Two Straight Days Updating, The Federal Reserve and the UIGEA

I can't even believe it myself. I'm updating again. I'm still running unreal good which helps, but I'm more updating because I'm a little bit scared about what the Federal Reserve may do in a here in a couple weeks. They want to finally enforce the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and force banks and other financial institutions to stop partaking in transactions with known "gambling" sites. I'm not really an expert on the whole subject, but here is the way I understand it. The legislators who penned the UIGEA tacked it on to the end of a Safe Port Act during the end of a Congressional Session in 2006. It was passed just as Congress was breaking for the 2006 election, and the UIGEA section was probably not read by many Senators or House members. This act essentially prohibits transferring funds (read, your own money) to an internet gambling site. Barney Frank along with Ron Paul attempted to pass a bill in 2007 to overturn this act stating it impeded on people's freedoms, and furthermore, we're losing valuable tax money in the process. That didn't go through, and now we're here today. They're now attempting to define what is considered gambling and where it's illegal to put your money with this enforcement.

I have a lot of feelings about government which I won't really get in to since I consider this a poker blog. Suffice it to say that I voted for Ron Paul in the primaries and wrote his name in for the actual election. I know he ran as a Republican and is a Republican Senator from Texas, but he's pretty much a Libretarian in modern terms. I guess that makes me one too. I'd prefer to not really give it a name and just say that I am a strong advocate of freedom. Freedom to spend your money and live your life the way you want as long as you aren't harming someone else; that's what I'm about.

Anyways, I'm frustrated that it seems more and more likely that one of my hobbies is going to be taken from me for reasons that are beyond me. People don't need to be protected from themselves. It's true there is a very small percent of people that are problem gamblers and they will lose their money if allowed to participate in online gambling. The vasy majority of people should not be punished for this small amount of people. That's the way our government works unfortunately.

I've made my comments on The Federal Reserve's website and can only hope that enough people do the same.

As stated at the beginning of this entry, I ran really really good again last night. I've doubled my bankroll and up to about $500 now. I played 18 games last night and cashed in 13, winning 7. I feel kind of dumb for getting so angry during my run bad times that weren't really even that bad. I had a couple of small losing days and one really long break even day. All I needed to do was check my game for leaks with a fine tooth comb and keep on plugging away. I don't believe that I was pushing light enough when in the SB and late position with less than 10BBs. After loosening up a little bit and getting a little bit of run good from the poker gods, I had a great couple of days. Hopefully I can keep up this hot streak and make a little bit more moneys before they tell me it's illegal to do so. 

Running Goot

I played a decent amount this weekend, for me anyways. I played sit n gos the whole time. $6.50 9 man turbos on Full Tilt. Ran like dog shit on Friday and Saturday, then ran really, really good today. So far in my quasi challenge / attempt at bankroll management, I'm up about $100. I really think I should buy sit n go wizard because it seems like it's quite a bit better than SnG Power Tools. I am a software engineer in my day job and I really think I could make an online version of sit n go wizard and just use ads to fund it or something. More than likely wishful thinking.

I've really got some problems with getting angry while playing though. When I was running just horrible on Friday and Saturday, I seriously wanted to punch walls and I almost broke my desk by hitting it after shoving AA in the SB and getting beat by K3. It seemed like the 10th time I'd been beat while holding AA or KK and I snapped. I did resist tilting off my roll which seems like a bonus, but I'd rather do that than be so angry. It's dumb because the anger goes away relatively quickly and I feel excited about playing the next day. I need a punching bag. I wouldn't feel so bad about just beating the living shit out of a punching bag since that's what they're for. Mostly, I think my outbursts really let me know that I shouldn't do this for a living because I can't deal with swings even on a small scale. I don't know, maybe if I got more consistent in my volume and play I would handle it a little better.

I don't even know what I'm doing at work right now. I'm thinking about transferring back to the Indianapolis site of the company I work for. I'm ready to buy a house and stay somewhere for a while. I'm sick of renting and not feeling like I own where I live. My family is Indianapolis, and I know they would like having me back there. It's pretty similar in terms of cost of living down there as it is here in Fort Wayne, and I'm assuming it would be pretty easy to transfer. I don't know though, I've heard some horror stories about this company sucking when it comes to helping people transfer, so we'll see. 

My buddy here at work just let me borrow his copy of Force Unleashed for PS3 so I will probably burn a few hours of my life playing that here in the next week or so. The reviews are mediocre for the game, but the demo was fun and I've watched people play the game and it still seems fun.

I somehow manage to have quite a few hobbies and put a decent amount of time in to all of them even with my job. I'm pretty good at guitar and manage to play a few hours a week. I read every night before going to bed, although I wish I was able to read a little more. I have 4 or 5 TV shows that I manage to watch every week. I probably play 4 - 6 hours of poker a week. I run almost every day now, and I'm getting fast again. And I play video games. So even after all of this I'm able to keep my house pretty clean and go out with friends occassionally. I do all this, and I still feel like I have a ton of free time. I don't understand people that tell me they never have any time to do anything and that's why they don't work out, clean up their place, pick up a new hobby, etc. 

Alright, I'm out.

