Some freeroll success

Ended up entering 4 freerolls on the weekend, 3 of which I crashed and burned relatively quickly to the usual nasty beats - AK v A4 in one and AKs v 56s in another. But that's life. In the 4th I ended up playing for about three hours to cash about $200 so all in all not a bad exercise, since I didn't even risk any of my own money.

The better one's were the affiliate sponsored freerolls. I looked at a few site one's but a $250 prize pool for 200 entrants seems like a complete waste of time.

On the side I played cash tables on Bodog, and Party. I am still running super cold on Bodog with a W$SD of 47% after almost 11,000 hands now and that session cost me another 40BBs! That has cost me probably around 2BB/100, maybe even slightly more, which in 11,000 hands adds up to quite a lot! Luckily Party offset the loss as one of the $2/4 tables paid me off for about 25BBs.

Current bankroll: $14,800

November summary

Given the month ends on Sunday I figure I’ll do my month end summary now. I guess the thing to note was that I really didn’t get in a lot of play this month, particularly with the week off in the middle, and most weekends being relatively busy. Still managed an overall gain of $700 though which isn’t too bad.

My shot at Bodog $4/8 went quite badly, which didn’t help the bankroll. And in the same session I won my biggest ever pot of $281. Without that win though, it really would have been a bad session.

I also managed to do a couple posts on my approach to poker and longer term goals. Hopefully they will be useful to reflect back upon later, and to refresh myself from time to time.

My holidays did give me the chance to catch up on a bit of poker theory which I will be putting into practice in the next few months where I’ve had a couple leaks. Hopefully it will increase my win rate somewhat.

I also won my first $26 token on Fulltilt using poker points, so will continue to work out the best use of those points in future.

Finally I should note that my last session was kind of handy with a decent win, and also clearing my Interpoker bonus. Without that, the month would be looking a little sick!

Last month's goals for November:

• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible (cleared $70) (take a shot at $4/8 – did so and failed miserably)
• Complete my interpoker bonus (and hopefully play in the freeroll) (done – freeroll on Sunday too. Wish me luck)
• Pray for another Cake reload ... cmon!! (Yep got one .. and then accidently didn’t buy in for the full amount .. argh)
• Maybe sign up on Eurolinx through RTR ... although that may be a later month (maybe later)
• Withdraw some $ from a poker room to my neteller account to take up any new bonuses (withdrew from William Hill, and also my $200 reload from Bodog)

The gain of $700 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/VIP: $280

• Bodog: $110
• Interpoker: $170
• Cake: $40

Rakeback: $80

• Cake: $30
• Fulltilt: $10
• Interpoker: $50

Poker bankroll Interest: $50

Poker winnings / (losses): $290

For December the goals in order of priority are:

• Clear as much of my Bodog reload bonus as possible (try to get closer to taking another shot at $4/8)
• Clear a chunk of my remaining Cake reload bonus
• Spend some more poker points and hopefully convert some to cash
• Play some Pacific through my RBS deal
• Pray for another Cake reload ... and don’t screw it up this time
• Maybe sign up on Eurolinx through RTR ... although that may be a later month
• Maybe sign up for another kickback bonus through PSO

Could easily be a busy month (I don’t think I have a Saturday night free at all), so I’ll be happy just doing a chunk of the first couple goals.

Current bankroll: $14,600

Handy little session

Started the day feeling crook so too the day off work. Thought i'd probably get in a bit of poker but had a massive headache so couldn't play for too long at a time. That being said, probably put in about two hours in total.

Turned out to be a reasonably profitable two hours, as I cleared my Interpoker sign up bonus for the remaining approx $200, and also received my monthly Bodog reload for $70.

Found a couple sweet $3/6 tables on Cake where I had position on at least one fish and on one table two fish. I'd made about 12BBs on each in one orbit, and then to my disappointment, both of the fish quit ... so I played all of two orbits before quitting. The $2/4 tables on Interpoker were also a little kinder to me than they have been in the past, and I would have made at least another 10BBs there by the time i'd cleared my bonus. It was a little problematic there though in that I couldn't seem to find any good tables or if I did, i'd have a horrible position, so was quitting after a single orbit and just waiting for better spots a lot of the time.

