April 1st, 2005 (Friday)

Tonight, Lindsay and I are planning on taking a drive down to Foxwoods for some poker. I'm sure she'll play some casino games and/or slots, but since we're starting at the tables, hopefully she'll make her winnings (or lose I guess) there and then move on to the -EV stuff.

I think I'm going to stick her on a $2/$4 Hold'em table tonight, though I'm not sure where I'll end up. I could easily go to a spread stud game or, if one is running a lower limit Omaha Hi/Lo game (not $5/$10 with a kill in other words). If nothing really appeals to me there, I might spring for the $4/$8 Hold'em - but that's probably as high as I'll go. We will each have $200 to work with (though we may work it out to be $300 for me and $100 for her or some other combination).

I made our reservations for our Foxwoods trip in May last night. The room ended up being cheaper since we used the wampum card - so I upgraded our room to the Grand Pequot for about $20 less than I was expecting to pay. I still need to set up the dinner reservations for Saturday night at Al Dente - though it looks like we're going to have 7 people and you're only allowed to set it up online with up to 6... I guess I'll give them a call.

I'm hoping by the time May comes around that I'll be able to comp a fair amount of meals that we get. I earned $4.48 in points in a little over 3 hours (I think) of play. I've got 2 more times already lined up between now and the trip to earn more points. Tonight I will probably be there from 7:30pm until around 3am. When I go on my own - it will probably be about the same. If I had the same progress, I'd be looking at around $11.20 per time that I'm there - or ~$26 total by the time our trip is here. If I can sneak another day down, that would make it even better. Also, Lindsay will have some points built up when she goes down tonight - so that will help out too, though I doubt she'll get much better than say $15 or so.

Well, I guess I should start off by putting in the one table I've already done today:

PS 4/1 12:32am $2/$4 HE ring (10) $80 buyin, 2:50am, 240 hands, +32

Total Net change for the month: $32.00
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 2.300 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 2.300 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: $13.913/hr
Table-Hourly rate: $13.913/t-hr

April 1st - April 4th, 2005 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday)

Well, I've already covered what happened over the weekend, so here's the stats from that:

Foxwoods 4/2 12:00am - 2am, $2/$4 O8 ring (10) $100 buyin, 60 hands, +8

Empire Poker 4/2 3:38pm $.10/$.25 PL O8 ring (10) $10 buyin, 3:42pm, 1 hand, 0 (bonus money)
Planet Poker 4/2 3:45pm $1/$2 HE ring (10) $29.65 buyin ($4.65), 4:54pm, 60 hands, -4.65

IP $100 deposit ($100 bonus, 800 raked hands)
IP 4/2 9:50pm $1/$2 HE ring (10) $40 buyin, $20 rebuy, 11:17pm, 80 hands, -9.25
IP 4/2 9:50pm $2/$4 HE ring (6) $80 buyin, prop play, $40 rebuy, 11:21pm, 81 hands, -103.50
IP 4/2 9:50 - 9:59pm prop, 9 hands, $2
$76.22

I probably should explain the Empire hand and the Planet Poker situation. Empire had given me $10 to play with in order to drum up raked hands. However, they were asking me to do 300 raked hands to release it, so I decided to see if I could make it a reasonable stake and PL O8 seemed like the perfect place. In the BB I had A24T and checked to see a flop of 29T rainbow. I bet out the pot with my 2 pair and was raised enough to be all in - there were 3 other callers too - so it was a $40+ pot to me... I called - and it came a four on the turn and a king on the river. The guy who raised me hit his A449 and took the whole pot. Oh well - not my money anyway...

Planet was one of those sites that I signed up for because UPF was doing a tournament there. I had lost most of my original stake (all but $4.65), but I still had $25 in bonus dollars to release (and they allow you to play with the money before it is released), so I decided to give it a go and try to finish it off (I think I needed 30-40 more points to do so). Unfortunately, even though I managed to get my $29 up to around $50 - I hit a series of really good cards with really good flops to give me really good 2nd best hands - and the rest is history. I admit - I probably didn't make the best use of the money - but I don't really like the site anyway - so its not a big loss to me.

Monday was a fun night. I brought up my computer and registered for the FTP Horse tournament KingSalami set up with about 2 minutes to spare. I was still doing some dishes and such, so I had Lindsay play for me. One of the first hands was AKs and she hit top pair. I don't think she went to showdown and won the pot - so we were off to a good start.

