls, Hero 4-bets (debated for a second here whether to just check or raise further - i figure these guys probably can't fold though in a pot this big), UTG+1 calls, CO calls, SB calls

Turn (18.0 BB, 4 players) 3s (the virtual nuts .. sweet)

SB checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls, CO calls, SB calls

River (22.0 BB, 4 players) 3h (you gotta be kiddin me! I'm still bettin out though)

SB checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls, CO calls, SB calls

Final Pot: 25.2 BB Hero shows
Hero wins 25.2 BB (net +19.2 BB)
UTG+1 lost 6.0 BB 8s6h (seriously wtf was that flop reraise and the river call with 8 high??)
CO lost 6.0 BB 8c8h (can't blame him too much for callin down in the huge pot)
BTN lost 2.0 BB
SB lost 6.0 BB 4h5h (called 3 cold on the flop with a pair and not much ...)

Hand 2

$1/$2 Limit Holdem • 5 Players
UTG 40.50
CO 28.50
BTN 113.25 (passive fish)
SB 70.06 (loose but somewhat aggro)
Hero (BB) 96.50

Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is BB with 6s2s

UTG calls, 1 fold, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero checks (thanks for lettin me check that)

Flop (4.0 SB, 4 players) 2c6c6h (hehe)

SB checks, Hero bets, UTG calls, BTN raises, SB folds, Hero 3-bets (i figure a club will kill any action so may as well bet here. might be a mistake, although I suspect that every time you bet a huge hand it's a small mistake at worst, whereas slowplaying can be a bigger mistake), UTG calls, BTN calls (happy that both called!)

Turn (6.5 BB, 3 players) 3d
Hero bets, UTG calls, BTN calls (both called again .. bonus!)

River (9.5 BB, 3 players) Ac (awesome flush has hit - please let one of them have it)
Hero bets, UTG folds, BTN calls

Final Pot: 22.5 BB Hero shows
Hero wins 11.0 BB (net +7.0 BB)
SB lost 0.5 BB
UTG lost 3.0 BB
BTN lost 4.0 BB Kd6d (all he needed to do was bet preflop and the pot was his ... I would have raised the turn in his position too)

Had a few of those hands where I was able to check my BB and on two occasions hit my trips on the flop and quads on the turn. From memory in one hand I had T4o and hit quad Ts, and the other I had 83o and hit quad 3s. All I can say is thankyou for the fish. It was also kinda nice to have a session that wasn't full of suckouts.

Current bankroll: $20,750
October time played: 10h
October profit / (loss): $850

HUD back in business .. for now

After downloading what I thought was a fix for my gametime+ HUD issue with my converted database, I quickly found that it didn't work at all.

Didn't take long though to just download an older version of Gametime+ which seems to work, although it automatically pops up tables which is a bit annoying when i'm not even sitting at the table that I have open.

It was the normal midweek struggle to find decent tables, although somehow I spotted a couple $4/8 tables which had a couple tags and three fish that I could get position on. Started off up a few BBs, but quickly gave that back and dropped about 10BBs to a big fish opposite me on the table. AK can't seem to hold up for me this month - and got done twice in the space of one orbit against A5 and A7 respectively.

However, my fishy friends decided to keep calling me down trying to hit their three outers, and after missing several in a row I was back up for the session. After that a player or two quit each table, and one of the fish actually stood up and moved from being on my right to sitting on my left, which was extremely annoying. I decided to just quit though, as the table was getting shorter than i'd like. I'm still not overly strong on the seriously short handed tables, and prefer at least five players, but even more so six.

Back to a new peak of the bankroll now, and due a decent rakeback credit as well. Hopefully I get in a bit of play over the weekend, as I have a wedding next weekend so the poker tables will be pretty quiet.

Current bankroll: $20,450
October time played: 9h
October profit / (loss): $550

Pokertracker database change

I finally got round to one of my goals for the year - changing my Pokertracker database from Access to Postgres SQL. At first the process seemed a lot simpler than i'd first thought, and the installation was done within a couple minutes.

A while later and i've converted several of my existing databases to SQL, and was applauding how simple it was.

Then I opened a few tables, and tried to run Gametime+ .... fail ... some kind of authentication error code "80040e4d" so that it could not access the database. Then spent half an hour surfing for a solution whilst playing three $1/2 tables, and mostly found a bunch of dead links ... great.

I have hopefully now found a patch that works now and will try tonight, but i'm not holding my breath. I know that I need to upgrade to Pokertracker3 by March next year, so this may even accelerate that upgrade if it doesn't work. It will also give me a more informative HUD so is probably worth doing anyways.

