April 12th, 2005 (Tuesday)

Well, I'm a few days behind, but work's been busier than usual, so I've had to get things done. Next week will be much of the same - so my journal may fall a little behind.

In any case, on Tuesday, I played some at Full Tilt and took part in the reload bonus at Ultimate Bet. At Full Tilt, I played an Omaha Hi/Lo and Hold'em table (both $2/$4) and pretty quickly added a Razz table.

I spent much of the night up about $50 on the Omaha Hi/Lo table, but it turned around really quickly and I found myself down around $60 - so I bought up and stuck it out until I recovered.

The hold'em table was good, but quickly broke up before an hour had gone by. Most of my profit there was gained when it went short-handed, but it was a good table regardless before that.

The razz table was all over the place and I spent most of the time down around $10 or so. In the last 10 minutes of play, when I had already decided I was calling it a night, I hit 2 hands in a row with a multiway pot in both. In both cases I was paid off - and so I finished there up $30. I really enjoy razz, but it still is difficult to multi-table with it. I'll either continue working on it - or not - I haven't really decided yet. Still, it is a real juicy game on FTP as far as I can tell.

Numbers for the day:

UB 4/12 $200 deposit ($100 bonus)
FTP 4/12 10:30pm $2/$4 O8 ring (9) $80 buyin, $40 rebuy, 12:49am, 113 hands, -13.50
FTP 4/12 10:31pm $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin, 11:10pm, 53 hands, +20
FTP 4/12 10:39pm $1/$2 Razz ring (8) $40 buyin, $20 rebuy, 12:51am, 150 hands, +30.50
$572.75 ($33.22)

Net change for the day: $37.00
Net time for the day: 2.350 hours, 5.167 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: ($77.15)
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 36.450 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 93.517 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: ($2.117/hr)
Table-Hourly rate: ($0.825/t-hr)

April 14th, 2005 (Thursday)

Well, I didn't play any poker on Wednesday, and instead spent some quality time with Lindsay cleaning the house and watching TV. It was a nice relaxing night not having to worry about how down I am in poker this month.

On Thursday, I signed up for Games Grid, which is a backgammon site that has been around for a while that just started a poker room (this past Friday). Most of the players seem to be backgammon players who are trying their hands at poker - and thus most of them have no clue. As can be expected the number of people on the site is rather small, but with the bonuses they are offering I wouldn't be surprised if it took off.

What's the bonus? Well, 1000% up to $5000 in bonus money. It releases on a slower schedule than Party and the Cryptos, but I wouldn't be surprised if it is faster than UB or Full Tilt. That remains to be seen however. They also have a Very Frequent Player program, which is a prop program for anyone who signs up now which is pretty lucrative as well.

In any case, with my bankroll pretty tight, I decided to do a mere $300 deposit onto the site (for a $3000 bonus) and play around. At the time I logged on, there were 2 full $2/$4 HE tables, a full $1/$2 HE table, a play chip Razz table, and a smattering of other tables (a couple NL HE and a $10/$20 table with 3 players on it).

Notes about the site: First of all, since the site is just starting, I'm not at all surprised that there are things "missing" that I would expect. A friend of mine has talked with the host of the site and he promises the changes will be coming in soon, but here are the two major ones: 1. waitlists and 2. hand histories.

There are no waitlists currently. So if you want to get on a seat at a particular table, be ready to jump on it. Since the tables are not well populated yet, I don't think this is horrible yet - but they definitely need to have it for the future.

Hand histories are of course important, but I could live without them if absolutely necessary.

I checked out their tournaments and found that a cheap $5+.50 tournament was starting within the hour, and that it had a $1000 guarantee for it. There ended up being 68 players total - so there's a nice overlay to it, and it runs every night. I finished 17th and it paid out to 6 places. The structure is fairly standard with blinds increasing at 10-15 minutes (not sure which) at the same levels as Pokerstars at least up until the antes started (that's when I got knocked out). You do only start with 1000 chips however, so it isn't the best structure. However, the overlay was nice enough to overlook this...

I played on a $1/$2 HE table and a $2/$4 HE table for the night, finishing down on the former and up on the latter to finish up for the night.

In terms of the bonus, I earned 23 points (25 points is a $5 release) over around 2 1/2 hours. This actually seems very slow, but the $2/$4 table was shorthanded mostly and the $1/$2 table was extremely aggressive (either raised preflop to take the blinds or raised all the way to the river to have a nice rake).

