bonus chasing grinder

August summary

2010-08-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

Another fairly small month on the tables - just under 7 hours played total, and I started with a horror session that put me down $300. Made a bit back and got to even for the month in the end thanks to bonuses and interest. I also made a withdrawal and will probably make another one or two shortly as there's just no point in having thousands of $ online when it could be earning interest.

Picked up a cake reload bonus, so i'll be putting in a bit of cake time when I manage to get back to the tables. The little dude is at least starting to sleep a bit more, so hopefully that continues ....

Broke even for the month which was made up of:

Bonuses / VIP / Rakeback: $ 100

• Cake $100

Poker bankroll Interest: $100

Poker losses: ($200)

Current bankroll: $26,850
July time played: 7h
July hands played: 1,216
July profit / (loss): $0

July summary

2010-08-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

Can't say i've been playin much so not much point setting too many goals. In fact played less than 4 hours total for July for a modest gain, albeit 1/3 from bankroll interest alone.

The gain of $300 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses / VIP / Rakeback: $ 150

• Cake $50

Poker bankroll Interest: $100

Poker profits: $150

Current bankroll: $26,850
July time played: 3.5h
July hands played: 445
July profit / (loss): $300

And missed another one

2010-07-26T23:40:00.000-07:00

Can't wait for daylight savings - I just can't do the 4.30am thing at the moment, particularly with Dylan waking me up at various points during the night anyways, so there goes another freeroll without me even playing a single hand.

I've played all of 50 hands since the last post, and won a few BBs. Lost a few with a 3 barrel bluff that got raised on the river, but also did some solid value betting which was called down.

Will get back into the swing of things sooner or later .....

Current bankroll: $26,800
July time played: 3.5h
July hands played: 450
July profit / (loss): $250

Missed my freeroll

2010-07-13T17:06:00.000-07:00

Just couldn't be arsed getting up at 4.30am for my Fulltilt freeroll, so managed to miss that one again. Still very little play this month, and haven't made too much of an inroad into my ironman bonus.

However, in the short sessions i've played i've made a few $ - even after several horrendous suckouts in a couple 20BB pots which were incredibly disappointing.

It can be a little tricky to play when you get handed a screaming baby, but he will always be the priority, so the poker tables tend to get shut down as soon as he needs attention.

I'm not really missing playing much, but that's probably because I played too many hours the month before. Still, I am enjoying it when I do get on the tables so i'm sure my volume will increase shortly. I've decided to do some consolidating of the bankroll as well, and hopefully will withdraw from a few sites I no longer really play on.

Current bankroll: $26,750
July time played: 3h
July hands played: 399
July profit / (loss): $200

Not much poker

2010-07-07T20:18:00.001-07:00

I'd be lucky to have played 200 hands this month, and so far have broken even.

A combination of a funeral, a hospital visit, and Dylan deciding that his time to be super unsettled is from just before I get home from work until I go to bed, has resulted in fairly limited time for poker.

Not too concerned though, i'm sure i'll get back into it, and clear some of my ironman bonus - well hopefully all of it, by the end of the month.

June 2010 summary

2010-06-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

Hmm what can I say. Ended up being my worst month on the tables ever results wise. Could have been even worse except I picked up a couple hundred in my Cake affiliate freeroll.

The last few sessions ended the month just as they began, with my final session on the $5/10 tables including a hand capped preflop with my JJ v TT v AK. Flop JT4r which gets capped. Turn obviously has to be a Q which makes me feel a little sick, followed by a blank river and I lose a 25BB pot.

Actually played a ton of hours - over triple my usual monthly amount, but given I was always on call for bubs, I only played one or two tables at a time, so my volume wasn't really all that much more than normal.

Overall a loss of 350BBs which equated to $900ish after bonuses and rakeback of a good $700.

I qualified for gold level on fulltilt ironman as well - although i've now decided that ironman doesn't really suit me. Being forced into playing almost every day is not something i'm looking for from Poker. I'd rather just play when I feel like it. Basically as soon as I qualified, I haven't been on the tables since which has been the better part of a week.

The LOSS of $900 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses / VIP / Rakeback: $ 600

• Bodog $100
• Cake $100
• Fulltilt $400

Poker bankroll Interest: $100

Poker losses: ($1,600) - ouch

Goals for July are:

• Clear a chunk more of the Cake reload
• Play my Fulltilt and Cake freerolls
• Make a profit

Current bankroll: $26,550
June time played: 85h
June hands played: 8,635
June profit / (loss): ($900)

Within the first 10 hands

2010-06-16T16:05:00.000-07:00

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
4 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.3 SB, 4 players) Hero is BB As Tc
1 fold, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero 3-bets, BTN calls, SB calls

Flop: Td Ad Jh (9.0 SB, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, BTN calls, SB calls

Turn: Kd (6.0 BB, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

River: Qh (6.0 BB, 3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, BTN checks

Final Pot: 11.8 BB
BTN shows
7d 7s
SB shows
Jc Kh
Hero shows
As Tc

BTN collects 1.9 BB (net -0.1 BB)
Hero collects 1.9 BB (net -0.1 BB)
SB collects 1.9 BB (net -0.1 BB)

HAND 2

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
4 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.3 SB, 4 players) Hero is BB 8s 9c
CO calls, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, CO calls

Flop: Ad 9h 8c (8.0 SB, 4 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, 2 folds, SB calls

Turn: 8h (6.0 BB, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, SB calls

River: 9d (8.0 BB, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, SB raises, Hero 3-bets, SB 4-bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 31.7 BB
SB shows
Kd 9s
Hero shows
8s 9c

SB wins 7.8 BB (net +0.8 BB)
Hero wins 7.8 BB (net +0.8 BB)

CO lost 1.0 BB
BTN lost 1.0 BB

Hand 3

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.3 SB, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 As Jd
1 fold, Hero raises, 2 folds, SB calls, BB calls

Flop: Jh 2d 3h (6.0 SB, 3 players)
SB checks, BB bets, Hero raises, SB calls, BB calls

Turn: 4d (6.0 BB, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets, SB calls, BB calls

River: 7h (9.0 BB, 3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero checks

Final Pot: 17.7 BB
SB shows
Ac Js
BB shows
7s 7c

BB wins 8.7 BB (net +5.7 BB)

SB lost 3.0 BB
Hero lost 3.0 BB

Seriously its gotta get better soon.

Still cool

2010-06-16T05:09:00.000-07:00

I'm playing enough for Fulltilt ironman gold status, but still running cooler than i'd like.

Getting hammered at $2/4 and $3/6 where i'm just not winning enough showdowns, or in particular the big pots.

It only takes one or two big pots to make a massive difference to your overall win rate. Say for example you're running at -1BB/100 over 2,000 hands. The very next hand you win a 25BB pot when you river your draw multiway. Suddenly you are a 0.25BB/100 winner.

On the plus side, i'm actually finding some pretty big fish on fulltilt - enough to have at least 3 or 4 tables running most of the time. Unfortunately, they're the one's who've been rivering me, and then donating my cash to everyone else at the table. Hopefully a few hands will hold up soon, or it will be my turn to hit some draws.

Current bankroll: $27,000
June time played: 29.5h
June hands played: 7,098
June profit / (loss): ($450)

Plenty of volume

2010-06-11T00:50:00.000-07:00

Plenty of beats. I'm winning 40% of showdowns rather than the 50% required to win at the tables. Not really much I can do about it but keep on soldiering on.

I found one perfect $3/6 table with a 84/14 guy on my right and a 56/2 guy on his right. The 84/14 guy then proceeded to showdown over 50% of hands, and won over 60% of those. Ack.

Just a few for fun:

Hand 1

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is CO Qc Ks
1 fold, UTG+1 raises, Hero 3-bets, 3 folds, UTG+1 calls

Flop: Th 9d Kh (7.5 SB, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls

Turn: 7s (4.8 BB, 2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls

River: Qh (6.8 BB, 2 players)
UTG+1 bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 8.8 BB
UTG+1 shows a straight, King high
6h Js????
Hero shows
Qc Ks

UTG+1 wins 8.4 BB (net +4.4 BB)

Hero lost 4.0 BB

Hand 2

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BB Qc Kd
4 folds, SB calls, Hero raises, SB calls

Flop: Kh 6d Jc (4.0 SB, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, SB calls

Turn: 7c (3.0 BB, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets, SB calls

River: 5h (5.0 BB, 2 players)
SB bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 7.0 BB
SB shows two pair, Jacks and Fives
5s Js
Hero shows
Qc Kd

SB wins 6.7 BB (net +3.2 BB)

Hero lost 3.5 BB

Hand 3:

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 9d 9s
UTG raises, Hero 3-bets, 4 folds, UTG calls

Flop: 5h 4h Js (7.5 SB, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets, UTG calls

Turn: 3s (4.8 BB, 2 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets, UTG calls

River: 3c (6.8 BB, 2 players)
UTG bets, Hero calls

Final Pot: 8.8 BB
UTG shows three of a kind, Threes
Qd 3d
Hero shows
9d 9s

UTG wins 8.4 BB (net +4.4 BB)

Hero lost 4.0 BB

Hand 4

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BTN Kh Qc
1 fold, UTG+1 raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, 1 fold, BB calls, UTG+1 calls

Flop: Tc 8d 9s (9.5 SB, 3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, BB calls, UTG+1 calls

Turn: Kc (6.2 BB, 3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, BB calls, UTG+1 calls

River: 3c (9.2 BB, 3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, BB raises, UTG+1 folds, Hero calls

Final Pot: 13.2 BB
Hero shows
Kh Qc
BB shows three of a kind, Threes
3s 3d

BB wins 12.8 BB (net +7.8 BB)

UTG+1 lost 3.0 BB
Hero lost 5.0 BB

Hand 5

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is CO Qh Js
1 fold, UTG+1 calls, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls

Flop: Td 8c 7s (10.5 SB, 3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, BTN raises, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls

Turn: 9d (8.2 BB, 3 players)
UTG+1 bets, Hero raises, BTN 3-bets, UTG+1 calls, Hero 4-bets, BTN calls, UTG+1 calls

River: 7d (20.2 BB, 3 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets, BTN raises, UTG+1 calls, Hero calls (yes .. stupid river bet )

Final Pot: 26.2 BB
UTG+1 shows
8h 6h
Hero shows
Qh Js
BTN shows a flush, Queen high
Qd Jd

BTN wins 25.8 BB (net +17.2 BB)

UTG+1 lost 8.5 BB
Hero lost 8.5 BB

Current bankroll: $27,100
June time played: 22h
June hands played: 5,454
June profit / (loss): ($350)

2010-06-08T16:24:00.000-07:00

Surprisingly getting in a fair few hands at the moment. I'm on track for my mid year iron man bonus with fulltilt and just debating whether to hit silver or gold for the month.

Often enough, the Mrs and baby are asleep during the day between feeds which gives me time to hit the poker tables. Still in the red for the month but slowly crawling back up. A bit of rakeback should put me back to at least square shortly.

Given I was running at -10BB/100 for the first couple thousand hands, i've brought it back to -1.28 fairly quickly.

Found a juicy $4/8 table earlier but only got to play 24 hands before it broke up. Didn't win a single hand so that was a 15BB loss. Then I found a nice $8/16 table with position on a couple fairly large fish, and made about 7BBs before my fish left and I got up. All in all even, but it would have been nice to have hit a draw or two on the $4/8 table earlier on some very large pots.

Current bankroll: $27,350
June time played: 14h
June hands played: 3,819
June profit / (loss): ($100)

Cool start to June

2010-06-04T16:41:00.001-07:00

Getting smashed on the $2/4 tables to the tune of 10BB/100 for the first 1k hands of the month. Funny thing is i'm getting way more than my fair share of premium hands, but they are getting slaughtered consistently by mostly trash, but in fairness i've also been running into sets, and had my sets cracked by boats and runner runner flushes.

i'm going to have to deposit some more cash onto fulltilt to have a playable bankroll to clear my bonus, which is my first deposit for a very long time that hasn't been for a reload bonus. Oh well.

Everything else going well, as poker isn't the main focus at the moment with Dylan coming home yesterday.

Current bankroll: $27,100
May time played: 5.6h
May hands played: 1,721
May profit / (loss): ($350)

May 2010 summary

2010-06-01T04:29:00.000-07:00

Been an amazing month - mainly off the tables with the birth of my first child on the 31st.

Although the tables have treated me fairly well also running hot for almost the whole month, albeit playing only 20 hours.

Don't have time to do the usual monthly post as i'm pretty knackered.

I do have a goal or two for the next month, as Fulltilt have just offered me a $150 bonus, so i'd like to clear that, as well as qualify for ironman, which should be fairly easy with that bonus.

Might be an update to this post later .. or maybe not.

Current bankroll: $27,450
May time played: 19.8h
May hands played: 5,132
May profit / (loss): $1,650

Chasing points

2010-05-27T18:29:00.000-07:00

Just realised last night that I haven't qualified for my June Cake freeroll, so have to play a little more Cake in the next few days to make sure I earn enough points for a ticket.

I've also got to remind myself to do the June iron man on fulltilt to get my mid year ironman bonus. Don't think I have left much of a bankroll on fulltilt, but hopefully I can run hot early ....

