August 2008 Summary

Hmmm .. what a month.... just couldnt seem to string several winning sessions together but suffered some huge downswings.

Overall increased my bankroll by $350, but it could easily have been negative for the month if it wasn't for the last few sessions. As Tim points out I also played my first accidental session of NL cash games, where I managed to win one very nice pot.

(Including today where I played for all of 15 minutes, and won one 20BB hand on a $4/8 Bodog table with my Pocket kings holding up 4 ways to the river (capped preflop). Some idiot then decided to slowplay using their entire timer every action, so I quit the table next orbit.

The gain of $350 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses/VIP: $640

William Hill: $50 for 5 hours play bonus
Cake: $60 reload bonus
PSO ultimate bet: $120
New site bonuses (refer next post): $200
Bodog: $10
Party: $200

Rakeback: $170

William Hill: $10
Cake: $40
Bodog: $10
Fulltilt: $110

Poker winnings / (losses): ($460) Ouch - another loss

For August the goals in order of priority are:

• Play my 5 hours on William Hill for the $50 bonus
• Clear my last reload of $60 on cake
• Maybe find a new site to play on and score some new bonuses
• Would be nice to actually win from play :)

Current bankroll: $11,450

June Summary

Yeah I know .. 2 posts in the same day ... but here's the summary anyways :)

My couple big downswings during the month of 100BBs+ really hurt a lot, but again I really can’t complain with the final result. My total time at the tables was probably less than 30 hours .. which I could check if I bothered adding up each of my posts, but I am too lazy for that!

Added a total of $800 in cash to my bankroll, and also have another $360 coming in August which I earned in bonuses, so $1,150ish for the month really isn’t too bad.

For the month I played mostly $3/6 and $2/4 on Littlewoods as can be seen from the bonus/rakeback stats below. Cleared probably $300 of the 24 bonus as well playing mainly $1/2 and $2/4. Since it clears at the same rate at either stakes I generally just look for the softest tables which are usually $1/2.

Finished the month on $9,300 (with $360 owing in August) which is equal to the highest point that I made it to for the month.

The gain of $1,150 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses: $1,310

• William Hill: $50 for 5 hours play bonus
• Cake: $0 reload bonus (played a few hands, but not enough)
• 24: $300 sign up bonus
• Littlewoods: $600 monthly bonus
• Littlewoods: $360 in lieu of ipod bonus

Rakeback: $510

• Littlewoods: $300
• Littlewoods rake race: $200
• William Hill: $10

Poker winnings / (losses): ($670) LOSS … Ack

For July the goals in order of priority are:

• Clear as much of my 24 bonus as possible ($200 remaining)
• Play my 5 hours on William Hill for the $50 bonus
• Clear my last $80 on cake
• Clear some of the Sun bonus - maybe $20 (through double up SnGs mainly)
• Maybe find a new site to play on and score some new bonuses

The other thing I want to do is to compare rake and rakeback between sites. At the moment my rakeback on fulltilt is 27% compared with say 40% on sun. However, Sun takes a much larger amount of rake in the first place out of each hand, so it looks like Fulltilt is actually a better deal. Will investigate further.

If it works out though, I may be playing a fair bit more back on Fulltilt, as there are always a lot more games running, and as long as you table select well, there are plenty of fish to catch.

The other achievement for the month was actually cashing out $2k mostly from Cake via neteller. I've now taken out more than i've put into the game which I think means i'm at least getting something right.

Current bankroll: $9,300 (+360 Aug)

May Summary

Got in another hour of poker last night, and made another $50 mainly from Cake $2/4 and $3/6 tables. No real excitement except one guy who would randomly decide that he’d play a hand aggressively no matter what cards he got or what hit the board. He showed down 26o a couple times on very scary boards (which had hit me), so I’ve marked him for future reference.

Thought I’d better post my May summary as I won’t be posting on the weekend. Turned out to be my best month ever, pulling in $1,750, and not really putting in too many hours. No significant bad runs like the last month, and I’ve been madly clearing the 24 bonus.

