Final Post for 2008

Well, this has been a pretty fun adventure so far and look forward to moving ahead in 2009. I think I'm going to change some of the stuff around as well by trying to do a weekly video and have a post dedicated to it for comments. We finish out the year with a pretty descent run near the end and post a solid profit for the month. From my first post back in April with pretty much no bankroll to speak of I now am currently bankrolled for 100nl (for the time being) and have been playing some here and there throughout my time. Today was spent playing at solely 100nl and had a descent day of it. I don't think the players are that much better than me and just need to keep the game to a simple game and not try and get cute. For some reason, every time I try and move up in levels, I alter my game wayyy too much and get away from the basics and it quickly sends me packing back to the level I just came from. I'm hoping that I can keep this under control. I'm also on the verge of actually pulling out some of the funds I have and stay at 50nl and I'm torn a bit right now as to what to do. My goal is to have my poker fund my family vacation this year, which I hope to take in 12/09 to Disney. Having a $1k jump on it would be nice but would also like to move up to higher levels too and do it in a faster manner :) Not sure here for now, but here's the numbers:

Cake: $1149.80
FT: $788.27
Stars: $199.50

Total: $2137.57

Rakeback:
Cake: $407.69
Tilt: ~$125

That puts me at roughly $2670 and easily the best bankroll I've had this year.

Yea for Slugs!

Well, I had the fortunate opportunity to be backed in the Stars Million yesterday and started off really poorly when my JJ went down to TT on the 2nd hand and dropped to 6200 chips from 10k. I was able to claw back up to almost starting stack by the first break. Had QQ double through 78o on a 287 flop when the turn and river were both Kings and was sitting above average at 20k at 2nd break. Third hour is where it broke down on me when AK ran down my QQ on the turn after he floated on a J47 flop and the turn gave a K. Unfortunate, but that's trny's. The good news is that while I was registering for that, I saw that a bunch of people from ITH were playing the Holiday 100k on Tilt. I decided to join in and we decided to chop it up as a team. The agreement is that 50% of the winnings go into a pool to be divided equally among all in the group, except cashes over $1k only get 30% of the winnings into the pool to reward the player more. Well, Matthew Hilger (Author of Internet Texas Holdem and The Poker mindset) was one of our sluggers and ended up winning the whole thing. 10k players and he cashes for $10k which nets me $500. Nice boost there to the bankroll :) That helps recover from the downswing for sure.

Stars: $172.02
Cake: $649.09
Tilt: $809.72

Total: $1630.83

Rakeback:
Cake: $344.28
Tilt: ~$140

Total: $485

A tumbling we will go!

Soooooooooooooooooooo frustrating. Back to where we started once again, but this time I take most of the blame myself. I decided, for some reason, to jump into some 3/6 6max limit and promptly dropped about 50bb's which puts a pretty good hurting onto the bankroll. I've also been running below expectation at 50nl as well. I also put up another vid for you all so feel free to rip me apart on that or comment on the good things.

Cake: $501.01
Tilt: $335.79
Stars: $172.02

Total: $1008.82

Rakeback:
Cake: $307.13
Tilt: $126.63 (roughly)

Total: $433.76

Spotcheck

Well, been a little bit since my last update so I wanted to put a quick one out there. So far this month, I have somewhere in the neighborhood of 25k hands already. Quite a bit even for my standard. Been doing ok as well. I had one of my best days ever yesterday, with an 8 buyin session, which I dropped about 1.5 buyin later in the evening. Rake is kicking up quite a bit as well. Not sure how much I have at Tilt as I'm pretty much playing there now. There just aren't enough tables with fish on cake any longer at 50nl. I just keep seeing the same regs over and over. I also think I may cash some funds out once I get the rakeback from Cake this month. Would be nice to pull $1k out and put it into my pocket for once. That should leave me enough to still play 50nl. Will evaluate in another 2 weeks to see :)

Cake: $732.31
Tilt: $805.74
Stars: $172.02

Total: $1710.07

Rakeback: Cake:$274.53 Tilt: ~$125????

Mindset???

The last few days have been quite weierd as I'm really having a hard time focusing on my direction. I am finding myself not thinking about the hands as they occur and not staying focused. To try and help with that, I decided to play some tournaments yesterday and played 5. 2 were on cake, one on Tilt and two on Stars. I was able to cash in both of the cake tournaments but not any of the others but still felt very good about my play. The first on cake was a 5r that I was able to get in for the minimum of $15 and cashed for just over $25 (3rd level). The other was a $3 6max trny that had 104 people and I was able to actually win that one. It really felt good to take down a tournament as I haven't been playing them at all lately. The cash games were very up and down over the last couple days. I was pretty much breakeven on NL50 but somehow ended up playing some 2/4 limit and 3/6 limit yesterday and I think I finished down about $150 or so overall. Looking forward to tonight as I have a coaching booked and lookinng to plug some leaks in my nl game. I am working towards being able to drop my second job and replace it with poker because I'm not making any money (serving and bartending) with the downturn in economy. If I can get myself to a descent winrate (3-4ptbb/100) I could easily drop it. Playing certainly is not a problem for me and I could easily play 5-6 hours daily. Here's to moving on and getting better!