Played a solid session last night which started badly when in my first hand it was limped by 4 players with me sitting on 84s in the big blind. I flopped the flush at K52 and donked and three bet the flop. Blank turn, but river paired the board with another K. Numb nuts flips over K5o for the boat. Couple hands later there are 3 limpers again and I'm looking at Q9s on the button so call to see me flop a flush draw. My draw hits on the river, and the cutoff bets, so I raise and then he calls, and flips over the nut flush with ATs. Seriously wtf. At least he didn't reraise when holding the nuts.

Thankfully those numpties paid me all that back and then more mainly when my 44 hit a set on the flop again with four callers and one raiser, before filling up my boat on the river with a couple Ks on the board. I have to keep my eye out for a bunch of those guys as they were basically willing to just throw their money away.

Current bankroll: $27,300
May time played: 19h
May hands played: 4,946
May profit / (loss): $1,500

Purple Lounge challenge update

2010-05-25T22:50:00.001-07:00

I set myself a challenge back on 28 April to build my Purple Lounge balance up from $300 to a more playable roll. I had quickly boosted that up to $400ish and since then had another super hot session at $1/2 before running super cold again to end up with a balance around $450. Add a little rakeback at the end of the month and my little self challenge is going fairly well.

Played a little last night, and ran reasonably well again on a mixture of $3/6, $2/4 and $1/2. I think I lost a little at the $1/2 level, but that was more than made up for on the slighly bigger tables.

One single hand at $2/4 made a significant difference when a 45/35 guy raised from the cutoff, and I figured I probably have equity to isolate on the button with QTs. Problem was both blinds decided to come along for the ride and my 3 bet was suddenly not looking so good. Flop was the hail Mary J98r, and somehow the flop got capped four ways. Turn was an Ace, which was a great card for me, given it also gave me a flush draw, and the turn also allowed me to three bet four ways. River was a T which kinda sucked, as there was now a chance I was splitting the pot. The cutoff checked, I bet, and both blinds folded. The cutoff then raised so I three bet as there was no way I was giving him credit for KQ although we could have been splitting if he had a Q. He called and flipped over 87o for the bottom end of the straight, so I scooped the whole pot. Not sure what he was doing with his capping of the flop ....

Current bankroll: $27,200
May time played: 18h
May hands played: 4,719
May profit / (loss): $1,400

Small slide on the tables

2010-05-24T19:51:00.000-07:00

Got smashed by a huge fish the other day for about 30BBs in the space of an hour. He played his 70%+ of hands raisng about 15% and then showed down 50% whilst still winning 50% of hands. He successfully chased several runner runners and it turned out to be quite a frustrating session.

Fast forward to the next session and I found my $8/16 numpty on a $3/6 table. This time he was raising and firing constantly, and I slid down another 20BBs which wasn't looking real good, but I was confident that if he kept bluffing and I kept showing down even half reasonable hands, eventually a few will hold up. The table dropped to three handed, but I could see him just bleeding off cash to the other guy whilst I was treading water. Finally I had several hands hold up in a row where I ended up just calling down with a fairly ordinary pair, and I had recovered almost all of my losses from both the current and previous session. I ended up having to leave when he still had $200 left, which was a little disappointing, but I was happy with the session overall.

I received my final Bodog reload bonus, and that put me back into the black overall for the last few days.

Current bankroll: $27,050
May time played: 17.2h
May hands played: 4,607
May profit / (loss): $1,250

Withdrew too early

2010-05-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

Dammit, the Aussie dollar keeps on going down so I guess I withdrew a couple days too early. Oh well, you win some, you lose some ...

Hardly played last night (30 hands all up), but had a couple accounts credited with rakeback so the bankroll continues to improve. I'd comment on a hand or two, but for the life of me, I can't even remember what happened in a single hand. Not sure I can even remember playing for that matter. I guess I was pretty tired at the time.

Current bankroll: $27,000
May time played: 13.4h
May hands played: 3,543
May profit / (loss): $1,200

Withdrawal time

2010-05-18T21:38:00.000-07:00

I nice little hiccup for the Aussie dollar allowed me to make another withdrawal from the bankroll. Unfortunately the share portfolio is taking a huge hammering at the same time for the same reasons as the drop in the dollar.

Haven't had much time for poker, and still have the remnants of my cold, but still had a small, but solid win. When I logged in I couldn't see any tables worth playing on, apart from a couple with waiting lists four deep, so I added myself to those lists and waited. After about half an hour, another couple tables open up and I jump on them, as well as two others that I add myself to the waiting list of.

All of a sudden i've gone from playing no poker, to having four tables (which were also quite fishy) running, and i've got a couple waiting lists blinking at me that my seat is available.

I started slightly poorly on the tables with an early hand showing 65o in the big blind with one limper. Flop was 334, and he called my flop donk. Turn was another 4, and I bet again and he called. River was an 8. So my option was bet/fold and hope to bluff or check/fold giving myself no chance to win the pot. I elected to bluff, and he called me with T9s which had no draw and he was calling with T high. Seriously wtf?

Fortunately for me, fishy kept playing like that and paid me off again and again. I also made one somewhat hopeful calldown, when I had KTo and raised the one preflop limper. Flop was JJ9, which basically gave me a gutshot, and one over. The preflop limper I had down as having a huge AF and a very high WTSD so when he donked the flop I actually thought I could still be good with K high. Turn was a 6 which didn't help and river was a T, which meant the only way I was losing would be versus his J. He flipped over 96s and proceeded to go mental in the chat box.

Current bankroll: $26,850
May time played: 13.3h
May hands played: 3,513
May profit / (loss): $1,050

Limited play

2010-05-16T23:00:00.000-07:00

Still have this stupid cold, so my play has been limited somewhat as the headache makes it difficult to concentrate.

I found one huge muppet on a $8/16 table though, but I had to leave after a couple orbits when he still had about $50 or so left out of $400, so I guess I didn't miss out on too much. He donated me a quick $100 when he raised preflop with 62s, and I 3 bet with 99 from the big blind. He check / called my flop bet on a pretty ugly flop for me of QJ7r. Not sure how he called that flop for that matter, since it didn't hit his draw and his hand really sucked. I checked the turn, and he bet the river 6, which I called, obviously beating his fairly crap pair. He called down another hand when he held nothing, where I held slightly more than nothing, and I think that was the only other hand I played in the two orbits.

Played a few other tables at the same time, but no real hands of significance. I found it a little tough to find tables over the weekend that were worth playing on. Maybe people are out in the warmer weather in the northern hemisphere instead of sitting inside playin online poker.

Current bankroll: $26,750
May time played: 12.6h
May hands played: 3,397
May profit / (loss): $950

Another stupid cold

2010-05-14T02:31:00.000-07:00

Been stuck in bed and resting most of the time the last few days as i've managed to catch a cold again which has knocked me about a bit. Hopefully i'll be over it by the end of the weekend.

That being said, i've played a few hours in various short sessions, and have found a few fish determined to give away their money, so i've obliged them. Missed a couple huge pots where muppets have jagged a gutshot after capping with only a gutshot, so it could have been better, but nevertheless, I've had a decent run on the smaller stakes tables.

Current bankroll: $26,600
May time played: 11.5h
May hands played: 3,086
May profit / (loss): $800

Played my SCOOP event

2010-05-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

A month or two back I scored a $33 ticket for the SCOOP in the WBCOOP. Try saying that ten times quickly ...

I found the events available for a $33 ticket were fairly slim pickings. I was hoping to try a short handed fixed limit holdem tournament, but there are not many of them on the schedule (maybe 1 or 2 max) and they were not for $33.

My next choice was trying to find a normal NL tournament, but again, there weren't many options, so I had to settle for a 4-max NL tourney this morning. Even though I play 6max normally, i'm not super strong at the very short games in my opinion. I'm probably still a bit too tight.

I think there were about 8,000 entrants, with the top 1,200 being paid, but you really needed to make the top placings to make some decent cash. 1,200th paid about $40 from memory. I played a reasonably tight game, running somewhere at about 35/25, and probably folded too much from the blinds, but it also worked for me in that when I did come in to a hand I often was able to steal it away either preflop or on the flop.

I was also able to let some of the more aggro guys bet into me and either check / raise and bet or call them down depending on how big their stack was and how likely they were to bluff into me when I held a very strong hand. I took out about four players like that.

Possibly the most interesting though was when two guys were having a go at each other in the chat box and eventually they ended up all in on a hand with one guy holding AK and the other holding A7 with the flop K7x. Blank turn, but the guy with A7 spiked his two outer 7 on the river. Unfortunately for him though, he'd already closed the table, so he was automatically sitting out until he bled off all his chips. He still had about 3k chips at the time when the average was 10k so he wasn't really out of it.

Basically I stayed just under the average stack for a few hours, and squeaked into the money with about 25k chips left when the average was probably 40k and blinds at 200/400ish. Once the bubble burst I went completely card dead though, and even though I did last to the top 750 or so, eventually my push with K8s for 10bbs was called by a larger stack with K9o. I flopped the flush draw, but no help and i'm out for about $50.

I played a cash table at the same time for only the first hour or so until the fish ran out. After that I only played the tournament, just so I could concentrate and get the most out of the experience. In the end it was beginning to test my concentration span though, so i'm still fairly sure tournaments aren't the way for me to go.

Current bankroll: $26,450
May time played: 8.7h
May hands played: 2,196
May profit / (loss): $650

Downswing over?

2010-05-09T19:25:00.000-07:00

Took a few months, but i've finally recovered my 500BBs, and am now showing a positive (albeit slight) return from the tables plus a chunk of rakeback on top of that. I was thinking there would be some feeling of relief that i'd attach to it, but to be honest, I don't really care all that much.

All I really want to know is that i'm making a profit, and even if I were still running at a loss on the tables, provided it was more than made up in rakeback, i'd still be happy. Maybe if I were only making one or two dollars per hour in rakeback then i'd be a little more disappointed, but at the moment i'm enjoying my poker and probably making around $30/hour all up. I'd probably still be happy making $10/hour (or possibly even less), as long as i'm still enjoying the game.

The last couple sessions i've actually lost a few BBs, but have made a profit as i've been losing say 10BBs at lower stakes which is more than offset by winning say 8BBs at stakes that are twice the size. Three hands in a single session where i'd hit the K high flush only to get rivered by a single card A high flush were the main culprits in losing a quite a few BBs at the lower stakes.

I also popped on to a $8/16 table briefly over the weekend and won a few BBs which made up for around 25BBs in losses at the $1/2 tables. The only problem with higher stakes appears to be that the fish don't seem to last long at all, and then the table breaks up. I think I played maybe three orbits tops, before the two fish on the table ran out of cash and left, and the other players then sat out.

Current bankroll: $26,300
May time played: 6.8h
May hands played: 1,920
May profit / (loss): $500

First hand of the session

2010-05-06T18:45:00.000-07:00

Now that i'm awake for my first hand, last night I received 99 off the bat. Two limpers and one raiser, so I reraise, and get the two callers. Flop is 963r - kaching. I bet and the raiser again raises, who I know is a super aggro muppet running at 70/40 and yet goes to showdown 50% of the time. Obviously he's just leaking chips constantly.

The other guys fold and aggro man caps my raise. Turn is a 3 to pair the board, and gives me top full house. Turn gets capped, and i'm starting to get concerned about 33. He raises my river bet when the river actually hits a flush draw, and I have a look at his stats again, and yep he is super aggro post flop as well as preflop, so I reraise again. He caps, and flips over 33. ARGH.

Next hand my AQ loses to 45s that called a 3 bet cold. Flopped my ace but he rivers his flush. So i'm down 15BBs in the space of my first two hands. Yuk.

Fortunately for me, the muppets stay at the table, and over the next three orbits I get all that back plus a bit more.

Current bankroll: $26,150
May time played: 4h
May hands played: 927
May profit / (loss): $350

Be awake for the first hand

2010-05-05T21:49:00.000-07:00

Had a disappointing first hand last night whilst I was still opening other tables.

I was in the big blind with T2s, which is generally a fold to a raise, so when I saw what I thought was a 3 bet, I folded. I wasn't really paying attention, and then realised that

a) it was only a single raise and
b) there were two limpers already in the pot.

Now basically I play any two suited if there is a raiser and two limpers, and there was nothing to suggest the original two limpers would limp reraise, so that should be a call for me.

Even more disappointing when the flop came down T2x followed by a T on the turn.

Probably a bit results orientated, but it can be quite annoying to fold what is a winning hand, when you'd normally play it. Of course 99 times out of a hundred that I do fold preflop and hit something I wouldn't really care, as its normally the right decision to make and i'm more or less following my starting hand chart. (varied slightly for opponent).

Current bankroll: $26,050
May time played: 3.1h
May hands played: 721
May profit / (loss): $250

Fixed Limit versus No Limit cash

2010-05-04T21:39:00.000-07:00

Something I’ve been considering in the last few month is on sticking with fixed limit versus switch across to no limit. Whilst I’m still enjoying (and winning) at fixed limit, it’s fairly likely that I will stick with it.

In saying that I also thought about things a bit further in terms of Bankroll management and win rates (possibly in an attempt to further justify staying with fixed limit).

Firstly some assumptions on required bankroll –

1,000 big bets being the required bankroll for fixed limit
100 buy ins of 100 big blinds being the required bankroll for no limit.