Finished the month on $8,500, mainly playing on the small $1/2 and occasionally $2/4 tables on 24 to clear my bonus via raked hands (rather than the usual raked amount or points schemes), as well as a chunk of $2/4 and $3/6 on Cake, thanks to the latest reload bonus there.

The gain of $1,750 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses: $520

• William Hill: $50 for 5 hours play bonus
• Cake: $70 reload bonus
• 24: $350 sign up bonus
• Big slick: $5 sign up bonus
• Party: $45 reload bonus

Rakeback: $40

• Sun: $0
• Cake: $30
• William Hill: $10

Poker winnings / (losses): $1,190

(a great result, and I guess a bit of a heater, considering I didn’t play a huge amount)

For June the goals in order of priority are:

• Clear as much of my 24 bonus as possible ($500 remaining)
• Play my 5 hours on William Hill for the $50 bonus
• Clear my last $90 on cake (and actually cash out some from there!!!)
• Clear a chunk of the $445 remaining on Big Slick
• Clear some of the Sun bonus - maybe $20 (through double up SnGs mainly)

Current bankroll: $8,500

Sometimes you just run hot

Played for just under an hour last night, mainly on William Hill to do my 5 hours of play worth $10 per hour. Played 3 tables at once and cleared 2 lots of the bonus, and must be very very close to clearing the final $10. Wouldnt be surprised if it is already cleared when I next log in.

Anyways in that time I managed to win around 60BBs - although pity it was only at the $1/2 tables, but thats all you need to play on to clear the bonus, and at $30 per hour when 3 tabling that seems like a pretty good deal to me, given its very low risk.

My table selection was good, although I was a bit stuck for seat selection. On two of the tables there were two fish with VPIPs of around 55% and almost no aggression. On one of the tables, I had position on both the fish, but on the other table they had position on me which kinda sucked. Where I had the ideal seat, I won 40+ BBs. The other table was still a winning table, but nowhere near to the same degree. I guess it does indicate the importance of seat as well as table selection (although a very small sample I know).

There weren't too many hands of note that I can recall, although I did get called down a lot, when I was holding a good but not great hand (which ended up being the best hand) and got raised a few times when I was holding the nuts or near nuts, which is always nice. A few more bad suckouts than normal, but that was only because these guys were playing so many hands - but they also gave it all back to me and more.

Played my first Sitngo for a couple weeks, and managed to double my cash there. Only really played one hand where I called a couple limpers with 98s. Flop of 88J was looking pretty sweet. 9 on the turn just iced the cake, and added about 800 chips to my starting stack of 1500. Basically folded my way into the money after that, with only a couple pot steals, and one successful flop continuation bet.

The only real downer about the session was that it was mostly at the $1/2 level rather than something higher where i'd have made a lot more. But the levels I play at currently are driven by bonus clear rates / risk management more than seeking out the highest level to possibly play at.

Also cleared another $50 at 24poker, which still clears at the $1/2 level. Pity there's just not enough traffic on the site when I want to play there. I might have to start playing at the $2/4 level there as well, just to clear the bonus. Thinking about it, I probably will as long as I can find tables that are fishy enough. I have another 60 days to clear another $800 in bonus there so really need to pull my finger out. (And still have a stack to clear on bigslick as well!!)

Current bankroll: $7,300

April Summary

April was not too bad, although a couple of quite significant losing runs put a big dent into the profits. One 120BB losing streak (at $3/6!!!) and at least a couple 50BB losses really doesn't help all that much.

On the plus side, found a few very nice bonuses which helped, and also have recovered a significant portion of the losing streak losses. Will be glad when I get back to my all time high though hopefully fairly soon in May. I probably didn't put in too many hours in May either so can't expect to be jumping up huge amounts of cash.

I finished the month on $6,750, which is a gain of $1,000 which I really can't complain about. Also played a reasonable number of hands at $3/6 where there have been appropriate fish, and am relatively comfortable at that level, even though I got massively sucked out on :)

However, one of my main bonuses clears via raked hands at $1/2, so that's where I'll be playing quite a bit in May I think.

