After a record breaking week last week I suffered a back breaking week this week. I'm down about $150 from my last update, but over $200 from my peak. While this does not make me feel great, it is totally expected to go on runs like this. It's actually a bit of a surprise that I haven't done this yet, and certainly good to have run myself up nearly $300 the week before to cover it.
I'm still well on pace to meet my goals. Unfortunately instead of running at nearly twice my expected rate, I am merely about 25% ahead of budget. There were a few days this week where I swear every overpair I held ran into a set, and every set that I had ran into a flush, but so it goes.
Once again the silver lining has turned out to be gold. For the second consecutive month I've qualified for the Ironman Gold medal on Full Tilt. In fact, I haven't missed a day in April yet. The gold medal will end up being worth about $75 once the mid-year bonuses clear sometime in July.
In other news, I've also reformatted the results table on the sidebar. I will offer monthly updates on the table, while still reaching for weekly post updates.
Monday, April 26, 2010
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Monster Week
Some big news this week. First of all, my tracking software is F'd up so I have no idea how many hands i've played. Besides that, I made $258 in the meantime. Most of that came from my new crack addiction, that is, Super Turbo Sit-N-Go tournaments.
Starting stacks are 300 with 15/30 blinds, and blinds got up every few minutes.
I can't decide if I like the 6-person, 9-person, or 45-person versions. Whichever you choose, be ready to shove your pocket kings and get called in two spots by KT and A2. Also, I've been a huge luckbox. I've played four 45-person games and taken 1st, 1st, 3rd, and 7th. $12 investment with a $150 return.
Add about $40 for rakeback (my biggest week yet at that) and a pretty solid week on regular ring games and it's my biggest week yet. Sweet.
Starting stacks are 300 with 15/30 blinds, and blinds got up every few minutes.
I can't decide if I like the 6-person, 9-person, or 45-person versions. Whichever you choose, be ready to shove your pocket kings and get called in two spots by KT and A2. Also, I've been a huge luckbox. I've played four 45-person games and taken 1st, 1st, 3rd, and 7th. $12 investment with a $150 return.
Add about $40 for rakeback (my biggest week yet at that) and a pretty solid week on regular ring games and it's my biggest week yet. Sweet.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Boom Boom Pow
So I had my first losing week last week, no biggie. This week was rather chaotic. Seems that I was up $100 then down the same about three times. Thankfully I ended the week with a good long session, along with clearing Full Tilt's "Take 2" promo which was an automatic $25.
Final story for the week:
+$30 rakeback
+$25 bonus
+$14 actual poker profits
+$69 for the week
Total profit so far is a handy $555, still far outpacing my original expectation.
I've logged 34.3k hands (compared to 33k estimate) in a total of 50 hours. Averaging better than $11 per hour.
It seems like the limit Rush games have reached a sort of equalibrium. The games are almost completely dead (maybe 20-30 people seated) during the day. In the evenings it gets up to the 60-80 range fairly frequently still. Not great, but it's still worth playing. I've decided to stop trying to multi-table the regular games as long as there are enough Rush players handy. It kills my action at lunchtime, but I'm toying with the idea of playing turbo SNG's during lunch again. That's where I cut my teeth back in the day, so I should be able to stay afloat fairly easily.
It's just that the lunchtime schedule makes multi-tabling real games real tough, but I'd still like to get some action in. I'm going to do some more research on this, but don't be surprised to see me playing the $5 SNG's in the near future.
In other news, I played in the monthly freeroll again. This time I was about 30 minutes late due to extenuating circumstances, so when I finally showed up I was down to about 800 chips with blinds at 40/80. Pretty much right into shove or fold territory. I waited about two orbits and found myself with TT on the button. After everyone folded I pushed and was insta-called by the BB with J6o. Flop was junk, turn was junk, river was a Jack. Done. Oh well.
First place was over $3500, so it's definitely worth playing these things every month. I just hope I can cash in on something someday. I think the best strategy (for me) would be to just double up a couple times and fold my way into the money while waiting for aces or kings.
Finally, in April I'm on pace in all 11 days to make Ironman Gold again. That'd be a steady $100/month value for me that's not factored into my profit yet (since I haven't actually been paid any of it yet), and that's pretty awesome imo.
Final story for the week:
+$30 rakeback
+$25 bonus
+$14 actual poker profits
+$69 for the week
Total profit so far is a handy $555, still far outpacing my original expectation.
