April 2009 summary

That's another losing month on the tables making it two in a row. Perhaps May will be better?

I still ended up in positive territory overall though making about $150 - at an hourly rate of $6/hour. Great. Even my BB/100 at Bodog $1/2 is now back in negative territory again after a horrible run this month.

Having a quick look at my stats, i'm still playing fairly solidly so can't spot any leaks that jump out at me. I suspect i've just been running a bit cool. If I look at every time i've had AA over the past 6k hands, i've actually only won 15/42. I'm sure that's a long way below expectation.

I think the month can be best summed up in the following hand from last night. Although there were actually many worse beats.

$2/$4 Limit Holdem • 6 Players
UTG 157.65 (unknown)
UTG+1 16.02
CO 26.2 (50/10 fish)
Hero 97 (me)
SB 6.15
BB 123.05
Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BTN with AcAh (nice)
UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, BB calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 folds, CO 4-bets, BTN calls, BB calls, UTG calls (thanks mr CO
Flop (19.5 SB, 4 players)

9s2h6s (fairly nice flop. spades are not particularly friendly)

BB checks, UTG checks, CO bets, Hero raises, BB folds, UTG calls, CO calls
Turn (12.8 BB, 3 players)

7c (nice ... a blank)

UTG bets (umm wtf does this donk mean? how did the 7 improve him? would he donk a set - surely you'd c/r? Maybe he's on the spade draw and waited for the turn? I am confused), CO calls, Hero calls (the donk into 2 players has put me off. I will call)
River (15.8 BB, 3 players)

Qs (bah, the flush got there)

UTG bets, CO raises, Hero calls, UTG calls (i still suspect i've got enough equity in this pot. the CO raise here seems odd since he 4 bet preflop, unless he's AKs)
Final Pot: 20.0 BB
CO shows KcQh (nice river raise muppet)
UTG shows 8c5s (ummm. wtf. f me)

UTG wins 20.0 BB ( won +14.0 BB )

I'll be taking up the offer from RakeTheRake for 50%+ rakeback at William Hill in May. I'm not expecting a huge volume again in May as I'm going to be fairly busy. Hopefully I can actually make a profit though!

Last month's goals for April

• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible (cleared about $110ish)
• Clear the remainder of my Cake reload bonus (please give me another one Cake!!) (done, but no reload unfortunately)
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash (fulltilt?) Spent a few and lost :(
• Play some more Pacific if it seems fishy (Played a stack and came out fairly even)
• Maybe sign up for Noiq through RakeTheRake if their race is generous enough. (race wasn't worth taking up)

The gain of $150 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/vip: $205

Bodog $110
Cake $20
Pacific $75

Rakeback: $100

Fulltilt $10
Cake $20
William Hill $70

Poker bankroll Interest: $50

Poker losses: ($205)

For May the goals in order of priority are:

• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible
• Take advantage of the 50%+ rakeback at William Hill for May through RakeTheRake
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash (fulltilt?)
• Play some more Pacific if it seems fishy

Current bankroll: $17,400
April time played: 24h

Fish out in force

Odd for a midweek, but the fish seemed to be out there on quite a few tables. Of course i'd only have 15 minutes to play which kinda sucked, but they still donated me a good 40BBs at $1/2 and a handful at $2/4.

I actually found one guy on a $1/2 table on Bodog who was betting and raising every single time, on every street no matter what two cards he had. When I sat down he had about 70BBs, and in the space of 15 minutes he'd thrown away the lot. Actually it was probably more like 10 minutes ... if that.

On another table I had two opponents around the 70/5 mark and one at 65/30. A goldmine as it were, although oddly the 65/30 guy I had 600 hands on and was running at +10BB/100. I guess a chunk of that could have been from me running super cold and donating him quite a few BBs in the last few weeks. Those guys handed over about 20BBs for my session even though I had my AA cracked twice in the space of 15 hands. They paid me back when I hit the 2nd nut flush on the turn of a capped 4 ways preflop, 4 ways on the flop, and 3 ways on the turn. My flush was quite a ways in front of an overpair in the end for a huge pot.

