April 7th

Well, so much for the update blog resolution. Oh well

Like Mike said I made a prop bet with him about who can maintain a higher win rate at .50/1nl over 30k hands.

I wanted to do this for a number of reasons. The most important reason was that I hadn’t been running so hot at 2/4nl and wanted to make some stress free money. Plus the bet with Mike would give me some motivation even though I was playing for less money than usual

Here’s my graph so far (click to enlarge)

So I’m winning at ~9bb/100 so far and would like to continue that which should all but clinch a win for me. Unrealistic though and will probably end up with a winrate of like 6-7.

Another not so great poker moment in my life also came recently. One day on MSN Pat was telling me about how he was playing these WSOP Step sngs and how soft they were, so I decided to take a shot at them. I bought into 4 Step 3’s and working my way up eventually found myself with a Step 6 ticket!

The winner of Step 6 got a WSOP package worth $12500, myself being only 20 at the time of the Series this year would have just taken the money. So I decided to use my step 6 ticket a few days ago. It was a different structure than the regular sng’s I have played, starting with double the stacks. I picked a sng that only had 2 people with positive ROI’s so I figured it was as good as any. First hand of the sng I raised AQo and got 1 caller from the blinds.

flop came like XTQ – chk/bet/call

the turn came a blank – turn. chk/bet/call.

the river came an A which gave me top two – he then donk led into me for full pot. I didn’t have a strong enough read on the first hand (obviously) to fold and he showed KJ for the nuts, so i lost a little more than 1k on that hand. I then got abused after missed flops and got down to 1500. I don’t remember much but I remember 1 hand from the middle where I pushed Ax and got called by KQ. There was a K on the flop, the turn brought many things…

1) an ace

2) a jump

3) fist pump

4) primal scream

Another hand from the middle saw me in the blinds with KK and got pushed on. I called and held.

Anyways I got heads up with a lead that I increased to about 4-1.

Then heartbreak, with the chips about ~6k – ~20k in my favour and the blinds at 400/800 I pushed in T5s and got snap called by 33. I couldn’t hit my 2 overs, flush draw and gut-shot and we were about even. next hand he made a standard open and with the chips being worth so much I shoved 22 over the top and got snap called by KK and was crippled. I couldn’t recover and took 2nd for $1500. I was completely devastated for the rest of the day. I ran pretty well all tournament but not in the most crucial spot.

The pain is gone now though and I’m focused on my bet with Mike and I expect to finish the hands of fairly quickly when exams are over, playing sporadically until then.

1st Session

Well I played my first session of the new year… 1 resolution isn’t doing so well already,

stop paying off on the river, oops. http://www.pokerhand.org/?1882821 

I’m tired and have to get up pretty early (for me at least) to go out of town for a few days so don’t really feel like writing much but here’s some other random hands from my session.   I played like 5600 hands and ran approx 4.5ptBB/100.

MedicineGoat you asked me to post this hand for u http://www.pokerhand.org/?1881059

Misclick on flop gone good  http://www.pokerhand.org/?1880407

Running good http://www.pokerhand.org/?1880399

Running bad http://www.pokerhand.org/?1882825

Gifts http://www.pokerhand.org/?1882832

New Years Resolutions

First and foremost, restart my blog… I think it’ll help me follow my goals better and I feel it makes me play better in general. We’ll see how long that lasts.

2 – learn to play 20 tables at a time… I tried this briefly recently but it was just too much right no and I couldn’t make even close to optimal decisions. I blame this partly on being on a laptop. I’ll keep trying though…

3- in conjunction with learning to more tables, play more hands! I have never been someone that plays a ton of hands and have thus never earned to my potential. I plan to change this.

4- stop paying people off on the river. I have this sickness where I love to call on the end.

5- maybe put more effort into school.

Will update in a few days……..