Therefore, if you have a bankroll of $1,000 then you’d be playing (assuming 6 max shorthanded):

$0.5/$1 fixed limit or
NL$10 ($0.1 big blind)

Putting that into perspective with win rates, a decent win rate for fixed limit is say 1BB/100, so at those stakes you’d be winning $1/100 hands.

At no limit, I’m not really sure what a decent win rate is, but I’ll take a guess and say 5bb/100. That would equate to $0.50/100 hands.

Overall, it looks like fixed limit is the winner (and rakeback would push it further ahead too), but, since there is a much higher win rate with NL, your overall variance should be lower, so downswings shouldn’t last as long. (although since pots are bigger this may be offset a little when compared with fixed limit).

Maybe my math is off, and I’m sure someone can point to the errors in my logic, or can show me where someone else has done the equivalent calculation better than I could.

But for now, for me, fixed limit is where I’ll stay.

Current bankroll: $26,000
May time played: 2.8h
May hands played: 627
May profit / (loss): $200

A few small sessions

2010-05-02T22:05:00.000-07:00

Didn't get to play much over the weekend, and when I did it was only in short bursts. Each session less than half an hour with the following results

+$50 (solid grind - never really up or down)
-$150 (mainly crucified on a $2/4 table for 40BBs by at 80/60 guy and a 50/4 guy)
+$100 (very brief session of only a few orbits, but hit several hands at a $3/6 table which had tightened up)
+$50 (half an hour of struggle before winning several showdowns on my last orbit)

All in all, up $50 plus some rakeback, so can't complain too much, particularly after some of the beats I'd had on the $2/4 table in that nasty little session.

On the plus side my Purple Lounge challenge balance has moved up to $400 thanks to a solid final E1/2 session which was the bulk of my last profit.

Still playing some Need for Speed on the Wii, so that will keep me out of trouble for a little longer.

Current bankroll: $25,850
May time played: 1.75h
May hands played: 405
May profit / (loss): $50

April 2010 summary

2010-04-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

April ended up being a reasonably solid month, continuing on progress from March. I've touched on completely recovering from my downswing, but am still a few BBs off again now as you can see from my graph from a few days ago.

Can't recall too many highlights from the month, but I did do a couple strategy posts on the blog about table and seat selection.

The were a couple disappointments from a couple sites this month. Firstly the announcement from Bodog that there will be no more monthly reload bonuses. Hopefully they replace it with something half decent. Secondly the drop in traffic on Cake from their loss of a couple rooms. Apparently a couple different rooms are to be added to the network shortly though.

For April the goals in order of priority were:

• Clear a chunk more of the Cake reload (done, although have more reloads queued up than I can possibly clear)
• Qualify for the Cake freeroll (yep)
• Play the March Cake and Fulltilt freerolls (slept through FT ... stupid daylight savings)
• Clear some more bodog reload bonus (cleared a fair amount for me for a month)
• Clear my Party bonus (completed whilst making a loss

The profit of $1,100 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses / VIP / Rakeback: $ 410

• Bodog $150
• Cake $200
• Party $50
• Pacific $10

Poker bankroll Interest: $90

Poker profits: $600

Goals for May are:

• Clear a chunk more of the Cake reload
• Qualify for the Cake freeroll
• Play the May Cake freerolls
• Clear most of my final bodog reload bonus (*sniff*)
• Hopefully baby #1 comes at the end of the month too ...

Current bankroll: $25,800

April time played: 24.5h
April hands played: 5,616
April profit / (loss): $1100

Time to rebalance some cash

2010-04-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

Decided I had too much on a couple sites so it's time to move some cash around. Mostly probably back to neteller, as I think i've got enough on most of the smaller sites as well.

I like to have around 100BBs on any individual site as a minimum, and then if I get to much more than 300BB I will withdraw back down to 100BBs. I'm currently budgeting for playing up to $5/10 so that means leaving around $1k on any individual site. Having said that I may leave $1.5k on the sites I regularly play at, just in case.

I had lost a chunk on purple lounge, and was down to my last $300 on there, but instead of depositing more to bring it back up, I will set myself a challenge to build it up again from there (hopefully without losing it). It might not be the best use of my overall bankroll to make the most profits, but I will enjoy the challenge and it gives me another thing to keep me interested and keen on poker. Not that I really play much on Purple Lounge so it might be a slow process.

On the tables the last couple days, the sessions started okay, up around $100, including a small win on a $5/10 table where I didn't play a single hand for the first 20 hands, before winning a 15BB pot with only top pair.

I then found a $3/6 table with a huge fish to my right, as well as a couple to my left. After not winning a single showdown for 75 hands, it made for a fairly poor result at the end of the day. At least i've found a new fish to look for next time though.

Current bankroll: $25,750
April time played: 24.3h
April hands played: 5,602
April profit / (loss): $1,050

Year to date graph

2010-04-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

Still digging my way out of my downswing from the start of the year, but i'm getting pretty close to seeing light at the end of the tunnel now. Hopefully I won't see a downswing that big again for a while .. touch wood. At the same time, i'm showing an okay profit for the year now, thanks to Rakeback / bonuses.

Can't say I played all that much over the weekend. I've started playing need for speed underground on the wii, and that seems to be taking up some of my spare time instead of playing poker. I'm sure its good to get a bit of a break every so often anyways, and then coming back to the tables fresh and keen to play.

I've also now turned on comment moderation for the blog, as i've been getting a few posters who have included malicious links in their comments which could infect other readers PCs if they're not careful. I'll still allow all reasonable comments though as I view any criticism as contructive in some way.

Current bankroll: $25,850
April time played: 22.3h
April hands played: 5,238
April profit / (loss): $1,150

Purple lounge back up and running for me

2010-04-22T17:27:00.001-07:00

Seems like a simple uninstall and reinstall fixed up my problems with the last update. Not sure why it didn't install successfully before, but at least it's running now.

Not that i've been able to find any tables on there that were fishy enough with the right available seats, so I haven't actually played a hand there again yet.

Played a little last night, with a maximum of four tables running split between Bodog, Cake and Pacific. I suspect that at first it would appear strange to have three different looking tables up at once, but i'm fairly used to it now. There just weren't enough fishy tables running on any individual site.

The fishiest table I jumped on was Pacific, where I proceeded to lose about 15BBs in pretty quick time. My Cake and Bodog tables weren't quite as good, however, both paid me off reasonably well thanks to a couple fish on Cake and one in particular on Bodog. One of which called most times preflop and would call down with bottom pair no kicker no matter what was on the board. Several times i'd cbet even with A high, and he'd call down with say J high. Obviously i've made a note to find him every time I possibly can in future, although I don't think he'll have much cash left.

The second fish was a super loose aggro player, who had me down early thanks to a backdoor flush when he raised T3s from the button versus my AT in the big blind. However, he was kind enough to keep firing most hands, on most streets, with virtually air to pay me off a good 20BBs in the end. Made a note on him as well.

Long weekend this weekend. Might get in a bit of poker with any luck as we're not too busy.

Current bankroll: $25,600
April time played: 21.1h
April hands played: 4,888
April profit / (loss): $900

A sad day

2010-04-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

Just got an email from Bodog - they are discontinuing their monthly reload bonus. Disappointing to say the least, as I probably put in nearly 50% of my monthly volume on Bodog.

All is not lost, as they are going to replace it with something ... but it really depends on what that something is. Hopefully we will find out soon, and it will still be worth my time playing there.

I've got one more month's worth of reload to go, so between Bodog and Cake, that is where the bulk of my play will be.

I've got more bonus pending in Cake than I can possibly clear by the expiry date in July, due to receiving a couple reloads in the space of a week. Doesn't matter too much though, as it clears $10 at a time, so i'll just keep plodding along.

Current bankroll: $25,450
April time played: 20.2h
April hands played: 4,640
April profit / (loss): $750

Weekend freeroll fail

2010-04-20T21:15:00.000-07:00

Got up for the Cake freeroll on the weekend. That's now 4.30am Sunday morning for me until daylight savings comes around again. If I didn't happen to wake up just before it, i'd have missed it, like I did with the Fulltilt freeroll the week before which starts at the same time.

So, after getting up insanely early, I sat down at the table, which had two sit outs, quite a few tight players and two loose fish. I then played for over an hour, but only got to see one flop.

Each orbit I basically was able to grab the blinds, plus a little bit more, and no one called my 3x preflop raises. This went on for basically the whole first hour, except one time when I was in the small blind with junk, and he shoved so I had to fold.

Eventually the blinds have increased by that much that i've only got 9BBs left and shove from the SB with J9o only to get called by one of the table fish in the big blind, who flips over KJs. And that was it for the tournament - at least I saw one flop. Glad I got up at 4.30am for that .......

Current bankroll: $25,350
April time played: 19.2h
April hands played: 4,373
April profit / (loss): $650

Haven't had one of these for a while

2010-04-19T18:42:00.000-07:00

Struggled a bit on the weekend to find tables worth playing on, even during peak times. Maybe the skins leaving Cake are having an impact on their traffic already.

It didn't stop me from finding a couple huge fish on one $4/8 table though. In the hour that I played there one lost $600, and the other lost $400. I ended the session $5 up. Frustrating, but better than the $200 I was down at one stage to the two fish.

This month has been a bit of a roller coaster, having been up a solid 200 to 250BBs, then back to 100BBs up and now back to about 160 up. The bankroll fluctuated even more significantly - up $500 from play, back to even, and now up a bit again. But that's how it is, and its just another day at the office.

Here's my favourite hand from my last session:

$2/$4 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG $193.75
Hero (UTG+1) $93
CO $132
BTN $107
SB $141.50
BB $74

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is UTG+1 8c Tc (about the bottom of my range)
1 fold, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, 2 folds, Hero calls, CO calls (button is a fish, but not overly aggo, so probably has something here)

Flop: Jc 9c 7h (10.5 SB, 3 players) (hehe awesome flop for me - stone cold nuts, plus open ended straight flush draw)
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, CO folds, BTN calls (set of Js for the Button?)

Turn: Ah (10.2 BB, 2 players)
Hero bets, BTN calls

River: 7c (12.2 BB, 2 players) (ka-ching)
Hero bets, BTN raises, Hero 3-bets, BTN 4-bets, Hero calls (hehe i'm guessin he hit his boat here. He will be disappointed)

Final Pot: 20.2 BB
BTN shows (Full House, Aces full of Sevens ) Ac Ad
Hero shows Straight Flush, Jack high 8c Tc

Hero wins 19.5 BB (net +11.0 BB)
BTN lost 8.5 BB
CO lost 2.5 BB

He wasn't overly happy losing with the 2nd nuts and may have chatted a little, but I didn't say anything back.

Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 18h
April hands played: 4,033
April profit / (loss): $550

New microgaming update = crash

2010-04-14T22:20:00.000-07:00

Couldn't find enough tables last night on my main sites, so ended up opening Microgaming in the search for the fish. That automatically updated their software, and when attempting to load, crashed at the loading graphics stage. It now continues to crash there every time.

A quick email to purple lounge support got an amazingly unhelpful response of, does your PC meet the minimum requirements. Given i'd told them what my PC specs are, and the software had been running fine before this was unsurprisingly unhelpful.

I figure i'll try deleting it and reinstalling tonight. Hopefully that will fix it.

I ended up playing on a couple fishy $3/6 tables last night for a while though. And boy was that painful. I found possibly the biggest fish i've ever seen in my life. He simply called. And called. And called some more. Whether he had the stone cold nuts, or was holding 3 high, he called every hand to the river. Of course in several 20BB pots he binked the runner runner nuts to my second nuts or some such equivalent, before donating it all to someone else.

Ended up not helping the bankroll at all. I wish he'd stayed longer, and i'm sure I would have more than recovered. All up, I think I had about four $100+ pots where I got rivered, and since it only takes one or two of those to turn a losing session into a winning session - let alone winning all four from time to time.

Current bankroll: $25,100
April time played: 15.3h
April hands played: 3,531
April profit / (loss): $400

I write about them, and then they bite back

2010-04-13T22:11:00.000-07:00

Ran into a few fish who decided to keep hitting their cards on me which has lead to my worst session for a while. Somewhat ironic, given i'd just written about my favourite types of fish.

One of them was kind enough to take about 30BBs off me, whilst still managing to go broke against the rest of the table, and then leaving and being replaced by a TAG which meant I had to get up to find another table. grrrr.

I also cost myself an extra 3BBs on one hand where I had flopped the nuts, but my opponent had then turned the nuts which meant I was now losing. Capping the river in that situation wasn't my finest work ever.

Anyways, I had to reload on two of my tables where i'd dropped 20BBs each, and continued to lose ending the session with a WTSD of around 22% and a W$SD of 25%. Ugly. About $50 in rakeback credits helped it not look too bad in the end though.

Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 14h
April hands played: 3,214
April profit / (loss): $550

My favourite fish types

2010-04-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

As i've said before, I generally try to be playing against the fishiest (ie worst) opponents I can find. What makes a fish? Well, its basically anyone who plays outside what is normally expected as winning play, and tends to donate their bankroll to the table. ie they lose over the long term at reasonably fast rate.

Generally fish can be classified based on their style of play, which can also be drawn out by their pokertracker statistics. In particular I like to look at their preflop statistics as a key starting point, because, basically if they're a poor player preflop, its also likely they are fairly poor post flop.

So in terms of pokertracker the important preflop stats are:

VPIP: The percentage of times an opponent voluntarily puts money in the pot (ie they limp, raise, or call)
PFR: The percentage of times an opponent raises preflop.