For most of the first hour I was on a good tear. I bluffed one hand horribly which cost me in hold'em, but I made up for it in the next 3 rounds. In the Stud8 section, I don't think I really played many hands - same with the next hold'em round. For razz though, I was cleaning up on our second pass through - hitting every card under the sun. Somewhere in the 2nd hour, I hit a hand that I pushed too far (2 pair versus quads...), but retained enough sense to get away. In the end I was headsup with a non-BTPer, and it was a very tough match from there. I think it lasted through 3 levels, ending on the razz level again and I took home the win.

Although it was only 15 players deep, this tournament really helped my confidence in tournaments. I'm still sticking with the reduced tournament schedule for the month - but this has surely helped. Plus the side bet with Tightwad (changed from a $25 bounty to a last longer bet), made the game much more interesting. I look forward to playing the tournament again in the future. Next time - Monk better show up - because Tighty was feeling lonely...

I also played some $1/$2 Hold'em during the tournament and finished down by $5, which is obviously no big deal.

Full Tilt Poker seems to be a nice site, but it is a little busy in terms of the graphics and color scheme. It is remarkably fast to me - though that may just take some getting used to. I've got a huge bonus to work off over there and, not willing to let free money go to waste, so I'll be playing a fair amount I imagine. I think during the tournament and ring game I released $2.91 or so - so it'll be a while before I'm done...

FTP 4/4 $500 deposit, $500 bonus (120 days - by August 2nd)
FTP 4/4 9:00pm $5+.50 HORSE multi (15) 499728, +25 side bet, 11:16pm, 1st, xxx hands, +32 (+57) (+25 on Empire)
FTP 4/4 9:27pm $1/$2 HE ring (9) $40 buyin, 11:24pm, xxx hands, -5
$527

Net change for the weekend: ($23.40)
Net time for the weekend: 9.433 hours, 12.700 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: ($23.40)
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 9.433 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 12.700 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: ($2.481/hr)
Table-Hourly rate: ($1.843/t-hr)

April 5th, 2005 (Tuesday)

Hmmm... bonus money thoughts. Right now I've got around $500 to clear at Full Tilt (120 day deadline - August 2nd), $100 to clear at UB (no deadline) and the 2 monthlies at PokerPlex and Interpoker. In the rumor mill, I'm hearing that Empire will be having a bonus soon - so I'll need $600 to take care of that. UB currently has enough to cover it - so it will probably be the one - but I should be aware of when these things expire so I can take maximum advantage.

Empire will likely be a 7-day thing to do 1050 hands ($150 bonus). Under my new "reduced calorie" hours, I probably wouldn't be able to finish it up in time - so I'll either need to play more or simply take less of a bonus. I'm getting pretty good at playing 4 tables at once - and at $1/$2 Omaha Hi/Lo, almost every hand was raked. At 40+ hands/table/hour - that's 6-8 hours or so. Should I sacrifice one goal to make another? Sacrifice reduced hours to make a happier life to make more money to make a happier, more stable life... hmmm... I'm sure Lindsay wouldn't have a problem with me playing some extra - but there are trade-offs - so I have to take them into account.

After Empire, I'll have to finish up Interpoker and PokerPlex. Interpoker will be a little slower since I've already dropped $100 on that site this month (so I'll be working back to break even for the month there). PokerPlex will be a quick run - but I'll wait on it until I'm done at Interpoker. I estimate I've got around 80 hands complete at Interpoker thus far.

Then it will be on to FTP to start really knocking that bonus down. I earned $2.91 after 2 hours of play at $1/$2 HE with one table. I'll probably continue to play $1/$2 for a little while there, but I'll probably do 2-3 tables. Eventually I'll move up to $2/$4 to help it go a little faster. Since it releases in $20 increments, I'm hoping to unlock a good portion of it this month and finish it up next month.

This means I probably won't be going back to UB until they offer another bonus - so the $100 there will just have to wait a little while. If Pokerstars opens a bonus soon - I'll probably need to find a way to get to that too - though since they did fairly recently, I don't think it will be too soon.

I probably won't even be playing at Pokerstars this month except on an odd night when all of the other sites are down or something.

Just thinking aloud now, trying to estimate what I'm going to need:

Empire ($1/$2), $150 bonus, 1050 raked hands, 40 hands/table-hr, 26.25 table-hours
Interpoker ($1/$2), $100 bonus, 800 raked hands, 60 hands/table-hr, ~80 hands complete, 1:1 raked to not-raked hands, 24 table-hours
PokerPlex ($1/$2), $50 bonus, 300 hands, 60 hands/table-hr, 1:1 raked to not-raked hands, 10 table-hours
Full Tilt Poker ($1/$2), $500 bonus, 8334 points needed ($.06/point), 24 points/table-hr (not reliable yet), 347 table-hours
Ultimate Bet ($2/$4), $100 bonus, 1000 Ultimate points needed ($.10/point), 40-60 points/table-hr (??), 16.6 - 25 table-hours

Even if I only pick up the first three bonuses this month, that's $300 in bonus money. Of course, I'm already down a little more than $100 at Interpoker - so there I'll be trying to build back up.

