SnG Challenge Update

Just a short update on my little SnG Challenge. I'm finding it a little hard at the moment to stay focused on it, playing $0.10 sit n go's is doing my head in, it's just like play money tables. I was in a strong position in 2 games today only to find myself rivered several time over 5 or 6 hands to go from chip lead to out in both. Having said that I'm still winning some and with a small win tonight on a freeroll my initial $0.55 is now $1.97 which on the games played so far is an ROI of 90% if only I could keep that up.

I was tempted today to make a deposit so I could move up a few buy in levels but that's cheating. It wouldn't be a challenge if it was easy. So I'll keep grinding away.

Job Interview

I had some good news yesterday, I got a phone call asking me to go for an interview for a job I applied for last week. I was very hopeful at getting the interview because it is a job I have 20 odd years experience in doing so I now have to impress and hope for a bit of luck. After being unemployed for just over a year it's about time something went right.

My little sit n go challenge moved on slowly yesterday. Played 3 x sit n go and 1 x freeroll. Managed to win 1 sit n go, but it's hard work the first important lesson I am learning in $0.10 sng's is patience, I have been seriously card dead over the 2 days I have played so far which is not good. Players seem to play any 2 cards if they pair any one they will take it to a showdown. So bad beats a common as they get improbable trips, straights, flushes and full houses on the river. It's a case of playing good solid ABC poker being very cautious with anything but the nuts. Prime example was raising 5x BB with AQ on the Button and getting called by the BB. I hit an Ace on the flop and continuation bet 3/4 of the pot which he called. I started to think he may have trips so I checked and he checked. So re-thinking that he may be chasing a flush I made a half pot bet when the river didn't complete the flush which he called again. He then turns over 56 the 5 had paired on the flop and the 6 paired on the river they were suited and the type of player he was I think he would have called even if I went all in pre flop.

The freeroll was a $300 Cash Crazy Freeroll, with 1000 players and top 20 paying. As I said above I have been card dead so the first hour was hard, but after the first break I got a couple of decent hands and built a big enough stack to make it to the second break. After the second break I got lucky the big stack next to me was an "interesting" player and he and I had about 4 hands in a row where I got cards and he decided he wanted to play me with nothing. He helped increase my stack from 4000 to 30,000 which was very kind. At this point I should have been cruising into the money no problem, until I got KJ on the BB and the player on the button put in a big raise, the little devil voice in my head start shouting "he's stealing" so I re-raised and he went all in. I had to fold and he showed AK so I made the right choice to fold but I had blown over half my stack. 2 hands later I got AK went all in and was called by 66 I didn't get any help and was out. So I went from a certain cash to out in 43rd only 23 places from the money. So as I said near the start I need to learn patience.

Sit n Go Challenge

Just recently my poker has lost any form of focus, I have money on probably 15 different sites and can't seem to settle on any. I can't find a game I really want to play and when I do play a tournament I get frustrated and end up playing badly. So I am down to playing 6 forum tournaments at 4kingpoker, a few sit and go tournaments and cash tables and apart from the 4kingpoker games I'm not really happy with any of it. So I need to do something to regain focus and find some enjoyment in poker again or give it up cash in and buy a PS3.

What I think I'll do for a start is set myself a challenge, I was checking through some of my poker accounts at the weekend and found a massive $0.55 in my CelebPoker account. So with that I'm setting myself a challenge of building it in to a working bankroll on Celeb by the end of March. I'm going to do this by playing Sit n Go Tournaments, any sort, and freerolls to try and speed things up a bit. CelebPoker is on the iPoker network and has a great range of sit n go's with games starting at $0.10 + $0.02 and with their Cash Crazy freerolls a good selection of daily freerolls. Once I get past the early stages I'm sticking to rigid bankroll management. Tournament buy in's will be no more than 2% of my bankroll, so I'm grinding my way at $0.10 tables till I get to $11 then I'll move up to $0.20 tables. If I take a hit and go below $10 I'll move back down. One of the first things I'll need to master is multi tabling effectively. I've done this on cash table but never bothered on sit n go's.

Sunday was my first day and got off to a slow start, I wasn't really in the mood to play much so I started slowly. I played 3 x 10 seat Sit n Go's and 2 x freerolls and the only success I had was a first in one sit n go which has increased the bankroll to $0.69. Hoping for a better day today.

Help with Bankroll Building

One of the ways I have used to help build up my online poker bankroll is to play games at poker forums. These are usually money added or freerolls and turn out to be great value because they have relatively small numbers playing. My favourite poker forum to play games is 4kingpoker. It is a very friendly forum, some of them can be very elitist, but 4kp isn't at all like that and they have some great money added games. They are about to start a new season of games tonight with a $1 buy $25 added game at Titan Poker. You can see a full list of games here Tournament List.

I won the Titan Cup last series so I will be trying to make it two season in a row, so I hope for a good start tonight.

FullTilt Poker 7 Game Mixed

Just for a change I've been playing a bit of micro stakes 7 game mixed poker at FullTilt. I've play a bit of HORSE before so I know the basics of Omaha and Stud so I thought I'd give 7 Game a go. I have to say I really enjoy it, with the added NL Holdem and PL Omaha it gives you a chance to build a decent stack up. There seems to be loads of players go on there that are just giving it a try and have no clue what they are doing. At the moment I am well up on my starting buy in. For a bit more information on 7 game mix take a look at this article, 7 Game Mix at FullTilt

1 Year Out of Work

Well it's a year this week since I was made redundant and despite looking constantly and applying for over 100 jobs still no work. They say the last thing to improve after a recession is the job market, and as everyone keeps saying that the recession is about over I hope for better things in 2010.

While I've been out of work I've been working on building a affiliate website as I have mentioned before. I have made a number of mistakes along the way which have made the process longer but I think at last I have got it right. Traffic to the site is increasing and it is becoming more viable to search engines. I have had a few sign ups to the poker rooms I am promoting but as yet I'm not making any money. But I'm convinced that will come. I've now started on my second site and I hope that all the lessons I learned on the first will mean this one gets noticed much quicker. I'm just in the process of building it when I get a few more site reviews written I will start getting some links up.

Anyone interested in the first site it can be seen here
www.realpokerbonus.com

Downswing

I've been on a bit of a downswing just lately, I've been winning little bits here and there but mostly losing out. Had some horrible bad beats and it's wrecked my confidence in any hand I play.

I qualified and played in a couple of MiniFTOPS events at Fulltilt but did really badly. I got so mad with FullTilt the other night that I withdrew my bankroll and decided to play elsewhere for a while. I'm sure they will miss me, lol but not much.

I have been playing micro buy in sit n go tournaments on EasyPlay Poker on the merge network. Hopefully I will come out of the run of bad luck without losing too much. I'm trying to win their College sit n go league and after an OK start I may manage to get in the top 5 and win a small amount. Really other than that I'm not playing much taking it easy until after Christmas when I will start playing more again.

Judging by how regularly I remember to update this it will be Christmas gone before my next post so Happy Christmas to any passing readers.