I've logged 34.3k hands (compared to 33k estimate) in a total of 50 hours. Averaging better than $11 per hour.
It seems like the limit Rush games have reached a sort of equalibrium. The games are almost completely dead (maybe 20-30 people seated) during the day. In the evenings it gets up to the 60-80 range fairly frequently still. Not great, but it's still worth playing. I've decided to stop trying to multi-table the regular games as long as there are enough Rush players handy. It kills my action at lunchtime, but I'm toying with the idea of playing turbo SNG's during lunch again. That's where I cut my teeth back in the day, so I should be able to stay afloat fairly easily.
It's just that the lunchtime schedule makes multi-tabling real games real tough, but I'd still like to get some action in. I'm going to do some more research on this, but don't be surprised to see me playing the $5 SNG's in the near future.
In other news, I played in the monthly freeroll again. This time I was about 30 minutes late due to extenuating circumstances, so when I finally showed up I was down to about 800 chips with blinds at 40/80. Pretty much right into shove or fold territory. I waited about two orbits and found myself with TT on the button. After everyone folded I pushed and was insta-called by the BB with J6o. Flop was junk, turn was junk, river was a Jack. Done. Oh well.
First place was over $3500, so it's definitely worth playing these things every month. I just hope I can cash in on something someday. I think the best strategy (for me) would be to just double up a couple times and fold my way into the money while waiting for aces or kings.
Finally, in April I'm on pace in all 11 days to make Ironman Gold again. That'd be a steady $100/month value for me that's not factored into my profit yet (since I haven't actually been paid any of it yet), and that's pretty awesome imo.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
What a difference a day makes!
A thousand hands and 1.5 hours of play later I'm at a new peak, despite my poor performance last week. Currently sitting on $566 in profit.
And for a double whammy, I'm expecting $25 in bonus from a promo Full Tilt is running, along with my normal ~$20ish in rakeback.
A pretty good start to the week imo.
And for a double whammy, I'm expecting $25 in bonus from a promo Full Tilt is running, along with my normal ~$20ish in rakeback.
A pretty good start to the week imo.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Mwah, mwah, mwahhhh...
I logged my first losing week this year. Not a total killer, but sucks either way. The good news is that I made up my volume goal to reach 28k hands. So I lost $35 in 5k hands this week. No big deal.
I've been playing around with software to cover myself if Rush dries up. There are several versions of software that manage the tables for you while you play. I'd have to play about 12 tables at a time to meet the same volume as I get with four Rush tables. I don't think this will be a problem once I get the software going.
In other news, it's nice outside! This might become a problem for my bottom line for two reasons. First, my boys are going to have me outside playing ball and skateboarding pretty much every day until 8 o'clock. Second, my wife's business will be picking up during the summer, and I'll be on retainer for that. Still, as easy as it's been to get 5k hands/week so far I don't think it will be a problem.
Goals for April:
1) 20k hands of .5/1
2) Achieve Gold medal for Ironman
3) profit ldo
I've been playing around with software to cover myself if Rush dries up. There are several versions of software that manage the tables for you while you play. I'd have to play about 12 tables at a time to meet the same volume as I get with four Rush tables. I don't think this will be a problem once I get the software going.
In other news, it's nice outside! This might become a problem for my bottom line for two reasons. First, my boys are going to have me outside playing ball and skateboarding pretty much every day until 8 o'clock. Second, my wife's business will be picking up during the summer, and I'll be on retainer for that. Still, as easy as it's been to get 5k hands/week so far I don't think it will be a problem.
Goals for April:
1) 20k hands of .5/1
2) Achieve Gold medal for Ironman
3) profit ldo
Friday, April 2, 2010
My proudest poker achievement -- GOLD MEDAL BABY!!!
I started playing Rush poker in mid-February and it took me a week or so to hit my stride, so I was going full speed during March. Now that March is complete, I've officially qualified for a Gold medal in Full Tilt's Ironman program.
This means that I got at least 100 "points" (around 500 hands) in each of 25 separate days during March. The hardest thing I've ever struggled with online isn't winning, it's putting in the volume day in and day out. I did it, and I don't show any signs of slowing down. If anything, I'll be adding more tables.
Monetarily, the Ironman system is a little complicated, but essentially the Gold medal is worth in the neighborhood of $100. If I get Gold month after month, the value increases as well. So if I'm averaging 25 hours per month, that's about $4 per hour in bonus.