Anyway, I'll probably play there for a while to help it get going, and at least take part in the VFP program each week (which requires a minimum of 10 table-hours/week). When I play there more, I'll put up a full blown review in the Online Poker Sites section.

Here are the numbers for the day:

GG 4/14 $300 deposit ($3000 bonus)
GG 4/14 9:54pm $1/$2 HE ring (9) $40 buyin, $30 rebuy, 12:29am, xx hands, -19
GG 4/14 10:30pm $5+.50 NL HE multi (68) #118, $1000 guaranteed, 17th, 11:39pm, xx hands, -5.5
GG 4/14 11:47pm $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin, 12:26am, xx hands, +47
$322.50 (23 points (25 needed for $5)
signed up as VFP at 12:25am

Net change for the day: $22.50
Net time for the day: 2.583 hours, 4.383 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: ($54.65)
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 39.033 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 97.900 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: ($1.400/hr)
Table-Hourly rate: ($0.558/t-hr)

April 15th, 2005 (Friday)

Tonight, we're having a birthday party for Gabriel (about a month and a half late...), so Lindsay and I have been cleaning and organizing the house in preparation for it. Not a big party - mostly just direct family and surrogate aunts. It should be a fun time if Lindsay doesn't take someone's head off, and afterwards we're having a couple of the kids stay over (Lindsay's little sister and her friend and one of my nieces).

If I'm not too worn out from the party, I'll play a little poker tonight, but I'm not figuring to spend much time online regardless.

One thing that has occured to me as I pushed some money over to GamesGrid last night is that my bankroll is pretty well spread out. I've got accounts at 8 online poker sites plus my neteller account. While my overall bankroll online is $1600+, only one site has more than $350 in it right now.

This could be a combination of some good and bad things. First of all, I don't have a lot of wiggle room - so if I hit a bit of a downswing on a particular site, I could easily blow through the bankroll at that site and either need to redeposit or head to another site. On the positive side, if one or more of the sites should fail or become inactive - not all of my money is locked up in one place or another.

I'm still in the hole for the month - though down $50 is much more preferable than down $300. I've no doubt that it will turn completely around by the end of the month, if only because of the remaining bonuses I have to work off.

Right now, I have about 200 of the 800 required hands for the $100 bonus at Interpoker. If it goes well there, I'll take the money back out and deposit at William Hill for the first time near the end of the month.

I've released $33 at Full Tilt, meaning I have $13 that hasn't been released into my account yet, plus another $467 to release overall.

I've also got ~$150 in bonus money at UB, though I suspect I'll be withdrawing from there in the near future to have the money floating in my Neteller account for other bonuses, since I don't think I'll be getting to UB anytime soon.

Then there's the monster of a bonus at Games Grid. With $3000 to clear, I could very feasibly play there for most of the weeks in the next few months - not only for the bonus, but also for the VFP program they have. Since I'll be playing mostly $2/$4 - this will be worth around $60/week if I play 10 table-hours. When I play there in the coming weeks, I will probably experiment with starting up a table in addition to playing one that already has players. This will help build up the hours for me and will also help me work on my ability to change gears from headsup to shorthanded to full ring.

I guess if I do get online tonight, I'll probably see about getting into the same tournament I played last night because of its overlay and then bring up 2 tables at Interpoker and see if I can work out 2-300 raked hands there.

April 15th - 17th, 2005 (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)

Someone said at the beginning of the month that he was going to make April his "bitch." I've come to the conclusion that I must be April's bitch - so what does that make me in relation to that other guy? I don't know - but it isn't pretty.

Honestly, I still have a good mindset when I'm playing cards - and I'm still hanging in there - the only thing is I can't shake that red number at the bottom line for the month. I'm not down much - especially considering where I was. But it is tough.

In any case, I played a couple of shorter sessions this weekend, with one long session of Saturday night. On Friday, I decided I should get cracking on the Interpoker bonus and hopefully pull out even for the month there. I three-tabled it at $1/$2 hold'em and managed to pull a small profit. I didn't play long though, because Gabe's party really drained me of energy.

