Interesting comment

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

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

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

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

Chippin away

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

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

Scored a nice little rakeback credit as well.

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

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

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

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

Brief flurry of flopped monsters

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

Within two orbits i'd had and won:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Misread the board again

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

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

$4/$8 Limit Holdem
6 Players

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whoa, another 4 hours played

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Comment response

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A swingy weekend

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

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

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

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

Overall, a fairly decent weekend.

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