I'm getting around $100 per month in rakeback on top of that, so there's another $4 per hour.
If I average 1 BB/100 hands (which I've done now for the last 26k hands), I will pretty much double that. So I could realistically expect to see $15/hour or more over the next year, which for my goal of paying for Disneyworld would give me almost $5k by next March.
Plenty for a killer family vacation, with enough left over for a return to Vegas as well.
A final little bonus is that I'm starting to really rack up the Full Tilt points for their store. While not a super deal, this will add roughly another $0.75 per hour in value. The problem is it will take me a whole year to save up for anything worth buying. Comparing this to a regular job, that's like getting a nice little Christmas bonus. Basically it would amount to a new ipod Touch after about 1 year at my current volume of play.
I've always felt that if I could somehow manage to play lots of hands, the money would really kick in and fuel my desire to play more. So far that's exactly what's happening.
This means that I got at least 100 "points" (around 500 hands) in each of 25 separate days during March. The hardest thing I've ever struggled with online isn't winning, it's putting in the volume day in and day out. I did it, and I don't show any signs of slowing down. If anything, I'll be adding more tables.
Monetarily, the Ironman system is a little complicated, but essentially the Gold medal is worth in the neighborhood of $100. If I get Gold month after month, the value increases as well. So if I'm averaging 25 hours per month, that's about $4 per hour in bonus.
I'm getting around $100 per month in rakeback on top of that, so there's another $4 per hour.
If I average 1 BB/100 hands (which I've done now for the last 26k hands), I will pretty much double that. So I could realistically expect to see $15/hour or more over the next year, which for my goal of paying for Disneyworld would give me almost $5k by next March.
Plenty for a killer family vacation, with enough left over for a return to Vegas as well.
A final little bonus is that I'm starting to really rack up the Full Tilt points for their store. While not a super deal, this will add roughly another $0.75 per hour in value. The problem is it will take me a whole year to save up for anything worth buying. Comparing this to a regular job, that's like getting a nice little Christmas bonus. Basically it would amount to a new ipod Touch after about 1 year at my current volume of play.
I've always felt that if I could somehow manage to play lots of hands, the money would really kick in and fuel my desire to play more. So far that's exactly what's happening.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Hangin tough
Update for the week:
Well, good news and bad news. The bad news is I suffered a $90 downswing this week. But the good news is I'm still up almost $100 for the week.
I'm a little behind my pace for total hands played, but I'm keeping it close so I'm not worried about that.
Totals so far: 22,887 hands, $521 profit, still over $15 per hour.
As an aside, I've been playing the Rush games almost exclusively, and I've noticed that the limit Rush tables are getting pretty short. Where a no-limit Rush table will have 800+ people, the limit game is lucky to have over 100. And last week I noticed at the off-peak times of day where I used to see 50-60 people there are now zero. So I'm a little worried about my bread and butter game drying up.
So I searched for some help. My biggest problem before was getting many tables running and managing them. Turns out there's a great script someone wrote to stack tables and control the action for massively multitabling. I installed it last night and it worked beautifully. It even works for multiple sites at once.
If anyone is interested I can link it. For now I forgot the name of it.
The only real problem I'll have now is still finding enough tables on FT to maximize the number of hands I'm in. Full ring limit just isn't very popular with the masses. Last night I had four Rush tables going and about three or four regular tables going. If Rush dies completely my volume will likely be cut in half if I have to rely on the regular full ring games. But there the waiting lists kill my volume. Since I typically only play 20-30 minutes at a time, if I spend 5-10 minutes on a waiting list it's a huge waste of time.
I might need to deposit on PokerStars just to get access to more tables to play. Either that or start mixing in some 6-max tables.
Well, good news and bad news. The bad news is I suffered a $90 downswing this week. But the good news is I'm still up almost $100 for the week.
I'm a little behind my pace for total hands played, but I'm keeping it close so I'm not worried about that.
Totals so far: 22,887 hands, $521 profit, still over $15 per hour.
As an aside, I've been playing the Rush games almost exclusively, and I've noticed that the limit Rush tables are getting pretty short. Where a no-limit Rush table will have 800+ people, the limit game is lucky to have over 100. And last week I noticed at the off-peak times of day where I used to see 50-60 people there are now zero. So I'm a little worried about my bread and butter game drying up.