Here's the numbers from Friday:

IP 4/15 $200 deposit
IP 4/15 10:48pm $1/$2 O8 ring (10) $40 buyin, 11:04pm, 14 hands, +21.75
IP 4/15 10:50pm $1/$2 HE ring (10) $40 buyin, 11:31pm, 43 hands, +13.00
IP 4/15 11:08pm $1/$2 HE ring (10) $40 buyin, 11:34pm, 18 hands, +2.75
IP 4/15 11:09pm $1/$2 HE ring (10) $40 buyin, 11:40pm, 22 hands, +5.50
$243.22

On Saturday, I had a bunch of smaller opportunities to play, and I pretty much took them all. I started off with a hit and run session at Games Grid (I went into it with this thought because I only thought I had about 20 minutes to play). I ran into a buddy of mine there and played heads-up with him for a while until the table filled up, and then I left. I took about $30 off of him, but it was a good quick game. And I did warn him ahead of time that I wasn't staying long.

After that, I had a freeroll to the WSOP to play from FTP. 1379 players with one seat... I didn't last long though, and got knocked out in 1253rd when my pocket tens ran into 74o that flopped 774...

I also played some hold'em and razz during/after the tournament and after the kids woke up from their naps. I played for far too long, trying to get unstuck and all of a sudden it was 7pm and I hadn't cooked dinner. This was something I've never done before and will never do again. If I get to that point again, you guys can say goodbye to me playing poker. Period.

Anyway, after the kids were asleep I played some more on FTP and GamesGrid. I had a hard time getting anything going, but I did finally end up at Games Grid - erasing a $139 loss with a $135 win. I played about 7 table-hours after signing up for the VFP they have.

All in all, the loss for the day was only $90.55 - which considering where it could have been isn't bad. However, I played in a way I didn't enjoy.

Numbers from Saturday:

GG 4/16 3:09pm $1/$2 HE ring (9) $30 buyin, 3:30pm, xx hands, +4.25
GG 4/16 3:15pm $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin, short handed, 3:33pm, xx hands, +26
3.5 points earned, +1
$356.75 (357.75)
FTP 4/16 4:30pm Freeroll WSOP qualifier (1379) 1253rd, 5:00pm, 39 hands, 0
FTP 4/16 4:41pm $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin $40 rebuy, $40 rebuy, 7:10pm, 171 hands, -75
FTP 4/16 5:16pm $3/$6 Razz ring (8) $100 buyin,, $60 REBUY, 7:10pm, 154 hands, -33.5
$20 released
$484.25 ($46.48)
FTP 4/16 9:10pm $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin, 1:39am, 300 hands, -59.50
FTP 4/16 11:16pm $2/$4 Razz ring (8) $80 buyin, 1:30am, 182 hands, -11.80
$20 released
$432.95 ($61.54)
GG 4/16 9:16pm $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin, $60 rebuy, $40 rebuy, 12:21am, xx hands, -139
GG 4/16 9:19pm $1/$2 HE ring (9) $40 buyin, 12:13am, xx hands, +10.50
GG 4/16 10:30pm $5+.50 NL HE multi (71) #236, 54th, 10:59pm, xx hands, -5.5
GG 4/17 12:22am $2/$4 HE ring (9) $80 buyin, 1:33am, xx hands, +135.00
$371.75 (+13)

I only had a short period in the morning to play on Sunday, so I opened three tables of hold'em at Interpoker. I played for about an hour and posted a ~$20 loss for it. It wasn't bad, and I'm glad I had the restraint and walked away when I decided it was time to go. I also intended to play some at Games Grid on Sunday night, but forgot about it - so I didn't make the number of hours for the VFP program.

Numbers from Sunday:

IP 4/17 10:41am $1/$2 HE ring (10) $40 buyin, 11:49am, 60 hands, -32.75
IP 4/17 10:49am $1/$2 HE ring (10) $40 buyin, 11:48am, 52 hands, +11.25
IP 4/17 10:50am $1/$2 HE ring (10) $40 buyin, 11:48am, 45 hands, +0.25
$221.97

Numbers for the weekend:

Net change for the weekend: ($68.80)
Net time for the weekend: 8.417 hours, 24.883 table-hours

Total Net change for the month: ($123.45)
Total Net time for the month (actual hours): 48.583 hours
Total Net time for the month (table-hours): 122.783 table-hours

Real-Hourly rate: ($2.541/hr)
Table-Hourly rate: ($1.005/t-hr)

What's your handle on GG, I haven't seen starstealer at any of the games but perhaps we have just been playing at different times? I played a little a few days ago with you on Interpoker.

Played several hours last night on GG. Had one cat that was TERRIBLE on the 36 game and I was the only one that couldn't beat him so he distributed my chips to the other fine folks.

