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.

Build a bankroll

If anyone reading this is looking to build an online bankroll a good place to start isVirgin Poker. Unfortunately it's not open to US players.

For more information on Virgin Poker see here

How to build your bankroll at Virgin.

You will need a small amount to deposit, the main deposit methods are credit/debit card and Neteller. To start building from your small deposit you then need to play in the 3 weekly V*Roll Satellites. Qualification for these is 25 raked hands on cash tables.

I find the best way to get the 25 raked hands is on the $0.10/$0.20 Fixed Limit Stud tables. This is so easy, if you can play Stud you will make money easily, if you can't play Stud you just pay the anti and fold. The anti/fold method will probably cost you a total of $0.50. (today I went to the Stud table with $2 and came away after playing 25 raked hands with $8, it really is that easy)

Once you have the 25 raked hands you can play the V*Roll Satellite (you need 25 for each game). These run on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday at 7.30pm GMT. These games are NL Hold'em with around 160 players in them and the top 10 get paid an equal share of £250 and a ticket to the V*Roll Final. The final is played on the last Sunday of the month and has a £1,000 prize pool.

If you play tight and careful poker stick to good hands and watch out for the more extreme bad player it is very easy to get to the final 10 in the satellite games. It is probably the easiest £25 you will ever win in online poker. Do this several times in a month and you are soon on the way to a decent bank roll.

FullTilt MiniFTOPS Event 7

Started my quest to play a few MiniFTOPS events at FullTilt today. The first satellite I played was a $0.50 + $0.10 rebuy. Had a slow start but then the hands started to come, needless to say in a $0.60 buy in the quality of play wasn't the best but I was chip leader or there abouts from about 3/4 of the way into the tournament. Towards the end I just needed to raise and everyone folded (lol the power). So a nice little win to start the campaign, getting entry into Event 7 with a $250,000 guaranteed prize pool. Event 7 wasn't one on my list to play but no matter.

FullTilt Mini FTOPS

FullTilt FTOPS is a very popular series of 25 games run over about 12 days and although there are loads of cheap satellites I have never been good enough to win through to one of the games. So it was great when FullTilt started to run the MiniFTOPS, the same series of games for 1/10th the cost.

Last time I messed around and qualified for one event but didn't do very well in the final, this time I'm going to make a real effort to qualify for several tournaments. The games I like the look of are Event 2 7 Game, Event 10 No Limit Hold'em, Event 14 HORSE, Event 18 No Limit Hold'em Cashout, Event 20 No Limit Hold'em, Event 22 No Limit Hold'em 2 day event and the Main Event. Satellites are running from November 15th and the MiniFTOPS Event 1 starts off the series on December 9th.

I'll keep the blog informed as to how I'm doing qualifying for these events.

Poor blog has been neglected

Poor blog has been neglected :(

Thanks Logan for reminding me I haven't posted in ages.

Best explain why not. As previously mentioned I'm currently out of work. I've applied for loads of jobs but just not getting anywhere which is no fun. I've always had an interest in computers and I'm able to learn things on them reasonably easily, so I decided now was the time to try and add the time I have to the skills I've learned and see what I can do.

So for the past couple of months I've been writing a website www.realpokerbonus.com I play at or have played at so many poker sites that it seemed like a good idea to detail some of the better ones and try and keep people up to date with news on promotions at those sites. Now it's out in the open I'll try and add notes on here when I update things.

September

Poker

Well September has not been to bad for poker, I'm not a big fan of playing cash games but I have been playing daily at FullTilt in their Take 2 promotion. All you have to do is play 2 cash tables at you preferred level and earn 1 FullTilt Point per day. Play 25 out of the 30 days in September and they give you $50. Simple as that not further conditions, you can now play with it or withdraw it. As I'm only a micro donk I played $0.01/$0.02 tables and had a winning run all month and I'm about $20 up from where I started.

I think because I went on there will the idea to play tight and just get the 1 FTP I played better than I normally do when I get into a cash game. I was also on there for a short period each day and didn't get bored. Getting bored always kills my stack because I play to many hands. I will carry on playing through October and see if I can still make a profit playing cash, that would be a new experience.