I also received my Bodog reload for the month, so i'm going to have to make another deposit again tonight or whenever I get back onto the tables.

I think i've got one month left on my William Hill deposit bonus, so I won't be looking for a new bonus to chase quite yet.

Current bankroll: $17,400
April time played: 23h30m
April profit/(loss): $150

Little time, little play

Its amazing how small things like looking to buy a house, organising a wedding, sorting out car salary sacrificing, birthdays etc get in the way of playing poker ..... (not to mention Dream Team as well - some tricky trading coming up).

I've played less than half an hour in the last couple days - in fact literally only 3 orbits on a couple tables. They were kind enough to give me about 10BBs at each of $2/4 and $1/2 before the fish on my right ran out of cash on both tables so I can't really complain. Effectively that's brought me back to square for the month, so April has been another tough slog. I should be getting about $100 in reload bonus cash in the next couple days so hopefully I can end up in the black again.

Current bankroll: $17,250
April time played: 23h
April profit/(loss): $0

Could have been

.... a great weekend.

I played an hour on Saturday, and Bodog decided to pay me back 40BBs at $1/2 out of about the 150 i've lost over the past couple weeks. Nice of them, particularly on one table where every single other player had a VPIP of 60+ at one stage.

Then on Sunday in my first 40 mins or so I was up another 20BBs at both the $3/6 and $2/4 levels, with position on a couple 70/20 fish on William Hill.

Life was good.

After another 40 minutes when I opened a table on Pacific where I had position on a 60/20 guy, and two to his right was a 70/5 guy. Almost perfect.

Then I didn't win a single showdown, including a couple huge pots where I had the nut flush on the turn, only for the board to pair on the river. Ugly.

Back to square one in only 40 mins as I had lost about 40BBs. Still .. it was a great table, and I really couldn't leave.

Thankfully my last 40 minutes turned out to be okay, booking a solid 10BBs at $3/6 and 20BBs at $1/2 on bodog. I even had a couple huge hands, where in the first I was holding A7o on a flop of AAA. I didn't get raised, but I did get called down including the river.

My other huge hand was when I had an OESD and BDFD with 7h8h and a board of 9hTd2s. Turn Th, river Jh. My opponent had only 2 pair but at least paid off my straight flush.

Once I had in rakeback and reload bonuses for this month i'm actually probably just back into the black now. Another ordinary month to date though.

Current bankroll: $17,200
April time played: 22h30m
April profit/(loss): ($50)

The rare 70s fish

As planned I got in a couple hours of poker last night which ended up with a single $1/2 table on Bodog, a mixture of $2/4 and $3/6 on William Hill and several double up sngs on Pokerstars to try to clear my old reload there, as well as just being something different.

I had position on one guy on bodog who was 70/0, and I was thinking I would be in for a fantastic session there. He also went to showdown 70% of the time. Unfortunately for me, he then managed to win 70% of those showdowns to have about a 80BB/100 over the space of about 100 hands. I'm soon another 50BBs down on Bodog. Go figure.

On the $2/4 and $3/6 tables though, I managed to win about 15BBs each, which actually meant that i'd finished the session in the black. Not too many notable hands but I probably switched between about 20 tables for the session to make sure I always had position on at least one largish fish. I should have accrued some decent rakeback as well given the time I played for.

I quite enjoyed playing double ups for a change again too. I hadn't really played since crypto died the other month. Out of my 3 games, I lost my super turbo when I pushed all in for 10BBs with JJ and got called by AT. Flop A and i'm out. Harsh. However, I made up for it in one of the regular double ups where I pushed all in with a OESD and some guy decided to call me ... with A high. I'm like, WTF? how can you call an all in with A high .... Anyways, I hit my draw and survived to double up. The third game ran pretty simply, with no real confrontations, and never having to put it all in which is the way I prefer double ups to go.