Mike

New Goal

going to cash out mostly all of my money and grind lower limit nl for a while

bankroll plan to be as follows play 100nl until i hit 4k then move up to 200, after that if i ever dip to 3k, i’ll drop down to 100nl again and if not play 400nl when I hit 10k.

started today, played 600 hands lost 2 buyins at 100nl

i book a 2-3 buyin win if these hands go my way… ooops

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1372082
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1372084
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1372087
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1372089
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1372091

didn’t win any hands all in preflop i don’t think and the only big significant pot i won was this one vs a badly played AJ

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1372134

other than that i just chipped away a ton of small ($10-20) pots which is the only reason i’m down ONLY 2 buy-ins..

1 month later

just sitting at a table waiting for an action and realized i haven’t updated this in a while… oops.

i really don’t feel like writing a lot right now, there isn’t as many interesting hand in limit as there is in no limit so none in particular to discuss.

the variance is sickening sometimes, well i don’t mind the upswing varience lol

anyways heres my approx. 1 month graph

limit. is. fun

for – ev- ery-one

except -my… (ok anyone who actually gets the reference knows the rest)

anyways, at someones insistence that the limit field is much weaker than ever before since all the good players have switched to no limit I’ve been trying out some limit hold’em. mostly heads up and rarely some shorthanded if someone joins the tables and the original player was bad enough to keep me playing.

i started this on the 3rd. i’m up over 2k and running at 8bb/100

(click to enlarge)

one thing i’ve noticed after playing nl for years is that limit players tilt/steam much easier. also you’re more likely to see someone fullrolling at stakes way higher than they should be playing…

heres one of my favourite hands, excellent check/raise river bluff sir

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1244850

anyways i’ll continue doing this until varience slaps me back to reality.

Don’t play firsts of the month

July 1 – ($1,538.00)

June 1 – ($552.00)

May 1 – ($201.00)

April – ($723.00)

March – (ok i actually won March 1st)

my aggressive approach didn’t work out lol, oops.

grind time again, I just started learning heads up limit poker tonight for some fun. Apparently it can be pretty decent money too. It’s a game of very high varience and i’ll be starting at lower limits until i’m more comfortable, and so i don’t monkey tilt after taking a few beats. I’m lucky in that I have some very knowledgeable friends on this topic and they will be coaching me.

work tomorrow, yay. night.

Someone remind me to stick to No Limit

because I always seem to piss away half of my monthly profit/compound my losses playing PLOlmahahaha, Omaha 8/b (hi/lo) and Limit hold’em.  Oh yea and tournaments, i blow at those things.

this is going to probably seem pretty scattered because i’m playing 5 tables right now and writing in between hands, which isn’t very often.

i’ve almost totally recouped my losses from the -$1500 PartyPoker stole from me. (i think i’ll be ahead after this session)

game aproach thoughts – I’m going to be a lot more aggressive with my bankroll than I’ve ever previously been.  I mean i’ve always taken “shots” at higher limits before, but honestly that was just me chasing losses and my way to defend/justify what I did.  But now that poker is not my only cashflow source a larger downswing will not hurt me as much as before.  Also I feel that one of my strengths I’ve developed recently is being able to quit when i’m losing which is a big leak for some players and will keep me from denting my bankroll too much in any one session.  I think that if you’re playing 2-3 buy-ins behind you’re at a pretty large psychological disadvangtage and it’s better to just start fresh when the next day/in a few hours when you don’t have the mindset of trying to get even.  Too many decisions become based upon how much you’re down, (ex. “If I call this and win I’ll only be down $xxxx)

(i just rivered a 5 outer for a $400 pot, i play good). 

So starting yesterday i’ve been playing 2/4 on a short roll and although I was +$700 playing Hold’em, I only booked a profit of $150 because before starting my hold’em session I obviously pissed away $550 playing Omahahaha.  (hence telling me not to play those  games anymore).

I’m getting used to my work hours now and not coming home and crashing anymore.  Next entry  will have some hand histories and more about how the actual games are going.

Good luck to me and my more reckless approach.

Expect a post soon after detailing how I went bust haha.