Some Ramblings

I made some more progressive playing more sit n gos on Full Tilt a couple nights ago. So far I'm running well. I'm debating switching back over to Stars for sit n gos though. Full Tilt's rewards system kind of sucks compared to Stars. You are rewarded for how many points you accrue on Stars where you are only rewarded for how many days you play on Full Tilt which I think is kind of dumb. If I were to only play 2 days a week, yet play a ton, I wouldn't get much on Full Tilt. As far as game structures go, they are pretty equal in my opinion. However, I am kind of in to stats, and my stats suck on sharkscope on Full Tilt. My drunken $500 sit n gos have taken their toll on my numbers. I'm in the red just about $3500 there. Maybe I'll wait until I'm back in the black before I move off and go back to Stars. That sounds like a dumb reason, but I don't care.

I want to find a form of poker that is lower variance, yet can still provide a chance for a large ROI over time. The problem is that I love playing multis, which by the nature of the payout structures is guaranteed high variance. I love big scores and the thrill that comes with them, but that doesn't really fit in to the low variance concept too well. I think I normally hear the word variance when people are on a downswing, but they kind of forget that big scores are the other end of it. I don't think that's true for everyone, but I think it is a lot of the time. I don't understand how live tournament players survive. A normal online guy can put in more volume in one week than a live tournament player can in a year. A bad week in the online world is pretty common, which could equate to a bad year for a live guy. I couldn't deal with not making money for a whole year. Anyways, I'm just kind of rambling and just writing without much of a point.

I didn't play yesterday even though I was thinking about it while I was at work. I got home about 6, went for a run, showered then ate. By the time I was done with all that, it was well after 8 and I was exhausted. So I finished Dead Space instead. The game ended in awesome fashion and was well worth the price of admission. I've got LittleBigPlanet to play next. I've played it a little bit, and it is a very beautiful game. It seems like it will be a lot of fun as well. 

Alright, time to get back to work.

Played a Little

I played a few 9 man sit n gos last night, something other than my standard 1 or 2 cheap heads up matches that I normally play for kicks. I ran OK and won some monies. I did good enough to probably get me back on the sit n go train. The play was pretty awful last night and had I had AA hold for me a couple of times, I would have made a killing for my bankroll size.

My girlfriend is leaving for a day or so here, so I just might put in some volume while she is gone. Realistically, if I was to stick to some kind of schedule where I play 20 games a night, I'd have a pretty good amount of volume for someone with a full time job. I'd probably be pretty suprised how quick my bankroll would grow if I was to do that. It only takes about an hour and a half to put that kind of volume in, and I could probably do that 3 to 5 days a week pretty easily.

I've been continuing to play Dead Space for PS3. That game is getting creepy as hell. I'm about half way through it and it's scared me a few times. It's also gotten quite a bit harder. It's still an awesome game, and it just keeps getting better. Maybe since I don't really have Halloween plans, I'll sit and play that game tonight while I hand out candy. I don't know, maybe I'll rent a Saw movie and watch that since my girlfriend won't watch them, and she won't be there. Man I sound lame. Oh well, I'm kind of glad to have a night at home to myself, I've been pretty busy these last few weekends.

Last weekend I went to Indianapolis to run in a 5 mile race and to celebrate my mom's birthday. I ran kind of crappy, only finishing in 32:03. I'm faster than that and I really ran like crap during the 3rd and 4th miles. Oh well, I've just gotten back to racing a little bit and am trying to get used to it again.

I should probably get back to work now, so that's all for now.

What's Next

I've run pretty bad in MTTs this past couple of weeks. I don't think I've written about a lot of bad beats, but this one stung. I had about 13BBs left in the middle stages of a $50 freeze out. I raised to 2.5x the BB I believe from early position with AA and got reshipped on by a guy in the cutoff with about the same stack, he had me covered by a little bit. He had AsQs. The flop was 2 rags and the Js, turn 10s, river Ks. So that was nice. That hand actually made me laugh more than it tilted me. I felt like I played really well most of the time and just kept getting destroyed. I lost with AA I don't know how many times. I've only gone legitimately deep in one $5 tournament where I made a pretty stupid move to end my tournament when I could have continued to play standard ABC poker and made a good run at a final table. I was in the BB with 85o. An UTG passive donkey limped like he had been doing about 55% of the hands I'd played with him. I think it was folded around to me and I checked. The flop was 8 4 6 giving me top pair and a gutter. I believe my first mistake was not leading at this flop as I know that he will fold 2 overs and there aren't a whole lot of turn cards I like besides a 7 or 8, maybe a deuce or trey. I started the hand with 50BBs or so covering the UTG player by about 8BBs. I decided I was going to check raise big if he led at the flop, which is a terrible thing to do against a weak passive player. My experience is that a weak passive player doesn't do a whole lot of C-bet bluffing, and if they do, it's normally the minimum bet. So, with that information at hand, my line was terrible. Anyways, he checked and a J fell on the turn. I checked again, and this time he made a pot sized bet. I was pretty sure he had a J since he's played so passively. Calling wouldn't be terrible since I believe he was donksih enough that I would probably be able to get his stack if I hit a 7 or 8. However, folding is probably the best play at this point. Of course I decided my original line of check raising big (all in in this case) was still the way to go even though I was pretty sure he had a J. He had KJ and called right away and I whiffed. That hand was what really sent me on tilt that I was dumb enough to do that. In a $5 tournament, straight forward easy ABC poker will do you very good and I forgot that was how I had built my stack in the first place. Oh well.