For 6max limit poker that I play, optimal stats are somewhere around the 30% vpip and 20% pfr (usually shown at 30/20 in my blog and generally described as a TAG - tight aggressive). More aggressive players (LAG - loose aggressive) can also be profitable playing a 50%/30% game or somewhere between that and the TAG statistics. I won't go into why those styles tend to be profitable, but if you pick up any 6max limit books, they shouldn't tell you much different from that.

In order of preference I like to be playing against:

1. A very loose passive - anyone who is seeing over about 50% of flops (VPIP 50), and raising say less than 5% I put in the loose passive category who I really want to be playing against. With luck I will even find someone with a VPIP of 80% which categorises them as a massive fish, and there's a good chance they'll give all their money away as they are playing almost any two cards, and likely are playing any two in the blinds.

2. The showdown monkey - This is actually a different statistic in pokertracker as it relates to post flop play. Optimal for a 30/20 player is to go to showdown (WTSD) around or just under 40% of the time. If I ever spot someone showing down 50% of the time or more, you know they are often chasing draws or cards they are not priced in to chase, or bluffing with complete air. These players are particularly profitable for me, as they will be calling big bets on the turn and river, and will often be drawing dead. Combine them with being loose/passive preflop, and they are the perfect fish.

3. A loose semi aggressive - The 60/20 type is also good to play against. You can use a normal preflop range for hand reading their preflop raises, but when they don't raise, you can pretty liberally raise them as they are often playing very poor hands, like unsuited connectors, gappers, Q2 - Q8 etc.

4. A very loose aggressive - sometimes you'll find a player who is showing something like 80/60. They are basically playing every hand, and raising most of the time. Any time you have a solid hand its worth 3 betting to isolate these players. Sure they will sometimes have a hand, and that may create some variance, but generally they will lose all their cash fairly quickly

It is also handy to have notes on how players play particular hands. Some will bet aggressively on the flop with 2nd or 3rd pair. Others will bluff any flop. With the right notes, someone who has solid statistics, can still be turned into a money spewing fish.

Who I try to avoid:

Basically I try to avoid the TAGs. I won't sit in a seat with a 30/20 player on my right. If the player to my right is a LAG running at 50/30, I will only sit down if he is terrible post flop, preferably showing down too much and showing as a big loser in my Pokertracker database.

As per my seat selection post, I dont really care if there are TAGs on my left if there are fish on my right. Sure they'll probably take some money from me, but not as much as I'm making from the fish.

What it means to be playing against fish:

What is means, and what you need to be prepared for, are the bad beats. They are going to be playing rubbish cards. They are going to be chasing their 4, 3,2 or 1 outers. They are going to hit them. Not often enough to not be a complete loser, but often enough to annoy you and potentially put you off your game if they hit a few in a row.

In my last session alone I had AA cracked the three times I received it. Once by someone with T5s who flopped TT5, which also rivered me the backdoor nut flush with four spades on the board. That hand alone cost a lot. Another crack was a guy playing 85s who fopped a set of 8s, and finally the last guy had A6s on a 234 flop, with a rivered 5 which gave me the bottom end of the straight only to lose to his 6.

If you're playing only against TAGs, those beats basically won't happen. However, nor will they keep playing T5s for the 90% of the time that they don't hit anything, or hit something but are still behind giving you an even bigger pot.

Current bankroll: $25,450
April time played: 12.2h
April hands played: 2,875
April profit / (loss): $750

Seat selection 101

2010-04-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

Why seat select?

Couple reasons really -

1. If you read any poker books, they will tell you that money tends to move clockwise around the table. The simple reason for this is that you have position on the opponent to your right, so for five hands out of six, you get to see them act first before you have to make a decision. Therefore you want to have a seat to the left of the biggest donaters on the table.

2. The second reason is to play as many hands as possible against the loose/passive players. If you are not near the fish or they are on your left, then you're not going to play as many hands against them as:

a) other aggressive players will raise you out of the hand,
b) the fish will see your raise and act after you giving them the opportunity to fold or
c) you'll be acting first and fold what could have been a decent hand multiway after they limp.

Basically you want them to be limping in, and then you follow with a raise to either isolate / build the pot with your big hands, or overlimp with decent pot odds. If you're playing before them, then they can fold their trash to your raise, rather than feel obliged to call a raise after limping in.

How do you seat select?

Seat selection is fairly simple really. Find the fish, and sit on their left. You want them limping in just in front of you allowing you to raise and potentially isolate as discussed above, or also giving you the opportunity to limp in with more marginal hands that are now priced to play because of a limper in front.

If you can find a fish that is prepared to just limp in the small blind giving you a free look from the big blind, you've almost found the perfect seat.

The player on your left is not quite so much of a concern. Ideally, i'd like a table full of fish, but if not, a tight passive on my left is also quite good. That would let me isolate my fish on my right, and also allow me to regularly steal their blinds. If I have position on a couple fish, I wouldn't even be concerned if the player to my left was quite good.

If I am looking for a really juicy table, i'll want the two players directly on my right to be loose, passive fish. That way I know that i'm playing the most possible hands against the worst possible players.

The theory applies similarly to an overaggressive loose player. It's generally a good idea to have them on your right, which allows you to three bet fairly liberally preflop to isolate, whilst also having position on them on every street post flop. These types of opponents can give you a lot of cash, but I prefer going up against the loose passives as they generally provide for a lower variance session.

How do I do it?

Basically if there's an empty seat on the left of the fish, its a no brainer, I sit down.

If the empty seat is on the right of the only big fish on the table, I won't sit down.

If i'm on a big downswing, i'll often only sit if there are two fish on the right of the empty seat. If i'm running well and playing at lower than my average stakes (say $1/2 or $2/4) I might accept a tight passive on my right, who won't be raising me off hands, if there is a super loose passive fish to their right.

Mostly though, its a matter of finding tables that have several fish, although they are likely full, and adding myself to the waiting list. At the start of my session i'll add myself to a good five to ten table wait lists (generally across two or three sites) which should allow me to find seats on four tables I normally have active simultaneously.

If the seat that comes up from the wait list does not meet the above criteria, I simply decline the seat, and add myself back to the wait list if the table still looks fishy overall.

If i've already got four tables running and a seat comes up, then i'll only sit at down if it has at least two fish to the right of the empty seat.

Once seated, I basically stay there until the fish run out of cash and are replaced by better players. With any luck they'll either be replaced by another fish, or get lucky and suck out on a number of opponents, whilst continuing to donate to me. I am also prepared to get up from my current seat and move to another one on the same table that is empty next to a fish if necessary. I always want to have the most advantage possible.

I think that about covers it ...

Current bankroll: $25,500
April time played: 10.6h
April hands played: 2,333
April profit / (loss): $800

Table selection 101

2010-04-08T17:14:00.000-07:00

From a comment on my last post: "You mention very often table selection. Might it be possible for you to write an article one day about the way you choose tables, e.g. how long do you observe before sitting down... do you fixate yourself on a specific seat and wait till it's free? Are you using buddy lists?"

Why table select?

To put it as simply as possible, if you are the worst player on the table, you will lose (in the long term). Poker is a game of relativity - you could be a crap player, but if you're playing against worse players you could still be a long term winner. Conversely, you could be the 2nd best poker player in the world, but if you play against the best player, you will lose.

Conversely, if you are best player on the table, does that mean you will win? Well, actually no. Since rake (the house cut) is taken out of every hand, not only do you have to be better than enough players at the table, but better by a margin that also covers the rake. So for an extreme example, if i'm the best player in the world, and am playing against the second best, there's still a fair chance i'd lose in the long term, just because of the rake.

Therefore you need to carefully select tables that have enough players that are worse than you, by a large enough margin to at least cover the rake.

How to table select?

The answer is .... it depends.

Generally I would start by looking in the lobby at tables with the highest number of players per flop. I'm really looking for the loosest opponents, who are most likely to be quite fishy and willing to donate a lot of cash to the other players. (might talk about that a bit more in future posts as some people look for tighter tables, which, in my opinion, is crazy).

On a site like Fulltilt, where you can use pokertracker and a HUD, I also colour code my opponents. For Fulltilt, these colours show up in the lobby view, so you don't even need to open the table to see if there are fish on it. For me, I code the very loose fish a bright green, and preferably if there's two or more on the table, i'll open it up and jump on or add myself to the waiting list.

On Cake poker, where you can't use poker tracker, I make manual notes against each player. These notes do not appear in the lobby view, so I have to open individual tables and then click on each player to check their stats,or view their colour code, generally starting with the player to the right of an open seat. If there are plenty of fish on the table and it is full i'd then just add myself to the wait list.

If the table is full of unknown opponents, then I am a little more reliant on the lobby players per flop figure. If it is very high there's a reasonable chance i'll sit down straight away at an empty seat, and then watch the table fairly closely both before I play a hand and for the first couple orbits. If there are a couple seats free or it's at the top end of my preferred stakes, its more likely that i'll just watch the action for an orbit or two to try to spot a loose passive to sit next to. If the table appears to be super aggro, i'll probably just give it a miss if the opponents are unknown.

Generally what i'm looking for, is a table which has a seat with two loose passive fish to the right, which i'll talk about a little more in seat selection (maybe my next post). If I can find a table with even more loose passives i'd jump at the chance, and instantly add myself to the wait list. Even one huge fish on my right would be acceptable if I know they regularly donate 10+BB/100.

I'm not really using buddy lists, as only certain sites seem to support it. Playing fixed limit 6 max, there's often not that many tables running, so I don't need to go looking for certain opponents, but rather accept any table that looks adequately fishy.

After selecting your table, though, you also need to keep monitoring it, just in case it tightens up as the fish leave, or better players join. I'm always prepared to leave a table if this happens, irrespective of how i'm running.

Current bankroll: $25,250
April time played: 8.3h
April hands played: 1,576
April profit / (loss): $550

How do you react to a downswing

2010-04-06T21:40:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about this the other day, in terms of how I have reacted to my worst downswing to date. Sure i'd had a couple 300BB downswings, but this 500BB one (actually probably even a few more than that) has taken quite a while to recover from.

Step one for me was to withdraw some cash from my bankroll - not a huge amount, maybe $1k or nearly 5%, but almost as much as i'd lost. This seems a bit counter intuitive - withdrawing when I had lost a chunk of change. But I needed a way to feel like poker was still profitable, even if it temporarily (at least I hoped temporarily) wasn't.

Step two has been fairly religous table selecting, which has maybe got a little more lax in the last few weeks after recovering at least a couple hundred BBs. When strictly doing it, I like to have two 50+ vpip fish on my right. When i'm not so strictly table selecting i'll accept a single fish, or even be slightly out of position against several fish. Granted, i'm probably still making a profit when not being quite as picky, but when somewhat beaten down by variance, it's probably good to be playing with the largest advantage possible.

Step three has been patience - not trying to get it all back at once. Money lost quickly cannot be miraculously found again at a rate faster than your overall win rate. Dropping 100BBs can often take 5,000 - 10,000 hands to recover. Whilst it is nice to have the occasional super hot run, it's not something you can rely on.

Step four has been stakes selection - for me it was the choice to maintain my stakes to grind back a profit slowly, rather than increase stakes to try to get it back quickly. I've still played a few hands at $4/8 and $5/10, and even a few orbits at $10/20, but only when i've spotted a hugely fishy table. I think i've stated before that losing say 100BBs at $10/20, whilst being acceptable to my bankroll, it would not be acceptable to me psychologically ... yet. Maybe when my bankroll is larger it will be acceptable to me, but for now, it isn't. Therefore I won't be jumping up stakes to chase any losses any time soon, as it could easily make a downswing substantially worse.

Step five has been to let rakeback do its job. Recovering 200BBs on the tables was enough to recover my 500BB loss thanks to the additional credits generated through rakeback. Enough said.

Having said all that, i'm still well aware that another downswing could start any time soon, and that technically i'm still well down in table winning (approx 200BBs) from where I was.

However, since I include my rakeback in my bankroll, i'm not actually that concerned that i'm still down, and in fact, I don't really track my overall win rate all that closely. Total bankroll to me is far more important - provided that keeps going upwards, i'm happy.

Current bankroll: $25,150
April time played: 7.8h
April hands played: 1,519
April profit / (loss): $450

Party cleared

2010-04-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

Not sure how it cleared, as I didn't think i'd earned anywhere near enough points, but my Party bonus is no longer pending. Maybe because I lost more than the bonus, it instantly cleared. Always annoying when you lose more than the bonus you are trying to earn. Oh well.

I had a couple nasty little sessions, with four showdowns in the space of an hour where i'm holding the K high flush, and have run into the nut flush in obviously some quite large pots. This would have put a decent dent in the bankroll (and in fact dropped me nearly 50BBs all up), if it weren't for a few fish on some other tables who were donating quite liberally, often betting with literally nothing. Admittedly I was even surprised that a few of my hands held up.

Indeed, on one hand I held AK on a flop of AKK, and managed to keep two opponents calling my raise on the flop, and then they both called the turn K which gave me quads. Only one caller on the river though, but it was a nice pot still.

Current bankroll: $25,100
April time played: 7h
April hands played: 1,375
April profit / (loss): $400

$25,000

2010-04-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

Better late than never - was hoping to hit $25,000 back in December, but my 500BB downswing over the next couple months destroyed that idea. Feels good to hit the milestone though, and I guess a bit of a vindication that with patience, i'll eventually be able to recover any losses.

