Hey Rich,

I am primarily a Party/Empire person myself as well. What I generally do is fire up PT and GT+ and open up the top 4 games in regard to average pots and get on the waiting lists. That is my table selection

If the game fills up with rocks I move on but most of the time this is just not the case at Empire. I don't take notes on anyone anymore, what I do if someone is shitty is I open up the note pad and just hit a couple of keys so that the notepad shows up on them, that way I know they are shitty. GT+ has also been a big advantage in this as well. I play alot of the 36 games there as well so I know the handful of decent players that are in the games and we pretty much stay out of each others way. I think keeping a buddy lists is almost useless as the bad players just show up a time or two and are never seen again. I did that for a while and I had just piles of empty smily faces because they were gone for good after that first time I played them. I believe NL is a different story in regard to keeping notes as tendencies there are much more important when it comes to the good players.

In the B&M scene table selection is one of the MOST important aspects of your game as well as SEAT selection because you are generally going to be at the same table for several hours at a time if you are like me with the same people as they just don't move in and out like they do online. So the bottom line is I wouldn't worry about your flaw online as there is not much you can do about it in my opinion at the lower limits at least. Good luck.

Empire 510 limit, 226 hands, 101.50, 1h
Multipoker 36 limit, 45 hands, 7.5, 50m
Multipoker 12 limit, 414 hands, 40.75, 1h5m
Paradise 12 limit, 88 hands, -4.00, 1h20m
Pokerstars NL 100, 88 hands, 6.05, 30m
Rake return: 29.36
Bonus: 10.00
Total: 191.16
Time: 3h30m


Started off early this morning with a little 510 and bonus clearing at Multi for the new FEB05RELOAD bonus (50% up to 100.00, good to 2/23 two weeks to clear 1000 raked hands). Was down early at 510 but nothing too serious and hit a good run to pull me back over 100. Some really big fish were there for the early morning delight.

Think I will take a little time today to get my botanical lab set up properly and locate some papers I need to get started on my field guide.

Empire 510 limit, 119 hands, 116.50, 40m
Multipoker 36 limit, 32 hands, -11.00, 25m
Multipoker 12 limit, 494 hands, 2.41, 2h
Paradise 12 limit, 65 hands, 3.50, 1h10m
Paradise 12 5 Card Draw, 356 hands, -2.75, 1h50m
Tropics Poker 500 FPP MTT tournament, 37 players, 4th place, 120.00, 2h30m
Bonus: 20.00
Rake return: 42.12
Total: 290.78
Time: 7h


Got a good early start this morning at 4:30am. I am going to try this more often as it is nice to get your time in early and spend the rest of the day on something else.

Played some 5 Card Draw to kill a little bonus off at Paradise. I am a pretty damn good 5 card draw player and I was at a table with folks drawing to shorts, straights, flushes and whatnot and just got killed early on but managed to claw back to about even while killing off another 20.00 bonus.

Well one a good note I played the weekly 50 FPP 1000.00 tournament at Tropics. I only had 85 FPP left and I hadn't played one in a while. The tournament starts you with 1500 in chips and I was down to 90.00 in the first 12 minutes and managed to finish in 2nd chip position by the first break, that is pretty strong

Well I ran my chips up to around 24K with only 55K in play and 6 players remaining with 5 getting paid. I made a stupid play with AQ against the second chip stack and lost half my stack and ended up going out in 4th after my 99 lost to AKs with an A on the turn. So I was pretty pissed at the AQ debacle but considering I recoved from 90.00 in chips to finish 4th for 120.00 was not too bad.

Empire 510 limit, 182 hands, 77.00, 1h5m
Paradise 12 limit, 13 hands, 2.75, 10m
Multipoker 12 limit, 614 hands, 8.13, 3h20m
Bonus: 100.00
Rake return: 17.26
Total: 205.14
Time: 3h30m

Well knocked out 1 of the 2 Mulitpoker bonuses today and about a third of the way on the other. Things going well in my continued mini sessions of 510 limit. Today put me over the 3K mark for the month Don't know if I'll reach consecutive 4K months as I may have to travel to the eastern part of the country later this week to pick up a car. Always nice to have a few days off to ease the mind and drink a few cold ones with some friends and maybe even a little ocean fishing from the beach.

The rest of day is just relaxation time. Going to watch a couple of dvd's and drink some cold cervezas.

I have reached a point after a four month stretch of rebuilding my bankroll, that was necessary after some stupid stunts and then having to rebuy computer equipment and other things after the robbery, that I no longer need to worry about Bonus Whoring. As it is I am loosing money now by spending time releasing these bonuses all over the place. To this end I just withdrew all my money from about 15 sites into Neteller. I am only leaving money in Empire and Pokerstars for NL. I will also put some in one more Party skin so I can 5 table.