The gain of $1,000 for the month was made up of:

Bonuses: $625

• William Hill: $50 for 5 hours play bonus
• Sun: $20 bonus for playing 160mpps
• Cake: $110 bonus cleared
• 24: $150 sign up bonus
• Big slick: $25 sign up bonus
• Party: $10 reload bonus
• Pokerroom: $210 through PSO
• Pokerstars: $50 sign up bonus (finally got round to clearing this one)

Rakeback: $115

Fulltilt: $0
Sun: $25
Cake: $80
William Hill: $10

Poker winnings / (losses): $260 (disappointing .. although probably didnt play a huge amount)

For May the goals in order of priority are:

• Clear as much of my 24 bonus as possible ($850 remaining)
• Play my 5 hours on William Hill for the $50 bonus
• Clear some of the Sun bonus - maybe $20 or $50 (through double up SnGs mainly)
• Clear $45 on party which expires in 10 days
• Clear my last $50 on cake
• Clear a chunk of the $450 remaining on Big Slick

Current bankroll: $6,750

Goin nowhere, and short break

Only played maybe an hour since last Thursday, and in one session managed to lose to a 2 outer on the river 3 times. (Pocket pair v lower pocket pair). Would have been a great session apart from that, so i'm exactly where I started. (and again I managed to fire off a bit of abuse ... STOP IT!)

I did actually pick up a hopefully very valuable Ac in the Cake gold card promotion though, which i can hopefully cash in for a chunk of change one day. My highest card before that was an 8 which doesnt have a huge value. I believe a Q went for $80 and a K went for about $200 earlier this year, so an A should be a bit higher than that. Well at least it will keep me logging into Cake regularly to check.

I will also hopefully sign up to the fantastic deal on the ipoker network shortly too. I needed a long term deal on that network so it was a very handy find thanks guys. Feel free to message me for more details .. and i better get off my a$$ and sign up in the next day or so.

I'm going away for a few days this week though, so probably won't hit the tables to next weekend. Should be fun though, but may not hit that $6k barrier to next weekend now. (Although I think I only need another 150 points to clear the Pokerroom bonus, and Party just emailed me another 8x reload which should clear pretty quick, so maybe I will get there).

See yas in a week!

Current Bankroll: $5,950

Now a super fishy table!

Pokerroom was kind enough to give me a table with the average VPIP of around 74% for 5 players, including my VPIP of around 32 which was bringing the overall average down a lot!!

You'd think that would let me make a ton of cash, and at times I was doing fairly well. However my KdTd then managed to hit a 3 flush board. Unfortunately muppet #1 happened to have Ad5d. I 4 bet the turn, which he 5 bet ... so i figured i was in trouble and only called his bet on the river.

A few more nasty 3rd flush card hitting on the river to beat my top pair, and i think I ended up making about 1BB for the entire session. (Well that combined with the inevitable missing 5 flush draws and 2 OESDs in a row).

Playing Cake at the same time helped though, as one very aggressive player managed to donate about 20BBs to me by betting into me every time, including when i'd hit my hand. Thanks very much.

The Sit n Go's continue to be quite successful, although I'm still only playing a maximum of 10 pound tables. My ROI for the last 2 months has been somewhere near 30%, which is okay I think, particularly when you take add on the 40% rakeback and Sun's $20 bonus for 160 MPPs as well.

Current bankroll: $5,950

March summary

A few more fish on Cake last night enabled me to increase my bankroll a little further since my last post. It wasn't looking good when I was down 10BBs for a fair while, and then went to 15BBs before I finally hit a 2nd nut flush to take a 20BB pot, followed by another 10BB pot the very next hand with top 2 pair. Won a small amount on Pokerstars as I still have the $50 bonus to clear there as well, however the play there was much more aggressive. Luckily a couple times I really did have a good hand, and they paid me off.