I guess patience really is the key for table selection, and I refuse to play where I have bad position these days. Its just not worth it.

The Bodog $1/2 tables were also running better than usual and I made about 30BBs in reasonably quick time. The fish didn't quite suck out as often, although did suffer a number of nasty beats from one guy who hit a 2 and 3 outer two hands in a row when I was holding the near nuts. He was then kind enough to cap the river against me holding nuts to give most of it back which was nice of him. (I had the A on a 4 flush board that wasn't paired ... although there was the potential for an unlikely straight flush).

Sometimes I am a muppet though - got an email from cake about a reload so tried to deposit. Got a message back saying that the code wasn't available yet. I guess they sent the email a little early .... Anyways, I again signed up later, and this time it went through, only i'd forgotten to change the deposit amount. So instead of a $100 reload bonus, I earned myself a princely reload bonus of $12.50. I blame the fact that my head was killin me which clouded my thinking ability ... (although probably it was just coz i'm an idiot). I hope they have a christmas reload as well and then I wouldn't have lost anything ....

Current bankroll: $14,600

Poker Freerolls

One additional bonus that you get from signing up with the right affiliate for rakeback/kickbacks, is that often the affiliate will put on monthly freerolls provided you play enough hands to qualify.

I'm not talking about the freerolls that the individual poker rooms put on, as they often have less than $1,000 prize money for several thousand players giving you an equity of 50c at best but more often something like 5c.

The affiliate freerolls tend to have several thousand dollars in prize money, and generally a limited number of players. For example this month I qualified for the raketherake freeroll on Interpoker. It has a prize pool of $6,000 with approx 250 players max. Take out 50 or so that don't bother to turn up, and another 50 or so that are total muppets, and I'd have an equity of about $24. With any luck I could finish substantially higher than that though.

Now i'm a fairly average tourney player but normally cash in these without too much stress, although my attention span seems to wander after a couple hours. Nevertheless, its a good bit of additional value and is relatively stress free.

If interested feel free to use my RTR link on the right. They generally have some pretty decent bonuses on top of regular rakeback, and their freerolls are fairly regular.

Played about half an hour last night, and really struggled to find good tables, so often ended up playing a single orbit and quitting. It was reasonably productive though making about 10BBs on the $2/4 tables and about 5BBs on the $3/6. Nothing really of interest, with no big hands. Just a regular grind playing big hands preflop with a few cbets paying off.

Current bankroll: $14,150

Got called a fish

Only got in another 15 minutes of poker or so last night, but hopefully will be able to put in a longer session tonight.

I only need about another 60mpps on Interpoker to finally get my 150 pounds + $120 so really lookin forward to that. Might not be able to make it tonight still, as the time i'll be playing is when Crypto is particularly dead - although double ups will probably be running but won't give me enough mpps.

In my session last night I found myself up against a guy who berated me for being a fish. It was on Cake, and only a $1/2 table as there were no juicy larger tables running. I had notes on this guy from a number of times I played against him. They read something like:

"Aggressive muppet. Huge VPIP & PFR. cbet 3x wth air. Can c/r flp wth air. Call down any pair. Reraise light". (as well as a few examples of his plays after that)

Anyways, i'd seen him earlier attempt to steal the big blind from the SB and then 3 bet the big blind's reraise with 94s preflop and then he bet the flop, turn and river on a board of 4TJr, 7,5. BB had AK.

For my hand against him, I find myself with 99 in the CO, and raise preflop.