Won some money.

Poker

Played to Freerolls as part of a deposit promotion yesterday. These were at Easy Play Poker, a newer skin on the merge network. The first game I came 10th and made a huge $2.50 the second I came in 5th and won $75.00. A nice little win for a freeroll.

My bad

Life

MMM been a little bit quiet again lately, no real excuse but I have been a bit busy. I have been working on a project that hopefully will allow me to be self-employed. It's still in the very early stages and I have been doing a great deal of research. I now have the idea and plan together and I am writing a web site, I learned how to write html years ago but never really did much, so with the help of a few good books I've updated my knowledge.

I spent a week getting the first few pages written and put them out there on the big world wide web, then hated them, so I've spent a few days re-writing and I'm much happier. So the MK2 version rocks lol. "This time next year we will be millionaires"

Poker

My little experiment with double or nothing sng's is officially over, I got so bored playing them that I lost to many. So I'm back with my first poker love and playing multi table tournaments again. At the moment I'm getting into the money on a regular basis, so poker is fun.

Unemployment

Some times I despair of the UK government, they have backed us into a financial crisis, causing 2.4 million people to be unemployed and they then come up with wonderful statements about concentrating about targeting 16 to 25 years and making sure all of them is in work. Where does this leave us that are older than 25, competing in an unfair market yet again. I'd consider a job in politics but I don't think I fancy having my brain removed. Not that an election will help because we will only be replacing one lot of corrupt wasters with another. When I earn that million I'm moving to an offshore tax haven. Neil

Computer Problems

Life

I'm normally very security aware with computers, I have a good virus checker with a firewall and spyware checker. But the other day a virus sneaked through, I don't know how or from what site I got it but it was nasty. The little beast was called Braviax and it loaded a spoof anti-spyware program onto the computer and I could not get rid of it, after thinking I'd got it 3 time and re-connecting to the net, it just downloaded it's self again. So in the end there was nothing for it but to re-install windows. Lesson learned though I'm now creating a re-install rescue disk with all the system drivers I had to search out and download with another computer just to get this one running.

So not much poker in the last week.

CelebPoker Move To iPoker

CelebPoker have today, 12 August 2009, moved from using the Boss Media network to Playtec’s iPoker network. This move has been made after Celeb reviewed its online operation and concluded that their customers would greatly benefit from the cutting edge technology offer by Playtec.

David Donovan, Founder of CelebPoker.com said “Since 2003, we have always tried to offer our players the best possible poker experience available on the internet, and after many successful years with Boss Media, we want to continue to provide CelebPoker customers with an excellent
service and online poker room. The iPoker network is held in very high regard by our valued customers.”

He added, “The fact that iPoker is the fastest growing network in the global gaming market was the driving force behind CelebPoker’s decision to move to the Playtech offering. It is also the first signal of intent as CelebPoker look to challenge industry front runners Pokerstars and Full Tilt, on their mission to make online poker bigger, better and more accessible for all players.” *
To celebrate the move to iPoker CelebPoker will be holding a $10,000 welcome tournament on 17 September 2009. This will be open all depositing players.

Other promotions include:

First Deposit Bonus
100% Deposit Bonus up to $600, the bonus is cleared at a rate of $5 per 600 CelebPoker Points, the bonus is valid for 90 days.

$11,000 in Freeroll Prizes Every Month
A wide variety of freeroll tournaments every month for cash or points prizes.

Monthly $1,000,000 Guaranteed Tournament
Direct buy in for $500 + $35 or through satellite tournament throughout the month.

Weekly $250,000 Guaranteed Tournament
Direct buy in for $300 + $35 or through satellite tournament run daily.

Leicester City

Life

As you may see from the link down the side somewhere I'm a Leicester City fan, I was born in Leicester and grew up in the countryside outside of Leicester. I went to my first game when I was about 9 and have followed them ever since. The season before last was my most painful moment as a supporter when we got relegated to the 3rd division of English football for the first time in the clubs 125 year history. Last season was about rebuilding and starting to work our way back to former glory. Well they made a good start and got promoted back to the Championship (2nd division of English football). I think this year is about consolidation and building for a further push for promotion to The Premiership next season.