Cake: $806.06
Stars: $161.62
Tilt: $384.04

Total: $1351.72
Rakeback: 10,243 hands for $180.76 at cake.

Up and down week

Well, things have been kinda weird since the last update. I went on a pretty good run and was able to move up to 100nl and layed a couple thousand hands or so and dropped 4 buyins due to some coolers. Without those coolers, I would have been pretty much break even. I also spent a bit of money on some personal stuff so that took a bit out of the account as well. It's weird how 50nl now feels comfortable to me when not that long ago, it was a foreign land to me and I was scared of it. Anyhow, I'm hoping to be able to continue building from where I am currently.

Cake: $946.58
Stars: $185.02
Tilt: $529.16

Total: $1660.76

Rakeback: $117.61 @ 6140 hands

New vid up!

Ok all, put up a new vid today playing 2 tables of 50nl at Tilt. I'm working on expanding my game quite a bit and thought that a video would do some good for that. Theres quite a few interesting spots that come up. Overall video is about an hour long with some PT analysis at the end.

On a seperate note, I played a few trny's over the last day or 2 and had a lot of fun. I played a .25c r on Cake and finished 4th and while playing that I got into some 100 PLO8 and finished up 4 buyins after an hour and quietly left the table :)

Overall, has been a fairly good start to the month:

Cake: $1440.51
Stars: $185.02
Tilt: $300.05

almost there.......

End of month bounce

For once I ended the month on a positive note. I decided to play no more than 3 tables and to really think about each and every bet that I made or didn't make. It also helped to run really well and get lots of good hands. I'm also staying true to my commitment to myself this month with my study. I'm going back through and watching a lot of the micro vids on Pokertrikz and trying to focus more on the strategies being taught versus just watching. I saw a post recently on pokertrikz about moving up and what sites would be recommended for training. One of the members commented that Pokertrikz would be more than sufficient up to 200nl if we implemented the concepts illustrated in the videos. I don't think I ever really comprehended this totally. I look back now and think that I thought I could become a winning player just by watching the vids but now as I mature, realize that is all I was doing, watching. I wasn't learning. This is what has brought me to where I am now and wanting to actually improve my knowledge of the game. Anyhow, the last day of November went really well for me and I finished up ~7 buyins yesterday. That is going to go a long way to getting me to the monthly goal of taking a shot at 100nl again.

Cake: $842.32
Stars: $185.02
Tilt: $205.54

Rakeback coming: $357.55

Total: $1590.43

Time to get back to the grind.

Sorry for the delay in posting, but I needed to take a bit of a break from playing as I was putting in a lot of hands, but wasn't thinking about anything that was happening and caused me to shed off a lot of profit in the last 2 weeks. I've dropped quite a bit of my bankroll since taking a shot at 100nl and needed a few days off to clear my head. I also think that I am not spending enough time studying and hence hurting my overall play as well. So for now, I am going to spend at least equal time studying as I am playing. If I play for 3 hours one day, I will not play again until I have spent 3 hours studying/watching vids whatever.

So now to the update:

Cake: $556.84
Stars: $185.02
Tilt: $205.54

Total: $947.40

RB: $349.63 @ 23,641 hands

Oh the swings....

Here we are again trying to find our reasonings for such large swings but I again have to tell myself that there is just a lot of variance in poker. I don't think any of us really know how much variance can play in our game. Granted our play makes that part of it but I feel that I am playing ok. I did a video over the weekend of 2 tables at 50nl on Cake. Feel free to criticize, praise, whatever. I need to get better and I can take it.

Cake: $896.04
Stars: $189.28
Tilt: $205.54

Total: $1290.86

RB: $320.79 @ 21,827 hands

slow and steady

Well, I didn't get to do my video Wednesday night because I ended up playing a 10nl donkfest game with a full table of guys from Pokertrikz. We had a full table going for about 2 hrs and Trikkur ended up a little over 10 buyins and I ended up down almost that much. Was crazy. Played probably close to 1k hands yesterday however and recouped my losses from Wednesday and I now sit poised to rebuild up to that 2k mark. Rakeback is going to be a big boost this month as I'm approaching 300 alraeady and still have 10 days left.

Cake: $1288.67
Stars: $189.28
Tilt: $205.54

Total: $1683.49

RB: 18,012 hands for $277.40

Reality Check

Well......So much for 100nl for now :) I played quite a bit yesterday and got my arse handed to me overall and humbly moved back down to 50nl with no second thoughts. I then continued to run bad/tilt and had to stop because I couldn't differentiate between the two. I was able to recoup some of it late last night after I had a couple hours to get away from the game. Overall, I ended up dropping about $500. I am hoping to get a video done this evening and hope to have that posted up tonight. See yall later!