Party Screws Affiliates, Mike out $1500

So I’m out $1500 without playing a single pot.

here’s the reasons I was given

From PartyPoker

“PartyPartners is committed to ensure that affiliates are suitably rewarded for the players they refer and do not have any incentive to migrate players away from other affiliates. With effect from 1st June 2007, we are making system changes to ensure that there is no financial incentive for affiliates to “poach” players from other affiliates. Any player who creates an account on any of our brands starting 1st June 2007 and has had an account with us before will not be eligible as a Real Money Player and will not contribute to affiliate accruals. This is in line with clause 2.17 of the affiliate agreement which specifically defines a Real Money player as somebody who has not been a player with us before. In line with our affiliate terms and conditions, we reserve the right to deduct monies for any players referred by you before 1st June if they already had an account with us.”

From Affiliate

“We finally got word back from party poker, and it is, as feared, as bad as it can get. Not only will they not pay us for all the action in May, they confiscated all of our old funds and applied it to the debt we now ‘owe’. Below is the email we received from party poker: Further to our email sent on the 06/07/07 we would like to confirm that our Affiliate Investigations Team has completed its investigation. We regret to inform you that our investigation has provided evidence of your having generated Fraud Traffic, as defined in the Standard Affiliate Agreement you agreed to when you became an Affiliate. Subsequently, we have deducted the amount that we believe has been generated from such Fraud Traffic from the Affiliate Payment Accruals due to you.

The summary of your Affiliate Cashier Account is as follows:
Total Affiliate Payment Accruals due for May 2007 = $197,016.77 (The amount you owe party poker)

Amount deducted for Fraud Traffic + Past Funds = $83451.92

The balance you currently have at Party Poker = -$113564.85 (Yes that is negative)

If you would like to know the exact nature of the Fraud Traffic, then please email us at affiliates@partypartners.com or contact your affiliate account manager. Please note that as per our policy we will not be able to tell you the account names of the fraud/suspicious player accounts.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to you.
Kind regards
PartyPartners Affiliate Team

What does this mean? In summary, we’re screwed. We’re told 85% of the players in our program closed their accounts and remade new accounts for our program. This is what party is talking about when they reference “fraud traffic”. We had thought this would be just June 1st going forward, but what they actually did was, take all your action (If you closed your account and made a new one) and charged us for it all the way back from fall 2006. We got 3 total emails just like this one, because we had 3 separate accounts for various different programs. All told, we currently owe party poker, yes OWE party poker around $250,000.00 before we are back in the positive.

Obviously, there is nothing we can do, we have to close up shop. For those of you asking about old money you still had remaining, you have to understand that even our profits were confiscated by party, everything. We had money remaining on party poker, they used that against the debt owed. We are furiously trying to work something out with Party Poker, but at this point is does NOT look good. It is just not possible for us to see a difference between fraud users and legit ones.

I will put out a faq later to address your concerns and give out any new information I can.

I know this isn’t the news you wanted to hear, but it is, what it is. It’s party poker after all.”

This is what gets me the most

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused to you.
Kind regards
PartyPartners Affiliate Team

Yea, that’s all it is, a fuckin inconvenience. FUCK YOU PARTY AND I HOPE ALL THE PLAYERS WHO WERE PREVIOUSLY GETTING RAKEBACK STOP PLAYING THERE.

I mean ok, if you’re gonna stop giving rakeback thats fine, but don’t wait until the end of the month when people are expecting to get paid and then say you’re going retroactive on it as well.

It’s been a While

Haven’t played since Sunday (didn’t take down the 100k surprisingly).  Have just been way too tired after getting up at 4:30 the past few days.  Maybe put in some long session on weekends during the day?  Dunno what’s gonna happen until I get used to this new schedule.

Don’t really have much else to say, new job isn’t bad and I’m getting trained on some of the equipment (greens mower and sand traps).  I destroyed the lips of the first 5 bunkers I raked getting in and out of them haha.  Near the end of the day I was doing them pretty seamlessly though and am going to have to be perfect at them within a week since that’s going to be my job during the Mission Amateur on fathers day weekend.

Anyways I’m bagged and gonna watch some Chappelle stand-up and get some sleep.  Hopefully next update will have some poker content.