So today's game is at home to Swansea, hopefully we get off to a good start.

Leicester 'till I die!

Update

Leicester 2 Swansea 1

Great win

Kick in the Teeth

Unemployment

As I have said previously I went for a job interview recently for a sales job, I have been selling on the road for the last 7 years and for 2 of those I was Sales Director for a company. So I have a little bit of experience. I thought the interview went OK, the job wasn't the best job in the world but it was employment. Well a couple of days ago I got a letter saying I didn't get the job, I thought fair enough maybe there was someone better qualified to do it. Then today I see the same job advertised in the paper, so what does that mean I'm not even good enough to get a job that no one can get, now I'm really depressed. Some people know how to kick a man when he is down.

Sometimes Poker is Painful

Poker

As I've said in earlier posts I am trying out Double or Nothing SnG's, I've seen quoted somewhere that these games are the tournament equivalent of grinding away at the cash tables and it's not far wrong.

I've played 90 games over a 1 month period, and initially I was doing well and running at a 70% win rate, but this in now slowing down and I'm only hitting a 60% win rate which is nowhere near good enough. I am just breaking even, because of this I opened a new account at Blue Square Poker and I am working on a deposit bonus and as it clears it's at least making the games profitable. I'm working to strict bankroll management so at the moment I'm stuck down at $1 buy in games and this is painful, the standard of play is awful. I am often on a table with 5 other players who are playing 70% - 80% of hands mostly limping in, and if you raise preflop they call anyway regardless of what they have. This is OK if you are getting cards you just milk them for their chips, but for 2 days I've been card dead and you just can't win, bluffing these players is just out of the question. Anyway current stats are 90 games played, profit $3.95 + $6.00 bonus(so far) along side this I've played a few standard 6 max SnG's and the stat on that are 12 games played $11.40 profit.

At the moment the winnings are small, but I'm trying to stick to one type of game and make a real effort to work up to a decent game and a decent profit. I will only ever be a hobby player but the hobby has to pay for itself. Up to now I've jumped about from 1 site to another and 1 game type to another without any real focus, I want to stop doing that and try and improve on where I am.

Where I am today is TOTALLY frustrated.

How soon I forget

When I started this blog I had good intentions of posting regularly, to my shame I've let it slip a bit already. Time to make up :)

Unemployment

I had my 6 month interview today with the Job Centre, if your from the UK you will probably know what that means but if not what happens is when you lose your job the government pays you £60 a week to help you out while you find another. This only last for 6 months after that you have to claim another type of the same benefit, it's still £60 but they make you beg for it (joke). Anyway in return for the £60 you have to prove you are actively searching for work. So I had an interview with a very nice young lady who actually to my surprise was very helpful and she is now my case worker. I have to see her once a month so she can assist me to find work. This is OK because she is fit so I'm not complaining.

I went for a job interview last week which went really well, I think I should get a second interview, and as part of the help from the Job Centre I got today they are willing to offer a potential employer a £1000 grant to employ me.

Life

I'm just about healed up after my operation a few weeks ago and I have definite confirmation that all test were negative and no signs of cancer have been found. So I'm very relieved and happy about that.

I'll be a good boy and update whats going on with Poker tomorrow ish.

Update

Poker

I'm still playing double or nothing SnG's, I've moved up from $1 to $2 games. There is very little difference in the quality of players between the 2 levels. I've now played 27 games so far with a win rate at 74% and a total winnings of $11.35 I will have to run at $2 for a while because I haven't got any where near the bank roll on CD Poker to play $5 games.

Last night I played in a freeroll satellite at Pokerstars to the special $100k freeroll for UK and Ireland players. The game was so easy it was embarrassing all you needed to do was win one decent pot then fold till all the very bad players donked them selves out. The final is on 2nd August, no doubt it will be a real donkfest too.

