A poker milestone reached

Well, I have achieved one of my first targets for the year. In the 4 years I have been playing poker, I have yet to win over $1000 in one tournament. And courtesy of the Parbet promotion via Rakeback.com (check out link at top left ofpage for more info) I don't think I was ever gonna get a better chance. Out of the 10 people who qualified for the $2k freeroll. Only 4 bothered to register and one of those sat out the whole game. It was quite a hard faught affair and I went into the heads up stage with 2900 chips to my opponents 7100. The blinds were only 75/15 at this stage and were 15 mins long, so was loads of room for proper poker. I managed to pull back the chips, then taken the lead, lose it again. The heads up went on for nearly 1/2 an hour, when the chips were not far off even and I limped with AK, he raised. I then pushed. He thought for what seemed like an age then called with 88. flop was 9 high, the turn bought another low card, I had even then typed "lost" to my buddies on msn, before the King hit on the river, to give me a good chip lead. Two hands later. I found JJ on the SB, limped again, he raised and the chips went in, he flipped over Q9 and my JJ held to give me first place and my first ever $1000 win. I must admit I feel on top of the world. But as we all know, poker giveth and it taketh away. So I am going to enjoy the win while I can and just hope it is the first of many big wins this year.

Goth

Oh well

Didn't take long for my hopes of winning the rake race were dashed. The results of day one were posted on the website and my fears were realised. I managed to get 198mpp on the first day, started off 10-12 tabling, but was rapidly disappearing up my own arse, so cut it down to 8, where I could just about concentrate without my game suffering too much. However one smart arse after day 1 is already on 850+ points. So that is the end of that..... Grrrrrrrr. Still, second is only on 260ish, so I will plod on and keep it going for a while, got another 120 or so points last night. Will keep going to ensure I get to 1600 points for the month, which will give me a $200 bonus, and hopefully at least 5th place in the rake race for another $75.

Monday night was also the Dream Team III, as I have said earlier, I am only playing the minimum of 8 to qualify to play in the live final if my team need me, I feel like I am letting the side down a bit at the moment, as I have only played 2 for a whacking 0 points. My team "The Crushed Nutz" are doing quite well, with a great performance by pokerkaz and plum12 who came 2nd and 3rd this week, especially as kaz came back from 400 chips at one stage to get back in it. Lexus and dirk also got well into the points to put us up about 7th or 8th in the league table. So at least we will have some chips to muff away at the live final before getting shitfaced at the bar.

Still breaking roughly even on the tables this month due to too much multitabling, but hopefully rake and bonuses should see the month ok before I change my play next month.....Well thats the plan this week anyway..............

Goth

Change of Plan

This month, I was mainly going to play quality 6 seaters and concentrate more on studying the game instead of chasing bonuses and multi tabling. However, it hasn't quite worked out like that. I have had quite a lot of things to do in the evenings lately, so I have mainly been playing the 10 seaters, so I don't have to concentrate much (bad I know) as a result of this I have been chasing the bonuses instead. Already cleared the sun $200 one and courtesy of a promotion on rakeback.com I am chasing some promotions on Parbet. The first part of the month, was entry into a $2000 freeroll for any rakeback.com members who joined this month and managed to get 100mpp in the first 18 days, which I managed to achieve quite easily, and the great news is that only 10 people will be in it. Not bad value. It would be nice if they spread the prize fund over all 10 entrants so at least everyone gets a piece. There is also a 3k freeroll for anyone who gets 1000mpp in the month, which again, I should do easily. The final promotions, starts today and is a $2k rake race, with $1k to the winner, so I think I am gonna play as much as I can on there for the next few days and see if I am in with a shout, there obv is not gonna be many runners, but if one of them is a higher stakes player, I am obv gonna struggle to get near them, but will 8-10 table the lower stakes games if they are available for the next 3 days and see where I stand.

Been a frustrating time at the tables and I am only slightly up on the play, which is partly due to me not really watching what is going on. This is def not the right way to play poker. So next month, I will force myself to play fewer tables and concentrate on my game a lot more. Will be dipping my foot in the water of the 50c/1$ tables next month as well, but might do this after the first week and just play the 25c/50c 6 seaters, just to get back into the swing of things first.