March turned into my best month to date, beating February by a whole $50. I believe however, I played for considerably less time - less than 25 hours for the month. For the end of the month my bankroll made it to $5,750 which was a gain of $1,400 for the month. That was made up of:

Bonuses: $447.50

1. William Hill: $50 for 5 hours play bonus
2. Sun: $20 bonus for playing 160mpps (still waiting for that to be credited)
3. Cake: $120 bonus cleared (with another $70 remaining that expires in 3 months)
4. Party: $7.5 reload bonus
5. Chan: $250 through easypokerbonuses
6. Rakeback: $160
   
   
7. Fulltilt: $24
8. Sun: $24
9. Cake: $100
10. William Hill: $12

Poker winnings / (losses): $790

Playing a lot more of 2/4 (and still a bit of 1/2, although mainly on William Hill) has allowed me to increase the amount of bonuses I am clearing and increase the amount of rakeback I am receivin even though i've played fewer hours . Still nowhere near enough hands to tell if I am a long term winner at 2/4, but I am very comfortable playing there now, and have shown pretty good results to date.

I did manage to cash in the Fulltilt freeroll, however, should have done a lot better when i went out with a stupid hand. Chalk that up to experience i guess.

For April the goals in order of priority are:

1. Clear as much of my Cake bonus of $80
2. Clear the last 250 points of my Pokerroom bonus for $210 - and boy does that clear FAST!
3. Play my 5 hours on William Hill for the $50 bonus
4. Clear some of the Sun bonus - maybe $20 or $50 (through double up SnGs mainly)
5. Clear 500 points on fulltilt to qualify for the freeroll (and place in it again!!)
6. Find a new bonus to clear

Current bankroll: $5,750

Had to happen sooner or later

Had a relatively large downswing within the space of an hour. Well I hope its just a downswing and i'm normally a winning player ..... I guess it was typical of my recent nasty sessions, however, this one did not recover very far at all.

It seemed every hand went against me, where I was playing against a maniac second on my right, and an okay LAG on my right, who thought it was okay to steal with 84o.

Unfortunately every hand I played against those two i managed to miss, whilst the other 2 fish at the table were calling down with King high and beating those two muppets.

All in all I had dropped 100BBs at one stage and recoverd slightly to end 70BBs down when I quit. I may have tilted slightly, but actually didn't play too badly - my VPIP was around 35, and given it was 5max and occasionally 4 or 3 handed that seemed reasonable. I probably did chase a few too many hands to the river though, as my WSD was 44% with a W$SD of 25% (OUCH). I played back pretty hard at the guy steal raising, however, nothing at all hit for me. His 84o paired the 8, and he called down my raises after I reraised preflop with A9 and completely missed the flop although did have a gutshot after the turn as well as my overs. The sad thing was then seeing these guys lose it to the the fish when they were also playing with trash.

Maniac with 85/60/2 was also destroying me. With his 92s hitting the flush on the river to beat my KK, along with many other similar hands where I was a huge favourite, until getting rivered. Missed my flush draw every time which was disappointing, including 2 nut flush draws in 25BB pots. Even one of them hitting would have made a big difference. J9 called my raise cold from the button when i had raised AJ UTG .. only to see J9x flop and me unable to get away from it. Admitedly when I reraised the flop he shut down and checked the turn so it did save me half a bet in the end.

Luckily I actually hit some hands towards the end which didn't get sucked out on to recover a few BBs. The only other good thing was that since there were no 2/4 tables running at ongame, my losses were all on 1/2, so I ended up around $140 down for the session rather than $280.

I guess I was probably overdue for a nasty session, and i'm also a lot closer to clearing my bonus. Only 130 points to go, which will give me $250 tonight. problem is my roll on that particular site is now only around $160 - so i may need to deposit again just to clear it (but hopefully not).

Will have to seek out some new bonuses / sites to play at next month too, although I do now have $100 to clear at cake via the reload bonus.

Current bankroll: $5,070

Spinning my wheels

Had a bit under an hour session, to knock off my 500 points at FTP for the month, as well as get a bit closer to completing my Chan bonus. I think I have a bit under 250 points to go to clear it now, which shouldn't take too long.

