Poker 101

Ok, since I last posted I'm up to 101 tournies played. I believe I've had more than my share of bad luck but one thing I DON'T do is tilt. If I ever feel I'm sliding towards tilt I just quit. I think that's definitely one of my string points. Anyway, enough of that, here are the stats:

1. 18
2. 16
3. 9
4. 6
5. 15
6. 11
7. 7
8. 8
9. 11

Not too bad since I have more firsts than anything else. I'll sleep on whether or not to move up...

World Blogger Championship of Online Poker

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 813340

First 50 down

That didn't take as long as I thought it would. Here is the breakdown by places:

1. 9
2. 10
3. 3
4. 3
5. 9
6. 5
7. 4
8. 5
9. 1

Not too bad really. Since these were $6.40 tourney's that equates to a $117.40 profit for this session. I could probably move up to the $16's right now but I'll probably do another 50 at this level and see how it goes. Afterall, I'm playing in my comfort zone and there's something to be said for that.

SNG Challenge, take 2

Ok, so last when I was posting regularly...ok, I've never posted regularly, but last when I was posting I mentioned a SNG challenge whereas I'd play 50-100 SNG's as see how I do. Now realize I've probably played 300-400 in the past year and my ROI is probably a dollar per. That's a lot of SNG's for $350. That's ok though. I really think my game has improved the past few months. Now understand I withdrew all but about $110 from my Pokerstars account for my Vegas trip in November so I'm back at the $6.40 turbos and running pretty good and and up a little over $100. So this year I REALLY need to play enough to entirely fund my yearly trip, which realistically means I need to get up about $1,500. That means if I were to ONLY play the $6.40 games I'd have to play 1,500 tournies at my current win rate. That averages out to about 5 a day which is definitely doable in that I play 4 at a time anyway. I just need to do a second set on some days to catch up and to make up for the days I can't play. My GOAL is to update this here blog every 50 which would mean every 10 days or so. We'll see. Of course I won't stay at the $6.40 level once I get enough of a roll to move up to the $16's.

Later

A year...really?

Wow, it's been a year since my last post huh? I still have been playing quite a bit of poker and have even progressed to the $16 turbos on Stars. What have I learned? There is not a damn bit of difference between a $6 player and a $16 player except the size of the bankroll.

Speaking of bankroll, I have decided that my yearly trip to Vegas this November is going to be funded exclusively by my online bankroll since I have a new kid due in October and I can't really justify blowing a grand of household money on my deviant vacation. Last year there was not enough poker and therefore I paid too much for booze. This year I am going to hit the tables HARD, if for no other reason than to drink for free :-)

Does anyone even read poker blogs anymore? I know I rarely do. I promise that my next post will be less than a year from now!

Tao 5th birthday tourney

K-3 OS. That's what I pushed with from the SB in an unopened pot. I busted. Let me take you through my tourney...

I'm at a table of people I don't know, other than some chick who I *think* may have been April from Hella Holdem. Fairly uneventful first few levels and I'm probably down to about 1,300 out of my initial 1,500 starting chips. Then I start catching cards...lots of cards. Pocket kings three times in two levels. Unfortunatley I only won the blinds twice and a small pot on the other. But I was also getting pocket 10's AK a few times and other nice cards. The next thing you know I have about 6K in chips and then the following hand happened and I was on my way:

Blinds are something like 100/200 and UTG limps and is folded around to me on the button and I raise to 1,200 or so with AQ. UTG calls. Flop comes 9-7-7 and UTG leads out for about 1,800. Decision time. I think he could be leading out with nothing and the pot is very juicy at this point so I decide to make a semi-bluff raise all in. He calls with 9-10 OS and is ahead. I catch a queen on the river and he immediately types "nice catch" to which I immediately respond "indeed.' All of a sudden I'm a playaaaa.

I continue to run goot and I hit by high mark of 16,500 when I bust a guy when my AK beats to AQ. At this point I'm in 3rd palce with 150 players left. I then proceed to lose a couple of key pots that would have made me the chip leader. I lose a race with JJ against AK when an A flops. I then lose a decent pot with 99 against KK. I the proceed to go card dead and am suddenly not even an average stack. That's when the hand that I busted on happened.

There are 58 players left and 54 get paid. Mind you, 54-34 is something like a $9 payday so it's not really even worth mentioning. I decide I don't care about just making the money, I'm in it to win it. When it's folded around to me I push figuring the guy only has me covered by a small amount and his range of hands he will call me with is pretty small. Unfortunately for me he had Ad10d and the A on the flop pretty much sealed my fate. It was fun, but it's a lot of work, those MTT. Back to the SNG grind for me.

Since my last post I've probably played 150 or so $6.50 turbos and have had some wild swings, with the latest on the upside. I'm up about a net $120 which is nothing considering the number of tourneys I've played, but I have had some horrendous beats so if I can catch a few breaks, or just have my 60-40's hold an expected number of times I should be up quite a bit more the next time I post.

GL me!

SNG Challenge

I've been playing a ton of $6.50 turbos on stars and I've decided to kick it up a notch and see how good I can do over stretch of 50 and then 100. Should take me a couple of weeks. I'll update after the first 50.