I have to say, the bonus at FTP is a little intimidating at 347 table-hours, but I suspect it will improve greatly when I move to the $2/$4 tables there. In fact, moving to the $2/$4 tables in general have increased the release times by quite a bit in all cases, so I will be playing them whenever I think it is reasonable to do so (in other words - not at the Cryptos for the rest of the month...).

The biggest snag to everything that I can think of is the Interpoker bonus. As my bankroll there is so small I will have trouble 2-tabling - let alone 3 tabling it. As long as I bounce back up some, it shouldn't be too bad - but I'll have to pay attention to it to make sure it doesn't get bad. I'd move more money there, but everything is already pretty tied up in other spots for now.

While I'm working on these bonuses, it will be a little longer before I join some more of the other Crypto sites (William Hill and Carribean Sun are the next two on my list I think).

In all honesty, if the Empire bonus hasn't started yet - I should try to get as much of the UB bonus done, because it will probably be a while before I get back and I might be able to clear a bulk of it in a 2-3 hour session with 3-4 table open. Maybe only 3 tables and then have one table at Interpoker open as well - that sounds good.

If Empire has started, I'll withdraw from UB tonight and if it doesn't clear immediately to Neteller, I'll play some at Interpoker and Full Tilt. If it does - then 3 tables of Empire and one of Interpoker.

April 6th, 2005 (Wednesday)

Let me just say that my wife is great. She went to bed around 11pm last night, so she missed the fiasco that happened and only just asked me how it went after I got to work (because we didn't really get to talk this morning).

I explained it to her and do you know what her response was? I tell you, it wasn't "Why don't you take some time off and spend some time with me?" and it wasn't "Quit now so we can go shopping (or pay off debts)". Nope it was something much better:

"Why don't you and I play poker together tonight and see if we can figure out where the problem is?"

I've always enjoyed playing poker with my wife - even if together means she's sitting four feet away from me and can't see the screen. The point is, we interact and figure out where my game has gone south.

On another note, I think I've figured out why I seem to be in a funk in terms of my mood. Since March 19th, I have netted a $600 loss from poker. It hasn't seemed so bad because I finished March up $500 - but the fact remains that I was down $300 from my high point... And now, down almost $300 this month - it seems to be bothering me slightly.

On the positive side though, I'm confident I can make my way back to positive and even make some of my goals this month.

wow, and i thught my woman was cool because she doesn't care if i play and never bugs me about it. you got a good one

April 11th, 2005 (Monday)

So there's a few more things I have to work on this month in terms of poker. First and foremost is to get myself out of this rut called LOSING LAND. I'm almost there, only $70 below even for the month so far. I've still got $100 in bonus money at Interpoker to take care of and plenty of it at Full Tilt - so if I can play break even poker for the rest of the month, I should be able to take care of it. That being said - I want to actually win at poker this month...

Because that's the subject of my latest worries. I'm only down $70 overall - but if you take out the bonus money, where does that leave me? Its a large negative number approaching 40% of $1000... ($350).

In any case, I'm going to try to focus on the positives and try to get my game turned around. Last night's solid wins have bolstered me, so I'm hoping to finish similarly well tonight. In light of that, I'm depositing another $150 on Interpoker to finish off the last ~600 raked hands I need for the $100 bonus there. If I somehow drop that amount, I will probably deposit again - but I will be extremely discouraged. The hopes of joining a third Crypto site this month seems a distant thought at this point, though I may consider it if things truly turn around in the next few days.

Tonight I am playing in the $5 HORSE tournament that King Salami has set up. I imagine it will be a small turnout again, but I had a lot of fun last time (something about taking 1st place makes that possible...), so I am also there to defend my (almost worthless) title.

While I'm playing the tournament, I'll probably have another table or two up on FTP to unlock some more of the bonus there. I will be moving up to $2/$4 soon over there, once I am confident in the software interface - but it won't be tonight. I may decide to skip the ring games there tonight to work on the Interpoker bonus - but that is likely to wait until tomorrow or this weekend even.

I'm still trying to figure out the FTP bonus and estimate how much I'm going to have to play. I still don't have enough data, but when I 3-tabled, I played 147 hands and made $0.022/hand. It appears that the tables were dealing at about 50 hands/hour - so for each table I have up - it will be around $1/t-hr. I'm really hoping that this will increase a fair amount when I step up to the $2/$4 level - but that will be seen soon enough.