Still a fair way into that downswing now, having recovered a little over 250BBs, but rakeback and bonuses have made up for the rest of those losses, and added a little profit on top.

I've actually played a few hours over the Easter weekend, but it looks like everyone's on holiday, as there aren't all that many tables running whenever i'm on. Each session seems to have started with a loss before ending a few dollars up, and i've bounced off the $25k mark a couple times already. Hopefully here to stay now - particularly if I can keep running a little on the hot side.

I've only really had one bad session so far this month, where I ended up heads up with an aggro muppet who just kept hitting everything - I was particularly aggrieved with his 45o on a board of AT7r when i'm holding KT and he c/rs the flop, raises the 4 turn, and then bets the river 5 when he spikes his runner runner two pair ... f me. That was at my bogey stakes level of $2/4. All other stakes from $1/2 to $5/10 are currently in the green for the month, although at such a small volume they could easily turn around.

Current bankroll: $25,000
April time played: 5h
April hands played: 984
April profit / (loss): $300

March 2010 summary

2010-03-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Coming into March I'd hit a 500BB downswing for the year. Things were looking fairly nasty.

By the end of March, i've made 180BBs of that back, plus a chunk of rakeback to actually put me in front overall for the year, and my bankroll back to an equal all time high.

Quite a relief really, albeit with the month ending with several frustrating sessions that didn't run as well as i'd have hoped. Having found some very fishy opponents, I not being able to take any of their bankroll, and often they ended up taking a chunk of mine.

For March the goals in order of priority were:

• Clear a chunk of the newest Cake reload (cleared about $70 only .. but better than nothing)
• Qualify for the Cake and Fulltilt freerolls (qualified)
• Play the February Cake and Fulltilt freerolls (played with one min cash from memory)
• Make a profit on the tables would be nice ... (solid profit, running at about 3BB/100)

The profit of $1200 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses / VIP / Rakeback: $ 310

• Bodog $100
• Cake $130
• Fulltilt $80

Poker bankroll Interest: $90

Poker profits: $800

Goals for April are:

• Clear a chunk more of the Cake reload
• Qualify for the Cake freeroll
• Play the March Cake and Fulltilt freerolls
• Clear some more bodog reload bonus
• Clear my Party bonus

Current bankroll: $24,700

March time played: 26.8h
March hands played: 5,936
March profit / (loss): $1200

Quiet weekend

2010-03-28T21:21:00.001-07:00

Baby stuff (natal class) and family stuff took up almost the whole weekend, and with the AFL starting this week, poker really took a back seat.

Several short sessions saw me up $50, down $200, and finishing about where I started with the main area of pain being AA, which lost 3 times out of 3. Several very large pots went down when I lost my TPTK to sets, and the one time I flop a set, villain hits a runner, runner gutshot straight. argh. Coming out even was a bit of a relief in the end though, compared to where I was at one stage. At least I was able to find several fishy tables to play on.

Current bankroll: $24,700
March time played: 24.6h
March hands played: 5,322
March profit / (loss): $1,200

Equal to an all time peak

2010-03-24T22:01:00.000-07:00

This month continues to run well, with my bankroll getting back to equal an all time high for me, which I last hit early January. Bit of a relief really, as the confidence had been given a fair shake at the bottom point of my downswing.

Interestingly with this month running quite well i've been unable to find any decent $4/8 tables, and only one very short $5/10 session towards the start of the month. Maybe I am more successful at the lower limits? ... will have to check my stats later on, although I know $3/6 has been my sweet spot for a while without even looking.

Current bankroll: $24,700
March time played: 22.4h
March hands played: 4,489
March profit / (loss): $1,200

Cake continues to run well

2010-03-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

It appears that for me, the Cake glitches have ceased (touch wood). Since my last dummy spit with them, and a software update or two, it has been running without fault. It's also meant that whilst i've been dropping a few BBs on party (I am going to need to deposit), i've been more than offsetting that with another decent run on Cake. (I am going to need to withdraw).

In almost an hour last night I made a few BBs here and there. Flipped through a lot of tables trying to find the fish but it was a bit of a struggle. I ended up on one table with a tag on my right, and two huge fish on his right. I suspect that is still a profitable position, but not ideal, so as soon as one of the fish ran out of cash I quit that table. After that the tables gradually tightened up further, until it was no longer worth playing any of them. Its a real pain that when I get home from work here, it is perfectly off peak time for poker and there are the least possible tables running.

Current bankroll: $24,650
March time played: 21.1h
March hands played: 4,440
March profit / (loss): $1,150

Party bonus

2010-03-22T20:54:00.000-07:00

Logged into my Party account the other night to play a few hands to ensure my account doesn't go inactive, and saw that I had a $50 bonus which clears at 5 points per $. This is a 40% rakeback equivalent, so not too bad, and i'll probably clear it when I can't find tables running on my other sites.

That being said, I started poorly, running my flopped set of Ts on a 4 way capped preflop pot, into an open ender which completed on the turn to see me drop quite a few BBs. I only had a couple hundred on Party, so I may need to make a deposit just to clear a $50 bonus. Annoying.

Got my rakeback credit from Bodog, and won a few BBs there to make up for my Party losses. Again I was actually up a couple hundred before dropping back towards the end of my session. No real reason for it, just whiffed several flops in succession across several tables which inevitably puts a bit of a dent in the session results.

Current bankroll: $24,600
March time played: 20.2h
March hands played: 4,158
March profit / (loss): $1,100

Sometimes I can't add up

2010-03-21T17:39:00.000-07:00

I was just getting ready to fire off an email to Bodog as to why I hadn't received my monthly reload bonus, and was grabbing screenshots etc of transactions to prove I was eligible, and that it should have come through by now. I was about to hit send when I thought to myself, hang on, their reload bonus pays out every 30 days. My last reload was 21 February. Therefore at 21 March, that is only 28 days since 21 February, and not 30, so my bonus is not even due. Luckily I didnt' send it, although at least it was going to be a polite email. Sending abuse to someone who is giving you bonus money is never a good strategy, and i'd advise against it.

Put in a few solid sessions over the weekend, which started better than they finished. Down early about 20BBs on a $1/2 table, but at the same time up 40BBs on a $2/4 table had me looking pretty good and the bankroll almost back up to an all time high. After that I had several break even sessions, so that should at least generate some rakeback

However, the last session of the weekend went poorly from hand one, with AA cracked by 83o and saw me drop back about $100 for the session.

I also played in the Cake freeroll, and busted out relatively early when my AKs ran into 96o on a 6 high flop which gave me the flush draw and two over cards. I check/raised all in and the 96 guy called me. No help on the turn and river and I'm out. Would have been good to double up there as it would have given me a decent chance in the tourney.

Current bankroll: $24,550
March time played: 19h
March hands played: 3,878
March profit / (loss): $1,050

Poker v Life

2010-03-17T16:02:00.000-07:00

Where does poker rank in terms of your priorities?

For me, although I still enjoy it a lot, I don't think it ranks all that highly in the scheme of things. Perhaps in front of watching TV if its not a show i'm highly interested in, but behind a lot of other stuff. Online poker in particular tends to be quite isolating, so I generally only try to play when my wife is off doing something of her own.

It has also been pretty warm here the last few days, so the choice when I get home from work is to either a) fire up poker while the missus is exercising or doing her own thing, or b) jump in the pool. With the warm weather coming to an end fairly soon, option b) has tended to win lately, so relatively little poker has been played.

That being said, I still got in half an hour last night and went on a super hot run, gaining about 70BBs across four tables. A fair chunk of it was only at $1/2 as I couldn't find many loose tables at higher stakes, but nonetheless it was good to see flops hitting me hard left and right. Add to that some super aggro fish who were more than happy to 3 bet preflop with 72o and then bet every street, so calling down with any pair was also profitable.

My favourite hand was when I had QJo in MP and raised and got three bet by the big blind. Flop of AKTr was superb, followed by a 9 turn, where the betting got capped. River was an ugly Q so I figured I was now splitting the pot, but I got called down By A6o (the guy who 3 bet preflop) and KTo. Nice.

Current bankroll: $24,500
March time played: 15h
March hands played: 2,941
March profit / (loss): $1,000

2010 year to date stats check

2010-03-16T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hands: 17,298
Hours: 73.55
Table $ losses: ($1,201) (ouch)
Table BB losses: 411
BB/100: (2.39) (double ouch)
Total raked: $2,313

rakeback, bonuses and interest: $1,400 (thanks mainly to rakeback. Couldn't play without it!)

Net poker profits for 2010 to date: $200 (yep .. that's an earn rate of $3/hr ... although better than the losing rate it has been at when my BB losses peaked at -480)

Currently winning at $3/6 to the tune of about $1,200 over 4.5k hands, but losing at every other level from $1/2 to $5/10. $2/4 has been particularly punishing this year so far, with losses of almost $950.

So far, a pretty poor run for the year, to say the least... Hopefully in six months time, it will be a distant memory.

In front for 2010

2010-03-15T18:06:00.001-07:00

Well, it has taken a while but finally i'm back in front again for 2010. Hopefully it can stay that way. I should really check my overall stats, as i'd still be way down in terms of BB/100 - most likely still over 400BBs down, but thanks to rakeback and bonuses my bankroll is headed in the right direction.

Only played a small session last night, where I won a few $, but also received a couple rakeback credits from the last few weeks, which has boosted the bankroll slightly.

This week is looking like it will be pretty light on for volume again, although I may find a few hours on the weekend with any luck.

Current bankroll: $24,250
March time played: 14.5h
March hands played: 2,786
March profit / (loss): $750

FT freeroll

2010-03-14T17:24:00.000-07:00

Played in my affiliate FT freeroll and had the chance to do well, even though I had to get ready for work at the same time, and potentially cut my tourney short when I had to leave for work. However, it didn't get that far.

I had a superhot start, receiving premium cards regularly, doubling up early with a flopped set, followed up fairly closely with the muppet on my right doubling me again, when after starting extremely tight, he decided to go all in every hand. He doubled about three times in a row with trash but his 64o was no match for my AQo where we both whiffed the whole board.

After that, card dead for an hour or more, and held my stack through blind stealing alone, and one resteal for a substantial amount. The bubble came and went with me sitting on a slighly above average stack. Finally I received a hand - AKo with a short stack min raising in front so I just pushed in and got called by 66. No help for me and i'm now a little under an average stack. Very next hand QQ, and I raise 3xBB and get three bet by the button. I shove, and he insta calls with AKo. Flop JT7r, turn 3, river Q and i'm out for not much more than a min cash.

I actually quite enjoyed the tourney though, I think mainly as its a bit of a change up from cash games, and that's all i've been playing lately. Annoyingly it looks like my tourney's are starting at 5.30am my time now .. and will only get worse when daylight savings ends. That's when it is much easier to just stay in bed ....

Didn't have much time for cash games over the weekend, and only really played a few hands whilst playing my tournament. I ended up doing a few other things at the same time so the cash games got the chop early after only 50 hands or so.

Current bankroll: $24,100
March time played: 14h
March hands played: 2,659
March profit / (loss): $600

Fulltilt bonus complete

2010-03-09T17:06:00.001-08:00

Finished my Fulltilt bonus last night, so will be back to Cake, bodog, pacific etc for a while until I get a new bonus. Also withdrew a chunk of my bankroll from Fulltilt as there's no point in leaving that much there where i'm only going to play a limited amount. Left enough to have a table or two running though, just in case.

I also ran into a several huge muppets last night on Cake, who were killing me early and put me down 40BBs at $3/6 in quick time - 84o > AA etc etc. I slowly recovered most of it, and bonuses put me almost back to even for the session. I probably would have stayed longer but the muppet sitting on my direct right on one table disappeared, so the table was not worth continuing at and I quit at the next big blind.

Left my PC doing database mainentenance so won't have my stats until tomorrow in terms of hours and hands played.

Current bankroll: $24,000
March time played: 13.5h
March hands played: 2,607
March profit / (loss): $500

Solid long weekend sessions

2010-03-08T15:24:00.001-08:00

I played a little more poker than I thought I would over the weekend, and it generally ran successfully with several poor tables at the lower limits being more than offset by a super hot run on the $3/6 tables.

I ended up having a lot of smallish sessions which resulted in 10 - 20BB gains mainly from a number of fish who decided not to suck out on me. In fact it was almost the opposite, with me hitting hands quite regularly, and even when I whiffed my flush draw in one hand when I held Ad2d and flopped the draw, runner, runner 2s still won me the hand.

I was also successfuly against some real aggro muppets, who were seeing approximately 70% of flops and betting out on most streets consistently. It was worthwhile calling down with almost any pair, as several times I saw them bet every street and flip over something like 53o or 62o on the river after a flop of AKTr.

I've almost finished my Fulltilt bonus, so I'll need to wait for another bonus there before returning in a hurry. Although if I cant find any other sites worth playing I may play there some just for the rakeback if tables are super fishy. The Cake bonus on the other hand, is clearing extremely slowly, so I'm guessing its going to take me the next couple months and more to clear it all. It may even expire not completely cleared, but that's not a problem as it's paid out in $10 chunks.