Its starstealer on GamesGrid. I'm usually on at least one $2/$4 table (if there is one) or a $1/$2 table. Also, the $1000 guarantee tournament (10:30pm) has a great overlay and runs every night - so I'll probably be there most nights too.

I didn't even notice you on Interpoker... what's your handle there? If you don't feel like sharing that's fine - I'm too busy on most tables to chat anyway.

Sorry to hear about the $3/$6, but that's what happened on my first $2/$4 table the other night... I was just happy I made it back on the table following it...

April 18th, 2005 (Monday)

Going to be a romping good time tonight when I knock Tightie out of the HORSE tournament and then take the win... no reason why this shouldn't happen. I mean, after all, I've taken all my licks for the month already - I'm a lock for a good finish tonight...

Also, not making the number of hours for GamesGrid last week was just bad form - so I'll have to remedy that this week. A friend of mine was trying to tell me that I should only play at Games Grid because it is so much more lucrative with the bonus program and the VFP program that all other places can't compare. I tried to explain selection to him, but it was falling on deaf ears, so I just claimed I had no reason.

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy thus far with GamesGrid - but if I am going to make 10 hours/week there, I am going to need tables in operation that I can play at and win at. This means mostly $2/$4 and I'd like to see Omaha Hi/Lo and Razz offered on occasion. Yes, I will occasionally spring for a $3/$6 game, and sometimes I'll play $1/$2 - but I want $2/$4 mostly. And the tables there can go from ridiculously rocky (in which case, I'm not earning any bonus) to very aggressive (in which case, the swings are quite large).

So in any case, if GamesGrid has a reasonable table or two tonight, I'll play some there. With the HORSE tourney, that leaves me with 0-2 tables to play with, so it will be filled with tables from FTP mostly. If GamesGrid is completely devoid of something good, I'll probably open up Interpoker to work on my raked hands over there. I've also got to move some money around to take advantage of the latest bonus from UB.

In non-poker news, I've been talking via email with a friend of my wife's who has an interest in writing a book someday - so we've been talking about good techniques to get into "the groove" of writing, along with other sundry things like trying to get published and such. It has been a fresh reminder that I'm still not writing fiction everyday - just this journal...

It has provoked me to seek out a how-to book that I read back in freshman year in college. It actually inspired me to get my first novel finished and I suspect it still mostly applies to me today. I'll probably give it another read if I can find it and then get cracking on the next thing on my list...

According to my data, I've played 643 hands at Interpoker this month, which I estimate around 50-55% of them are raked hands. This means I'm still less than half-way to the bonus. I'm hoping I'll be able to come up from the hole I'm in quickly and finish there within reason... I won't be finishing it tonight though, unless I manage to convince myself that 5-tabling is a profitable move even though 4 has always been a losing situation for me...

Anyway, come play in the HORSE tourney tonight and see Tightie get his ass-kicked.

(Continued)

Well, my early exit in the BTP HORSE tournament was just the beginning. I was the first one out in that tournament and it cost me $5.50 +$10 from the side bet. Plus the $5 side bet from the previous tournament that I owed TW. So after surviving for an amazing 30 minutes in the tournament (not even getting to the stud round...), I was down $20. I had 2 $2/$4 tables open on Games Grid - but I wasn't seeing much over there, so by the time I was knocked out, I was down.

However, I did find out that I did qualify for the hours at GamesGrid. It netted me in the order of $50 (which will be applied to Monday's total since that's when it appeared in my account). However, this would be the only shining moment of my night...

Of the two tables at GamesGrid, I was down on one by $81 and then the table broke up. On the other, I was down $67 when I decided to call it a night.

I also played a $1/$2 Limit Omaha Hi table at Interpoker and managed to lose another $20 there.

I don't have the exact numbers in front of me - but clearly this was a bad night all around.

To make matters more complicated, I am going to break my guidelines for cashout in order to make the bills again this month. Somewhere along the way, I forgot to allocate the monies needed for my new car's excise tax - so I have a $300 bill that I wasn't planning on. Eventually, I'll figure out how to handle my money better, but in the mean time, luckily I have the money in poker that I can take out.

With my loss last night, plus this $300 withdrawal, I should still have above $1200 - so I should still be okay to play $2/$4. However, not everything is rosy about my situation - so I'm going to be doing some hand review and figure out where I've been going wrong.