On the plus side, I found that I could fairly comfortably play the three tables whilst surfing around - although I was quickly 30BBs down after a string of beats. By the end of the half hour I was back to even relying on player notes rather than a HUD. Most of my notes simply gave VPIP and PFR, but even that is enough to spot the big fish.

Got credited a few rakeback dollars as well, so now i'm back to my peak bankroll that I last saw on the 30th of August.

Current bankroll: $20,350
October time played: 8h
October profit / (loss): $450

Intermittent monitor problems

I seem to be cursed with PC hardware problems these days. I can't remember having this many issues with a PC before. Now my monitor has decided it doesn't always like the power connection, and occasionally turns off and wont turn back on without reseating the power cable several times. Add to that the DVI input also appears to have connection issues and occasionally disconnects for a split second which effectively restarts the monitor.

So far no really horrible results caused by this - although one hand on a $1/2 table I had AQ and ended up getting timed out preflop because my screen was blank, only to later see i'd have flopped my A against a maximum of two opponents.

As an interim solution i've switched power cables, and then also switched my monitor from DVI to VGA. Currently cursing having to do this as once you've had DVI, there's no way you want to go back to the fuzziness that is VGA. It's not terrible, but its not a super sharp digital picture either.

After all that screwing around I ended up having all of about 15 minutes for poker, and struggled to find any good tables so never really got started. Although I did make a few BBs on the $1/2s another few at $2/4 and a few more at $4/8 for a $50 gain. Basically I stayed just long enough for one of my huge fish to get cleaned out on one of the tables - pity he didn't give much of it to me though.

Current bankroll: $20,300
October time played: 7h30m
October profit / (loss): $400

$1/2 revenge

With the day off work on Friday, and a spare few hours on the weekend I played a few hours of poker including one of the Cake gold card tournaments.

I still dunno how you tourney guys do it. The cake tournament was a rebuy which had what I thought were very quick blind rises. Starting stack of 1,500 chips, and at the first hour break the blinds were 500/1000. I'd improved my chip stack to 9,000 at the break which was probably slightly below average. I'd survived one lucky all in earlier on during the rebuy period where I had 2 pair and my opponent had the straight, but hit my boat on the turn. Anyways, about two orbits after the break I'm fairly shortstacked compared with only 7,000 chips left and see K2s in the sb with it folded to me. The big blind has a few k more chips than me, so I push all in. He flips AA and its gg me. Just seems frustrating to me to spend over an hour for nothing.... although I did have some cash tables open at the same time.

I guess if I really think about it i'm not far off even from a whole month of cash table play - but it just doesnt seem the same .. and its not.

Speaking of the cash tables, one $1/2 table donated me 50BBs in the space of about 150 hands where I hit quite a few TPTK hands, which miraculously held up multiway relatively often. Made another around 40BBs on another $1/2 in a later session, and I more or less broke even on the $4/8 and $5/10 tables for the weekend.

Things were looking a little poorer when I was down 25BBs on a $4/8 table where I had position on a huge aggro muppet running at 85/45, and I just could not hit a hand ... until ... I had 99 and he'd as usual raised UTG. It then got capped by one of the blinds so was already a big pot preflop. Flop was an amazing 966 with two spades. I didn't play it fast on the flop which I think in hindsight was possibly a mistake, although I did get to raise and cap the turn which was a Qs completing a potential flush draw. Would have been disappointing if either opponent had 66 or QQ but I'm almost always going to be betting and capping here. Anyways both opponents didnt have it and that 25BB pot put me over halfway back to even, and a couple other small pots before quitting left me only a few BBs down.

Current bankroll: $20,250
October time played: 7h
October profit / (loss): $350

Stinkin it up at $1/2

I still can't take a trick at $1/2. Dropped about another 40BBs last night, so had a quick check of my stats so far this month. Overall, i'm showing down less than usual, and winning significantly less than a normal percentage of showdowns. I have to put that down to running pretty cold, rather than any obvious consistently bad plays.

Fortunately though i've made a few BBs at the $4/8 level again to at least maintain my bankroll rather than losing some fairly big chunks. I am about 150BBs down at $1/2 for the month - which would be far far worse if it was at $4/8. Variance can easily do that to you though - I guess that's why they invented bank roll management.

Current bankroll: $19,950
October time played: 4h
October profit / (loss): $50

Yoyo sessions continue

Played almost an hour since the weekend, and have again posted one of those sessions where I've started horrifically before recovery most, if not all.

The $1/2 tables on Bodog smashed me for 50BBs in the space of half an hour, spread over two or three tables. Missed a few draws, and got sucked out on quite a few times by the fish, and it was looking ugly. It is amazing how quickly you can lose a lot of BBs on some hugely fishy tables. Come the next half hour and it's turned around completely. My big hands start holding up, I hit a flush draw or two, and i've recovered 45BBs.