Current bankroll: $24,050
March time played: 11h
March hands played: 2,130
March profit / (loss): $550

Clearing strategy for the month

2010-03-04T16:05:00.001-08:00

Could not find tables worth playing on last night and ended up playing about 20 hands in total. Hit a couple nice flops though and made about 10BBs so can't really complain.

I've got about $20 of my Fulltilt bonus to clear, and about $270 remaining of my Cake bonus. Fulltilt expires around the 25th, so there's no real rush to clear that as it won't take long. Cake expires in a little under 3 months, so no pressure to clear that either.

However, to maximise my bonuses and table selection, I will start opening Cake first and try to find fishy tables there before opening Fulltilt. That way I can stretch out my Fulltilt bonus for as long as possible whilst still clearing away on cake. Not really rocket science, but I figure that will give me the best use of my time.

Not sure how much play i'll get in this weekend - there's a fair chance of not much, although the weather is looking pretty crappy so you never know.

Current bankroll: $23,600
March time played: 4.8h
March hands played: 1,080
March profit / (loss): $100

A better session

2010-03-03T15:26:00.000-08:00

Had to go home early for a security door to be fitted, so took the opportunity to hit the tables.

Although there weren't a whole lot of good tables available I found one with a 100% vpip fish who was sucking out left, right and centre of the whole table. He built up a good 40BB profit within about 40 hands when I hadn't won a single hand which was starting to get annoying, before he quickly blew the lot to everyone else on the table .. which was even more annoying.

A couple other tables fared a lot better though, where on one I scored bullets twice in a row and the same opponent check/raised and called me down to the river, which was nice of him when he didn't even have a pair or a draw. That one table alone donated me a good 30BBs which put me well up for the session.

Not huge in volume terms as I only really had two tables open at best, but at least i'm back in front for the month for the time being. (still actually down in BB/100 terms)

Current bankroll: $23,550
March time played: 4.5h
March hands played: 1,056
March profit / (loss): $50

A sign of things to come?

2010-03-02T16:43:00.000-08:00

$2/$4 Limit Holdem
6 Players

Stacks:
UTG $83
UTG+1 $143
CO $62.56 (not a bad player)
BTN $83.50
Hero (SB) $95
BB $221.49 (bit of a moron)

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is SB Ad Ah (awesome to get early in a session)
2 folds, CO raises, 1 fold, Hero 3-bets, BB 4-bets, CO calls, Hero calls (4 bet from the BB I guess means a big pair)

Flop: 9h As 3s (12.0 SB, 3 players) (awesome flop for me - only really looking average against an unlikely KsQs)
Hero checks, BB bets, CO folds, Hero calls (decided to wait for the turn to c/r - I would often just raise here, but not always)

Turn: Qh (7.0 BB, 2 players)
Hero checks, BB bets, Hero raises, BB calls (nice card for me - set of Qs would be great)

River: Th (11.0 BB, 2 players)
Hero bets, BB raises, Hero 3-bets, BB 4-bets, Hero calls (surely not KhJh? Feelin sick at the cap)

Final Pot: 19.0 BB
Hero shows ThreeOfAKind
Ad Ah
BB shows Flush, Queen high
4h 8h (ummm)

BB wins 18.2 BB (net +9.8 BB)
Hero lost 8.5 BB
CO lost 2.0 BB

After that I actually won back a chunk, and went up a couple hundred, before not managing to win a showdown in the space of 100 hands which dropped me back down $100 all up.

Still waiting for a turnaround as i'm winning well under 50% of showdowns.

Current bankroll: $23,400
March time played: 2.5h
March hands played: 815
March profit / (loss): ($100 )

February 2010 summary

2010-02-28T17:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I finished the month with a big fat turd.

The last 1,500 hands resulted in a loss of about 160BBs ... or a little over 10BB/100.

I ran my top boat into quads twice, an A high straight into a river flush, and 3 of a kind was a losing hand for me over that sample as well. Quite ugly really. And it was also getting frustrating to see several players on my right running with a vpip over 50% with a pfr of less than 5% but still going to showdown 60% of the time and winning 65%. Unreal.

After a half decent recovery, it also took my January downswing of 400BBs even further to 500BBs which is getting pretty nasty. Although in total February still ended at a profit in dollar terms thanks to rakeback and bonuses.

For February the goals in order of priority were:

• Clear my remaining Cake reload (done)
• Qualify for the Cake freeroll (done)
• Play the January Cake and Fulltilt freerolls (half)
• Make a profit! (loss on the tables but an overall profit)

The profit of $200 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/vip/rakeback: $ 270

• Bodog $70
• Cake $100
• Fulltilt $100

Poker bankroll Interest: $80

Poker profits: ($150)

Goals for March are:

• Clear a chunk of the newest Cake reload
• Qualify for the Cake and Fulltilt freerolls
• Play the February Cake and Fulltilt freerolls
• Make a profit on the tables would be nice ...

Current bankroll: $23,500
February time played: 20.6h
February hands played: 5,414
February profit / (loss): $200

Treading water ...

2010-02-25T16:00:00.000-08:00

.... in a couple of ways - firstly in the pool to try to fix my back which i've managed to stuff again, and secondly with my bankroll not moving at all in the last few sessions.

I had the chance to put in a lot of hours this week, but got sidetracked with softmodding my Wii so I no longer have to keep using my Wii discs and then secondly with getting lightheaded in the pool and feeling sick the rest of the night the other day. I guess you really dont want to be passing out in the pool, so I got out pretty quick, but then couldn't even look at a computer screen, let alone concentrate on poker.

On the tables, when I have been playing the fish have been pretty scarce on Fulltilt, so table selection has been relatively tough. Nevertheless, i've almost qualified for next month's freeroll, and should do so comfortably on the weekend, even though we're pretty busy once again.

Current bankroll: $24,050
February time played: 17h
February hands played: 4,227
February profit / (loss): $750

A new fulltilt bonus

2010-02-23T15:42:00.000-08:00

Looks like Fulltilt has come through with the goods again - this time the Rush bonus which is worth a minimum of $50, although luckily mine has come through for $100.

Fulltilt seem to be doing a lot more bonuses these days - i think in my first year on there I never received another bonus, which was disappointing. Now there have been several in the last few months. Keep it up Fulltilt I say.

I started clearing it ... well thought i'd started but actually for about 10 minutes i'd forgotten to actually opt into it so I was not actually clearing anything which was a rookie bonus chaser error. Ooops.

My aim will be to make sure I clear enough points this month to also qualify for my affiliate freeroll, and then finish off the bonus in March to again qualify for the next freeroll.

I also played a bit of Cake last night, taking a risk by opening four tables, however, this time it all went smoothly with no crashes or bugs or other random errors. Hopefully Cake continues to be stable for me.

Current bankroll: $24,050
February time played: 15h
February hands played: 3,770
February profit / (loss): $750

Why cake, why?

2010-02-21T20:23:00.000-08:00

One of my favourite sites, Cake poker, was giving me grief over the weekend.

It seems that the latest update did not agree with my PC.

I played in a freeroll on Sunday morning which was running fine, but opened a couple cash tables at the same time.

On the first table, I couldn't actually see my own cards .... that makes things kind of tricky. The other tables were working fine, so I adjusted my table selection filter down to allow me to see $0.50/$1 so that I could open several tables without it costing me too much.

They all seemed to work okay, except I couldn't always get the hand history up, and at one stage when I closed a table, the whole cake application crashed me out. Luckily I could reload it and get back in before being timed out.

All this, however, does not give me a great confidence in playing on cake, so I might continue at the lower stakes until it looks like it's running better. I know in the past i've had bugs and glitches with Cake, but never so many in such a short space of time.

Current bankroll: $24,050
February time played: 14h
February hands played: 3,519
February profit / (loss): $750

Little heads up

2010-02-17T20:52:00.000-08:00

Struggled a bit to find tables worth playing on last night across opening bodog, cake, pacific, and microgaming, although when I did find a table they generally paid me off a few BBs before breaking up relatively quickly.

One Cake table turned out to be the opposite though, taking a quick 20BBs from me before it broke up leaving me heads up with the table fish. It was only a $1/2 table, and the last table I had left open, so I figured since he was pretty fishy it might be worth a bit of heads up practice. He limped in most hands, so with anything decent I raised, and he'd often call the flop but fold to a cbet on the turn so most pots were getting to a reasonable size for heads up.

He eventually started spitting the dummy though as I went from my -20BBs back up to even in pretty quick time. He limped in two hands from the sb in a row where I had pretty much trash in the bb, only for me to flop a straight on both occasions which ended up pushing him to quit.

Must admit it was quite fun playing heads up, but i'm still not sure i've got the strategy for it. I should really read some more on it.

A couple rakeback credits also helped the bankroll, and now i'm not far off recovering January's losses.

Current bankroll: $24,000
February time played: 12.4h
February hands played: 3,000
February profit / (loss): $700

Little time, little play

2010-02-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

Only played a few hands again whilst waiting for the Missus. Was a bit disappointing that I couldn't stay longer, as there was a huge fish on my right who i'd seen call a raise with 53o and then bet every street when the lowest card on the board was a 5.

He donated me a few chips while I was there, but not enough to make much difference to the bankroll. This was again on a $4/8 table by the way, so yes you can find fish as you go up the stakes - you just have to look a bit harder.

I've now converted my Fulltilt notes successfully from my old PC, which was a piece of cake in the end. I've also done my microgaming notes, although haven't checked whether it worked or not. Read about Bodog last night storing notes in the windows registry - i'm hoping that was a much older version of the software as that would be completely bizarre if that were still the case. I'll send them an email to find out for sure how to do it.

Current bankroll: $23,850
February time played: 11.4h
February hands played: 2,861
February profit / (loss): $550

Still converting

2010-02-15T21:20:00.000-08:00

I think i've sussed out how to convert across my Fulltilt notes from my old PC, so now only really bodog and microgaming to go.

Only played a few minutes last night and hit a stack of premium preflop hands as well as a couple flushes. Up about 15BBs at $3/6 in the end due to a couple suckouts in those hands, but can't complain at all about that.

I've now recovered about 140BBs of my 400BB downswing, so the bankroll is starting to go in the right direction again. Hopefully it continues. I'm not expecting to get in a huge amount of play this week, and it seems every weekend for the next couple months we've got something on at least one day, if not both. Poker will be taking a backseat for a while.

With the baby due in the next three or four months, I dare say this whole year is going to end up pretty light on for poker volume.

I guess i'll wait and see ....

Current bankroll: $23,800
February time played: 11h
February hands played: 2,827
February profit / (loss): $500

Back in business ... again

2010-02-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

Whilst my earlier call of being back in business may have been premature given my PC dying and all, I believe i'm now all set to go.

I've got PT3 converted across and four or five poker sites are up and running and importing correctly. I've copied my Cake notes across, although still have to work out how to copy across notes for Fulltilt and microgaming, but its not quite as important, since i'll have a HUD for those.

Played a bit over the weekend including the Fulltilt freeroll, but most of my play was a bit stop and start, checking with PT3 that everything was working correctly after an orbit or two before trying another site.

That being said, I found one super fish on a nice $3/6 table, who I believe played every single hand for about 100 hands. However, in that time he ended about 60BBs up and had about 25 of mine. Another table paid me that back though so I ended even for that particular session.

Cake have also come through with the goods and i've taken up another reload for $300, which came just in time as I cleared my last Cake bonus on the weekend. Thumbs up to Cake again so I'll be sticking with them for a minimum of a couple more months whilst clearing the bonus for effectively 50% rakeback.

Current bankroll: $23,700
February time played: 11h
February hands played: 2,799
February profit / (loss): $400

New PC almost there

2010-02-11T15:14:00.000-08:00

Bought all my pieces for my new PC Thursday, with only one change to the build where I ended up going with an Intel i5 instead of the AMD cpu as well as a corresponding motherboard change. It all went together fairly easily, and is pretty quiet and uses about a third of the power of my old PC. I've still got to put in the TV tuner card, but I don't think that will add much.

Had one false start with the new PC where I installed about 10 pieces of software without rebooting when requested. Next reboot, and windows would no longer load ... so I had to start all over again.

I've finally got all the poker software installed. The one last battle will be transferring over my PT3 database and then setting up all my hand imports. Not as simple as i'd first thought as my old database is version 8.2 and my new one is 8.3, so i'll have to check the forums on how to do it, as backup and restore didn't come close to working.

Current bankroll: $23,650
February time played: 9h
February hands played: 2,385
February profit / (loss): $350

Biting the bullet

2010-02-09T14:54:00.000-08:00

Going to bite the bullet and buy a new PC in the next day or two. My current machine booted okay the first time last night, but after a required reboot, had to be rebooted again twice more to get it to run without freezing up.

I've specced it out as follows for you geeks out there:

CPU: athlon 2 x2 235 45w
Mobo & GPU: GA-MA785GMT-UD2H
RAM: Gskill 4GB DDR3-1333
HDD: Samsung F2 1.5TB
Case&PSU: antec nsk2480b
ODD: Sony sata
O/S: windows 7 home premium 64bit oem

Pretty low specs, but should be enough for poker and htpc purposes. I'm a bit annoyed the phenom 2 905e chips aren't available in Australia, otherwise i'd get one of them instead. That will have to be a later upgrade now.

Hopefully i'll be back in business on the tables properly soon.

I played a few more hands last night when the machine was running and had a horrible run on a $4/8 table where I ran into a boat with my set, as well as a couple sets when I held TPTK. However, I ran like god on the $3/6 tables to make up for it and ended just in front for the session.