I definitely went on tilt and played some heads up matches out of my bankroll range for sure because I'm an idiot. I'm now attempting to save for a house, so my poker deposits are going to be put on hold basically. I have about $250 left on Full Tilt. That will remain there, and I will attempt to maintain some discipline for once and grind that up to a decent size bankroll that I should already have anyways. I've had a few 4 figure scores in the past 4 months and really don't have a whole lot to show for it. I'm just about even over the past 4 months because of tilt (and one drunk ass night). The sad part is that I've had a profit of about $5K in MTTs in that same time frame. I'm not sure what the best way to help me with discipline is, but hopefully the idea that I won't be making anymore deposits will keep me from blowing what I still have. I'm thinking that if I do end up tilting off what I have, I'll just put a 6 month self exclusion on my accounts, and that will be it for a while.

I love this game, and I love winning even more. I truely think I am good at this game for the little amount that I have played compared to a lot of the top players. I also feel like I am humble enough to know that I have an enormous amount to learn, but have the ability to do so if I put my mind to it. Looking back at some of the posts that actually have hands, I've already gotten a ton better. There was a post that had a sit n go hand from a $3.40 turbo on Stars where I was proud of raising with ATo and calling a shove from a crazy player. While it was a good call, the raise was pretty bad in the first place.

This blog started off as a challenge blog, and I think it should go back to that. I did manage to take $100 on Pokerstars and turn that in to $1000 in a pretty short time before I final tabled that $75 freeze out on Full Tilt and started to think I was super sweet and could quit screwing around with the challenge. The best part about the challenge is that I was disciplined and didn't go crazy when I ran bad. Maybe that's all I need. I should start another challenge with the $250 I have on Full Tilt and attempt to turn that in to $10K. Alright, enough with the thinking out loud, that's what I'm going to do. I promise I will update with the progress as well as key hands here and there. If anything, it always helps me to be honest in this thing and document the stupid as well as the good things I do. Later fools.

By the way, the videogame Dead Space, which I have on the PS3 (It's on the XBOX too) is awesome. If you aren't playing it, go buy it now and start playing it.

Back at it

I've not been playing a lot of poker recently. I had built a nice little roll playing the .10 / .25 6 max cash games in a short amount of time. I started playing a little .25 / .50 heads up cash to go along with it and did very well there as well. Then I had one day where I just ran bad at the heads up cash games and lost a whopping 2 buy ins after being up 4 I think, but it set me off the way I lost them. I have a real tilt problem and lost most of money on heads up sit n gos. Stupid me. I am really trying to learn to control that. I think I should just start going to a $2 heads up sit n go and shoving every hand to blow off some steam if I get mad. Realistically though, the pain goes away very quickly after walking away from the computer and firing up my PS3 or XBOX360, so that's really what I need to teach myself to do after having a bad run.

Anyways. I've taken a good long while off, and am back playing tournaments again. I played 6 or so last night, and I feel pretty good about them. No cashes, but I still feel like I've got a good understanding of what I'm doing. I've got a pretty full schedule ahead of me again tonight, so hopefully I can continue to play well and get a deep run or 2 in tonight.

Once Again, I Suck at Updating

Quite a lot has happened in this month and a half since my last update. I'm back in Fort Wayne after my 11 week hiatus in Fullerton, CA. I had one of the stupidest nights of my life since I last blogged. My brother came out to visit while I was out in CA. We went to a Bullet For My Valentine concert, which was awesome. After we got back to the room, we got hammered on the fifth of Jack Daniels that we had bought. There was zero reason to get as smashed as we did, but oh well. I decided playing heads up sit n go's on Full Tilt was a good idea at like 3 in the morning. I proceeded to win several $100 buy ins, got cocky, and lost some $500 buy ins. Well after I was down about $1000 in the HU sngs, I needed to get my money back in $10/$20 HU PL hold em. Lost $3000 there and woke up feeling pretty good (not). Somewhere in my haze, I decided to withdraw all the money in my PokerStars account so I wouldn't play with that while I was drunk. Go me.

I stopped playing for a while, which is in part why I haven't updated. Being the degenerate that I am, I put money back in the account, and proceeded to final table a $75 buy in freezout on Full Tilt and won a couple thousand back. I was pretty disappointed with my final table play. I was the chip leader going in, and I just gave it away. I opened UTG with 88, got shoved on by captain nit ball, and still called even though I knew I was probably only racing about a quarter of the time because this guy would only shove the amount he did with AA, KK, QQ or AK.  Anyways, I pulled most of that money out just to kind of ease me being a dumb drunk (although it didn't put me down for the year).

I've been playing some cash these last few days. I've been 4 - 6 tabling 6 max $25 NL hold em and winning quite a bit. I'm up 8 buy ins in 3 days and feeling really good. Who knows what I'll keep playing, but right now, I'm thinking I'd like to continue with this cash run.

This was a crappy, rushed blog entry for not updating for over a month. If I keep this cash game thing going, I will definitely keep this updated then. It'll give me a place to analyze hands and go over some stuff in my head. I'll have to get some goals set to in order to keep me motivated.

It's Been Over a Month!

OK, hopefully this won't happen again and I'll keep this thing somewhat more updated. A lot has happened since I last blogged. I've been in California, and that's been pretty cool. I've gotten to go see Jimmy Kimmel record a taping. Some of the people I came with got tickets to try and get on the Price is Right, and I'm really hoping that happens. My girlfriend came out one weekend and we went to go see some beaches and other sights. Overall the experience has been fun and a lot of work, but I'm glad I went.