Hopefully I will get in another couple hours of poker on the weekend. Good luck all.

Current bankroll: $17,100
April time played: 19h30m
April profit/(loss): ($150)

And down again

The fish have been eating me alive. In the last hour ranging from $1/2 to $3/6 I dropped another couple hundred on some absolutely superb tables with a minimum of 3 players over 60/20.

I ended up with a went to showdown at a slightly low 34%, but a W$SD at all of 15% meant that I had been crucified. I was probably lucky in that again a lot of it was at $1/2 and $2/4, and my $3/6 table actually ended up positive. Although I could also look at it that I was simply running like a big turd on most of the tables.

I should be able to play an hour or two tonight. Hopefully I can run a little better! Its looking like its going to be a struggle again this month.

Current bankroll: $17,050
April time played: 17h30m
April profit/(loss): ($200)

Back to square one for April

Finally got myself back to even for the month last night in a short session. As per usual, the midweek saw very few tables open, however, I did find my big fish from yesterday on Bodog. Unluckily though, the only seat available was on his right. Luckily, there were also a couple other fish to the right of that so I sat on down.

I was also looking for some tables on William Hill. There were probably a good 25 tables running between $1/2 and $3/6. However, it seems that midweek is when all the nits and tags come out, as the highest players per pot was about 45, and when I sat down on that table ($2/4) it rapidly dropped to under 30 within a couple orbits, so obviously I stood up and left.

Bodog was at least a bit more generous to me today though, and my fishy mate gave me back a good 10BBs, and another couple fish donated me another 10 or so. Managed to get my AA cracked for the 4th time in a row, so i'm looking forward to that turning around sooner or later.

Also received some more William Hill rakeback. I dunno how it works there or on what basis they pay it out, as I seem to get random credits, for random amounts, at random times of the week. At least its a little more than I was expecting, otherwise i'd have to complain!

Since there's not much poker to talk about, thought i'd do a quick AFL DT update. Currently sitting in the top 300 overall, but still managed to lose my first league game in my mates' league so i'm in the bottom half of the table there. Not too fussed as it was against another very good team. In my league where i'm playing for cash, I had a solid win first up, so that's looking good. Plenty of trades left in the bank, and i'll keep em that way, as i'd really like to take the winner takes all prize of $300. My main threat has already used 5 out of his 20 trades, and its only round 1, so I suspect unless he gets very lucky i'm in with a huge chance of taking the cash when he runs out of trades near the end of the season.

Current bankroll: $17,250
April time played: 16h30m
April profit/(loss): $0

Between the fish ...

Found myself on a great table on Bodog with a couple of big fish to my right, and a whopper to my left. Obviously I would have preferred to be on the left of the whopper, but that seat wasn't open and my seat was still very very good.

The whopper to my left was a 69/5 guy with a WTSD of around 50% and a -20BB/100 over 400 hands. A fantastic opponent to get it in with.

I obviously then run like turd .....

$1/$2 Limit Holdem • 6 Players
UTG 64.10 (64/7)
UTG+1 45.75 (55/10)
Hero (CO) 68.90
BTN 97.65 (69/5)
SB 130.14
BB 122.25
Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is CO with AcAh

UTG calls, UTG+1 calls, Hero raises, BTN calls, SB calls, BB calls, UTG calls, UTG+1 calls (told ya the table was good)
Flop (12.0 SB, 6 players)

6d3hkh (nice enough flop for me - only real worry is a heart flush draw. potentially a set)

SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets, 1 fold, Hero raises, BTN calls, SB folds, BB calls, UTG calls (pair of kings for utg? maybe at least one heart flush draw)

Turn (10.0 BB, 4 players)

Jd (not a bad card for me)

BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets, BTN raises, BB calls, UTG folds, Hero calls (i dont' really like it that button has come alive now KJ?
River (16.0 BB, 3 players)

2d (okay card for me)

BB bets, Hero calls, BTN folds (wtf, now BB comes alive?? I can't fold in a pot this big though. Kinda surprised by teh BTN fold)
Final Pot: 35.2 BB
BB shows Ad8d (you gotta be f'n kiddin me. He'd sucked out on me two hands ago with K8s versus my KK on a Kxxr flop in another huge pot)

BB wins 17.2 BB ( won +12.2 BB )
UTG+1 lost -1.0 BB
Hero lost -5.0 BB
BTN lost -4.0 BB
SB lost -1.0 BB
UTG lost -2.0 BB

So, whilst I had again managed to drop 20BBs in half an hour, on a second table, I actually made up 25BBs where a few of my big hands actually held up. I was also aided by a couple muppets who were regularly bluffing with complete air on the river against my good but not great hands.

Frustratingly, no real progress for the session. I just need a few of those big pots to go my way.

Current bankroll: $17,200
April time played: 16h
April profit/(loss): ($50)

Playing catch up

Well, at least i've been consistent over the past six weeks or so.

The weekend started with me running like a turd again on Saturday morning. On two Bodog $1/2 tables I had position on a couple players who were fairly big fish, running with a BB/100 in negative double digits. Somehow i've then managed to drop 50BBs on one table, and 25BBs on the other. I'd also lost a few BBs on William Hill on the $2/4 tables. Checking my stats I wasn't playing badly, but was simply getting crucified at showdown. Still .. at $200 down for the start of the weekend, it wasn't a great beginning, and once again I was playing catch up just to get back to even.

I did find myself getting a little agitated, so I actually decided to quit, rather than risk potentially tilting.

Came back a bit later and played for half an hour - and actually pulled back 40BBs when I managed to run pretty hot and was up against some pretty big fish who were around the 75/5 mark.

Sunday I got up early for my Cake freeroll. In the first 3 blind levels I think the only had I had was 99 which had two callers and flopped AK6r so I gave that one away immediately. With about 20BBs left I found myself with AKo in MP with an aggro player on my right raising it up 2.5XBB. I decided to push, and found myself up against TT. The race was on! Flop TJ2r and the race was over ....

Played an hour at the same time on a bodog table or two plus a William Hill $3/6 table where I'd stumbled across a 96/20 fish who seemed to be hellbent on just giving his money away. I ended up about 20BBs before he ran out of cash. Add on a bit of rakeback and bonus clearing and i've clawed my way back into the black for the weekend.

William Hill is going to do for the moment as my secondary site apart from Bodog. Since its on Ipoker there's plenty of table selection, and with the current deposit bonus i'm getting about a 50% equivalent rakeback. It may even be slightly higher as I have received a random deposit or two in my account over what I was expecting for rakeback.

Current bankroll: $17,200
April time played: 15h30m
April profit/(loss): ($50)

Aggro muppet runs into my ladies

Had another awful session which would have been worse apart from the fact that I managed to find and have position on a guy who was running at 90/70 and seemed to like to cap the flop and turn with complete air. I'd watch him show down trash for one orbit, and he was running at a massive -300BB/100. I then had a couple hands come up -

Hand 1:

$1/$2 Limit Holdem • 6 Players
UTG 35.35
UTG+1 63.5
CO 50.64 (huge aggro fish)
Hero (BTN) 45.5
SB 105
BB 21.25
Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BTN withAdJd

2 folds, CO raises, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, BB calls, CO 4-bets, Hero calls, BB calls (3bet here without hesistation. Not super happy the BB decided to call 2 cold, but I know i'm in front of muppet)
Flop (12.5 SB, 3 players)

KcTd4d (That's not a great flop .... i'm left with a one overcard, a gutshot and bdfd)

BB checks, CO bets, Hero calls, BB calls (at 13:1 this is definitely worth a call with my draw)
Turn (7.8 BB, 3 players)

Qd (bingo!)