Cake: $1232.81
Stars: $205.48
Tilt: $205.54

RB: $242.84 @ 15,708 hands

100NL begins

Well, the journey has made it to a new level and one that I think will be my mainstay unless things go really well. I ventured into 100nl yesterday and finished my first session down about 1.5 buyins. I think it was mainly jitters at first. The first semi big hand was very early when I had watched the guy to my left lose a big pot to a big suckout. He had about a half stack left and when he was in the BB, he shoved after 2 people limped. The very next hand, utg limped and I was on the button w/ A9 and raised, he then again shoved his half stack. I thought that there was a very good chance that he was just steaming still and ended up calling. He showed AJs and took a half stack from me. Soon after that, I had KJs in the bb vs a SB open. Flop was J high and 2 diamonds (not mine) and sb bet out pot and I called. Turn was a blank and he shoved. I called and he showed AJ and I didn't improve again. I saw people calling down much lighter and maybe it was the combination of the boaords, but I didn't get any respect at all with my bets. Had to close out at the end of the day down about $160 but was able to play after I got home and was able to recoup that as well as annother $150 or so. Overall, up about 1.5 buyins at 100nl.

Cake: $1729.31
Stars:$210.98
Tilt: $205.54

RB: 13,595 hands $194.84

Looking forward to analyzing some hands today and spotting some weeaknesses.

Here's my overall graph for the month of November so far:

Quick weekend update

As I finish out the night, I realized that there are sooooo many donkeys playing in the weekend night times. Was a bit frustrating for a while as I played probably 1k hands pretty much breakeven after I would stack someone then someone would stack me by hitting their 2 outer on the river and stuff like that. I am not sure how many hands I got in today, but it was quite a few. I'll get them all emailed over to PT tomorrow for analyzing. Cake updated at some point while I was playing and has me at 11,004 hands and a rakeback of $152.62. Was able to add a couple more buyins tonight after all was said and done. 100 is getting very very close as I have the BR if I include my rakeback.

I'm really hoping that I have turned the corner. Here's my stats for the month that I have been able to import into PT. I'm missing about 1k hands or so, but this is close.




Cake: $1513.25
Stars: $210.98
Tilt: $205.54

Total: $1929.77

No bankroll update

Well, after waking up late this morning, I realized that I had missed my race. I've been exhausted and hadn't pre-registered due to not really being sure if I wanted to get my tail up on the one morning I didn't have to. Decided that I would lay in bed and have a few cups of coffee instead.

My wife has to work today so I hope to get in a few hands this afternoon and crank it up a little bit. I am so close to that 100nl level yet still quite nervous about making the leap. I just remember how much of a backslide I took when I moved up to 50nl a few times. With the rakeback funds that will be due to me in December, I am only about $50 away from the $2k bankroll that I need. I've played very few hands at 100nl so far and what I have played turned out well given that I was able to stack my sb opponent on my very first hand. Then I played like a chicken and decided to leave and I haven't been back. I'll likely just play 3 tables of 50 and 1 table of 100 for a little while to try and keep myself not focused on the pot sizes too much. I know it's all about the BB's but when moving up, it's sometimes difficult to see that.

On a seperate note, I added a new section to the blog where I will be listing some video's of my play. The first one has been posted and I look for this to help improve my play as well as others. Please feel free to leave comments. I think I'll put up a new post each time for comments. I'm hoping to do this on a weekly basis, if not more so.

Good Streak Continues

Man, what a long day this has become. I spent a lot of my day actually working today and not playing poker. Was able to issue a few policies today and also worked on a few other quotes. I have a large 5 car policy that I am hoping to get issued on Saturday. We'll see how that goes.

Just got home from bartending (almost 1am) and fired Cake up and decided not to play as I am quite tired. Decided to just update this and go to bed. Need to open the bar at 10am so need to get some sleep.

Today was a pretty dang good day for poker. I played ~600 hands and finished up almost 4 buyins. Was a great run, even after have KQ lose to QJ on a 4QQ flop. Yup, J on the river sinks me.

Cake: $1392.86
Stars: $210.98
Tilt: $205.54

Total:$1809.38

Rakeback: $137.80 after 9929 hands.

I am really close to start taking shots at 100nl and I honestly say that I am a bit nervous. Think I'll girnd away at 50 for a while.

Good Day on the tables today

Wasn't able to play as many hands as I wanted today, but I was able to get in 1k hands. Worst hand was when I had KQs that I had raised first in and flopped trip queens only to get rivered by QJ when a J hit the river. That was early on and was down a stack quickly. Bounced back and was able to recover that and add 3 more to it to finish up $150 and change.

Cake: $1234.84
Tilt: $205.54
Stars: $210.98

Total: $1651.36

RB: $120.43 at roughly 8100 hands this month.