(Continued)

Frustrating is what April is all about apparently. Actually, considering how bad my night could have been, it really didn't end up that bad. However, the fact that I let it get this far is definitely an indication that something is hurting.

One of the things that I think I need to be more dilligent about is the number of tables I have open. Four seems to be too much for me at this time - so I'm going to be restricting myself to three and see if that helps me recover some. Also, I need to be more dilligent about staying off the god-damned phone while I play - because it was ringing off the hook last night and just started to piss me off. Just for the record - I hate phones. Cell phones are worse, but home phones have a special place in my heart. This quote from my father pretty much sums up my feelings about them:

Salesperson "Hi Mr. Thompson, this is Alex from AT&T. I'd like to talk to you for a moment about all of the great technologies we're coming out with..."
My Father "I tell you what, when you guys come up with a phone that lets me reach through the phone lines to strangle the telemarketers - give me a call."

And let me tell you, no "Do not call" list is going to stop solicitors - so don't even suggest it (and yes, I'm on the list...). Last night alone, I got 4 calls for "Wendy" - and 2 of them didn't believe me when I told them that no Wendy lived at my house. I'm sorry, but you're wrong sir, I know this is Wendy's number. Okay fine, you got me, hold on while I go get her (put the phone down, but do not hang up...).

Of course my wife called half-a-dozen times too - but I can't be upset about that, because she and I actually have stuff to talk about... and that's the only reason I have a phone in the first place...

Okay - tirade over - let's get back to my poor playing last night.

I played on three $1/$2 Hold'em tables to start really cracking through the FTP bonus. I did pretty poorly, reloading on each of the tables at least once. Sometime later, I would find that a $2/$4 Omaha Hi/Lo table had started, so I dropped one of the hold'em tables to recover my losses there - and it actually worked! I also dropped another $1/$2 Hold'em table for a $2/$4 Hold'em table and recovered even more there.

The HORSE tournament was a lot of fun and was a little disappointing when my starting big stack was crushed under a couple of "marginal plays" by Tightie (I will only give you the y if you fold K3s when I 3-bet your steal...).

Ultimately, I don't have a lot to say about the tournament itself, as I was too preoccupied with my other tables to really take down hands from it (an indication that I had too many tables open for sure). So next time, I will definitely concentrate more. I finished 4th - making me bubble boy, but since there were only 8 of us to start - this is really just disappointing.

I unlocked my first $20 from Full Tilt and I'm already on my way for the next $20.

Last night I also got an invite from a friend of mine to try out a site that has a 1000% deposit bonus. I guess they are a backgammon site that just opened a poker area and the bonus is pretty sweet. With the way my month has been though, I'm not willing to take a chance on it. Still - the bonus is out there if anyone's interested (1000% up to $5000 in bonus). According to my friend it releases in $5 increments and clears at about $1.5/t-hr. Of course, the big problem is there's only 200+ players on at a time - so its real small time. I haven't checked it out myself yet - so I can't say anything about the quality of the sparse games they have.

Here's the numbers from last night:

FTP 4/11 8:40pm $1/$2 HE ring (9) $40 buyin, $20 rebuy, $20 rebuy, 12:03am, xxx hands, -41.75
FTP 4/11 8:42pm $1/$2 HE ring (9) $40 buyin, $20 rebuy, $20 rebuy, 11:30pm, xxx hands, -80
FTP 4/11 8:44pm $1/$2 HE ring (9) $40 buyin, $20 rebuy, 11:05pm, xxx hands, -25
FTP 4/11 9:00pm $5+.50 HORSE multi (15) 543151, 10:40pm, 110 hands, 4th, -5.5, -15 side bet (pokerstars)
FTP 4/11 11:06pm $2/$4 O8 ring (9) $80 buyin, 12:16am, xxx hands, +63
FTP 4/11 11:32pm $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin, 12:08am, xxx hands, +36
11:46 - $20 released
$535,75

Net change for the day: ($43.25) ($5 from the side bet isn't in here, but it will show up in time...)
Net time for the day: 3.600 hours, 11.967 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: ($114.15)
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 34.100 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 88.350 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: ($3.348/hr)
Table-Hourly rate: ($1.292/t-hr)

Star (regarding phones)
Believe it or not...I am a commodity broker, which is to say I am on the phone most all day...In my personal life at home, I have NO land line, and NO cell phone...Obviously this is one reason why I play poker at work, but it is always a nice quiet evening for me...Not for everyone, but works for me...