On to poker. I have actually played quite a bit since I last wrote. One of the weekends I came back to IN, I decided to deposit some money on Full Tilt and take a shot at getting in to their bracelet race tournaments that gives you $2000 to play in a WSOP prelim event. I don't consider this money part of the challenge. One of the nice things about being a Software Engineer in Fort Wayne, IN is that you have some extra money to spend on crazy shit. I wanted win a bracelet race package since I'm so close to Vegas, I figured I could drive over for one of the $1500 events if I was to win package.

So, I deposited about $250 to play in a couple satellites to the $200 + $16 bracelet race, a $69 + $6 version of the bracelet race and for some reason I decided to play in a $69 + $6 buy in $35,000 guaranteed prize pool freezeout. It was a pretty good night. I won a seat to the $200 + $16 bracelet race (which I didn't end up winning), and I final tabled the $35K freezeout for a 6th place finish of $2200+. I was pretty damn pumped to say the least.

I've since taken that money and played in quite a few more tournaments on Full Tilt. I didn't run too good right after the $2K win, but I managed to hit my biggest score ever just last week. I took 1st place in a $24 + $2 buy in $17K guarantee freezeout for about $4150! I've really only been playing MTTs recently and have kind of put the sit n go portion of my little project on the back burner. I still plan on getting my account up to $10K on PokerStars and sticking with my rules, it'll just have to be done with $11 MTTs for now.

I'm at about $930 on Stars right now, and I'm just waiting to hit a nice little final table score real soon. I came in 15th in a 6 max tournament recently with about 650 entries. That could have been a nice score had I final tabled that. Near misses are the worst. For 15th I think I won about $60 where 1st was over a thousand.

Anyways, off to bed now for me. Hopefully I'll keep this thing updated a little bit more often for my faithful audience of no one.

California

Well I got picked and I am currently in Fullerton, CA for work. They've put us up in an Embassy Suites, and I guess this is where we get to stay every time we come out here until our 2 month stint is up. The room is pretty sweet (no pun intended) I must say. The weather here so far has been extremely hot one day and then kind of chilly the next, so almost exactly like Indiana. I'm not so sure about the position out here though. I don't think I'm going to be doing what was advertised to the volunteers, and I'm not a big fan of what I think I'm going to be doing.

I have gotten to play some poker though. I've decided to drop back down to the $6.50 level because I've been running bad at the $16 and it's frustrating me. It's seemed to work for today at least. I played 12 $6.50s and cashed in 6 for a profit of $46. I throw 1 $16 in the mix just for the heck of it. I didn't cash. Overall, $30 for 1 hour of play ain't too bad. That's more how I'm used to running. I want to put in more volume while I'm out here, but I'm always pretty tired when I get back from work and we go out to eat and all. Speaking of which, I'm tired now and am going to cut this short and go to bed. Later fools.

I Suck at Updating

I suck at updating as my title says. I'm honestly still hovering around the same bankroll as my last post which is really frustrating considering how hot I started this thing off. I've played quite a few more of the $16 turbos and gotten nowhere really. I've been watching videos, going over my hand histories, etc. and I'm still breaking even. After doing all that, I've found some leaks, but for the most part, I think I'm playing decent enough to be winning at this level. I was starting to get too tight in my end game play because I was running in to hands / people were calling me pretty light and I subconsciously stopped pushing hands I should have. Being too aggressive at the end is way better than playing too tight. When I first started doing this at the $3.40 level, I noticed that I bubbled a lot, but I also won a lot more than I got 2nd or 3rd. Probably because I was too aggressive in the beginning

I did make SilverStar last month at PokerStars, which I was kind of proud of that I was able to put in the volume at that low of a level with my job and all. This month I guess it should be easier since I get 50% more FPPs per game. The problem with this month though is that I don't have a single free weekend to really pound out the volume. My sister graduates this coming weekend, so I have to go home for that. This past weekend was Mother's Day, so I was home for that. And in 2 weekends, it's Memorial Day, so I'll be out at my parent's lake house for that whole weekend.

Also, an opportunity came up here at work where I might get to go to southern California for 2 months to help out on a project at one of the companies' other sites. That actually might help me get in a lot more volume since I'll have nothing but a hotel room and my laptop to keep me company a lot of nights. We'll see about that one, but I'm pretty excited about the opportunity, so I hope it happens.

OK Night

Last night was kind of frustrating. I started by playing 8 of the $16 turbos, and I did really well. I won 3 of them and got 2nd in the other. Then the next set of 8 was a train wreck. I busted out of 7 of them, and then completely donk lucksacked my way in to winning the last one. I really didn't feel like I was playing well. I was sucking out all over the place. Every shove felt wrong somehow. I'm feeling really lost playing these as of late and I don't know what to do about it. I'm questioning every move that I'm making.

I think I just need to watch more videos and study more. Take some time off from actually playing. Get my bearings and balls back. I've probably only played 600 sit n gos so far in this challenge, so I know I don't have a good enough to sample to prove that I know what I'm doing yet. It just felt like I knew what the right move was 95% of the time at the $6.50 level, and I haven't got a clue at the $16 level. Realistically, I should just keep playing the way I was playing. I had a bad streak to start the $16s with, and it made me question my style. Wrong move in my opinion. It was more subconscious than anything I think.

I'll stop complaining, I'm really not down too much from my high point.