New Video

Decided to video tape 2 tables yesterday and had a couple people from pokertrikz join one of them for some very interesting hands. I am working on adding commentary to it as well and hope to have it uploaded today. I'll post a link once I do as there are some very interesting hands that come up. Looking forward to some comments on it once I can get it rendered properly.

Played pretty consistently yesterday and was able to get in 2k hands at a good winrate(+6ptbb/100) and added to the bankroll once again. I don't want to jinx myself, but I THINK that I might actually have finally figured out how to beat this level. Maybe I'm just running good. Not sure yet, but I'm gonna keep on truckin.

Cake: $1087.12
Stars: $$210.98
Tilt:205.54

Total: $1503.64

Rakeback: $101.35

I was looking at my rakeback totals so far and it's amazing how fast it runs up at 50nl. I played 2k hands yesterday and earned $26 in rakeback. That's a half buyin! If I can get to my 25k hand goal for the month, that will put me around $350 in rakeback for the month. 7 buyins goes a long way :)

Mini Update

Just a really quick update. I received my new office pc yesterday and have begun setting up shop. I really like it but I think I may need a new graphics card. The 19" WS monitor is quite nice. Trying to fumble around finding things with Vista but overall doesn't seem too bad. Was able to get some my poker clients installed but no HEM or PT3 yet. Will try and get that today. I also want to move all my music over to it today.

Overall a pretty satisfying since last update. Broke over the 1k mark at cake but had AK run into AA and QQ run into KK to drop me back down a little bit below.

Cake: 981.27
Tilt: 199.27
Stars: 231.48

Rakeback: 59.72

Gruelling Week

Well, don't have a whole lot of poker to report on as I've been just kind of maintaining. I have had an extremely gruelling week of work. I got my new computer ordered and it should be here on Monday. I re-wired my office and got my new network up and running. Worked Thursday day, thursday night serving, Friday in my offfice, Friday night bartending, Saturday worked all day open to close bartending and then then worked with my dad today building walls in his new shop. I'm whooped! Looking forward to hooking up my new pc tomorrow. Anyhow, bankroll sitting at the following:

Cake: $822.02
Stars: $231.48
Tilt: $199.72

Rakeback: $42.33

Settling in???

Well, now that the election is over, I can stop paying attention to all the BS that has been going on and hope to get some more playing in. I feel that I am getting a little more comfortable playing 50nl consistently and trying to not fall into the same pits that I have on the last couple months. I moved some money off of Cake over to stars for someone that was looking to cash out of Stars and I had dvery little there so I was more than happy to do it for him. I moved $300 off and working on rebuilding that up. We'll see how that goes. If I can have a descent month, I could be bumping up on 100nl after rakeback next month. We'll see. I'd like to get in about 25k hands in at 50 this month, but I have a lot of stuff going on at work that is taking presedence right now.

Cake: $817.63
Stars: $331.63
Tilt: $199.72

Total: $1348.98

Rakeback: ~$30

November comes in nicely

Well, I still haven't received my rakeback yet, but the last couple days have gone pretty well on the tables. Hoping that it isn't a fluke and I can continue the grind. I also had a person that I had staked finish up their series of tournaments and got a 50% ROI on it so that gives me a small ($60) bump in my bankroll at stars. Raisindye is to play 5-6 trny's in the FTOPS and would really like him to run well in one or more :)

Anyhow, quick update:

Cake: $759.93
Tilt: $199.72
Stars: $79.13
Rakeback to come: $270.53

Total: $1309.31

Closing out the month

Well here we are at the end of another month. Was a brutal blow to me emotionally and took a big toll on my overall bankroll. I'm slowly rebuilding but I am getting very frustrated with the back and forth from 20 to 50 back to 20 and rebuild. I really wish I had time to play trny's consistently as I really do feel that my EV is better there currently. I put in almost 24k hands at Cake this month and my bankroll sits about half where it was at the beginning of the month. Have a fair amount of rakeback coming, but I want to start using that to INCREASE my bankroll and not replenish it! I also have a small investment in a friend that will be playing 5 or 6 FTOPS events coming up soon so I hope to see a small bump from that (hell a big bump). I own 2% of his overall action. Will update that as they go along. Haven't played yet today as I have been preparing my quarterly tax forms this morning and paying bills but that is all finished now. Oh, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Cake: $569.30
Tilt: $199.72
Stars: $19.13
Total: $788.15
Current Rakeback accrual at cake: $258.34

Here's to a good day today!