BB checks, CO bets, Hero raises, BB folds, CO 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, CO calls (CO could literally have anything here. I could call to get BB to tag along, but that would be plain stupid - gotta bet hard with the nuts)
River (15.8 BB, 2 players)

Th (somewhat of a terrible card pairing the board. however, this guy is a muppet so i'm going to bet hard. if i'm beat then i'm beat)

CO bets, Hero raises, CO 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, CO calls
Final Pot: 23.8 BB
Hero shows AdJd
CO mucks (I wonder what he had ... )
Hero wins 23.2 BB ( won +12.8 BB )
CO lost -10.5 BB
BB lost -2.5 BB

Hand 2:

$1/$2 Limit Holdem • 6 Players
UTG 85.16
UTG+1 29.48 (my super aggro fishy mate)
Hero (CO) 67
BTN 95.43
SB 15.03
BB 31.35
Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is CO with QsQc

1 fold, UTG+1 raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN 4-bets (that's not a good sign - he was a solid player), SB calls (wtf?), 1 fold, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls
Flop (17.0 SB, 4 players)

2h6cQh (kaching)

SB checks, UTG+1 bets, Hero raises, 1 fold, SB calls, UTG+1 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, SB calls, UTG+1 calls (again no point playing slow against all these guys - pot is huge and multiway)
Turn (14.5 BB, 3 players)

4d (sweet - no heart)

SB checks, UTG+1 bets, Hero raises, SB folds, UTG+1 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, UTG+1 calls (keep bettin hard against fishy)
River (22.5 BB, 2 players)

Qd (heheh 2nd time i've hit quads in the last week or so)

UTG+1 bets, Hero raises, UTG+1 calls
Final Pot: 26.5 BB
Hero shows QsQc
UTG+1 mucks (still would be interesting to know what he had again ...)
Hero wins 26.0 BB ( won +16.0 BB )
UTG+1 lost -10.0 BB
BTN lost -2.0 BB
SB lost -4.0 BB

Pity it was only at $1/2. On another table I managed to lose 25BBs at the same time (on pacific from memory). Then dropped a few more BBs on William Hill at 2/4 and 3/6 due to some nasty little suck outs again, and my session didn't end all that well. Surely i'm due for a bit of a turnaround again..... i'm back to where I was 7 weeks ago, so given that I've had a chunk of rakeback in that time I must be a fair bit down on the tables. Still given my limited volume, you have to expect fairly long periods of downswings.

Current bankroll: $17,150
April time played: 12h30m
April profit/(loss): ($100)

$4/8 pain continues

Played a brief session last night on mainly Bodog, Pacific and William Hill, and managed to strike several problems all at once.

Firstly Bodog wasn't capturing hands for some reason at the $4/8 table, whilst the $1/2 table was capturing perfectly fine. I find that not having PT stats is fairly crippling, although since I already had notes on the two players to my right who were total fish I decided to stay at the table.

Secondly William Hill, in all their wisdom decided to reverse their date order again in the hand history, so instead of mm/dd/yy its now dd/mm/yy. It's made a bit of a mess of my pokertracker database with the latest tables now appearing at the bottom of the list instead of the top. They'd already switched this once before which required a patch to fix, and now it looks like they've switch it back. ARGH. I've updated to the latest patch (PT2), and at least its importing them.

Third problem - received a bunch of nasty river suck outs in 15BB+ pots at $4/8, and ended down about 20BBs where I could easily have made a tidy profit for the session. Sometimes you get a great table, have great position, and things just don't go your way....

Current bankroll: $17,200
April time played: 12h
April profit/(loss): ($50)

Bodog getting tighter

This month I haven't really played a lot on Bodog and basically because the few tables that have been running have often had <40% of players seeing the flop. Over the past few months generally most $1/2 and $4/8 tables have had over 50% of players seeing the flop - and often significantly higher than that even.