On the play side, I managed to see some very nasty suck outs hit against me early on, with a river 3 or 4 outer seeming to hit every time I actually got to the river. I managed to lose consistently with AK, AQ versus A6, A8 and with one hand hitting me two pair but my opponent hitting a runner runner straight. Oh well, down a quick 25BBs. However, in the very last orbit on a couple tables, my JJ held up for the first time after losing twice, my AK held up, and my 77 flopping trips also managed to hold up, to recover my entire 25BBs.

So my balance is still the same, although I would have accrued some more rakeback, as well as getting a bit closer to releasing that bonus.

Current Bankroll: 5,200

Mini milestone achieved

Played about 40 mins partly on William Hill as I cleared my 4th hour of the 5 hours worth of bonuses. Was tough to find a decent table on there, and ended up only a few $ up and quit as soon as the lone fish left the table. Only one more hour to clear though which shouldnt be too tricky - hopefully I find a nice loose table next time I log in.

At the same time I played a couple double up SNGs on Sun, one for 10 pounds and the other for $5. Both went relatively smoothly where I managed to double my stack in both well before the bubble, and basically then cruised through to the money.

Only hand I can think that was noteworthy was when I was dealt T8s in the small blind, and it was folded around to me. I did my usual 3x BB raise, and I was a little surprised when the button called (he had a medium stack). The flop was a sweet TTx rainbow, so my next thoughts were how to get the rest of his stack in - around 1,200 chips with me having about 2,200 behind me. I insta min raised the flop, which he reraised around 200 chips. I thought about it for a few seconds before calling. The turn was a blank, which I ended up checking hoping that he'd continue his betting, and given he raised the flop I figured there was a decent chance of that. He thought for about 30 seconds before pushing his last 1,000 chips in, which I insta-called. I guess he could have had another 10, or a full house, but I was hoping in a blind battle this was not the case. He flipped over QQ, and received no Q on the river, so he was out.

I guess he learned his lesson not to slowplay and just call a raise with QQ. A reraise preflop would have put real pressure on me to fold. Still, i'm not sure if I played the hand quite correctly, as my no limit experience is very limited, and I still haven't read any of the theory on it.

Anyways it let me hit my $5k milestone, which i'm quite pleased with, although its obviously still small stakes to many people.

Also received in my email another 15% reload offer from party up to a max of $100. I will take up some of that offer, although with only 7 days to clear and not having a lot of time to play i will only make a small deposit.

Current bankroll: $5,030

So close

Had a 2 hour long session which I haven't done for weeks last night. Played a little fulltilt, although it was a struggle to find a fishy table. Ended up playing one $2/4 fulltilt table, and opening up Chan Poker at the same time for a $2/4 table and a $1/2 table.

The Fulltilt table proved to be very rewarding. Since i have colour coded my opposition, table and seat selection is easy before even sitting down. I managed to sit on the left of a fish and maniac, and they promptly gave me about 20BBs. However, the fish then left, so i decided to quit the table in search of something jucier.

Whilst making BBs at Fulltilt, Ongame was not performing well at all, dropping a quick 15BBs. As usual a few nasty beats from the fish sucking out a gutshot or two contributed to that, as well as having a J high flush with the A and K on the board, but my opponent had the Q. There was also one decent player at the table, and I had a couple run ins with him, and unfortunately he decided to suck out a gut shot or two as well. For my 150 hands in total against him, he's running at a WTSD of about 38% and a W$SD of 75% !!! :O ... kind of annoying that he has consistently hammered me by hitting all his draws. Anyways, when my fish left that table, I had to close that one down as well.

Found another Ongame table which had a fish and a maniac showing around 65,50,6. I sat to the left of the maniac, and apart from one suckout, he managed to pay me off (with a lot of raising and reraising) when I hit my flush / top pair on the river, had the nut straight, flopped trips, flopped TPTK to his 3rd pair that he bet hard. He even bet into my flush and the only hand that could beat me was Axs since i had KJs. I think I made at least 25BBs on that table, so my run ins with maniacs to date have been quite rewarding.

I've now accumulated 650 of the 1250 ongame points I need to release my $250 Chan bonus.

Cashwise my bankroll has improved a little, however, it will be nice to hit the $5,000 mark. I guess if I inclued the proportion of the Chan bonus I would already have achieved that goal.