Unemployment

I have an interview for a job on Wednesday, nothing brilliant but it would be nice to get back to work. Being unemployed is getting very boring, and as I've been out of work for 6 months I am now at the stage where I'm going to be abandoned by the government. So it's been really great that I've payed a huge amount of tax over the last 30 years to find when I get problems through gross mismanagement of the economy by the government and the banks it counts for nothing.

Lance Armstrong Cancer Campaign

I was just told about this and as it's such a worthwhile cause I signed up and thought I'd pass the information on here.

Dear Friend,

I just signed the World Cancer Declaration - a major global push to pressure world leaders to act now on cancer.

Right now, Lance Armstrong is riding in the Tour de France and dedicating his ride to this cause. And after the race, he'll send these commitments to world leaders and pressure them to attend the World Cancer Summit in Dublin this August. It's our best chance to push for better treatment, more funding for cancer research and access to care for everyone around the world.
But if people like us don't stand up, these leaders won't pay attention.

Will you sign the declaration? It only takes a moment and could make a huge difference:

http://www.livestrongaction.org/campaigns/commit-fight-cancer

While we've made tremendous progress in the fight against cancer, we still have a lot of work to do. By 2010 cancer will be the #1 killer in the world, and as you read this message millions are fighting the disease around the globe. We need our world leaders to take action now.

I took this action because I believe this crisis couldn't be more urgent. Will you join me? It only takes a moment:

http://www.livestrongaction.org/campaigns/commit-fight-cancer

Double or Nothing

Poker

I thought I’d try something different for a while as I was having very little success play multi table tournaments. There has been some talk on a 4kingpoker forum about double or nothing sit and go’s so I thought I’d give tem a try.

Now I’ve always steered clear of them because thinking about them logically you have to win around 60% of games just to break even. Anyway I tried a 10 seat game on Pokerstars and I was all over the place and went out the game in 10th, great start. I think the problem with the Stars game was the 10 minute blind levels on a very passive table the game just went on and on with 4 or 5 limpers per hand and all sorts of crap catching. So I started to get frustrated and pushed some marginal hands and bust out.

I then tried a 6 seat SnG on iPoker, these are turbo games and move along much quicker, also they are packed with very poor players. I had $10 on CDPoker which I couldn’t withdraw because it’s tied up with some stupid bonus that I never knew about so I thought what the hell I’ll have a bit of fun with it and see what I can do.So in 3 days playing $1 +.20 buy ins I have played 14 games I have a win rate of about 72% and I’m in profit by $4.00. Not a fortune, but I’m enjoying playing again, I’m a lot happier with the way I’m playing and I’ve been adapting to others play better. If I can keep the win rate up around 70% I’ll move over to Titan where I have a better bank roll and move up the stakes a bit and start to see if it’s possible to make money playing these double or nothing games or if they are just a bit of harmless fun to play when nothing else is working.

Won Some Money Tonight

Poker

Well it's been a while but I managed to take second place in a $2 buy in game tonight on Carbon and won a mighty $25. Hopefully that's got me passed my downswing, but we will see how things go tomorrow. I think I played pretty well too, and the only thing that stopped me winning was getting rivered on the final hand.

Learning Visual Basic

While I'm out of work I'm learning more about computers, I've just signed up for a computer course that should give me a CompTIA qualification. I'm also learning programming from books. Obviously poker being a hobby I'm using the programming to create little programs that relate to that.

Odds Estimator V1.1 alpha.exe

This is a little odds estimator program for NLHE I have just written, anyone is welcome to give it a try. I have virus checked it but please check it again before running.

Screenshot of the program



To use just fill in the number of outs as shown (no need to fill in the pot size) and press Calculate this will then give you percentage chance of your hand improving on the turn and or river (shown in red)



You can also calculate the maximum amount of bet you can call by entering the post size and pressing calculate again.



Please remember this is only an estimator and it uses a simple calculation that gives a rough guide. Later versions may use a more precise formula.

If for any reason the program doesn't work leave a comment here as to what happened and i will look into it.

Hospital Tomorrow

Poker

Well I'm going to take a break for poker for a few days, nothing is working and I'm playing really badly so if I take a break maybe things will turn round.