I'm not sure if this is just a one off, or its the economy, or if there are more sharks entering the Bodog pool or what it is. Hopefully though it loosens up again soon.

I will still play there though provided I can at least find a few fishy tables now and then. Because their monthly reload pays out to the nearest 1c it doesn't matter how much I actually clear of the bonus. So effectively I still get the 50ish% rakeback.

That being said, I put in half an hour last night and dropped 20BBs fairly rapidly. I ran into set over set and flush over flush which was basically my entire loss in two hands. Managed to run into bullets twice again as well with solid hands or flush draws, so it wasn't a particularly lucky session.

However, got my rakeback/bonus credits from the weekend, so I basically ended even for the day.

Current bankroll: $17,400
April time played: 11h30m
April profit/(loss): $150

Thought it might be a weekend of pain

I played almost a couple hours on Saturday firing up a few tables between Bodog, Pacific and William Hill. (I've decided to actually clear some more of the bonus there to see what kind of rakeback rate i'm getting - it doesnt seem as bad as I first thought).

On my Pacific $3/6 table I then proceeded to play 62 hands without winning a single one of them. No showdown wins, and no wins without showdown. Nasty. The next 30ish hands had me hitting a couple wins and then losing several hands with the second nuts, which are obviously very costly hands when playing 6max. I found myself about 50BBs down in that first hour or so.

At the same time I had a Littlewoods $2/4 table open where I had a couple massive fish sitting on my right. Again, I just could not win a hand, and managed to drop 50BBs there as well.

So after an hour of play i'm staring at a $500 loss so far for the weekend. Ugly. The tables were still great though with several huge fish on them, and I gradually started clawing back. So much so, that I actually made back all 50BBs on Pacific within the next hour, and then a few more BBs. William Hill paid off about 25BBs so I ended still a little down, but not too bad. I should grab a few hands from the session, as there were plenty of very rude beats.

Sunday I played just over an hour, where my bankroll didn't move until the last 5 minutes. It was one of those fairly frustrating sessions where I'd win a couple solid pots, and then the one time the fish would have a great hand, i'd have a good hand which would cost me quite a few BBs. (I managed to run into the 90/20 guy's bullets twice ....). About five minutes before quitting though I had that guy plus another 85/0 guy to my right and they both decided to cap the turn and river when I had AA on a board of ATTQK. All of a sudden i'm up about 25BBs for the session.

Monday was another session a little under an hour, where I again moved absolutely nowhere for about 40 minutes, before winning another 15BBs in the last orbit.

I guess the lesson for me was that patience is often rewarded - as long as you keep playing solidly.

I should also get a reasonable rakeback/bonus credit from the weekend, as a lot of my play was at $3/6. I also picked up the $25 from Fulltilt's really easy take 2 bonus.

Current bankroll: $17,400
April time played: 11h
April profit/(loss): $150

Found some fish

Was lucky enough last night to find some real fish on a $3/6 Fulltilt table. One guy was 96/2, and the other was 90/66. The aggro guy was luckboxing left and right and over 50 hands he was running at +75BB/100.

I'd had a couple run ins with him and i'd love to post one hand but I don't have it on this PC which was for 20+ BBs where I had A8o on a 883 flop versus his pocket 7s where he rivered his 7 after capping both the flop and turn .... needless to say I was not impressed ....

That being said, he then did start paying me off when he stopped hitting miracle cards, and I ended up making a good 25BBs for the session. I'll be looking out for these guys in future as they seem to be more than willing to not only pay me off, but pay me off with mulitple raises and reraises.

Almost back to even for the month, and maybe i'll even check out eurolinx on Blindman's suggestion. Might not get time for it over the Easter weekend though.