I plan on sticking to 510 and 1020 limit and some 100 NL when I need a change of pace. Putting in just 1000 hands a day at 510 nets me about 50.00 in rake rebate which over a 30 day span is 1500, not a bad bonus to work from monthly. This is about 4 hours play per day which I should be able to fit in with my botanical work.

Right now I am cruising along at 7.53 BB/100 hands over 1500 hands but that is sure to plummet. An interesting side note to my data is as follows with regard to session wins.
-------------Session win %
12 limit 48.81
24 limit 57.14
36 limit 53.54
510 limit 67.92 36/53
510 6max 88.89 8/9
1020 6max 61.90 13/21
15-30 limit 100.00 3/3

While the number of sessions at the higher limits is far fewer than the ones I have logged at the lower limits I suspect that my session winning % will stay in the neighborhood of 60% for the higher limit games. The games are generally tougher but they fit more within my style of play where I can actually do a few things that are unavailable at the lower limits. I am looking forward to leaving the 12 games behind because that is truly tiring work.

Empire 510 limit, 126 hands, 19.00, 35m
Pokerstars 10-20 7 Stud 8 or better, 34 hands, 64.00, 25m
Rake return: 5.21
Total: 88.21
Time: 1h

Well my trip to Sucre state has gotten postponed for a few days. Just haven't felt like working much today although I did spend some time on my moss collections and found a species new to South America which was pretty exciting.

Empire 510 limit, 77 hands, 40.50, 30m
Empire 36 limit 7 stud 8 better, 7 hands, 18.25, 5m
Rake return: 22.40
Total: 81.15
Time: 35m

I spent the early part of the day mailing some moss specimens to Germany and Pennsylvania for identification and trying to pick up some documents at a government building which was a fiasco as it is every time I try to get something from a government entity here or for that matter in the US. Just played a little on returning to home. I have a serious case of laziness lately. I am just content to pick up 80-120.00 and be done with it for the day. I guess it could be worse.

As much as I want to say fuck it to the low limit bonus whoring game it is pretty damn hard too now that I am so good at it

With multiple accounts at nearly every major card room these bonuses really add up and it seems the sites just keep throwing them out there. Right now with the new Party bonus starting today and with the 300.00 reload on Pokerroom that pushes my bonus clearing numbers up over 2000 if I choose to do them all and that doesn't include the UB bonus of about 800 that I will probably never get to.

For lower limit online players looking to build a bankroll at very little risk there just has never been a better time to do so. Even with only one account at all the major sites you will be hard pressed to not be working on a bonus somewhere.

I know exactly what you mean when you say this: " I have a tremendous amount of patience when it comes to teaching a stranger something but it seems I lose that when it comes to a loved one and I don't know why. "

And I don't know why either!

Also, I've made $800 in bonuses this month, and that's not counting this new party one which I will start tomorrow.

It has DOUBLED my bankroll in just one month.

And since I've found this site one month ago, I'm up more than $400 at the 50 cent tables. February has been profitable!

Nice to hear you are running well. Those bonuses are pretty sweet to help you out in building your BR. I just finished up a little over half of the first of three party bonuses so I will be very busy in the next couple of days

There is also another 300.00 bonus at Pokerroom. I really despise that site but 300.00 X 2 is tough to pass up.

Continued good luck.

Empire 510 limit, 35 hands, 143.00, 30m
Party 36 limit, 9 hands, 0.00, 5m
Party 12 limit, 1085 hands, 114.38, 5h
Rake return: 14.24
Total: 271.62
Time: 5h35m

Well back on the Bonus Whoring trail again as I just can't seem to pass up the continuous bonus dollars offered at basically no risk to me at these limits. Hitting them pretty good at 12 limit today but I have stopped three times during the sessions and just took a little break because I was way up and then started taking beats on all 4 tables at once for a series of hands. Finished off a little over half of the 1400 raked hands needed for the first of three Party 200 bonuses. Going to have to work alot of hours in the next few days because I will probably be leaving on Wednesday for a few days break to pick up a car and I would like to have all three of the Party bonuses knocked out by then.

With this new crop of bonuses looks like I will hit 4K again this month. Not bad considering the vast majority of the 8K from the last two months has been made while playing 12 limit and clearing bonuses.

Well today has been pretty rough. I woke up about 4:30am with diarhea and added some vomiting to the mix shortly thereafter. Feeling a little better now but nowhere near 100%. Put in about 270 hands at 12 limit this morning as was down about 60.00 before recovering most of that and taking a break. Suffered some gawd awful beats as usually when I take a 30 BB loss in a session but I laid on one good one myself. Still need to play another 700 hands or so to clear that bonus. I will probably suck it up and get it knocked out but I don't really feel in the mood to do so.