Bankroll: ~$917

Downswing

As noted by the title, I've been on a downswing as of late. I've been primarily playing the $16 turbos and some multis thrown in the mix. I got my roll up to about $1070 and then proceeded to run it down to the $860 it's sitting at now. That's after bringing it back up too. The $16s have been punching me in the face. I'm hoping this is just variance and not some serious flaw in my game that is being exploited at this level. The play seems pretty terrible like the $6.50s, I'm just losing. I think I have found a leak though. I wait way too long to put my chips in the middle.

A typical scenario will go something like this. There will be 6 people left at the 100/200 with a 25 ante level. I'll have 900ish in chips. I'll be on the button with KQ, KJ, A9, etc. Someone will limp from UTG with a big stack, and I fold. I know these people are limping junk most of the time, but since I figure I don't have fold equity, I fold instead of shove. Another scenario. Same blinds and same stack for me, but a late position player will raise when I have the same types of holdings, and I still fold because I don't have fold equity. Granted, I've only played 150 or so of these, but my 3rd place rate is way too high compared to my 1st place rate. I'm not picking enough spots to get my chips in. Patience is good, but too patient is just a waste of time. I squeak in to the money with 4 BBs, and get called pretty light to bust out 3rd too often. Yesterday I tried to only play 4 at a time and just concentrate on picking good spots.

When I have chips and we're 4 or 5 handed, I am extremely good. By extremely good I mean I shove a ton of hands.

Anyways, I know I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong and get back to crushing these things very soon. Like stated before:

Bankroll: ~$860

Big Milestone

It's been a while once again. I've been posting my results on pokerxfactor.com mostly, and then kind of ignoring my blog. Forgive me all you millions of readers out there (That's sarcasm for the zero of you that actually read this). I guess I haven't reported several good things.

Last week:

I took down a 180 man $4.40 sit n go. That was good for $216. I was quite happy since the last time I got heads up in one of these things, it didn't go so well. I absolutely ran over the last 2 tables. It was a complete donkfest until we got in the money. Then everyone tightened up waiting to get to the final table. That got my bankroll up over $800. I played a few MTTs through the rest of the week and on Sunday as well. Sunday was pretty uneventful until I decided to register in a Fixed Limit 5 card draw tournament. I had never played a single hand of that game except when I was a kid. It was only a $1.10 buy in, but there were 456 people. I ended up final tabling it and taking 3rd for $43. That was pretty exciting considering I didn't even know how many draws there were until the first hand. That brought my bankroll up around $930.

Sometime last week I started playing the 9 man $16 turbos with some moderate success. Sunday night right before bed I tried to play 8 of them because I didn't feel tired and I was pretty excited about my 5 card draw score. That sucked. I finished 3rd in one of them. That's it. Dropped a hundred pretty quick. Oh well. I finished Sunday night at $830. Still not too bad.

Fast forward to tonight:

I started off 4 tabling the 9 man $16 turbos. In my first set, I won $30. Then I had to go play in my flag football tournament. We were the #1 seed going in to the tournament with a 9-1 record. We got a bye and proceeded to lose in the second round. We do that every season.

Anyways, after I got back, I played 4 more, and dropped the $30 I had won (I originally spelled this 'one', donk speller). I decided I was going to play one more set, and call it a night. I played 4 of the $16 turbos and 4 of the $6.50 turbos to mix it up a little. I crushed them all. I went on such a hot streak it was ridiculous.

I won 3 of the $6.50s and got 2nd in the other. As for the $16s, I won 2 and got 2nd in another. The point here being this big ol' number:

BANKROLL: $1013.99!!!!

Over the $1000 mark baby. I figured that was going to be my hardest number to reach, but it barely took me 2 months. Granted now, this is without any major downswings so far. Yesterday dropping $60 after my $16 turbo $100 fiasco, was my worst day. I think I've been pretty good about only playing when I feel good and wanting to play. I don't think I've tried to force anything yet.

I really finally feel like I can actually do this. I've still got a ton of work ahead of me, but this is definitely an awesome start!

Good Sunday

Since my last entry, I've done pretty good. I'm well on my way for meeting my goals this month. I've played 103 of the 9 man $6.50 turbos, so I'm over half way already on the volume goal. My ROI on those is 30.66%, so I'm beating that goal too. If I just keep putting in the volume and don't hit any kind of major downswing, I should be well on my way to playing the $16 9 man turbos.

Bankroll: $681.51

This is a pretty lame entry, but I like reporting on good news, and I don't have a whole lot else to say. Lost Odyssey continues to be an awesome game. I traded in a bunch of games to Gamestop on Friday last week, and they convinced me to pre-order Grand Theft Auto IV. They gave me an extra 20% on my trade ins if I did. I know they rip you off on trade ins, but it's easy to just take them in there instead of selling them on eBay. Plus, I was going to buy GTA4 anyways, so I guess it made it a little bit less of a rip off. I still felt like a sucker walking out of there, but oh well.

April Goals a Little Late

It's been a while since I've posted here. I didn't play as much as I wanted to in March. The Ireland trip and work stuff got in the way. Even so, I managed to double my bankroll only playing 60 or sit n gos and a few MTTs thrown in for fun. Without really realizing it, I won PokerXFactor's under $20 buy in sit n go league for March. I don't really get anything other than PXF points and a chance to be crowned SNG king of the month if I win a SNG with their other category winners and runners up, but it still feels good. That was a long sentence.