Current bankroll: $17,200
April time played: 7h
April profit/(loss): ($50)

Aggro fish

Sometimes aggro fish can be extremely generous - the one's I like are those that like to bet with air, and keep on betting and raising every street with total air hoping that you will fold. Those with a WTSD above about 40% are great.

Whilst you may think that 40% is not overly high, well, its not for a regular TAG. However, someone who both playing tons of hands (say 60%+) and is betting all the time is going to get to showdown a lot less often as people will fold regularly until they work out that particular player and start calling them down light.

Sometimes however, they do suck out and that can be quite irritating.

Hand 1:

$0.5/$1 Limit Holdem • 5 Players (first orbit on a fulltilt table just going for the 2x bonus I mentioned in an earlier post. Not enough free $1/2 tables so ended on this one)
UTG 24.4
CO 15.95 (hugely passive fish)
Hero (BTN) 47.5
SB 8.4 (aggro fish)
BB 14.5
Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is BTN with QcJs (not bad)

2 folds, Hero raises, SB calls, 1 fold (I was expecting him to reraise here)
Flop (5.0 SB, 2 players)

2c8cQs

SB checks, Hero bets, SB raises, Hero 3-bets, SB 4-bets, Hero calls (i'm not at all concerned by the c/r from this guy. he's been aggro all day. the 4 bet i'm not super happy with, so I've decided to call down here. Maybe he has the flush draw or baby trips?)
Turn (6.5 BB, 2 players)

Th (well that's missed the fd so far)

SB bets, Hero calls
River (8.5 BB, 2 players)

Jd (fd missed and now I have two pair. However a 9 makes a straight)

SB bets, Hero calls (strongly thought about raising here. I think I should have)
Final Pot: 10.5 BB
Hero shows QcJs
SB shows Ad9h (he capped the flop with this remember.... f me)

SB wins 10.0 BB ( won +5.0 BB )
Hero lost -5.0 BB

Anyways that was the first orbit and i'm so glad it was only at .5/1 otherwise I would have been fairly pissed at that. Given my last couple day's sessions though, I thought I might be in for another session of pain.

However, I was wrong. A few hands later he has 3 bet the turn and then also 3 bet the river and called my cap into my nut flush when he had all of K high. Bizarre. Overall in a little under half an hour I made a few BBs on Fulltilt and about another 20BBs on Bodog but only at $1/2. At leat the bankroll is heading back in the right direction ...

Current bankroll: $17,050
April time played: 6h
April profit/(loss): ($200)

And .. back down again

Played about an hour on Saturday, mainly on Cake, where I seemed to be getting rivered consistently. A quick check of my stats showed me going to showdown a slightly low 30% over 150 hands, and winning a fairly poor 30% of those showdowns.

However, it only resulted in me being down around 25BBs so not really that bad results wise, even though it was at $3/6 in the main.

Sunday morning I managed to get up early for my freeroll, and whilst that was running I had one or two other tables open between Cake, Bodog and Pacific.

After 80 hands of $1/2 on Cake i'd dropped 25BBs where I had a went to showdown at all of 10%, and of those i'd only won 30%. Talk about card dead.

Then at $3/6 on Pacific I dropped another 40BBs where I again managed to showdown 30% of the time, and only won 10% of those. One huge muppet on the table was up 100BBs and every single time he seemed to jag between a two and five outer on either the turn or river. Sickening.

Overally a bit of a nasty little hit to the bankroll, but as i've noticed recently it does happen fairly regularly and all you can do is sit back down, find a great seat on a juicy table, and start grinding it back up again.

The freeroll was a little interesting. About 800 runners for a 10k euro prize pool, however, i'd say at least a third of those runners were sitting out. I seemed to be fairly unlucky with my seat position with a bunch of the sitouts being on my right so I wasn't getting many free chips. I lasted a fair way into the tournament without hitting too many decent hands - although in fact I had AA twice, but both times they were folded to my 3x BB bet.