• He is the only caller from the BB on a flop of J36r.
• I bet, and he check/raises.
• I'm thinking there's a chance he has a J but based on my notes I can't really fold here in a 7sb pot as there's a good chance i'm ahead given his tendency to bet air.
• I'm tempted to 3bet but don't - possibly a mistake, but for some reason it felt a bit thin against the check/raise even with my notes on him. (plus the fact i'm in position and if he is bluffing he can keep barelling off)
• The turn is an 8 and the board is a complete rainbow which he bets and I am calling down here (again possibly a reraise is better).
• The river is a hail mary 9 which he then bets again so I obviously raise.
• He calls and shows J3o for a flopped 2 pair... and then goes mental calling me a total fish amongst other things.
• I just had a bit of a laugh although couldn't resist calling him a muppet for his J3o call - I know I shouldn't have said anything, but he just got madder.
• Unfortunately I then had to quit - which probably pissed him off even more - but it would have been nice to take some more $ from him.

On the other tables I really didnt have a lot of luck. In one hand I had QTo and had hit my queen on the flop. The board ended up 4 flushing with the A on the river to give me a Q high flush, only to be up against the K high flush. The other biggish pot that didn't go my way was my AQ flopping A76r versus TT and JJ only to have a T hit the turn. Missed a couple draws and didn't hit a single one which didn't help. Ended down about 10BBs overall but it could easily have finished the other way.

On the poker points front from my last post, I forgot to mention I do have about 7k FPPs on stars, so I need to find out what is the best way to turn them into cash. (bearing in mind I have $0 bankroll on that site). Any ideas would be appreciated, although I could probably quite easily look it up on 2p2 myself. (and have to trawl through various rubbish ideas to find the right answer).

Current bankroll: $14,100

Poker points

One of the small benefits (or problems depending on which way you look at it) of bonus chasing is that you also accrue a bunch of poker points. The problem is they're usually a relatively small amount, and spread across a stack of different sites.

Some of them are relatively simple to convert into cash -

• Bodog - converts 1 point to 1c with a minimum of 500 points
• Party poker - converts 1 point to 1c with a minimum of 2000 points (or so .. i should check that one)
• Everest - 1 point = $0.004

Others, not so simply, where you need to use your points to enter tournaments and hope to cash in those tournaments, or qualify in those tournaments and cash in the next tournament down the chain.

For example, I have about 20k points on Full Tilt, and i've decided to use them on the 1800fpp sitngos where the top 3 win a $23 (or so) tournament entry ticket. I think the next step is to enter a tournament and try to cash, or enter a satellite and hopefully win another ticket that I can deregister for tournament $ and then play lower stake tourneys. Sounds like a pain in the ass? Well .. yes. Cake is similar but using Gold chips instead of points, which I have a fair stack of. Cake also has gold cards which i've occasionally converted into cash through tournaments. I have one fairly rare Cake gold card that i'm hoping to be able to convert to cash directly sooner or later whenever it comes up in their lottery.

Other sites you buy bonuses with your points which basically convert them to cash, but you need to actually have earnt enough points for the bonus, and then you have to play through to clear it.

Finally, other sites have points that dont actually do anything at all. Go figure.

Many sites also have a shop that you can convert your points into stuff. I generally prefer cash, but there are probably decent options out there.

I really need to go through all my sites that i've signed up for and cashed out of to see if I have points that I can use for something - effectively I had basically written them off if they didn't convert directly to cash, but obviously they do have some value that I may be able to extract.

I'll have to look at what I can do with relatively few points on Pacific, Interpoker, Ultimate bet, Mansion, Gnuf, Sun, Littlewoods, Titan, Cake, William Hill, 24poker, Pokerroom to name just a few. I'm still wondering if my Fulltilt method is the best as well or if there are better options.

So far i've played in one of the 1,800 FTP tourneys and won a $23 token. It basically played like a double up sitngo since it has a flat prize structure.

Didn't actually get to play much last night - maybe 10 minutes for virtually no movement in the bankroll.

Current bankroll: $14,100

Back from holidays and poker ready, armed with theory

I wonder if the term 'poker ready' actually makes sense or if anyone actually uses it....

Anyways the week away was actually quite refreshing and made me raring to go in hitting the tables again. I ended up just reading through the Borer book which I actually found quite different from the last time I read it around six months ago.