Current bankroll: $23,600
February time played: 8.5h
February hands played: 2,350
February profit / (loss): $300

PC trouble continues

2010-02-08T21:20:00.000-08:00

Well, last night I fired up my partially installed vista pc ... and promptly was asked to enter a system disk. Not a good start.

I then tried installing vista on another drive and that wasn't successful either, so i've reverted back to my original drive, which is hit or miss on whether it decides to boot or not.

I played a few hands then, but figured i'd be better off trying to work out what is wrong with the PC. Ran a memtest, and memory is okay, so my latest guess is there's a problem with the motherboard.

Perhaps it's time to invest in a new machine .... Might happen in the very near future.

I have to agree with blindman's comment on my last post - even without the hud, with decent notes most sites would still be EV+. That being said, with my original drive I still have my database and hud operational, so will use it until I get a new machine.

Current bankroll: $23,550

A new vista battle

2010-02-07T16:34:00.000-08:00

Finally got round to rearranging the hard drives in my PC so that I could install windows vista on a different drive to work out whether my problem is a vista one (well it is three years old without a reinstall) or a hardware one.

I couldn't remember vista being this painfull to install the first time round, but now i'm thinking I should have just ponied up for windows 7 instead.

After the install i've set it to just get all the windows updates automatically, so first up 102 patches which takes a couple hours. Next up 3 patches, followed by another 40 or so. About 20 seem to have failed to install for some reason.

In the mean time i've tried to reinstall PT3, however, the underlying database won't install without Vista service pack 1 being installed which is one of those automatic updates that it hasn't gotten round to yet.

Several hours later, and I check the updates, and it has 'failed' next to service pack 1. FFS. How can it fail? It's a clean install.

So when I get home from work i'll be back trying to finish off all these updates so that I can hit the tables again with PT3 and hud running. I'll probably play some Cake while i'm waiting since I have no HUD there, but won't bother anywhere else unless I stick to very low stakes, or already have notes on most of the players at the table.

So overall for the weekend - a few hands of poker friday night, and none at all Saturday or Sunday. I only started my vista install sunday afternoon, but I can't see it being finished all that quickly.

Current bankroll: $23,500
February time played: 8h
February hands played: 2027+
February profit / (loss): $200

Just when I thought ...

2010-02-04T21:09:00.000-08:00

... I was back in business with my internet connection, and all of a sudden my PC decides it no longer wants to boot as of this morning. ARGH.

Before that happened I had been able to play a few hours yesterday when I had to leave work early for a guy to come round to measure the back for some sliding security doors. Obviously this means its time to play some poker.

It continued in the same vain as my last few sessions - commencing with a loss of a couple hundred dollars, followed by a claw back of my losses over the next hour or so. I'm looking forward to having a nice session where I start in front and stay in front.

Hoping to play a few hours this weekend, assuming I can get my PC up and running again shortly. I realised the other day it's nearly three years old, so maybe this is a hint to go buy a new one....

Current bankroll: $23,400
February time played: 7h
February hands played: 2027
February profit / (loss): $100

Slow start to Feb

2010-02-02T20:01:00.000-08:00

I've put in a couple hours but haven't really gotten far. Dropped a fair few BBs on the $2/4 tables, but won a bit on $3/6 and $1/2 for an overall loss of $50 on the tables according to PT3. It's just missing those one or two big pots that makes all the difference, although my W$SD stat is still a bit down from normal so far this month. Small sample though so should improve with any luck.

The bankroll has moved up slightly, mainly due to rakeback. My pokertracker isn't quite 100% accurate as it missed a few hands right at the start of the month when it wasn't picking up my bodog $4/8 table correctly for some reason.

Table selection has been a bit of a struggle at the beginning of the month, with a lot of the larger stakes tables (large for me) way too tight to be worthwhile playing on, and relatively few juicy smaller ones running as well. Although i've notice that when it rains, it pours, and when i've found a juicy table it has had three or four huge fish on it even, rather than just one or two.

I might get in a decent session on the tables on Thursday, although it will be in the off peak time so table selection may again be a challenge.

Current bankroll: $23,350
February time played: 3h
February hands played: 738
February profit / (loss): $50

January 2010 summary

2010-02-01T16:14:00.000-08:00

Well, January turned out to be my worst month ever. I put in some high volume at the start of the month, and ran badly. And then at the end of the month with the house move I had limited internet access for over a week, so hardly got to play at all.

Ended slightly better than -400BBs for the month, but not by much ....

For January the goals in order of priority were:

• Clear my ironman Fulltilt bonus (done)
• Clear some more of my Cake reload (done)
• Qualify for the Cake and Fulltilt freerolls in January (done)
• Play the December Cake and Fulltilt freerolls (missed one. played WBCOOP though)
• Maybe do the William Hill new year bonus although ipoker has been a little tight (didnt get round to it)

The loss of ($750) for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/vip/rakeback: $ 350

• Pacific $50
• Cake $120
• Fulltilt $180

Poker bankroll Interest: $80

Poker profits: ($1,180) (ouch!)

Goals for February are:

• Clear my remaining Cake reload
• Qualify for the Cake freeroll
• Play the January Cake and Fulltilt freerolls
• Make a profit!

Current bankroll: $23,300
January time played: 38h
January hands played: 9,067
January profit / (loss): ($750)

Back in business & WBCOOP

2010-01-31T17:24:00.000-08:00

My adsl 1 connection is now up and running, although I haven't actually received formal notification from my ISP so it may not stay up.

Haven't had time to play much on the new connection, however, WBCOOP event #6 was my first real session with a solid connection. And it was a pretty decent test, as I had worked myself up to chip leader for the first four breaks.

It was just me and one other active table for the first bit of the tourney, so there was basically just a lot of blind taking and not much else, however, I then got moved to a table with the one of the current chip leaders who had about 26K in chips to my 7K. He was moving all in every hand and I doubled up when I called him with JJ versus his 62o. Next hand I received KK and obviously called his all in again and he flipped over 65o. Flop was A65r and i'm like ffs .... till the turn brought another A to counterfeit his two pair with two pair of my own, and he's out and i'm the new chip leader.

From then on it was simply a case of playing reasonably tight, stealing blinds from position and occasionally playing my big pairs reasonably hard. All seemed to be working well, and allowed me to maintain the chip lead ... around 40k at the 1st hour 50k at the second 120k third, and around 200k at the 4th break.

We then had friends come over, so I more or less quit the table when 2nd in chips to join everyone in the pool and sat out for about 40 minutes when the blinds were around 2k/4k. By the time I returned I was in 17th of 17 with about 70k chips left.

I played a couple hands to gain about 40k in chips, but we still had visitors so I needed to either quickly get back into contention or bomb out. Flopping a nut flush draw with one overcard gave me that chance and I shoved all in, only to whiff the turn and river, and that's me done versus top pair in about 15th overall.

Guess i'll never know what might have been, but I suppose that shows me where poker sits in my priorities, and i'm thinking its not a bad place to be.

For the main event, I knew I had to go to work after the first hour and a half so it was a case of either build a huge stack early, or bust out fast. I think I busted out somewhere around 2,000th out of 2,050 people when I ran into another guy who was pushing all in every hand, and I unfortunately called with ATs but this time he had AQs. I probably would normally have waited for a slightly better hand if I wasn't going to work, but oh well.

the connection battle continues

2010-01-27T15:11:00.000-08:00

Well, i'm now in the new house.

Instead of having my phone line activated saturday, it took until Wednesday, and then i'm looking at another week before I get my ADSL minimum ....

So in the meantime, I've tried using the wireless modem from a mate, however, it looks like the new house is perfectly between mobile towers, and the signal I get here is awful at best. I can get 4k/sec downloads though .....

Option 2 was to 'borrow' some internet from the local free internet hotspot, which i'm also right at the edge of range of. That results in an extremely flaky connection.

So today i've tried dial up, which connects at 28.8 modem speed - which is what about 3k/second, but at least its a solid connection. I'm going to have to learn patience.

Of course with connection issues I haven't been able to play cash games, but I guess that has given me more time to set up the house, and jump in the pool, and watch the tennis.

How has wbcoop gone so far?

#1 it took me 15 minutes to get into as my wireless connection wasn't working. After that it was a struggle in many hands to get my action to go through. Still .. I managed to double up when I finally was able to get on before my first trouble hand. I had KK in early position and raised 3xBB. One caller. Bet 3/4 pot on the blank flop and blank turn and then an A hit on the river where I bet a tiny 200 chips into a 1600 chip pot. He calls and flips over AQ ... so he was calling with no pair and no draw the whole way. F me, and i'm back to 2k chips. I work it back up through mainly blind steals to 4k, before a 3k stack goes all in from late position with 88. I'm looking at JJ so I push over the top all in. Blank flop, turn 8, and i'm crippled and go out a few hands later when I push my TT and run into QQ.

#2 I have to leave half an hour after the start and won't be back for an hour, so I know I need to at least double up early to give me any chance of having chips when I get back. I raise pot with KcJcTd4d and get one reraiser and one caller. The flop has 2 clubs and a jack so i've got top pair and the K high flush draw. I check raise the one raiser all in as the pot has gotten pretty big. He calls and flips over AAxx. Is that the right move? I would have thought calling all in for your entire stack with only one pair wouldn't be good in omaha .. but meh, what do I know. No help on the turn or river and i'm out.

#3 I'm out really early. I've got two other active players on the table, and actually run into one guy who calls me down to the river after i've cbet the flop and turn with A high. He flips over 54o for a rivered pair of 4s .... wtf???? A few hands later he has gone all in about 4 hands in a row and I am looking at 77 and decide to call. He has TT ... bad move ... and i'm out again.

Hopefully i'll sort out my connection through dial up properly tomorrow, so I won't be tilted by the timeouts, reconnects and delays.

Moving day

2010-01-22T13:32:00.000-08:00

Losing my internet connection here any hour now, although my mate came through with a wireless connection which will tide me over for emergency poker .... and the WBCOOP.

Maybe i'll find a neighbour who's also willing to share in the short term while I wait for my new connection ....

Hopefully i'll be back blogging during the week with any luck.

Sounding like a broken record

2010-01-20T17:44:00.000-08:00

... as I hit -400BBs for the month.

I started last night on a $2/4 table where I won a total of 2 hands out of 93.

I then played a bit of purple lounge and ran similarly badly, before making back about 25BBs on a Pacific $3/6 table, to avoid another completely disasterous session.

Here's a couple hands from the session -

Hand 1:

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
5 Players

Stacks:
UTG $33
CO $126
Hero (BTN) $156.50
SB $299
BB $40.50

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is BTN Kd Ks (maybe this will hold up ...)
2 folds, Hero raises, 1 fold, BB calls

Flop: 7c Qd Qc (4.5 SB, 2 players) (not a bad flop)
BB checks, Hero bets, BB raises, Hero calls (don't like the reraise, but he could have any pocket or a club draw)

Turn: 4c (4.2 BB, 2 players)
BB bets, Hero calls (i've gone into WA/WB mode - i'm not sure if that is correct. The draw hitting sux)

River: Ac (6.2 BB, 2 players) (unreal .. another club. typical)
BB checks, Hero checks (hmm he checks? do I value bet here assuming he doesnt have a club? he could still have a set of Qs)

Final Pot: 6.2 BB
Hero shows Kd Ks
BB shows two pair, Aces and Queens As 6d (FFS)

Hand 2:

€1/€2 Limit Holdem
5 Players
Hand Conversion Powered by http://weaktight.com/

Stacks:
UTG $593.17
CO $343.36
BTN $50.01
Hero (SB) $49
BB $85.70

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is SB Jd 7d
1 fold, CO calls, BTN calls, Hero calls, BB bets, CO calls, BTN raises, Hero calls, BB calls, CO calls (i suspect my call here the second time round might be a touch loose. Bear in mind BTN is retarded though).

Flop: 4d 5d Ah (13.0 SB, 4 players) (flopped my draw - perfect. obviously now I have to hit it)
Hero checks, BB checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero calls, BB folds, CO calls

Turn: 6c (8.0 BB, 3 players) (adds an OESD to my flush draw .. nice)
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero raises, CO calls, BTN 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, CO calls, BTN calls (i think i have brain fade here. I dont think I have the equity to be raising etc with my 15 outs ... although I guess its probably close)

River: 5s (20.0 BB, 3 players) (FFS ... obviously i've missed everything all night)
Hero checks, CO checks, BTN bets, Hero folds, CO calls

Final Pot: 22.0 BB
CO shows 4h 3h (umm)
BTN shows 5c 2d (he 3 bet the flop, and the also 3 bet the turn with an A on the board whilst holding a pair of 5s .... ummm .... and my river effectively had my J outs as well. wtf)

BTN wins 20.4 BB (net +13.4 BB)

Current bankroll: $23,200
January time played: 35.5h
January hands played: 8,866
January profit / (loss): ($850)

A new record ....

2010-01-19T20:09:00.000-08:00

... for the length of a downswing for me - i've now hit 350BBs down for the month after last night's effort.

I sat down with superfish on my right (95/5 - seeing virtually every flop). By the end of my session he was up, as well as his two 60/0 mates .... ARGH.

Every river seems to be a personal attack and my W$SD is still hovering near the 40% mark. I won a few BBs again at the end of the session, but it still wasn't pretty.