I'm not dead...just hiding :)

Been a few rough weeks on the tables and I decided to take a bit of a break from playing a lot of poker. Just been playing a little here and there. I also really haven't been participating in the forums much as of late. Not really sure if this is a complete burnout or just a needed setback. Whatever it is, I'm feeling good and starting to play a little again. I've been playing some $10nl on FT with some massive multitabling going on as an experiment. I tried doing this at cake where I think there are more fish, but the new software just keeps crashing on me. I played just over 3k hands on Friday and was able to take down about 4.5 buyins for almost 8ptbb/100. Played another 1k hands of 20nl on cake tonight at over 9ptbb/100 but did this playing no more than 4 tables. I'd really like to get this to where I can play 50nl for some side income and allow me to quit my second job. We'll see where that goes as I certainly don't count on being able to do so any time soon. I would also want to have a massive bankroll for it.

Cake: $408.29
Tilt: $247.86
Stars: $19.13

Total: $675.28

Rakeback accrued: $239.04

And down we go again....

Well, the inevitable 50nl curse has hit once again and I was sent spiraling down to 20nl yesterday. I put in a lot of hands and had some severe suckouts and I think a lot of bad play to be quite honest. I need to slow down and think more carefully about what can be happening. I dropped almost 7 buyins yesterday which is a big chunk of my bankroll and that followed a losing day the day before. I've dropped about half of my bankroll in the past couple days and I'm going to not try and "fight through it" and humble myself and settle back in at 20 for a while and rebuild not only my bankroll but my confidence. It's amazing how hard it is going to be to recover from this as 7 buyins at the higher level is 16 at 20nl. I may even grind away at some sng's on stars for a bit to change the pace a little.

Cake: 394.29
Tilt: 236.66
Stars: 54.38

Total: 685.33
Accumulated Rakeback: 196.82

Been a little while since my last update as I haven't really been playing all that much. I've been getting ready for my half marathon and completed that this past Saturday. Was a wonderful feeling when I crossed that finish line. I'm already looking forward to my next run which will be a 10k in November. Now, on to poker.

I've noticed that there are a lot of regulars during the day at Cake and not too many fish but I've still been doing ok. I've ground through about 9k hands so far this month and have about $100 in rakeback so far. I'm up overall as well which is a very good feeling as each time I've attempted to move through 50nl i've been sent crying back to 20nl in pretty quick fashion.

Current bankrolls:

Cake: $1168.57
Tilt: $231.49
Stars: $34.58

Total: $1434.64

Rakeback: $119.01 and counting

Down and up day

Finishing up now and figured since I broke through the milestone again, I had to post it. Started the day off really poorly going down 2.5 buyins rather quickly when my Kings < JJ and my Kings then lost to AQs on a Q high flop and flushdraw. Not too much I can do about it but suck it up and keep on grinding. I was able to get that back and was able to finish up a little over 4 buyins over ~1200 hands. I also just finished playing a $5r trny on cake where I was sitting fairly descent coming to the end of the 2nd hr and my QQ got ran down by AQ aipf. Oh well, move on.

cake: $937.70
Tilt: $231.49
Stars: $29.21

Total: $1198.40

Here's hoping tomorrow goes well also.

September is done!

Well, I had a fairly successful recovery in September. With my rakeback from cake (still don't know how much for Tilt) my overall bankroll sits as follows:

Cake: $738.40
Tilt: $231.49
Stars: $29.21

Total Bankroll: $991.10

I put in just over 20k hands at Cake in September, which was actually more than I had anticipated. Much of that was at 20nl and I'm hoping that I can stay at 50nl this full month. Having the 33% rakeback really helps that out.

I'm also starting to follow a few other poker blogs to help in my education. I believe that my overall play has gotten better, but my overall results are still fairly stagnant in terms of my earnrate. I'll be sticking to 50nl until I feel quite confident that I can comfortably beat it. I still have a few large leaks that need plugging. My largest by far ( I think) is cbetting too much and not taking into consideration the range of my opponents on certain boards and not getting folds on the flop like I think I can. That will be my main focus this month and hope that I can improve that part of my game.

Here's to a good month of October!

Spot check:

Cake: $649.98
Tilt: $231.49
Stars: $47.76
Total: $929.23

Rakeback: $205.21

Friday post...

Not a whole lot to update, but figured I'd go ahead and put something in. I must say that I am extremely lucky right now as I went on some major tilt yesterday and easily could have dropped my bankroll, but got myself back together and refocused. I did drop some, but it could be a lot worse. I'm also playing quite a few step trny's on Stars for a seat at the PCA which is really my biggest goal I've ever had playing poker. I'm seeing a lot of bad play at the lower steps which is to be expected and I can't seem to move past step 2. I've finished 3rd like 6 times and top 2 move on. Very aggrivating. Hope to have a good update with some progress in the bankroll department soon.

Cake: 442.19
Tilt: 231.49
Stars: 47.76

Total: 721.44

Sep Rakeback: 195.59 and counting....

Quick Miniupdate

was hoping to not have to drop back down and so far we are ok. Rebounded a little bit last night as I picked up about a buyin and a half when I stacked KJo w/ a set of 6's on a J high board. Also going to keep track of each site's bankroll to make it a little easier to update as I am almost strictly playing on Cake and want to also keep up with my rakeback so I am going to add that category since Cake updates daily.