By the way does anyone know how to get your HUD info up before you sit down at the table? Gametime doesn't seem to do it but it would make seat selection on most sites a whole lot easier.

Current bankroll: $4,990

slowly slowly

I meant to post on friday where I had managed to drop a quick 35BB, which had put me back down into the 4.6ks, but didnt have time in the end. It was a pretty typical losing session - every flush draw I missed. Every flush draw for someone else managed to hit, even runner runner more than once!!! Even the fishy players were killing me!

Didnt play much on the weekend. Ended up installing oblivion and playing a bit of that instead - oh well.

However, in the time that I did play I managed to find a super fish, with stats something like 85,0,0.4 ... I took up my position to his left, and after a couple nasty beats, proceeded to keep playing until his initial stack of $100 ran out. Admittedly I didnt take it all but got more than my fair share in that position.

I had another table going at the same time where I had a similar fish sitting on my right, however, he was more like 65,20,.75 ... and he also managed to donate a decent chunk of change to me.

So just when i was thinking it was going to take me a while to make back my 35BBs, I ended up getting it all back in maybe an hour. I've got to make sure that i maintain my discipline for seat and table selection, as it does make a HUGE difference.

In my last session I had a nice aggro fish, who managed to suck out a 2 pair showing 94o when his 4 hit the river versus my top pair top kicker. Very next hand I am in the CO with KQs and reraise pre flop with the same fish being the only caller from the BB. Flop is J82 with 2 of my suit. Happy days, when its checked to me so I reraise, and he calls. Turn is a K, so I figure i'm probably ahead now, and have a flush draw to boot. Surprisingly he bets into me, and after thinking for about a split second, I decide to reraise. He reraises back ... surely he doesnt have 3 of a kind? Maybe QT? maybe AK but he woulda reraised pre flop surely? Maybe a flush draw too? I end up calling that bet and hit my flush on the river. He checked so I raised, he called and flipped over K3o for a pair of kings. So in the end, I was in front all the way. Ship it :) ... i wonder if i shoulda capped the turn?

Bankroll: $4830

Variance

Variance can be fairly annoying when its running against you to say the least. I think that right after my last post, I managed to quickly drop 60 big bets on an extremely fishy table. Nothing possibly went right, and out of the first 100 hands I had won 3. I was 3 tabling at the time and 2 were big losers, and the other was up 25BBs. At worst I think I managed to be down about $240, which is fairly large at my current stakes.

I am of course assuming that I am a winning player in the long run, and that losing is not the norm! I'm reasonably confident though that it was just a small blip where I just could not hit a draw, and my opponents managed to hit every single draw. (I even managed to lose with my KK to 42o) Anyways it wasn't a good day.

However, last weekend was the freeroll weekend for one of my rakeback providers - Thisisthenuts - feel free to ask me for a referral code :)

I entered in the Cake and Full Tilt free rolls, and managed to cash in both for about $200. I was a little disappointed with my performance in Fulltilt, as I had an average stack but went out making a poor bluff before getting higher in the money. I think the excitement of making the money kinda put me off my game a little and i lost concentration. Oh well, I will remember the experience for next time and hopefully improve.

With respect to the double up SNGs, i've also had a bit of a poor run. I've been getting my money in relatively well, but have had a few nasty suck outs. I'm running about even over the last 10 or so, where i've managed to win a few of the larger ones (being 10 pounds for me at the moment so still only small!) whilst losing a bunch of smaller ones.

The cash games also improved slightly over the last few days, so i'm actually up since my last post. I played a fair bit of 1/2 and 2/4. Did my first little dabble into 3/6 where I saw what I thought was a loose table. I was right, however, got 2 outered on the river twice and ended up losing a little on the table, however, only played there for half an hour or so.

Current bankroll: $4,800

A tale of two sessions

Experienced two vastly different sessions when I finally played for a couple hours last night.

In the first session, I was dealt an abnormally high number of premium starting hands. Playing 3 tables, 2 x 1/2 and 1 x 2/4, I scored AA 3 times in the space of about half an hour. Unfortunately the first time I ran into 2 pair hitting on the river, the second time 3 of a kind hitting on the river, and the third time I flopped an A only to lose to a gutshot on the river.