Then it was my turn on the $4/8 tables, where again, I can't hit anything to save myself. On one hand I have a huge hand with top pair, an OESD, and 2nd nut flush draw up against two players - one with an underpair and one with a gutshot. Inevitably the guy with the gutshot rivers his two outer, and I lose a 20BB pot. That really was the story of the session there.

Made up for it on a $5/10 table though where again I started off horribly with Ks9s versus JsTs with both of us going for a flush draw in a huge multiway pot, and him rivering the Td. However, a few hands later I have the nut flush draw and am up against the second nut flush draw which we both hit on the river and he is happy to cap the river betting. So that single pot puts me up over 10BBs after another relatively poor start. I think I would have cried if he had shown the straight flush ...

Current bankroll: $20,000
October time played: 3h
October profit / (loss): $100

Long weekend kickoff for the month

Well you'd think a long weekend would mean gettin in a heap of poker....

Unfortunately no, although I have played a couple hours. It's been an interesting session or two though, where the swings have been 60 or so BBs downwards, followed by a crawl back to even to end each session.

The weekend had been fairly generous in providing fishy tables to play at on both Cake and Bodog - although a few did dry up when I cleaned out my fish, so I had to quit as the remainder of the table were generally tags.

Overall in net BB terms I would be down as the fish have been slaughterin me at $1/2, but that's been more than made up with some okay, but not great sessions at $4/8.

Current bankroll: $20,000
October time played: 2h
October profit / (loss): $100

September summary

Well, my last hour of poker for the month ended with a fairly poor session. I ran pretty cold at 20/14 instead of 30/20 and even when I played a hand, it often didn't end too pretty with a 30% wtsd and 30% w$sd. Dropped around 60BBs in total although mainly at $1/2 and $2/4, so the damage wasn't too bad.

Annoyingly i'm back below $20,000 again. Although i've got enough rakeback coming to recover that.

It was another fairly light month for me on the tables - all up about 13.5 hours which I know many people can do in a single day. Also it becomes my first losing month to date. I thought i'd be disappointed with that, but to be honest, it doesn't really make all that much difference. I'm pretty sure i'll recover it quick enough in October so no real concerns there.

I had a look at my overall stats on Bodog the other day, and i'm only a slight winner at $1/2 in a little over 40,000 hands. I'm sure I should be winning at a much higher rate given the fishiness there, so hopefully the next 10k hands or so show a decent improvement.

Last month's goals for September:

• Put in some more volume than August (does half an hour count??)
• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible and hopefully hit some fishy $4/8 tables (yeah cleared a stack of that although not credited till next month. Have hit the $4/8 bodog tables a bit too)
• Clear some more of my Cake reload that I received at the end of May & June (cleared all of maybe $20. for some reason i've not found it as fishy lately)
• Play some more Pacific if it seems fishy (gave pacific a fair crack this month)
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash (fulltilt?) (spent 1800 or so on a single sng the other day. Busted out with TT allin v AQ v QQ. Flop Q).

The loss of $450 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/vip/rakeback: $280

• Bodog $100
• Cake $20
• Pacific $100
• Fulltilt $60

Poker bankroll Interest: $60

Poker losses: $790

For October the goals in order of priority are:

• Make a profit!
• Put in some more volume than August and September ....
• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible
• Clear some more of my Cake reload and see if I can score a few more gold chips
• Play some more Pacific if it seems fishy
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash (fulltilt?)

Not sure that I will actually put in any more volume, as I know I am going away for a wedding this month, and am already busy with other things this weekend. Will see.

Current bankroll: $19,900
September time played: 13h30m
September profit / (loss): ($450)

Slightly closer to profit for the month

In a quick session last night, I was able to win about 30BBs but only at the $1/2 and $2/4 level, as very few tables were running that I thought were worthwhile sitting at.

I sat down at one fantastic looking $5/10 table, where I had replaced one of the fish, but there were still three big fish left at the table. Then first hand after i've sat down one of the fish leaves. Next hand another fish gets stacked, and now there's only one left that I don't have position on. I quickly had to uncheck the auto post blinds, as I was about to be dealt my first hand. Funnily enough the last fish then quits on that hand that would have been my first.

I'm still staring down the barrel of my first losing month, although with the missus off to netball tonight I might get in an hour or two of play and you never know. I've got a fair chunk of bonus cash coming in from Bodog, but that won't appear till the middle of October so I won't include that either.

Thinking about it though, i've had several stretches over 30 days before with being down - it's just that they didn't happen to occur between the start and end of a single month where I would have recorded it as a loss. Either way i'm not too concerned with what happens tonight. I'll get it back in the long term plus more, and I won't go out of my way to try to force it to happen.

Current bankroll: $20,100
September time played: 12h30m
September profit / (loss): ($250)