I have finally decided to start the journal.

All the poker fever started for me back in January 2005. I cant even remember what made me search "Online Poker" on yahoo. I think it was due to the boredom that comes from finishing college and the lack of sex that, in my case, it involved .

After running the search, the first online poker room that showed up was Party Poker, or course. I downloaded the software and started playing. I sucked. I was worse than that. I was clueless. I played for a few days before I decided to deposit 50 bucks to play 0.5/1limit because I was terrified about losing $25 in just a hand . I had never gambled before. NEVER. I was interested in the game because I found out years ago (in a research for the probability theory course in college) that it was a beatable game and I wanted to see what i could do. Well, party gave me $10 bucks for depositing and I managed to break even after the bonus.

I found out about the bonuses being offered in other sites before I cleared the first one party gave me, and as soon as I cleared I deposited in the GC. There started the frustration. That was late january and after a week, i sill couldnt beat the game , but somehow, I managed to lose at a slower pace than the bonus clearance and i was breaking even or slightly losing...sometimes slightly winning. I finally got tired of the bad beats and how it was impossible to win with TPTK!!!! I decided to lose my $38 (was playing 0.25/0.5 at prima) and forget about the experiment! By those days, some guy suggested that I should play NL . I was terrified about the idea but I saw Prima had NL$10 tables and thought they were ok if I made an additional deposit of $50. I looked for other prima sites with easy sign up bonus and went there (Royal something I think) Golden Riviera, among others and that´s how success started.

I struggled. It wasnt easy. I was winning a bit more at the very first time I played the NL tables but it was practically breaking even but the bonuses kept coming and the BR growing. I was like that until late april. On that time, I had found a few strategy sites on the net, and was adviced to buy a couple books I never bought. When I had more than 500USD, I took and awful series of bad beats that brought me down to about 200USD. At that moment I was playing NL$25 already and felt soo frustrated I decided to "Lose it all and stop playing this "damned, devilish game" that had been so frustrating. By those days, a few things happened: 1.-An internet friend suggest me a few things about my game. 2.-I found out about BTP!.

The couple adjustments took my game to a different level. I felt bored sometimes playing like that (TAG-ABC) but the money kept coming my way and I kept playing like that and gaining experience. April was my first winning month. May was absolutely great!

I stayed at NL$25 for quite long... until august, when I finally decided to play NL$50. Before that, I was only playing when certain sites had bonus. I wasnt really confident about my game even when I had registered more than 40K hands winning more than 12PTBB/100 and at some point above 15PTBB/100. That finally convinced myself: I had to start playing poker for more than FUN, it was time to become a semi pro .

The idea was shocking to me, but if I was able to sustain a similar win rate at NL$50, I would be making more than 1500USD, when in average, my civil engineer friends were doing 500USD . I started in UB and had the worse run ever. 7K hands of the most amazing bad beats. 1 outers, 2 outers, 3 outers were hitting about 80% of times. That losing streak happened when I was doing a little exercise to know how much money I was throwing away in stupidity moves. I lost most than 700USD in bad beats and about 380USD in stupidity losses and was only 200 and something down during the losing streak. I was playing great...even with all that money in stupidity losses, I was playing the best game I had ever played. After 10K hands played in just about 6-8days, I started winning. BIG time. Almost the same winrate as NL25.

It was like that i august and I eneded up about 1200 for the month (with bonuses). WOW. That was nice! I was able to play a couple different sites for their bonuses and they came really fast! September and october were very very good.

I started playing NL$100 in november. I had played a few times in late october but my attempts had been unsuccessful due to a few bad beats I took . This month everything has been going great. I had been making a lot. I was in a huge winning streak. I have made 2K in just 6K hands.

That´s been the story until Nov 17th, 2005. Last thurday. I started a morning session and took a few bad beats and lost half a buy in with JJ against an obvious higher pocket. AA. Ended the day with 130 down. Yesterday, friday I lost 215 and I am officially in a new lossing streak! I hit a A high flush to be beat by a str8 flushwith a monster pot of 285. A sets of 2s beat by a callling station after his open ended str8 that hit on the river. There goes my hard earned 350 .

Tommorrow, I will stay playing ABC at the $100 tables, but if I lose $100 more I will have to move back down according to my losing streak strategy. I move down if I lose 4 buyins regardless the size of my bankroll. I move back up when I do at least 3 buy ins . That is the indicator that the losing streak is over. The risk of ruin doing that is just near impossible.

My current bankrol is $3600 at hand and $1600 that i should be able to put back at any time for a total $5200.

I havent talked about the title of this journal. I might be aiming high but that´s what ´s on my mind right now: NL$1000. I want to move up in limits and play as high as I can beat. I know it s not a short term objective, but I have time and determination. If I find myself jammed at NL$600 I wont be sad. If I find myself jammed at NL$200 I wont be sad either because, as I told you, I am making more money than I could be doing in the best job possible here in my country (that´s assuming all the craziness I have seen at NL$100 stays like that). Right now, I want to play for about a month at each stakes and if I am winning anything near as the average winning player of that particualr stakes, I will move up, until I cant beat the game. That is assuming I have at least 20buy ins for the next level. As you see, I already have the roll for NL$200, and if everything keeps going on, I should start playing there on December 1st.

As you notice, this will be all poker related, but if I ever had an interesting, unusual sexual encounter that could be delightful to our perverted minds (MVP, Mecos, TW, Monk) I´ll keep you posted!

If anyone read all this, you are either brave or were very very bored!

Wish me luck in the hopefully not so long journey!

If you don't post at least 1 lesbian story a week....

It's no wonder nobody reads mine......... LOL

GL Alex i will read it either way....

i know a faster way for you to move up to $1000 NL. Bankroll me for 20k and i'll give you i dunno...5%.