I found myself with about 9,000 chips in the big blind with blinds at 500/1,000 and an ante of 100 looking at Q9o. I figured at this stage of the tournament with my stack it is basically push or fold, however, on this particular hand there was one min raiser in middle position which gave me about 4.5:1 on a call which I decided to take.

Flop was KK8 giving me absolutely nothing, so I checked. Villain then checked behind, so I was wondering if he'd either flopped a monster, or whiffed completely. Turn was a J, which at least gave me a gutshot, so I checked again, and he checked behind again. Odd. River hit my gutshot with a T, although also would have hit AQ. I decided with my relatively small chip stack it was worth a gamble to just stick it all in here. He had me covered by about 6,000 chips and snap called to show KJ and a turned boat knocking me out of the tourney. Maybe I should have picked the slow play? Dunno. Anyways that was in position 100ish with top 70 being paid. A disappointing 3 hours of effort.

Current bankroll: $17,000
April time played: 5h30m
April profit/(loss): ($250)

Another early one coming up

Played all of 10 minutes yesterday just trying to get 1mpp on Interpoker to qualify for the freeroll that is Sunday morning my time ... 5am ... ouch. Their system seems a little slow in actually updating your fpps so I will have to check my balance and enter the tourney later on today.

Fulltilt has started an interesting promo today as well. Basically you have to play 2 tables simultaneously every day for 10 days straight starting today and you get a $25 bonus. I believe you only have to earn one FPP in each session. Sounds like a piece of Cake for a small albeit useful reward, and since I play at least for a few mins each day I should be able to pick it off pretty easily. Free money is always good. Anyways if you're not a member at fulltilt feel free to sign up under RakeTheRake for rakeback as well.

In my 10 minute session I actually managed to make about 20BBs although mainly at $1/2 on Bodog and a handful at E1/2 on Interpoker. In the space of only about 20 hands i've managed to hit a nut flush, an OESD with my card being a rubbish 5 but good enough to win, and called down one aggro guy with a pair of 6s on a low uncoordinated board for him to show K high. Its kind of funny how sometimes it can take you hours to make 20BBs and other times things just go your way.

Good luck for the weekend. I'll be setting my alarm early for Sunday .... great ....

Current bankroll: $17,450
April time played: 1h30m
April profit/(loss): $200

Running a bit warmer

The usual midweek battle continued last night, where to find tables actually worth playing on I ended up having a single table running from each of Bodog, Pacific, Cake and Fulltilt. They also ranged from $1/2 to $4/8 - which probably actually worked better since it was easy to tell which table was which limit.

After about an hour of play I was up on every table which was a change for the better ... and had even made a few BBs at $4/8 on Bodog. Yeah I know I was going to wait a bit longer before shooting at $4/8 again, but the table was juicy with two significant fish on my right, and another fish on my left, and obviously my overall bankroll can afford to take a shot or 20.

I didn't actually have too many interesting hands - I was either playing premium hands and hitting them, or being dealt rubbish and folding preflop or on the flop. One hand that did make me a few BBs was where I had KQo and had two callers to my raise preflop. Flop of KK6r and I still had one caller. Turn K, and he still called that, and my river bet. Its always nice to have the stone cold nuts. Only ever had them on one other hand where I had an A high flush on the river.

Found another interesting donkey on another table who for some reason refused to consider the quality of his kicker. His A6o was good enough to raise and three bet most streets versus my AJo on one hand, and in another on a four flush board his k6o was good enough to cap the turn (the 6 was his flush card) versus my K high flush. He had a WTSD of around 55% so i'll be keeping an eye out for him in future. If someone wants to pay me off that badly, i'm more than willing to let them.

The end result was that i've now hit a new high for my bankroll, which actually didn't take too long to get to after that nasty little downer last month. Hopefully I can continue to run reasonably hot - although just checking my Pacific stats, my 8BB/100 over 2,200 hands isn't sustainable.

Current bankroll: $17,400
April time played: 1h20m
April profit/(loss): $150