I've started off in April playing a lot higher volume already. I think I've played as many SNGs in the first 3 days than I did all of March. Also, to be fair, I was playing some WSOP steps in March that I didn't really count in my volume. I count them in my bankroll challenge obviously, but I'm not really tracking them in PokerTracker, and Sharkscope doesn't seem to track them either. I made it to Step 4 once, and since I'm a fool, I didn't realize it was a normal SNG and not a turbo. I played AK a little too fast early and got short stacked. Then I proceeded to bust in 7th with AK when it was necessary to play it fast. Good for me. All I need to do is get 6th to at least get a Step 2 ticket, and I can't even do that because I'm an idiot and can't read. The funny thing was that I didn't figure out it wasn't a turbo until the end of the 2nd level. It was the only window I had open, and I kept saying that 5 minutes seems to take a long time when you only have one window open. Oh well.

Goals for April:

• Play over 200 SNGs at the $6.50 level
• Show a >15% ROI
• Move up to the $16 turbos ($800 is my target bankroll for this level)
  

I've already played about 50 SNGs this month. I'm at work so I don't have the exact stats, but I am definitely well on my way to reaching my volume goal.

Bankroll: ~$570

Also, I've been playing Lost Odyssey for the XBOX 360. If you like Final Fantasy games, then you'll like this game a lot. It's a beautiful game and the story is quite good so far. That's a great review of the game, I know, but I've only played about 3 hours. Most reviews have been complaining that it doesn't break any new ground for an RPG and it's average at best for that reason. I don't really care; I like Final Fantasy type games, and this one appears to be an awesome next gen version of them.

Back From Ireland

I went to Ireland last week, and I didn't play a lot the week before. This is why there have been no words from me. Ireland was pretty sweet. The St. Paddy's day parade was a ton of fun. I spent 3 nights in Dublin, 1 in Cork and 2 in Limerick. The group I went with was huge. My sister is in the marching band at her high school, and they were playing at the parade. So we had the entire band, plus most of their parents. It was pretty awesome though because my brother and I went with my parents and we had tons of fun. I haven't drank that much in a week since my senior year in college a couple of years ago. Before I left I tried to win a seat on Full Tilt to the Irish Poker Open just because I was going to be there the day it started. I did win a seat to the $216 qualifier, but didn't get a seat. Oh well.

Back to the PokerStars challenge. I've been playing some of the WSOP steps, but not too many because I don't want to drain my roll. I haven't really gotten anywhere on them yet though, so not much to report.

Today I played 4 - $6.50 9 man turbo sit n gos. Placed, 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 3rd.
I also played 2 - $6.50 45 man turbo sit n gos. I placed 3rd and 6th in them. My profit for the day was around $85, and I am happy.

I've played a few other random 180 man sit n gos and some other 9 man $6.50 sit n gos, but nothing too interesting.

Bankroll: $532.21

Bitter Ending

I should be happy with today. Instead of going out to eat with a couple of friends, I decided to play in a few 180 man $4.40 sit n gos. I finished 2nd in one of them with no other cashes. It's pretty disheartening when a complete donkey beats you. The final hand was just ridiculous. The blinds were 1500/3000 with a 300 ante. I had about 110,000 and he had about 160,000. He was on the button and min raised to 6000. I had 88, so I popped it up to 27,000. He flat called me. The flop was 7 8 10 with 2 spades. I check, and he bet 21,000. I shoved the rest of my stack and he insta calls with 56 offsuit. The 4 fell on the river, and good game me. He told me I should have shoved pre if I wanted him to fold. So needless to say, I was bitter. Oh well, I'm sure I'll be at plenty more final tables.

Bankroll: $487.11

Quick Monday Update

I'm feeling really motivated these days to keep playing. Not having a losing day yet helps. Inevitably the big downswing day will come and knock me back down a peg or 14, but for now, I can't lose. I played in 4 180 man $4.40 tournaments and did not cash in any of them. I did finish 24th in one when 18 get paid. I was 3rd in chips with 30 to go and then I lost. Then I decided I should get my money back. 15 $6.50 9 man turbos did the trick. Stats for today:

15 - $6 + $.50 turbo 9 man sit n gos

1st - 4

2nd - 0

3rd - 3

Profit: +$42.90

ROI: +44%


4 - $4.40 180 man sit n gos
no cashes

Profit: -$17.60
ROI: -100%

Bankroll: $354.20

Once again, I can't complain too much. I was quite encouraged while playing the 180 man sit n gos. The play is quite bad and should hopefully be a nice little bankroll builder. Also, this seems kind of stupid, but I don't think I've said this. My name on Stars is PeteAce4690, if you couldn't tell from the blog name.

Very Good Sunday

I played 13 sit n gos at the $6.50 level today. Once again, I keep running good. It took me a little over 2 weeks to get to $200, and then it only took me another 3 days to get past $300. I had a pretty sick comeback in the last sit n go of the evening. I folded my way in to the money, and then somehow the 2nd chip stack went broke when I had 1 BB left and the next hand was my BB. When heads up started, the blinds were at 300/600, 50 ante. After posting the BB and ante, I had 35 left. Obviously my great skill allowed me to come back and win. It was humorous to me anyways. Stats for the day:

8 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 2

2nd - 2

3rd - 0

Profit: +$20.80

ROI: +76.47%

13 - $6 + $.50 turbo 9 man sit n gos

1st - 3

2nd - 2

3rd - 3

Profit: +$61.30

ROI: +72.54%

Bankroll: $328.90

Go me.