BR:

Stars: $47.76
Full Tilt: $231.49
Cake: $681.08
Total Bankroll: $960.33
Rakeback at Cake so far this month: $131.22

Oh the weekend variance...

Variance can be so cruel at times. While going on a fairly good run over the last week, it caught back up with me this weekend. I had a guy make a couple of crazy crazy calls for my full stack and I lost 3 flips to him dropping 3 buyins to him. I finally got up and closed my laptop as I could tell that tilt was starting to set in and I walked.

Current Bankroll: $817.43

$1k Cracked through again

Things have been going quite well on Cake so I decided to take a shot at 50nl with a little bit of the profit I have had and use the rakeback to cushion me some. I set a stoploss at 4 buyins, and after a few big suckouts, found myself down 2 buyins the first day. I was feeling a bit deflated as I truly felt that I was going to proceed this time. It seems that each time I get to this point, I hit a horrendous downswing and end up dropping most of my hard work quickly. I stayed true however and continued to play, watching the money carefully and if I hit another 2 buyin drop, I would move back to 20nl. Things have gone quite well however and I am up, at least for now. I've cracked through the $1k mark again, not including my rakeback which is already up to over $100 after just a week of play there and most of that at 20nl. Here's hoping to keep this going.

Current BR now at $1,040.08

What a month..

Sorry for not having an update for a while as I went on the most absurd horrible run in my poker career that wasn't tilt/alcohol/bankroll induced. I dropped 3/4 of my bankroll in the month of August and was down to under $200. I played a variety of sng's and 10nl to rebuild. I played quite a few sng's and really crushed them which really helped. I was able to start playing 25nl again and I've moved most money over to Cake to capitalize on the weaker players there and that has gone well so far. I have also had a session recorded for critique by Trikkur in which he has completed the first half. I have to say that he pointed out some very large leaks in my game that I just didn't comprehend before, and hope that it will improve dramatically already. If you would like to watch it, here it is:
MX1

Bankroll back to a respectable level again and hoping to move up to 50nl soon.

$793.22

Sigh once again

Well, Tuesday night and Wednesday went about as bad as possible. Dropped a total of about 8 buyins, 4 at 50nl and 4 at 25nl bringing me down roughly $300 or so, maybe a little more. Took 4 days away while camping and when I came home drummed up 3 buyins back at 25nl but then it seemed to go away today. I decided, with the encouragement of my coworker, to play some $11 45man turbo sng's to break out of the monotony for a little. Played 6 of them for a $66 total investment and had 2 5th place finishes for a total of $88 won giving myself a 33% roi. Not too shabby for some quick fun. I think there is actually some money to be made there as there is a descent prize pool, the players are horrible and have little clue on how to adjust for the increasing blinds and use ICM properly. I may have to look at doing a stretch of these here shortly and get a better idea on my overall roi. They only last about an hour from start to finish and they start continuously.

Current bankroll: $315.69 at Tilt and $460.10 at Stars after receiving $130ish in rakeback on tilt. Total at $775.79. Now, onto my next session :)

soooo close, I can taste it

Trying to just play correctly and I am oh so close to hitting that 1k mark. I've been playing a mix of 25nl and 50nl. I had actually crossed over the thresh0ld but gave some back. Rakeback should hit in a few days and that should be around $150 or so. I've had some horrid hands however where I called a raise with a small PP and hit my set on the turn only to have the original raiser flop a bigger set, had my Aces cracked twice for full stacks each time, but I'm still up overall. I'll be going camping on Thursday so there won't be any activity at all for 4 days.

Current bankroll: $959.88

A good weekend

Well, so far so good this month. Since my last post, I've logged about 3200 hands and I'm up almost 6 full buyins and really just playing very straight forward and believing my opponents (for the most part) when they tell me I'm behind. Trikkurs latest video has really clicked in my head and I think my biggest leak was paying off my opponents way too often. Here's hoping I can keep this pace up, but I'm not expecting it. I know others boast of 10ptbb/100 but I'm trying to keep my "hopes" conservative.

Bankroll now at $876.73 with rakeback due to hit this week sometime. Hope to pop that $1k mark again soon.

Long time comin....

Been on a bit of a roller coaster for the last month and a half or so. I finalized my string of 180man sng's and finished with a nice profit for myeslf and my backers. Original bankroll started at $550 and ending bankroll at $1195.20. I made a donation of $32.26 to Colombianitos (5% of the profits) and gave a 70% return to my backers and was able to add $225 to my bankroll from the quest.