Or you could BR me 20k and... .well... I'll have a LOT of cool stories to tell...

Saturday report.

The losing streak could be my usual party effect. God I hate that damned site. I just dont know why I keep going there for their God damned 100 bucks bonus.

Party Poker:
NL$100 :
525 hands
Amount Won: -$65.

I know it is not a huge loss but VP$IP of 12.8% and WtSD 9.6% and W$SD 50% is soooo boring. It s not a huge bad run but it was the continuation from thursday and friday.... I played like shit today. I moved to NL$50 to finish the bonus and to stick to my strategy because I had lost more than 5 buy ins already. I will move back up when i do $150 at NL$50.

Party´s NL$50:
Hands 601.
Amount won: -122

I left the damned place as soon as I hit the raked hand 1500. Went to Stars and the numbers changed.:

PokerStars NL$50

Hands: 393
Amount won: $128

Overall: Lost $44 in about 8 hours quad tabling...

And that´s how the day was not another huge loss and waste of time . If it wasnt because I was called all the way in three different bluffs -BIG ones, -230 - I would have ended up with a winning day. I handled a bad run of cards very very bad. That is why I have lost 5 buy ins in just around 3K hands in the last three days.

Conclusions:
1.-I think I shouldnt go back to Party POker. For some reason, I dont win there as I do in most other places.

2.-Dont bluff at NL$100 unless you have great reads. They are still calling stations!!

I am still having a very hard time dealing with myself. I am getting no cards and that has made me get involved in a few unnecessary bluffs. I think they were quite good but still uneffective .

PokerStars NL$50:
Hands Played: 1246
Amount Won: $48 woohooooo!

VP$IP 13.8% and I have to say that is much higher than it should. I was playing SC in EP because I was desperate!

There was only one remarkable hand:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (9 handed)

saw flop|saw showdown

BB ($45.05)
UTG ($69.20)
UTG+1 ($5.75)
MP1 ($24.25)
MP2 ($51.60)
MP3 ($20.90)
CO ($84.65)
Hero ($71.75)
SB ($21.10)

Preflop: Hero is Button with , .
1 fold, UTG+1 raises to $1, 4 folds, Hero calls $1, 1 fold, BB raises to $4, UTG+1 raises to $5.75, Hero raises to $20, BB calls $16.

Flop: ($46) , , (3 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $26, BB calls $25.05 (All-In).

Turn: ($97.05) (3 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($97.05) (3 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $97.05
Main Pot: $96.10, between BB and Hero. > Pot won by Hero ($96.10).
Pot 2: $0.95, between UTG+1 and Hero. > Pot won by Hero ($0.95).

Results in white below:
BB has Kh Kd (two pair, kings and tens).
UTG+1 has 8s Ah (one pair, tens).
Hero has Ac As (two pair, aces and tens).
Outcome: Hero wins $97.05.

How do you like that that!? That cant possibly get any better! I had reads on the BB raising only 1.55% of times in 170 hands so I thought he should have something strong and was going to be hard for him to let go and also to put me on that hand. He told me later that he couldnt believe I had AA so he had to call.

Tommorrow I will be heading to Martin´s Poker as PS bonus seems unclearable at NL$50. I might be able to start playing the $100 tables tommorrow. I already made $150 in NL$50 but I am NOT feeling optimum ATM.

you seem to be bluffing unsuccessfully, an i imagine that this is costing you quite a few BBs. didn't someone PM me suggesting that i not bluff at the 50s? maybe even at the 100s?

my experience at martin's is that many of them only fold when they can't even beat a pure bluff. i just don't do it unless it's an obvious orphan pot and i am in LP. very occassionally i'll raise PF with junk in LP just to avoid being completely predictable.

free card plays seem to work well, as does chasing flushes... as long as you let them bet when oop (usually they underbet). as i mentioned in another post, a lot of players in that game will underbet until the river, at which point they often go nuts with 2pr regardless of what the board has. this is where you will make your money with the occassional big kill.

pot-sized bets tend to only get called by stronger hands (e.g., 2pr or better -- maybe AA or KK on a low board), so i usually save those for when i have a vulnerable strong hand (e.g., a set on a two-flush board). i really like .6 or .7 pot on Martins if i want callers.

don't you love their pop-up menu with all the proportional bets? it allows good players to make good bets in a convenient way while providing the sucky ones a way to still underbet.

anyway, the martin guys seem really good at trapping TAGs... maybe you can call them calling stations or sponges. if there is a TAG or LAG at your table, it's best to either change tables or adapt your game to try to isolate them with your strong hands. a TAG or LAG won't let you chase your draws cheaply, so that prevents you from making money the easy way.

just my 2 cents.

tell me when you're on, and i'll sweat you if you want.

Thanks for the words. Kuso.

I had another late session last night and I lost another 70. I was 300 up at certain point and 400 down a few minutes later . I simply have lost it. I dont have patience to play going to SD 10% of times to win only 28%. I cant handle this...at least cant handle it correctly.

I dont feel so bad today. I will play again today and if I hav e anything like a losing session I will be in a break for at least 1 week.

Right now I have 6 buy ins down since all started. Thankfully, I have cleared almost 300 in bonus and the BR hasnt suffered much.

As for the bluffing, it is just my regular reaction to these long streaks of no cards. Last time I was like this I was able to stop doing it by making an exercise: Play 10K hands without making a single bluff.

My win rate on that period was 12.8PTBB/100 at NL$50. Absolute POker and Bodog. I will try the exercise today at martin´s.

My name there is alitomr. There is an imposter AlexMR overthere.


Let´s see how it goes today.