Moving up

I'm officially moving up to the $6.50 9 man turbos. I had another good set of 8, and I now have over 40 buy-ins at the $6.50 level. If I drop down under 30 buy-ins ($195), then I'll move back down. Stats at the $3.40 level:

241 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 37

2nd - 34

3rd - 21

Profit: +$167.60

ROI: +20.45%

Bankroll: $267.60

Even though no one is reading this thing currently, wish me luck.

More Awesome

Once again, I had a good night. By good night I mean I played 8 sit n gos and cashed in 6 of them. I crack myself up when I'm playing these things. When they were all over, I wasn't really paying too much attention to how many I'd cashed in, and I was pissed. I'd only won one of them, and lost a couple heads up. I hate getting 2nd. I also got 3rd in 3 of them, and that pissed me off too when it was happening. My 3rd place rate is way lower than my 1st place rate, which I assume is good. Anyways, I'm not too sure what all of that means, but after I got over losing 2 of them heads up, I was happy with the results. Stats for the night:

8 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 1

2nd - 2

3rd - 3

Profit: 23.80

ROI: +87.50%

That's pretty good, so I shouldn't be mad about it.
Overall:

233 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 35

2nd - 32

3rd - 21

Profit: +$146.80

ROI: +18.53%

Bankroll: $246.80

I'm getting close to moving up to the $6.50 turbos and the 180 man $4.40 tournaments, which I'm excited about.

Sick Sick Run

Quick update to last night. I played 8 more real quick before going to bed. It looked pretty bad because I had busted out of 6 of them and the other 2 weren't looking too good. I ended up winning them both and broke even on those 8. That ended the night with $184 in my account.

I came home from work today, went for a run, took a shower, ate some dinner and then fired up 12 sit n gos. I won 2 of those, and got 2nd in another to break even again, thinking that would probably be it for the night. Lost tonight was probably the sweetest thing I have ever seen. I almost went to bed after watching it. My laptop was sitting in front of me and I fired up PokerStars not really thinking about it and saw they are doing a double FPPs promotion for February 29th. Since I probably won't be playing tomorrow night being Friday and all, I decided to play 8 more. I am damn glad I did. Stats:

8 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 4

2nd - 1

3rd - 0

Profit: +$38.80

ROI: +142.65%

No one could touch me. I was able to actually get some pretty good reads on people this go around for some reason. My laptop is only a 15" and the resolution isn't very high. Basically I can't see any other table except the one I'm playing. This does not help me when I'm trying to keep track of people at the 8 to 12 tables I try and play. Generally I just err on the side of caution and play pretty tight where as if I were able to pay closer attention, I would be able to make looser calls where appropriate. Today people must have had memorable avatars or something because I didn't have any trouble remembering who seemed to be the tighties and who were the nutballs. Example:

POKERSTARS GAME #15626369105: TOURNAMENT #79090374, $3.00+$0.40 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL VII (100/200) - 2008/02/29 - 00:50:04 (ET)
Table '79090374 1' 10-max Seat #10 is the button
Seat 1: Man of Lard (1820 in chips)
Seat 2: KBeatrix (2985 in chips)
Seat 3: cachuchin (3715 in chips)
Seat 6: PeteAce4690 (3130 in chips)
Seat 10: babygirl8708 (3350 in chips)
Man of Lard: posts the ante 25
KBeatrix: posts the ante 25
cachuchin: posts the ante 25
PeteAce4690: posts the ante 25
babygirl8708: posts the ante 25
Man of Lard: posts small blind 100
KBeatrix: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PeteAce4690 [Ah Ts]
cachuchin: folds
PeteAce4690: raises 400 to 600
babygirl8708: folds
Man of Lard: folds
KBeatrix: raises 2360 to 2960 and is all-in
PeteAce4690: calls 2360
*** FLOP *** [3h 8c Ks]
*** TURN *** [3h 8c Ks] [Qd]
*** RIVER *** [3h 8c Ks Qd] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
KBeatrix: shows [Ac 3s] (a pair of Threes)
PeteAce4690: shows [Ah Ts] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
PeteAce4690 collected 6145 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6145 | Rake 0
Board [3h 8c Ks Qd Jh]
Seat 1: Man of Lard (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: KBeatrix (big blind) showed [Ac 3s] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 3: cachuchin folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: PeteAce4690 showed [Ah Ts] and won (6145) with a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 10: babygirl8708 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

I generally wouldn't make this call when I don't have any reads on the player. I have to call about 2300 more to win 3600 which just isn't quite good enough. This person had been playing nutball poker, so I decided to call. I'm sure most people are nutballs at this level, I just can't pay close enough attention.

Anyways, I'm really excited to cross the $200 mark. I'm not too far from starting the 180 man $4.40 tournaments and moving up to the $6.50 turbos. I know technically according to my rules I could play both, but I want to treat those numbers as more of a floor for after I move up. I'd like to give myself a 10 buy-in cushion over the floor for when I move up a level. That way, if I lose those 10 buy-ins, I can just move back down. So if 50 buy-ins is my minimum for tournaments, and I want to play the 180 man $4.40 tournaments, I want at least $264 before I start them. And if I dropped 10 buy-ins down to $220, I'd wait until I grind back up. I'm giving myself a little bit bigger of a cushion for the very beginning though, which is why I chose $300.

Overall stats:

200 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 32

2nd - 25

3rd - 16

Profit: +$121.00

ROI: +17.79%

Bankroll: $221.00


And I'm out.