So I searched for some help. My biggest problem before was getting many tables running and managing them. Turns out there's a great script someone wrote to stack tables and control the action for massively multitabling. I installed it last night and it worked beautifully. It even works for multiple sites at once.
If anyone is interested I can link it. For now I forgot the name of it.
The only real problem I'll have now is still finding enough tables on FT to maximize the number of hands I'm in. Full ring limit just isn't very popular with the masses. Last night I had four Rush tables going and about three or four regular tables going. If Rush dies completely my volume will likely be cut in half if I have to rely on the regular full ring games. But there the waiting lists kill my volume. Since I typically only play 20-30 minutes at a time, if I spend 5-10 minutes on a waiting list it's a huge waste of time.
I might need to deposit on PokerStars just to get access to more tables to play. Either that or start mixing in some 6-max tables.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Week 5 update
Another solid week for me. It's getting to the point where I expect to win $30 every time I sit down, so losing $12 like I did last night felt worse than when I used to lose $50. Emotional variance I guess.
So for a running grand total, I've played 17483 hands in 26.06 hours (670 hands/hour).
I've made 1.52 BB/100 and with bonus and rb I'm up $432.90 overall for a whopping $16.61 per hour. As you can see by the table on the left I'm about a month ahead of schedule already.
One side note: I've locked up a bronze medal in Full Tilt's Ironman program. This is the first time I've ever been able to do this, and to top it off I'm quite certain I'll end up with a silver this month.
I'm starting to get to the point in my bankroll that I'm considering adding a table of 1/2 to the mix. I don't think I've very comfortable with that just yet, but it's probably going to happen soon.
So for a running grand total, I've played 17483 hands in 26.06 hours (670 hands/hour).
I've made 1.52 BB/100 and with bonus and rb I'm up $432.90 overall for a whopping $16.61 per hour. As you can see by the table on the left I'm about a month ahead of schedule already.
One side note: I've locked up a bronze medal in Full Tilt's Ironman program. This is the first time I've ever been able to do this, and to top it off I'm quite certain I'll end up with a silver this month.
I'm starting to get to the point in my bankroll that I'm considering adding a table of 1/2 to the mix. I don't think I've very comfortable with that just yet, but it's probably going to happen soon.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Quads again.
So I was sitting down for some maintenance hands just to see if I could get my auto-import hand history working right again and in less than five minutes I was down almost $20. WTF? Every hand would flop a flush draw and get sandwiched between raisers, or pair + gutshot type hands. Or double barreling AK when I missed the flop. Ahhhh!
I said screw it and contrary to every instinct decided to play my way out of it just because I was mad.
So I started by committing another cardinal sin of poker... open limping. Pocket 4's under the gun limped and immediately raised by UTG+1. Cold-called by MP, called by BB. I called. Flop bottom set with two clubs on board. I check to UTG+1 who bets. MP raises, BB calls. I call. UTG+1 calls.
Turn is another club, but also a 4 (lol quads!!!!!!!). I check again to UTG+1 who bets, MP raises, BB calls again. This time I 3-bet. UTG+1 caps, called around. So now I'm hoping I'm facing the nut flush and kings full. I bet the river and unfortunately just get called by UTG+1 and MP. $24 pot. All of a sudden I'm up about $6 in my mini-session and close the tables and count my blessings.
btw, UTG had JJ with Jack of clubs. MP had KQo.
Yes sir. Online poker still has bad players playing. Just make quads.
I said screw it and contrary to every instinct decided to play my way out of it just because I was mad.
So I started by committing another cardinal sin of poker... open limping. Pocket 4's under the gun limped and immediately raised by UTG+1. Cold-called by MP, called by BB. I called. Flop bottom set with two clubs on board. I check to UTG+1 who bets. MP raises, BB calls. I call. UTG+1 calls.
Turn is another club, but also a 4 (lol quads!!!!!!!). I check again to UTG+1 who bets, MP raises, BB calls again. This time I 3-bet. UTG+1 caps, called around. So now I'm hoping I'm facing the nut flush and kings full. I bet the river and unfortunately just get called by UTG+1 and MP. $24 pot. All of a sudden I'm up about $6 in my mini-session and close the tables and count my blessings.
btw, UTG had JJ with Jack of clubs. MP had KQo.
Yes sir. Online poker still has bad players playing. Just make quads.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
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