So out of my 3 tables, I was down $150 on one, down $60 on another, and up $50 on the third at the lowest point. By the end of the hour, I managed to claw back a little, and be approx $100 down in total, through basic play, as each table had probably 3 fish and maybe 2 decent players.

After a break for dinner I sat down for another 1 hour session. This time I found 2 2/4 tables that were relatively loose. The first one I managed to get good position to the left of a couple fish, and they managed to donate about $50 to me in 5 minutes before the table broke up. A little disappointing that they left, but you get that on some of the smaller sites.

On the second table that I opened, there were only 4 players initially, with 2 open seats. I noticed one player was a maniac in every sense of the definition, and was raising preflop, flop, turn and river with any two cards. I decided to sit down to his left so that I would have position on him. I've never really played a maniac, but I figured I'd give it a go. My basic strategy was to play possibly a little looser than usual preflop, and hope to iso-raise the other players out when i had a show downable hand. After that if I had a pair or better, I was going to showdown, either check/calling weaker hands, and bet/raising my stronger ones. The strategy seemed to work quite well, and when I did play a hand I was often heads up, and managed to make about $70 in pretty quick time.

Unfortunately one other player kept calling the maniac a fish, who responded by saying he usually played higher limits (20/40), and said he'd play properly from now on. So now I was thinking ... well great .. thanks for that mr muppet .. why not just let him play rubbish? Now I had potentially a decent player sitting to my right which is rarely a good thing. Funnily enough though he did limp in a lot, which I thought was odd for someone claiming to be a winning high limit player. Maybe I have a fair bit to learn about playing higher?

Anyways I think I played for another 15 mins or so after he changed strategy, and I must admit I did throw out one kinda nasty beat on him. He raised in MP, and I reraised AQ on the button. Everyone else folded which was nice, however, he reraised, and I called. Flop was Q72 and he raised. I then reraised, and surprisingly he reraised again. Hmm well he coulda had a monster I suppose, although the odds of him having QQ were a little lower as I had one Q, and I did suspect his reraise preflop may have been some of that earlier aggression. I decided I could be behind here and the pot was large already so I just called. The turn was a blank which he duly raised again, and I called. River was a sweet, sweet Q, which he raised again. Now maybe he had just filled up, but I thought it would have been unlikely for him to reraise pre with 77 or 22, so figuring that I was ahead here with trips and an A kicker, I reraised. He then called and flipped over KK. So I had hit one of my 5 outs, and I guess based on my earlier session of it happening constantly to me, they do even up at the end of the day.

So all in all I made about a $50 profit, where I thought at one stage I might have to spend another week playing just to make up for the initial loss.

Current bankroll: $4,650

Good start to March

Well a good start as in a big win rate, but only over a few hours. I think i've played maybe 3 hours maximum for March so far, however, I have managed to make a couple hundred running quite hot, whilst still suffering from a few bad beats.

I've been stuck playing a bit of 1/2 and have had a few software problems with Cake .... i know i know, they dont have the best software reputation, but the tables can be very very soft (and the bonus and rakeback are great!!)

Played about 6 double up SNGs and managed to actually lose the first 2 which ruined a huge streak of about 8 wins in a row. Won the last 4 though, so the SnGs, although slow are going quite well. Especially considering I dont really pay attention when playing them as I usually have 2 or 3 cash games on at the same time. Basic extremely tight early play seems to work quite well at the $5 - $20 level.

Current bankroll: $4,600

February summary

Well, February turned out to be a very good month for me. I think only December has been better, since I had a relatively poor January with one huge downswing. It was still profitable though but only through bonuses.