Started off Pretty Bad Today, and Updates from Earlier

As noted by the title, I started off running pretty bad. I've played a couple of days since the last update, and I actually played even more on Sunday than I reported. I played 8 more and won $29.20 for the day. That got my bankroll up to $181.60, which was pretty awesome.

Then yesterday happened, and nothing would hold for me. I only remember a couple of specific hands since I played 8 and 9 at a time. Just dumb crap like KK < AJ, which happens. It doesn't hurt as much as it used to, but I still cringe when I see it happen. That's kind of why I like playing 8 and 9 tables at a time because I don't see it happen. Anyways I played 17 sit n go's and actually lost for the first day in a while. Stats for yesterday:

17 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 2

2nd - 2

3rd - 0

Profit: -$9.80

ROI: -16.96%


It's probably not really useful to show my ROI for each day. The only one that really matters I suppose is overall ROI, but whatever, Poker Tracker gives it to me.

Stats for today:

13 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 2

2nd - 1

3rd - 3

Profit: +$12.80

ROI: +28.96%

Bankroll: $184.60

I guess that sharkscope just doesn't handle PokerStars very well anymore. The site says something about PokerStars banning sharkscope while playing, so maybe PokerStars is interfering with stats gathering somehow. I know my stats aren't in there correctly. Anyways, so far this little challenge is going pretty good. I really want to get to that $300 mark I set for myself so I can start getting in the 180 man $4.40 tournaments.

Another Update

I haven't updated for a week. I've been busy this week with work and a couple of other things, so I haven't played since last Sunday, which I played a bunch, but didn't update. Just more sit n go's like I've said. Here are the results:

Feb. 17th:

32 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 5

2nd - 4

3rd - 2

Profit: +$14.20

ROI: 13.05%

Feb. 24th (So far at least, I may play more later today):

9 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 1

2nd - 3

3rd - 0

Profit: +$11.40

ROI: 37.25%

Overall results thus far:

133 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 18

2nd - 20

3rd - 11

Profit: +$63.80

ROI: 14.11%

Bankroll: $163.80

Overall I'm pretty happy with this. I think I can get my ROI up at this level because the play is pretty bad I think. I should be pretty available to play in the next couple of weeks so I'm hoping to put in a decent amount of volume. All I need to do is double what I've got and I can start playing the $4.40 180 man sit n go tournaments. I don't know much about those tournaments but I have to assume the play is bad, and they fill up quick, so I can play several at a time.

More Updates

Febuary 13th:
Played in 44 more of the 10 man $3 + $.40 turbo and won $3.40 for a grand total ROI of 2.27% that night.

Febuary 15th:
Played in 13 of the sit no gos and won $6.80 for an ROI of 15.38%

It's pretty strange, Sharkscope doesn't seem to be tracking me 100% correctly. Maybe because I play so many at a time, or maybe it's because PokerStars has been sucking a lot with Sit n Gos going down this last week or so. Either way, before I started this challenge, I was down about $10 on a total of 5 - 10 sit n gos that I had played some time way in the past, and now it says I'm only up $5, which isn't right. Anyways, I have only played sit n gos on this challenge so far if you couldn't tell, and here are my stats to date:

92 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 12

2nd - 13

3rd - 9

Profit: +$38.20

ROI: 12.21%

Bankroll: $138.20

I'm pretty happy with this start. Once I hit $300, I will start adding $4.40 180 man sit n go tournaments to my regimen and start crushing hopefully.

Sit n Gos

Finally got my $100 in to Stars tonight, and started playing some 10 man $3 + $.40 turbo sit no gos. I played 25 and only won a whopping $2, but at least it's positive. I started off only playing 3 at a time since I've barely played on Stars. I quickly moved up to 10 at a time and did OK. Nothing too much to report, although I did get a royal flush, which is a first for me, so that's pretty cool. Maybe I'll bang out some more of these later tonight. I'll probably continue to play sit n gos until I get a few hundred dollars in here and can start playing $4 + $.40 180 sit n gos.

Edit:

Played 10 more and won $26 more dollars. So my roll is now up to $128. Pretty good starting night. 

Totals for the night:

35 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 7

2nd - 4

3rd - 1

Profit: +$28

ROI: 23.53%

I'm happy and going to bed.

Deposit Troubles

I was having troubles getting money in to PokerStars with eCheck, but all should be cleared up now. I will hopefully be posting soon with status of how that deposit is working out for me.

The Reason

I realize that there are a lot of poker challenge blogs out there, and I felt left out. I also was hoping to find a way that would force me to play poker with solid bankroll management so that I don't tilt off my hard earned bankroll in a short fell swoop. I've been playing for quite some time, and I feel that when I stick with a bankroll, and don't play outside of it, I am a very solid tournament and sit n go poker player. My problem is I'm prone to either get stars in my eyes and take too many shots at big tournaments, or to tilt off my whole roll.

I want to turn $100 in to $10,000 on PokerStars.

Here are my rules:

• Minimum 50 buy-ins for MTTs.
• Minimum 30 buy-ins for Sit n Go's.
• Minimum 25 buy-ins for Cash Games.

I have hardly played at all on PokerStars, and am open to suggestions as to what games I should play to start with. I know that I will mostly be playing tournaments to complete this, so I know that my results will be kind of swingy.

Anyways, wish me luck, and I will keep this blog updated with my results.