Well good ole staff poker, youve shafted me again!

Not a great deal of good fortune last night when i figured i would give the 2/4 LHE tables on B2B a go. The majority of the players here are so aggressive in the 6 max game it becomes a joke. I went down about $75 odd Euro playing this game and then made a move before i lost to much. Went back to NL and won about 50 back which wasnt to bad mainly due to some really good calls on my behalf. There was one hand where i had like 63s in the BB and the flop came 345 with 2 of my suit. I raised it up and got reraised.....hmmm anyway by the river neither my flush or straight draw got there and i had him on some form of overpair the whole way, he only bet a smaller amount on the river and was a bit hesitant and suddenly i figured he might have been on the FD i called and sure enough his AK couldnt beat my pocket 3's

A bad luck story was when another guy in the sb raised 3x the bb and i called in the bb with A2o

flop came a lovely 345 and i tried to get some money out of him. well i did get him all in its just he had 6,7 i mean seriously what the fk are the chances of that!!!

Gonna stick to NL now no more 6-max limit its the devil!

I Think im in love with Party Poker

Well after clearing Staff Poker a few days ago i decided to hit the reload happening at Party Poker and see if this time i could make a substantial profit. Well it worked! the NL25 tables at Party are as soft as butter and well luckily this time there were no bad beats or suckouts to talk about. I had people calling me all the way even when i had a nut flush and another time when i had quads. I wasnt exactly disguising my hands either but the players just seem to be happy to call off their stacks with TP or sometimes eveb worse a bottom pair.

Ah well in 2 quick sessions of party i cleared the bonus and made some tidy profits

+$55 Bonus
+$75 Playing Profit

all in 550 raked hands.

Im thinking about moving on to Martins next ive got around $600 odd dollars still sitting in Absolute which well i think i might take out they have gone downhill lately. Of course if there are more Party bonuses then i know where ill be going.

Operation Martins

And so begins tonight my Martins Poker experience, 3000 raked hands needed 600 Euros bonus and 600 euros to play with whilst i try to get through these hands.

It all started today as i didnt really have much on in RL and well i didnt really have any other decent bonuses to go for. You guys would all know the conditions at Martins im guessing 3 months to clear so that should be no worries unless something comes up.

Anyway tonights session for a few hours i played at the 25c/50c NL tables and well got sucked out on time and time again there was a few times were i should just learn to drop my cards. Eg i raise it up with say AQs and the flop comes AQ2 the flop looks so pretty and the thought of being beat here just hardly runs through my head. Of course the villian has hit his bottom set and i lose a stack. I learnt my lesson a few times today with this happening to me and have now adjusted to being able to read a low set and being able to drop top 2 pair.

So yeah basically i was down and beaten and was starting to worry i was gonna get cleaned out a fair bit, i moved to the 50/1 NL tables then just to see the play there at first and give it a go, i managed to make some aggressive plays and have some confidence and sure enough things went my way i even stacked a guy with his AA when i hit a set of jacks.....which was top set as well he ended up way over betting and i had position then kept calling till the river were he was commited and lost his stack. Anyway at the end of it all i managed to book a small profit after being down by around $85 euro at one point.

Bonus at Martins cleared 262/3000
Profits/Losses since i began $25.34 Euros

Update Small Session-Martins

Got in another session at Martins today and well, i gotta say there are some real just complete morons playing there. I got sucked out on early though when i flopped a straight and ended up getting beaten by a flush and a few other minor suckouts.

I did then recover and book another lil winning session making it worth my time playing here. When i cleared Staff Poker i barely made it out of there with any profits at all, here things are looking pretty good thus far at the .5/1 NL tables

Anyway here are the figures

Bonus at Martins cleared 355/3000
Profits/Losses since i began $56.10 Euros

Nice journal here, Stu

Depends how the betting went after the flop, Stu raised with AQ here.

A milestone!

Well guys didnt play for to long last night and only got in a few hands for around $10 or so profit. The main thing i have noticed though after doing all the sums is that it has finally happened. My bankroll is now over $2000 from when i started with $50 probably June last year. I remember when i found BTP i wasnt half as good as i am now just with general poker knowledge and ive now learnt alot about both Limit and NL and its safe to say im sticking with NL for awhile. I cant really give exact figures yet because half my roll is scattered across European sites and once i get it all back into American Dollars in neteller i can get more of an idea.

I remember at the start of this journal that i tried to make my goal for in a years time to be $10,000 and that was starting back in September 05. Looking at that now it doesnt really seem feasible but realistically even if i hit say 5k by that time i will be pretty happy with my play and content with my first real year in poker.

Update Martins

The mission at Martins seems to be going along quite nicely and i have been running into alot of bad players at the NL 50 tables. It almost seems as though they are worse at NL50 then they are at NL25 in fact considerably worse.

Anyway one hand of note last night that is still fresh in my mind.

Im in the BB with JQ offsuit and a donk in MP raises it up to $2 making it $1 to call

Just us 2 in the hand and the flop comes 9,10,Q Rainbow he bets about $5 i call

Turn is a K giving me the straight he bets out $5 again and i CR him to $15 he pushes and i call hoping he doesnt have AJ......the donk flips over K10 for 2 pair and i drag it
This was a read dependant play though and i would not always make this call. The funny thing was i dont think he was trying to bluff i think he thought his 2 pair was good even though any Jack would beat him. Ahhh B2B i love you!

Bonus at Martins cleared 413/3000
Profits/Losses since i began+ $129.40 Euros

A Massive Turnaround

Well started off tonights session at Martins and was getting beaten down badly by bad beats and well in all honesty i tilted off some cash as well just with stupid plays and betting out with draws. I also was paying way to much money to see the cards when i really didnt have the odds to call.

Anyway was down about a good 100 Euro after around 2 hours and then i started my A game up with the help of some good cards of course. I managed to get involved in a 4 way pot with all 4 players putting around $5 each into pot preflop i had a pair of Jacks and judging from the weakness around the table when the flop came 9 high i knew my Jacks were good. The good thing was these guys werent prepared to drop their AK, AQ and K10 and well i ended up dragging a monster pot.

Anyway yeah some solid plays and well i still managed to book a modest win for the evening which i was quite happy with. Also got a good chunk of bonus out of the way.

Bonus at Martins cleared 604/3000
Profits/Losses since i began+ $181.52 Euros

Martins & Crown

Hey all,

Played lots of poker yesterday which included Martins where i did quite well and Crown Casino here in Melbourne where i went with a mate last night.

I had not played at a B&M in a long time and well it showed i guess i joined a $60 AUD buy in NL table and over the course of a few hours lost it all mainly due to rake and well me giving bad players way to much credit for there hands! The bloody rake though my god i wont be playing cash games at a casino again! period! They just come round with a timer and snag $5 off you for every hour your there, here i am used to being paid in rakeback etc for how long i play instead here i am made to pay for it!!!

Ah well so a crappy night out on the town, however at Martins i did manage to win another 50-60 euros on their NL tables which is about day 4 in a row at Martins of a healthy profit. I showed the guy i took to the casino who is learning poker me playing last night and its safe to say he knows where he wants to play poker now and it sure as well aint in real life.

Dont get me wrong in terms of atmosphere and having a good time u cant beat real life but the rake kills it and for now im playing for money not fun!

Martins Stats
Bonus at Martins cleared 645/3000
Profits/Losses since i began+ $235.40 Euros