Now, that was the good news. On the bad side of things, I went through a very rough downswing at NL. I finally realized that I was trying to make too much happen with unmade hands and have shifted my focus a little over the last 2 weeks. Trikkur's most recent video found [url=http://www.pokertrikz.com/videos/Trik31%20-%2020NL%20Red%20Star.wmv]Here[/url] really drilled some things home for me. I am learning to believe people when they bet! I watched it about 2 weeks ago and I have to say that my game has improved quite a bit, well at least my profits have. My last 18k hands I have run at almost 3bb/100 which I am perfectly happy with for the moment. If I can continue with that over the next 50k hands or so, I'll feel a lot better about my game and be ready to move back to 50nl. I've also cut back on the number of tables I'm playing for the most part until I am confident in my overall playing. So, the goal for this month is to rack up 50k hands and run at ~3ptbb/100. That should add roughly $750 to my bankroll and I should catch another $300ish from rakeback.

Current bankroll stands at $729.13.

well, rakeback has hit this past week and it was roughly $150. Got my video uploaded and had some critique on it as well as my stats for the last 3 months or so. Trikkur gave me some great articles to read regarding blind stealing which is an area that I really need to work on. My stats are too consistent from all positions and button ranges shhould be much wider.

Current bankroll: $897.20

well, another quick post as I'm really getting frustrated overall. I'm not improving the way I think I should be. I've recently been doing more reading on 2+2 and joined a uNL study group. Also trying to find more vids to watch and analyze more hands. Hoping that my rakeback is going to hit soon(next few days or so) to give me a bit of a bump.

Current BR after going on an almost 8 buyin heater today:

$735.72

A little bit late, but here none the less. Been a fairly descent week and I've been bumping up on the 50NL again. I had a good run at 25nl and decided to take a small shot at 100nl. On the very first hand, I had A3o in the bb. The SB limped and I bumped it up to $4. He called. Flop comes 245r! Gin flop for me. He bets out $6 and I feel there is no way he has 37, so I bump it up to $17 and he instacalls. Hmmm, what does he have..... Turn comes a 6 and he instashoves $68. I call for him to show me 77 for an oesd and overpair. River was a blank and I pull down my biggest NL pot to date of $182.

Also starting on a new 180 quest now that Stars has the $10/180's back. I've got all my shares locked up, just not sure who is getting how many yet. Should get started on that today.

Bankroll to date: $938.47

What a wacky game this can be in the short term. I was able to cross over the $1k mark in the past week but ultimate went on a nasty run at 50nl again to drop back down to $25nl. I did, however, manage to mark a milestone. I was playing 25nl at stars when I was able to build up a ~$275 stack :) Pretty amazing site and received lots of comments every time someone sat down. Worked up about 5k fpp's last week, so not too much further to go on the docking station. One thing that I noticed is that I don't think it is the one I actually want. Bose makes 2 different docking stations and one of them is portable. That is the one that i want and I think that the one they have is a stationary one that needs to be plugged in :( Well, that pretty much wraps up the interesting stuff for the past week.

Bankroll: $851.96

Well, time for my weekly update. I've gone ahead and moved $250 over to pokerstars this week to finish off my FPP's that I need for the speaker system. I had around 11k points there and need ~20k total for it, and I've added on about 1300 or so in the last 2 days. Shouldn't take too long for that. I've also been fairing pretty well on the tables too. My rakeback did hit on Tilt for ~$250 which is a big help. I've also settled back down into $25NL and since then it appears that my agression has increased quite a bit due to the smaller pots compared to 50nl and I think I was just not used to playing pots of that size. Current bankroll now sits at $899.66. Here's hoping we can get to $1k soon and comfortably move up to $50NL.

Well, so far the month of May has continued to be a rollercoaster. I'm up almost 2 buyins so far, but that is after running Kings into Aces 4 times yesterday, so overall I'm happy with where I am. Something else came to mind to me while reviewing stuff in pokertracker. A 5ptBB/100 winrate is only $2.50 per 100 hands. Not sure why I am thinking that that is not acceptable while Im playing, but it sure is possible. One full stackage gives enough for 1k hands! Really helps me to be a bit more patient overall. Currently sitting at $393.33. Hoping that my rakeback will hit soon. I'm also considering moving some money over to Stars and building up some points there to get my bose portable speaker system for my ipod. Should be able to rack up enough points there pretty quickly to finish that off.

April in full

Well, the month of April has now past and I need to get this in so here it goes. The overall month was basically breakeven for me. I had a horrible 10 buyin downswing where I lost 7 of 8 flopped sets and that led to a little bit of tilt and some bad calls. I'm happy that I was able to turn it around and at least get back to even. I should pull in about $230 in rakeback this month so that is a big positive and picks up almost 10 buyins. My current bankroll at Tilt stands at $359.23 as we start off the month of May. I've been playing from a couple different computers so I'm going to post up the overall monthly stats for each of them from now on. It's too difficult to try and combine into one.