Also emptied my $$$$ out of all of the accounts that I don't play anymore, took 1.4k out of laddies and just left $50 in there for the odd MTT should I get bored. Emptied bet365 as had enough of iPoker for a while. Treated the wife to a treadmill out of the winnings as we have been talking about getting one for quite a while now. I used all my energy up building the damn, thing, so haven't had a go yet, but it seems ok for the price. Should help me get my weight loss back on course as well, as I have been static for the last week or so, cos I am a lazy pisshead.

Been reading the cardrunners forum a lot lately as well, it is by far the most informative I have read, with plenty of good advice, just think I should be reading not while I am playing as it does destract me. From next month, I think I am going to have to break my time up a bit better and allocated playing time and studying time, along with time for the wife and dog as I am finding it difficult to fit it all in, there seems to be this damn thing called "work" which fcking takes up 10 hours of me day 5 days a week, its just gonna have to go........soon.

Thats it for now, will prob be fcked in 3 days with no bankroll left trying to 12 table parbet, will let you know how I am getting on as soon as they start updating the leaderboard.

Goth

Playing like a big C@&K

Well as promised, more regular posts, but I have to say, I am playing like a huge cock at the moment, I am still managing to stay in profit for the month, but it should be so much better. Monday night was a classic example. Twice I raise with big pairs (QQ/KK) and bet out on low flops, twice I get called by the same player. Twice he calls by flop bet. So TWICE I bet the TURN. TWICE he calls. So what do I do ??? TWICE like the cock I am, I all in the river, and guess what TWICE he had flopped his set. Why the fck do I not learn that he is calling with something and to slow the fck down. The second time was even worse as the board was 5679x, so if he was chasing his str8 with a mid soooooted connector he hit the river and I still pushed my last $24 in to the pot.

At least later on in the evening, I found KK in the big blind and there was two limpers, including the guy from above. I raise to $3 and him and the sb call. flops comes down QJ x, it is checked to me, I bet $4, but already thinking I am shafted. Mr fckluckbox calls and the sb re raises, I am done with this hand and watch them all in each other, fckluckbox has QJ sooooooooted and Mr sneaky limpy small blind has AA. I guess I managed to get away cheaply from that one.

The big thing I need to learn in my game is when to get away cheap when I know I am beat, but I am still struggling to do this. I really do need to learn how to lay some big hands down. I know by doing this I am going to get bluffed off a few pots, but in the long run, I think it will be +ev if I can learn this skill. It is even more annoying, when I put the guy on a hand that beats me, but I still manage to instacall with out even stoppiing and thinking. I might try sitting on my hands to stop me doing this, or even chop the fckers off as it is costing me toooooo much money.

Diet took a hit last week as well, due to extra Winonas on the weds, along with a m8 coming over from Leprechaun land for another mates 40th birthday, which ended up in a big piss up. So expect to gain a bit this week. No great loss though, as this is gonna happen now and then, as long as the trend keeps going downward.

So back on the tables tonight, with a bit more discipline and get the bankroll moving up !!

Goth

Riding the Waves

Well, thats exactly what I feel I am doing at the moment, up down up down. Month started off great going $80+ up on the first day, then the weekend hit and I just could not dodge the weekend muppets sucking out on me all day long. I guess you want the fish calls, but why the fck do they have to hit !!! Still I guess it keeps the little plankton going a bit longer and keeps the pond fully stocked for a while. Eventually pulled the month back into profit on the tables and a nice rakeback payment on the 5th swelled the bankroll niceley. The first $200 of the sun bonus should be received in the next few days, so all is rosy at the moment.

Also my bankroll is now at a level where I can move up to the 50c/1$ tables, which should be interesting. I will leave it till next month however, then prob split the tables, so 2 x 50/1 and still play 2 x 25/50. Just so I don't go bust too quick. I still find the fact that I will be moving up quite daunting, but having the bankroll behind me to cover for the variance is at least slightly re-assuring.

I am also going give myself a big slap in the chops, this year I was determined to update my blog at least every two days, post interesting hands for people to help me with my play, but being such a fat lazy twat, I haven't bothered. So two slaps for me, SLAP SLAP. Hopefully, will do some more posting now.

Goth.