Most of the example hands I generally come up with the best option which is quite reassuring, or I can at least understand the logic of any hands where I come up with a different answer. The first time I read through i'm sure there were quite a number where i'd come up with completely the wrong answer, or just couldn't seem to understand the logic of their explanations.

It is interesting to revisit the book though as I do think i've uncovered a couple leaks in my game. Mainly around not value betting enough, and often not playing draws aggressively enough.

In terms of value betting I think i've become a little too passive on later streets and am taking the check weakish hands on the river in the hope to induce a bluff a little too far. The key concept around value betting that I noticed was that checking a somewhat scary river when out of position with a medium strength hand often allows your opponent to play perfectly. ie they can just check behind when they are behind, and can bet out confidently when ahead. In this situation you are losing value from anyone who would make a crying call versus your bet, and often you won't get reraised by someone hitting the one scare card.

That being said often inducing a bluff will be the best play, but I guess its just a matter of being aware of board texture, your opponent's tendencies (the more aggro the more likely to induce), and when someone will make a bluff versus when you should value bet.

For playing draws more aggressively I found it a very interesting concept. Often lately i've fallen into the trap of just calling when I have pot odds, and betting out when I think their are enough runners in the pot to create the pot odds. What I hadn't really considered is that by playing more aggressively you can get a number of better hands to fold even if you miss. For example if you have a flush draw with say A2s with three runners on the turn, and the first player bets out, if you raise and the third player will then be faced with 2 bets to call. If they are on a small pair the may fold here when they are in front. Also if they have say a naked AK and fold here for 2 bets, then you have cleaned up your three A outs assuming the first player was betting with a single pair. The other benefit is your hand can look like a made hand.

I played a couple hours over the weekend and was hoping to find some examples but didn't get time to go through my database in any detail. Here's one though that does sort of illustrate the concept .. but I did whiff completely in the end:

$2/$4 Limit Holdem • 6 Players
UTG $171.25 (average tag, although WTSD of 30% is a little low .. but small sample)
UTG+1 $65.00
CO $58.12
BTN $53.64 (huge fish)
SB $42.88 (fishy)
Hero $100.00
Pre-Flop (1.5 SB, 6 players) Hero is BB with Ks2s

UTG raises, 2 folds, BTN calls, 1 fold, Hero calls (with the button tagging along i'm calling here, otherwise i'd fold in this spot)
Flop (6.5 SB, 3 players)

3s5sJd (okay i've got my flush draw and thats about it)

Hero checks, UTG bets, BTN calls, Hero raises, UTG calls, BTN calls (Check with intent to checkraise. Button tagging along helps my odds. No reraise from UTG though which is promising)
Turn (6.2 BB, 3 players)

9d okay now the board is quite draw heavy ... 2 diamonds, 2 spades and J9

Hero bets, UTG calls, BTN folds Bet out here and hope to take the pot. The one fold is handy in case I miss - he could easily have been in front of me)
River (8.2 BB, 2 players)

6c (damn .. whiffed .. although 356 is now on the board which might scare an UTG raiser a bit .. but probably not ...)

Hero bets, UTG folds (okay well, i'm fairly sure i'm not winning if I check here, and I can easily fold to a raise, so I think raising is the best option. I check/raised the flop and bet the turn so i've only shown strength so far in this hand. In his whole range of AA-66, AKs-QTs, AKo-KJo i'm actually behind every single hand except QTs, although he could potentially fold any hand where he doesn't have a pair if I bet. So ... AK, AQ, AT, KQ, KT are a chance and even maybe 77, 88, all of which add up to quite a big part of his range.)
Final Pot: 8.2 BB
Hero wins 8.9 BB ( won +4.9 BB )

I ended up doing okay for the session, and even had a slight heater on the Bodog tables, where i'm now only running at -0.5BB/100. My interpoker is even running slightly better than negative 2BB/100 which is a big improvement over the slaughtering i've been getting there.

Current bankroll: $14,100