I've also been spending a lot more time watching vids at CR. I've come to really like the Brystmar vids and have stumbled upon a couple leakfinder vids where people have uploaded their vids to have some of the pro's review their play and point out mistakes and strong points in their game. I wish there were more of those as it really articulates what needs to be fixed in one's game. I'm also beginning to watch Fruitypro's vids, but I have to admit I am having a difficult time with the thick accent, but I think there is a lot of good stuff to learn here. I'm really hoping to get my stats up to around 5ptBB/100 at 25NL for the month of May and think that it is very possible to improve even beyond that. Possibly up to 10ptBB for this level from what people are telling me. I'm also scaling back to no more than 4 tables until I can feel confident in my game.

Here's to a good month of May!

Oh yea, today I celebrate my 16th anniversary to the best woman in the world. Happy anniversary sweetie!

Took the plunge...

Well, after a lot of debate, I decided it was time to get serious about my study of the game and I joined Cardrunners. I think the money spent will be well worth it in the long run and hopefully get me up the ranks much quicker than just grinding. The past few sessions have not been that great as I've been 2 and 3 outered numerous times. Overall I'm down about 3.5 buyins since my last update and currently I am sitting at $413.93. I'm also playing less tables and focussing on making better decisions to maximize every winning hand and minimize my losses.

Shortstacking

Well, as one that wanted to experiment a little with 50nl, decided to try some shortstacking out. Buying in for the minimum and playing only premium hands preflop and looking to get my stack in most of the time. Was able to get in ~1200 hands or so and was quite pleased with the results. I don't think that I could continue with this for a long period of time, but who knows????

Overall, this month has not been that great. Between both computers, I think I am up about $200 overall. I think it was a mistake for not including my starting bankroll in my first post so going to put it in here for a benchmark. As I write, my bankroll on Tilt is $496.53. This will help me keep the overalls better since I play on multiple computers. I'm also not going to be posting each session as that just seems to be really boring.

After I finished my shortstacking session, played some 25nl and had some pretty descent results. Had a good run of cards and had my opponents with strong 2nd best hands. Example of this was me raising KQo first in and the sb called. Flop comes QKQ. I bet out, he smooth called. Turn was a T putting straights, flushdraws and all kinds of scary stuff out there to let catch up so I decided to check. River was a blank and SB led out and I pushed. He called with AJ :) Stackage!

I then was able to get a set of 4's all in vs AA and K8 on a K48 flop and I held for a nice 4 buyin pot. Anyhow, on to the next session.

A bad day on the tables......

Let's just put this out here quickly as I don't want to dwell too much and move past this.

Now, I feel that I played ok, but not great. I made a few tilty plays when the donkeys hit hard against me. Ran Kings into Aces twice and my Aces lost to kings twice. The best one was when a table had gotten real short and was playing heads up. Picked up Kings and obviously raised. Flop comes out as 4s Kh 6s. We get all in on the flop which was wonderful. My opponent had 57s of spades and hit his flush on the turn. I'll be going over my hands today to look for obvious spews and I'm sure there were a couple, but overall was just a bad day where I had strong hands that just didn't hold up.

Steppin back up to 25nl

well, decided to go ahead and move on up to 25nl knowing that I currently do not have the bankroll for it but will as soon as my rakeback hits for last month. Had a fairly good session and also ran into Soultwister from ITH while playing. Was quite surprised to find him playing at my level as he normally plays 200nl. Said he had gone on a huge downswing and was $3.5k -ev in his h/u all-in's over a short period of time. That kinda hurts.

With that said, wanted to be true to myself and log my session for this afternoon:

I also posted a semi-article on Pokertrikz regarding rakeback at the micro stakes. You can read about it here:

http://www.pokertrikz.com/forums/micro-stakes/238-importance-rakeback-micros.html

I'm not normall an "article" type person, but thought it would prove helpful to someone.

Weekend update

I'm going to try and keep track of sessions here so there will be quite a few updates with not much "content". This is more for accountability to myself and think it helps me to stay focused. I also will be playing on a couple different computers and this will help me keep up with the overalls between PT merges. Anyhow, played a little bit over the weekend but not much time available.

First entries are always awkward

Well, here we are and I am now going to try and start keeping track of my play through the use of a blog and really try and learn NL properly with study and lots of playing. I really started playing NL at the end of February and was doing quite well through the month of March and had graduated from 25NL up to 50NL until Easter Sunday. Without getting into many details, I ended up being angry, drunk and in my bankroll which really does not go well and lost all of my month's winnings plus some. Roughly 30k hands of play/profit were wiped out in a short time period. So, I'm restarting at $10nl with what I have left and should be able to get back to 25NL fairly quickly once my rakeback at Full Tilt hits my account.

Here is a graph of what occured last month:

Anyhow, starting fresh this month and looking forward to the journey up the ranks. I've been watching a lot of Video's at http://www.pokertrikz.com/ and really appreciate what Trikkur is doing here. I'm also spening a lot more time analyzing hands on ITH.

So, with that said, here is the month of April so far at 10NL:



Onward and upward we go!