Part of the problem last night was a friend of mine decided to get up in my face at one of the $2/$4 tables. My wife's been very angry at him for a while and I can't say that I thought he's been the best friend lately either - which he already knows. Yet, when I tell him that I don't want to do something, he takes it as a personal affront. I told him I didn't want to talk about it online - yet he persisted. I eventually turned off the chat - but I was clearly a little on tilt because of it. In fact, I might make it a point to turn off my chat any time he joins the table until he gets the point.

I'm pretty sure that anyone reading this would tell me to take a break - and in all honesty, that's not a bad idea. I think in my mind that I can play through this and get to the other side of losing. I have plenty of goals to achieve and unless things turn around, I don't know that I'll be able to make them.

One thing I can't ignore is that I've had great success this year as a whole - a fact that I am able to take solace on. Also, despite how horrible this month has been, the negative number at the bottom line is not really that bad - just now getting back to the $200 mark I think. While it is my biggest losing month ever, the bonuses have really helped in making my losing not so bad.

So in any case, I am not quite ready to take a break yet. I will probably finish out the month and see where I am. If I still feel I need to take a break then, I'll take about 2 weeks until my trip in May and then get back in.

Anyway, here's to a winning night tonight.

Good luck with everything. Tough break on the Horse tourney as you were just getting cold cards at key points.

I would have rather been like you and gotten out early so I could go do something than what happened to me. Full tilt decided to time out on every hand on me once it got down to 6 players so I would auto fold after putting in bets. This includes a stud hand where I had 2 pair in 4 cards while low stacked. It let me bet 400 of my 700+ chips and then timed out before I could go all in therefore just lost it all to Ice. What a fucking rip.

April 20th, 2005 (Wednesday)

Let's just start off with some stats for the month. Careful, these are extremely bloody...

$1/$2 HE 2229 hands, ($187.40), 38.683 t-hrs, ($4.844/t-hr), (4.204BB/100 hands)
$2/$4 HE 1775 hands, ($375.00), 26.400 t-hrs, ($14.204/t-hr), (5.282BB/100 hands)

$1/$2 Omaha high 57 hands, ($33.25), 1.367 t-hrs, ($24.329/t-hr), (29.167BB/100 hands)

$1/$2 O8 221 hands, $0.49, 4.433 t-hrs, $0.111/t-hr, 0.111BB/100 hands
$2/$4 O8 2561 hands, ($216.96), 50.433 t-hrs, ($4.302/t-hr), (2.118BB/100 hands)

$1/$2 Razz 150 hands, $30.50, 2.200 t-hrs, $13.864/t-hr, 10.167BB/100 hands
$2/$4 Razz 182 hands, ($11.80), 2.233 t-hrs, ($5.284/t-hr), (1.621BB/100 hands)
$3/$6 Razz 154 hands, ($33.50), 1.900 t-hrs, ($17.632/t-hr), (3.626BB/100 hands)

I've been on my slide for longer than just April 1st, but these are just the numbers from that time frame. Since the first of April I am down over $400, but since 31 days ago (when my losing streak started), I am down close to $800. When you are talking about a bankroll that just barely cleared $2k at its high point - you can start to understand why this is a little discouraging.

If I extend my stats since the first of the year, I'm still showing a profit in all Omaha Hi/Lo games, but my hold'em games have purely become drivel...

I don't know if I'll get to play tonight, but if I do, I'm going to make it a light night (no 3-hour session).

Also, I've almost hit 10 table-hours of play at Games Grid - so that's a $50 bonus or so to be expecting when Sunday comes. If I can manage a few more table hours there, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea - though at this point, I'll probably stick back down to $1/$2 for a little while.

Actually, in light of my need to withdraw in the order of $300 from my poker accounts in total, I'll probably drop back down to $1/$2 for a little while just to recuperate and regain my bearings. I can't see continuing to butt my head against $2/$4 when I'm on such a streak - but you never know - my resolve wasn't ever infallible.

Are you doing the other Crypto sites Star? The bonuses as William Hill, UKBetting and TotalBet clear much faster than the Interpoker one. They all offer 5GBP for one hour of play (max 25 GBP) so if you 5 tables it would take you about one hour to make about 45-47.00 US at each site. Also at PokerPlex you only need 300 played hands for 50.00.

Yeah - I've got Pokerplex.

I was planning on doing William Hill - but if I do, it will be at the very end of the month (so I can get two months in while my money is tied up waiting for the PIN to cash the money out).

UKBetting and TotalBet will probably be in future months (perhaps next month), but I just don't see it happening in April, just because the money gets tied up until the PIN comes.