Only a couple more days until I lose my phone line and internet until its set up in the new house in a week or two - although a mate has stepped in and offered his spare wireless which I appreciate and should be able to use for the WBCOOP tourneys. I think they start at 5am my time though which is going to be a bit of a struggle ....

Current bankroll: $23,250
January time played: 35.5h
January hands played: 8,419
January profit / (loss): ($800)

Mixed results

2010-01-18T19:17:00.001-08:00

Still running cold as ice - played enough hands to pick up 100 fulltilt points last night, and on the $2/4 and $3/6 tables I won 5 hands out of 85 .... two of which were folded to me in the bb. Ugly.

Fortunately this time the $5/10 tables paid me about 20BBs so I still ended in front for the session, even though I was down in BB terms.

I also cashed out some of my Pokersource credits for Bodog cash, before finding out when they processed it that the credits counted against MGR for my rakeback deal which is complete BS. Its only about $30 that i've lost by that, but if i'd realised I would have cashed out my credits somewhere else and kept that $30. I'm onto them about it so hopefully they'll refund it somehow.

Current bankroll: $23,400
January time played: 33.5h
January hands played: 7,925
January profit / (loss): ($650)

Still downswinging

2010-01-17T15:11:00.000-08:00

The peak of this downswing has now hit 340BBs in the space of 3,400 hands, although the last 60 hands I played recovered 60BBs. Hopefully it will continue that way.

I found my -$20k in 6 months mate and he quickly sucked out three huge pots on me in the space of three orbits, and it was again looking very nasty. After that i've run into another muppet on another table playing at 75/5 .. showing down 60% and winning 80% of those. Obviously that means virtually everyone else at the table is losing, and in particular me, as i'm sitting on his left.

I had to work early on Sunday which made me miss my Cake freeroll, just to add insult to injury.

I've reviewed my hands recently and checked my stats, and still can't find any obvious massive leaks. AK is a losing hand for me for the month, and it appears I've lost quite a lot when reverse dominated ... eg AK v A2 and the flop is A2x. I also lost a $300 pot with AK versus KQ on a flop of KK6 when he hit a runner runner backdoor flush. It doesn't take many of those pots to make a huge difference to your results.

Current bankroll: $23,300
January time played: 33h
January hands played: 7,788
January profit / (loss): ($750)

Awful timing

2010-01-13T16:02:00.000-08:00

I'm moving house at the end of next week, and it takes over a week here to get my adsl internet activated at the new house.

Basically that puts me out of poker for the week, so my hours will drop significantly towards the end of this month.

Add the fact that WBCOOP is exactly that week, and my timing just can't get any worse. In order for me to play i'm going to have to use dial up ... assuming I even have a phone line connected, otherwise i'm totally screwed and will miss it this year.

Played another small session last night and again ran fairly poorly. Although nothing like the dropping 250BBs in the space of 2,000 hands from my previous sessions. I cleared my Fulltilt ironman bonus so received that credit which made for a profitable session overall, even though the tables were at a loss.

Current bankroll: $23,600
January time played: 27.5h
January hands played: 6,679
January profit / (loss): ($450)

Biggest loss to date

2010-01-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

Had to happen sooner or later, but what was looking like a pretty good month is now going to be a reasonable battle just to finish in the black.

I'm now back to 300BBs down since xmas - after recovering to only about 100 down. This time there were losses at $5/10, $4/8 and a stack at $2/4 to drop me $1,200 from my peak bankroll.

What happened? Well i've put in a huge stack of hands and hours, but just not won enough showdowns. I dropped 26BBs at $5/10 (at worst 60BBs), 33BBs at $4/8, 120BBs at $2/4, a few at $3/6, and 50BBs at $1/2. For the last 1500 or so hands i've been running at 35% wtsd and only winning 35% instead of 50%, so could easily be down even further. Nasty.

I had found some juicy tables, but it was the fishes turn to slaugher me. One 68/4 guy was up $400 on me on a $5/10 table, and another guy was up a few hundred on a $4/8 table. When I checked out the first guy he had lost $20,000 over the past six months with a biggest winning session ever of $500. I just seemed to run into an extremely poor set of cards, and of course every suck out possible hit.

What to do now?

Well nothing different is my strategy. I'll just keep looking for the fish and playing on my juicy tables. It will turn around. Some decent rakeback should help too, but i've still got some work to do to get the year back on track.

Current bankroll: $23,500
January time played: 26h
January hands played: 6,468
January profit / (loss): ($550)

Back went out again ....

2010-01-10T16:03:00.000-08:00

Bent down to pick up the cat the other day and my back locked up completely. So now i'm an invalid again until it heals up. Can't sit up much at all at the moment, and once again i'm reminded of how important physical health is. Looks like i'll have to be more vigilant on the exercising when I am better.

I can't even play much poker, although i have brought the screen down to couch level.

Played another Fulltilt freeroll as well, and once again bombed out AK < T9s on a flop of 642r and then 77 < JJ.

However, at the same time the cash tables were reasonably generous and my Fulltilt bankroll is almost back up to before my recent downswing and it was enough to put my BB/100 for the month back to into the black.

Current bankroll: $24,700
January time played: 17h
January hands played: 4,151
January profit / (loss): $650

WBCOOP is back

2010-01-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 662527

What Fulltilt taketh away, Fulltilt giveth back

2010-01-07T16:26:00.000-08:00

.... well a chunk of it anyways.

After the last few crucifying session on Fulltilt, in the space of 40 hands on a $3/6 table I made 40BBs, mainly due to a single hand which is my biggest pot ever on Fulltilt ($195) - whilst holding the mighty 85s.

$3/$6 Limit Holdem
5 Players

Stacks:
UTG $79
CO $172
BTN $123
SB $197.50
Hero (BB) $141

Pre-Flop: (1.5 SB, 5 players) Hero is BB 8s 5s
UTG raises, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls (calling with any 2 suited here)

Flop: 7s 6h Ad (10.0 SB, 5 players) (well that gives me a 2nd nut straight draw)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets, BTN raises, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG 3-bets, CO 4-bets, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG calls (i figure it was worth calling the two back to me, although wasn't really expecting the cap)

Turn: 3s (15.0 BB, 5 players) (okay now I have the flush draw to go with my open ender, although not all outs are probably clean)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG checks, CO bets, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls, UTG raises, CO calls, BTN calls, SB calls, Hero calls (initial check for utg to raise but he didn't. Not sure why I didnt check raise in the first chance with the button's bet but was glad UTG did. I didn't even raise when closing the action. I'm sure it is EV+ with that many opponents and maybe 13 outs ... although it could have been as low as 6 outs).

River: 4h (25.0 BB, 5 players) (hehe the stone cold nuts in a huge pot. that makes things much easier)
SB bets, Hero raises, 3 folds, SB 3-bets, Hero 4-bets, SB calls (a bit surprised by the 3 folds in the middle - surely someone at least had a set and would make a crying call in a pot this huge? Special thanks though to the SB who obliged by 3 betting with his second nuts)

Final Pot: 33.0 BB
SB shows 5c 3h (and that is why he is sitting on my right)
Hero shows a straight, Eight high 8s 5s

Hero wins 32.5 BB (net +23.5 BB)

Current bankroll: $24,400
January time played: 14.6h
January hands played: 3,658
January profit / (loss): $350

Escaped again for now

2010-01-06T16:11:00.000-08:00

Ran like turd again last night on Fulltilt dropping another 40BBs within half an hour. My 78/0 mate on my right just could not lose a hand. I think i've dropped about $600 on Fulltilt in two days now - its looking ugly. That took me to almost 220BBs down for the current downswing.

On the flip side, Cake, Bodog and Purple lounge all made up about 70BBs within about an hour. A slightly slow start followed by me hitting a number of hands in a row, including a couple of gutshots in huge pots which gave me the odds to chase my draw. I guess that is the difference between a winning and losing session - it only takes a few hands to go your way.

It could have been even better had some muppet not hit a runner, runner with 86 on a board of AKTr versus my AK turn 9 river obviously 7. Or my third last hand where it was capped three ways preflop - my AK versus QQ versus K6s on a AK9r flop. Q turn was very disappointing, and what was worse was the K6 guy kept raising each street.

Still, it looks like my swings are continuing which is fairly unusual for me. Hopefully it settles down shortly into a more steady upward curve ...

Current bankroll: $24,150
January time played: 14h
January hands played: 3,545
January profit / (loss): $100

And 2 steps back

2010-01-05T15:13:00.000-08:00

Had a horrible little session on Fulltilt last night. Dealt a ton of premium hands and seemingly they all whiffed. Ended up with stats reading less than 30% going to showdown and winning only 30% of those. Ugly.

The damage was 45BBs at $2/4 and 30BBs at $3/6 or around $350. I'd made my points for the day and the tables had tightened slightly so I had to quit.

I then fired up Cake and Bodog and found a few semi fishy tables, including a $5/10 on Cake, however I found myself with a fairly good tag on my right rather than one of the two big fish so decided to quit that table after a few orbits and was all of $2 down. Would have made more in rakeback than I lost as tons of pots were huge - just I wasn't part of them.

I then was taken for another 30BBs on the $2/4 and $3/6 tables combined where I continued to miss every flop. 100BBs down in under a couple hours ... great. Down for the month after a reasonably promising start .... great. Down 200BBs since xmas (see graph) .... great.

The tables remained fishy though so I stayed for a bit and ended back in the black on Cake and made up a few of my Fulltilt losses.

The thing is, with a bit of a downswing, I tend to view it as a challenge - it means I need to play well and concentrate to get myself back up and I use it as a motivator of sorts.

This month's stats now read as me running at -3BB/100 which just isn't pretty at all.

Of course, thanks to rakeback, being 170BBs down has only resulted in a loss of $150 all up in that time, so it hasn't really crippled the bankroll much at all.

Current bankroll: $24,050
January time played: 12h
January hands played: 2,976
January profit / (loss): $0

Left a goldmine

2010-01-04T18:57:00.000-08:00

Found a $3/6 table last night with 5 players with a VPIP over 60%. And I had to leave after two orbits down exactly $1. Every player at the table was literally trying to hand over their cash - so its extremely disappointing I had to shut down and leave to go out.

There's always more fish in the sea though ....

On my other tables I also ran fairly well and am now showing a positive return on the tables (albeit whilst still running at -1bb/100). At the moment all i'm really concentrating on is clearing my ironman bonus on fulltilt whilst qualifying for iron man for January. 100 points per day is enough and only takes half an hour, and even less if I open a $5/10 table or two.

Current bankroll: $24,350
January time played: 10.4h
January hands played: 2,493
January profit / (loss): $300

End of holidays

2010-01-03T15:01:00.000-08:00

Holidays are now over for me and its back to work. I put in a fair few hours on the tables for me over the break for very little result. Although after running so cold early it's not as bad as it could have been.

The weekend again started with a dip in the bankroll where I dropped another 50BBs on a $1/2 table where it seemed I was again destined to be runner-runnered out of the game. The main fish was opposite me, but I never had the opportunity to move to his right. He proceeded to smash the entire table, so i'm not sure it would have made much difference.

On the tables i'm still running at a loss for January, however, after a few rakeback and bonus credits my bankroll is actually up (and will be up even further with a couple more credits in the next few days). Pokertracker even has me at losing at a very cold rate of 2.5BB/100 on the tables, although in total only down $55 over 2,200 hands. I guess i've been losing more at the smaller limites than the bigger ones.

I also just missed out on playing in the gold card cake tournament yesterday - you needed a 2 of clubs to enter it, and I hadn't received one ... well not until about an hour after the tournament started. Oh well. At least i've qualified for the freeroll this month.

2009 review is now up: 2009 Review

Current bankroll: $24,100
January time played: 8.3h
January hands played: 2,205
January profit / (loss): $50

Disaster averted

2010-01-01T03:06:00.000-08:00

... well at least for now.

Had a horror start to the new year on the tables at Cake, dropping a good 60BBs on a $1/2 table and at the same time a good 70BBs on a few $3/6 tables. Just couldn't win a showdown at all, and was running at a 30% W$SD rate which resulted in me getting slaughtered.

It eventually started to turn around though after being down by over $500 and I finally started winning some showdowns when I hit several nut flush draws and filling up a boat or two, and by the end of the session I was winning 47% of showdowns and was down by less than $100. Fulltilt helped with that as I put in 100 points worth of play hoping that it will count towards clearing my bonus this month.

Still have to go back to post my goals for the year and last year's summary. I started them but didn't get very far but will be up sometime in the next few days.

Current bankroll: $24,000
January time played: 2h30m
January profit / (loss): ($50)

2010 Goals

2009-12-31T23:35:00.001-08:00

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

Be disciplined - only play on semi-loose to very loose tables with position on a fish
Continue to make a profit - let's aim for $10k for the year
Maximise my return through rakeback / bonuses
Continue to read forums / blogs - both for strategy and entertainment
Maintain my interest in the game
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

2009-12-31T15:28:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-30T22:12:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-28T02:59:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-23T17:32:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-12-22T19:27:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-12-21T16:05:00.000-08:00

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 -

I've been playing a lower volume this year which will result in fewer bonuses
Any months with losses at the table should show as red due to the way the graph works
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

2009-12-20T15:23:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-17T19:49:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-15T17:06:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-13T18:36:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-12-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

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