Life

Tomorrow I'm going into hospital for an operation, providing everything goes OK I should be in and out in the same day. Recently I found a lump where there shouldn't be one, after several visits to the doctor and tests they have decided to remove it and check to see if it is a cancer or not. Judging by the test results they are 99% convinced that it isn't so I'm not to worried just not looking forward to being hacked about. Then I'll have a few days of recovery, that gives me a good chance to read a few poker books and try and mend my game.

Why I Hate Poker (for now)

Poker

I'm so frustrated with poker at the moment, because I lost my job I took most of my bankroll off the net and into my bank account. I left about $1000 spread across several sites. This has left me playing in $1 to $2 buy in tournaments and the standard of play down there is terrible. Now I know to win you have to adapt your play and deal with the game but the frustration is getting me down.

I go back to ABC poker, play the good hands try and get value out of the fish and make my way deep into the tournament, only to get sucked out on by someone who has built a large stack and just doesn't care what they play. It take strong will to have confidence in your own game and at the moment mine is all gone.

I play in 2 leagues on forums Instant Poker Money and 4kingpoker these are going OK, I've been playing the IPM league for 5 months and I've finished in the top 3 for 3 of them, and I think I will be in the top 3 again this month. For a top 3 finish you win a small amount of money and 2 x $11satellite tickets for Carbon. These games are played on Tuesday and Thursday, Tuesday is a freeroll and Thursday $2 buy in with money added. I like these games, the players on there are generally better than the average at this buy in level. OK the freeroll games have a few all in with 63 off players but not too many. The 4kp league is on Thursday and is a $1 buy in with money added and is played over a few sites over around 12 week. This season I haven't done too well because i missed to many games but in previous seasons I have come in the top 3. These are tough games there are some very good players, there are maybe only 10 to 20 players in the game but any win is hard. 4kp also have a Sunday team league and I am captain of Team UK this game is also a $1 buy in with money added. At the moment Team UK are 3rd in the league with 1 game to play. I hope we may take second tonight.

Well that's some more about poker.

Update 21:28

Just finished in a 3.30euro game on PokerHeaven, the standard of play was much better than the 1.10euro game I played there yesterday, but I was still completely card dead. I was able to run a couple of bluffs but it was a bit risky because people were keen to call with very little. I got very lucky on 1 hand where I beat A9 with J 10 (I was getting very short stacked at that point) in the end I went out about 20 short of the money when my AJ all in was called by K4 and I lost as usual.

The Start

Poker

Great place to start a blog that concentrates on poker, but I hate poker. I seem to be going through a spell where nothing works.

Some background, I've been playing poker since 2002. I started playing freerolls and even though I was probably the worlds worst player I made a few Dollars. After about a year of thrashing about playing badly I discovered a poker forum. This helped improve my game a little and was also a good spot to make some money in freerolls with smaller fields. From there I moved onto playing in small buy in games, I generally stick to playing tournaments, but occasionally I try and break into playing cash games. I seem to do OK at this for a while then I start to throw money away and move back to tournaments. I'm now a member of a few poker forums and this has help me become a better player and helped build my bankroll. Which at the beginning of the year stood at around $4000. That's where we come on to the second part of the blog.

Unemployment

In January I was made redundant, after 30 years of working in different jobs I was suddenly at home with nothing to do, which I pretty much hate. Most of my working life I have been a Stores/Warehouse Manager, except for the last few years, for those I was a Sales Rep. I was earning good money up to £35,000 a year now I'm on £60 a week jobseekers allowance. Life sucks! I promise this won't be a depressing blog even though it is starting off that way. The help that you get from the system when you are unemployed is a constant source of frustration and dark humour for me I hope I can share some of that.

Life

Well I'm married, have 3 kids and live in Norfolk UK. I'm 48 years old and generally in good health although I have got to go into hospital next week for a small operation which I'm not looking forward to. My eldest son is 17 nearly 18 and is currently looking to find which university he would like to go to and spend 3 year having his drinking interrupted by the occasional lesson. My daughter is nearly 17 and has just done her GCSE exams and will start college in September, and my youngest son is 10 and has ADHD and Asperger syndrome, more of that later.

OK there's a start lets see where we go from here.