For the end of the month my bankroll made it to $4,350 which was a gain of $1,350 for the month. That was made up of:

Bonuses: $360

1. William Hill: $50 for 5 hours play bonus
2. Fulltilt: $75 bonus
3. Sun: $150 reload bonus
4. Cake: $70 bonus
5. Party: $15 reload bonus

Rakeback: $160

1. Fulltilt $40
2. Sun $70
3. Cake $40
4. William Hill $10

Poker winnings / (losses): $830

Overall moving up to playing a reasonable amount of 2/4 (although I still play a fair bit of 1/2) has allowed me to increase the amount of bonuses I am clearing, increase the amount of rakeback I am receiving, and since i'm also very careful on table selection at 2/4 i've actually been a winner on the tables as well so far.

Still nowhere near enough hands to tell if I am a long term winner at 2/4, but I will continue to play there when I see a looseish table (which is relatively often!).

For March the goals in order of priority are:

1. Clear as much of my Cake bonus as possible before it expires on March 12! (I think i still have about $240 to go ... i cant believe i didnt clear it earlier, but had suffered a few nasty sessions there which had put me off ... along with the fact that you cant use pokertracker on cake!
2. Hopefully clear the Chan bonus of $250, although that doesnt expire for another week or 2 into April
3. Play my 5 hours on William Hill for the $50 bonus
4. Clear some of the Sun bonus - maybe $50 or $100 (through double up SnGs mainly)
5. Clear 500 points on fulltilt to qualify for the freeroll (and hopefully place in it!!)

Bankroll management

It’s interesting to read people’s thoughts on bankroll management. Often you read that for full ring limit poker the required bankroll (for a winning player) is around 300BB. I assume that is 300 big blinds as opposed to big bets. Then people point out on the forums that 300 was the requirement of the old days – being a few years ago, when players were much much looser, and online poker was easy money.

Playing shorthanded, I obviously am subject to a higher degree of variance than full ring, so I’ve decided to be quite conservative with my bankroll management. At the moment with a $4k bankroll I’m still playing a lot of 1/2, however, I have no problem with playing 2/4 as well whenever I see a juicy table. I think I started taking shots at 2/4 when my bankroll was around $3k, but at that point the table had to be very fishy.

I’m not sure that I’m actually winning at 2/4 (I will have to check Pokertracker), however, there has been a dramatic increase in my bonus clearing rate, which would probably make up for fewer playing winnings.

So I guess as far as my bankroll management goes, I like to have around 1,000 big bets in my roll before I climb up limits. When will I take shots at 3/6? Hmmm, maybe when I have $5,000, but probably more like $6,000. I think I’m heading towards the upper limit of my comfort zone of how much I like to have riding on individual hands, although the actual $ don’t influence my playing decisions. The other reason I think I’m getting more conservative as I go up, is that the opposition is obviously a lot stronger, so my win rate will obviously go down.

So far I don’t think I’ve ever tilted enough to join a table that is outside of my bankroll. (and I don’t think I tilt too much at all, but that can be a topic of another blog).

With respect to SitnGos, I think commonly recommended is 30 to 100 buyins. I think that with the SitnGos that I play (double ups), I’m sure you could get away with the lower end of the scale. Admittedly after playing nearly 100 I’ve made only about 20 buyins profit. And this is only at the $5 or $10 level. Over that 100 I’ve never experienced a super bad run, although I did manage to only double up on 3/10 at one stage. I think I’ve doubled the last 7 out of 7 though, and have had a few similar runs in my 100 tourney sample. That being said, 100 tourneys I’m sure is an extremely small sample.

How has the poker been going otherwise – well up and down as per usual. I had a shocking run the other day where I
Received hardly any starting hands (VPIP around 15)
When I did get a hand, it never hit (WTSD around 25%)
When I did get to SD, I was getting sucked out on or had second best all the time (W$SD 18%) …. Someone hitting trips on the river 3 or 4 times in the few hands that I played was extremely frustrating!
I ended up losing a quick $100, however, at the same time cleared my $150 sun poker bonus.

On the plus side as well, I have almost cleared all my bonuses for the month, with only an hour or so to go on William Hill as a must clear. Cake I have a couple weeks to clear a $300 bonus, however that is released in increments of $10. I will focus on Cake for a while, and then try to clear my Chan bonus, and maybe do another $100 reload on Sun.

Current bankroll: $4,250