Trying to get Better
Since my last blog entry, I've decided to make an effort to actually improve my poker game. I admit it -- I've gotten lazy. I no longer think about how to play specific hands... I don't post hand histories in forums and I don't comment on other people's play very often either. Some of this is from a "good" perspective -- I don't want start pointless arguments on the internet. But some of this is "bad" -- I've gotten lazy. So, I've started posting several hands on at thepokerforum.com to get opinions on how to play certain hands.
Another thing that I have decided to do is to start bonus whoring again, at least at a small scale. This decision was made when UltimateBet, Poker.com, and PokerStars all had reload bonuses going. I decided to withdraw $150 of my $180 in my Poker.com account to take advantage of PokerStar's bonus. I then attempted to withdraw that $150 and deposit it into UltimateBet, but the process was too slow and I missed it. It's no big deal, really, because I have over $900 of bonus money waiting to be cleared at UltimateBet. I have since withdrawn the $150 from UltimateBet and I am going to leave it in my Neteller account for now. Assuming that Neteller doesn't ban transactions with online gaming sites anytime soon (a tenuous assumption), that'll be the start of my new bonus-whoring bankroll.
After withdrawing much of my money from Poker.com, I quickly proceeded to lose almost all of what I had left. Last night, my balance was less than $5 for a short period, but then I won a 6-person $2+0.20 sit-n-go and I am back near $14. I don't care if I go broke here, but I like their 6-person SNGs. They're fun and quick and cheap (only 10% rake at the smallest buy-ins). I built up my balance there playing them, so I think that they're profitable too. If not, meh.
I have continued to grind at UltimateBet. Eventually, I got sick of playing full-ring no limit at the $0.01/$0.02 (blinds) stakes. I kept getting impatient and making dumb plays. Instead, I decided to play $0.05/$0.10 limit full-ring. It's a nice change of pace to play a little limit hold'em and the robotic-like style of limit allows me to simultaneous play SNGs at Poker.com without losing much in terms of reads. The good news is that I accumulate bonus money fairly quickly, so I am slowly grinding my stack upwards. I had it as high as $10.50 last night, but then I had a bad session where I flopped sets two different times and lost huge pots to people chasing inside straight draws. I'm not complaining; I'm merely pointing out that I should have lost 20 big bets or so, but instead I lost only 5 big bets because of the bonus. Goot!
The other fun news is that I've been playing a little at Poker Stars too. I'm only playing at Poker Stars when I have Poker Tracker working (a long story) but I've been really profitable. Playing $25 NL, I'm winning at a rate of like 25 PTBB/100 hands. Once I hit 1000 hands, I'll probably post a screen capture. Earlier this week, however, I lost $50 playing $50 NL by pushing in bad spots, but I won all of that back (and more) today in a single, short session (56 hands). I also had a ridiculously good session at $25 NL, winning $49.30 in just 77 hands. Hopefully, this streak of good luck will continue!
Update: I just finished 1000 hands playing $25 NL at Poker Stars. I've pasted a screen capture of my pokertracker stats (nearly impossible to read), but the key point is that I won at more than 42 PTBB/100 hands over this period. That's just sick. In my most recent session, I won a HUGE pot when I flopped set over set against another big stack. Nice!
Another thing that I have decided to do is to start bonus whoring again, at least at a small scale. This decision was made when UltimateBet, Poker.com, and PokerStars all had reload bonuses going. I decided to withdraw $150 of my $180 in my Poker.com account to take advantage of PokerStar's bonus. I then attempted to withdraw that $150 and deposit it into UltimateBet, but the process was too slow and I missed it. It's no big deal, really, because I have over $900 of bonus money waiting to be cleared at UltimateBet. I have since withdrawn the $150 from UltimateBet and I am going to leave it in my Neteller account for now. Assuming that Neteller doesn't ban transactions with online gaming sites anytime soon (a tenuous assumption), that'll be the start of my new bonus-whoring bankroll.
After withdrawing much of my money from Poker.com, I quickly proceeded to lose almost all of what I had left. Last night, my balance was less than $5 for a short period, but then I won a 6-person $2+0.20 sit-n-go and I am back near $14. I don't care if I go broke here, but I like their 6-person SNGs. They're fun and quick and cheap (only 10% rake at the smallest buy-ins). I built up my balance there playing them, so I think that they're profitable too. If not, meh.
I have continued to grind at UltimateBet. Eventually, I got sick of playing full-ring no limit at the $0.01/$0.02 (blinds) stakes. I kept getting impatient and making dumb plays. Instead, I decided to play $0.05/$0.10 limit full-ring. It's a nice change of pace to play a little limit hold'em and the robotic-like style of limit allows me to simultaneous play SNGs at Poker.com without losing much in terms of reads. The good news is that I accumulate bonus money fairly quickly, so I am slowly grinding my stack upwards. I had it as high as $10.50 last night, but then I had a bad session where I flopped sets two different times and lost huge pots to people chasing inside straight draws. I'm not complaining; I'm merely pointing out that I should have lost 20 big bets or so, but instead I lost only 5 big bets because of the bonus. Goot!
The other fun news is that I've been playing a little at Poker Stars too. I'm only playing at Poker Stars when I have Poker Tracker working (a long story) but I've been really profitable. Playing $25 NL, I'm winning at a rate of like 25 PTBB/100 hands. Once I hit 1000 hands, I'll probably post a screen capture. Earlier this week, however, I lost $50 playing $50 NL by pushing in bad spots, but I won all of that back (and more) today in a single, short session (56 hands). I also had a ridiculously good session at $25 NL, winning $49.30 in just 77 hands. Hopefully, this streak of good luck will continue!
Update: I just finished 1000 hands playing $25 NL at Poker Stars. I've pasted a screen capture of my pokertracker stats (nearly impossible to read), but the key point is that I won at more than 42 PTBB/100 hands over this period. That's just sick. In my most recent session, I won a HUGE pot when I flopped set over set against another big stack. Nice!
posted by frazwood at 1:33 PM
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