Well, I figure this is as good a time as any to start my journal. Those that don't know me, my intro is in the errr....introductions section and to those who have already welcomed me, thank you.

1st May, BR at start of day $1023

Been playing $20 NLHE 2-tabling on prima and for the last couple of days moved back to the full ring games after playing 6 max for a couple of weeks. The cards have been pretty cold recently but trying to play through it making modest (very) gains.

Only just noticed today that I keep bumping into k3nt on the tables and it only just clicked today that it is indeed the one and only who keeps up the excellent bankroll management section of the forum. Kent btw my nick is nev74 on prima, I'll stop by and say hello next time, I don't usually have chat on though but flick to it occassionally, did see you make a nice double up though with AA against some guy with J5 who was fishing for a gutshot.

Well, 3 hands of the day of note:

2nd hand in get AA in MP. Early limper, I raise to 4BB ($0.80) guy next to me reraises to $4.80. I'm thinking this guy is trying to push me off playing his rush since he just doubled up with AA and has a nice $40 something stack. Folds round to me and I push my remaining $19, he calls and shows AA. I'm thinking OK split pot, lets move on, then wtf?!?!?! the flop comes 3 of his suit and then turn makes his flush and I lose my stack. To his credit he apologises and I shrug it off, no biggy, first time it's ever happened to me though and I reload.

This hand I take someones stack from way behind but end up making a flush. I'm on the button with JJ. UTG min-raises, 2 callers I think and I call as well and BB calls. Now I still don't know why people min-raise because it doesn't shove anyone away from anything.
Flop comes down rags and 2 of my suit so I have overpair with backdoor flush draw. BB checks. UTG bets $1 into a $2.40 pot. He only has $3.75 left. Folds round to me and I push to keep the BB out of hit. UTG calls and flips over KK. OK I'm way behind but min raise with KK?? come on!! Anyways I hit runner runner for my flush and I take his stack. I then get called lucky by him and the whole table, I just say yeah i know, but it evened out my earlier bad beat even though it didn't give me as much in return. Some other guy pipes up that that would happen 1 in 4 times so UTG shouldn't feel bad about it. Yeah right!! we really see a 4 flush on the board every 4th hand, gimme a break.

The 3rd hand I take 2 stacks making up for my AA beat and then some. I'm sitting in MP with A7s (hearts) 5 limpers see the flop. K82 all hearts. OK I got this one thinking I'm not going to get much action from it. BB leads out with a pot bet of $1, UTG+1 raises to $5 and I tank in the $18 or so I have left not even bothering what hands they have, after all, I got the nuts, right. OK so I put one of them on a set and the other on a lower flush or draw. Both call, one flips over a lower flush, 96 and the other 22 for bottom set and now fishing for his full house outs. I take the lot as the board fails to pair.

After all that

BR at end of May 1st, wait for it

$1024

woohoo I made a whole buck in about 3 hours play, astounding. It felt good taking those stacks though.

Way to get that buck al... I'm pretty sure today's 39 cent cheeseburger day at McDonalds, so you should be all set... Seriously, it's better to win a buck than to lose $100...

May 09

First poker I've played in a few days after being away for the weekend. Interesting session, was up $10 overall, plus managed to clear the hands required for my $95 bonus on City Poker. Last night, I also deposited $50 into Golden Riviera for their $20 bonus so my BR has grown quite a bit today. If my actual play goes OK until the end of the month (I want to add about $200 this month without bonuses) then I think I'll move up to the $50 tables next month.

Hand of the day

Golden Riviera $20 NLHE 10 max ring game

Hero is UTG

Hero raise $1.20
UTG+1 fold
UTG+2 fold
MP1 call $1.20
MP2 fold
MP3 fold
CO fold
Button fold
SB $0.10 fold
BB $0.20 fold

Flop $2.55

Hero bets $2.50
MP1 call $2.50

Turn $7.40

Hero bets $6
MP1 calls $6

River $19.40

Hero bets all-in $13.25
MP1 calls $12.50
Extra chips returned to Hero $0.75

MP1 shows full house
Hero wins $44.40 with a full house

which was nice

May 08 $20 bonus

May 09 -$13.18 and +$23.30

The other table I took a beat which I should have layed down but got suckered into it. I lost AA to a 9 high straight, didn't get the history for this one. I had trouble laying it down as the villian was playing pretty loose and found it difficult to believe he had the 7 in the gut of the straight. He was playing something like J7 or Q7. Apart from that it would have been a very good session.

Also tonight got the $95 bonus

BR May 09 $1140

May 10

Not much happening today, booked a couple hours and landed even. Gone are the days of a few weeks ago when i was ripping up the 6 max tables. I should really go back and try again on those tables but my cards have been so cold i'm trying to ride it out on the full ring games which is why i moved in the first place.

The only hands i got were AA UTG which I raised up got one caller and took it out on a low coordinated flop and KQs in MP from which I flopped the scond nut flush taking it down on the turn when i think i scared the villain with my raise.

But.....hand of the day, i wasn't even in it. More like suckout of the day but was proud to witness such an event.

> Game # 345,120,538 starting.

> Dealing Hole Cards

> UTG folded
> UTG+1 folded
> UTG+2 folded
> MP1 raised for $0.40
> MP2 folded
> MP3 called for $0.20
> CO (nev74) folded
> Button folded
> SB called for $0.30
> BB raised for $1

> MP1 called for $0.80
> MP3 called for $0.80
> SB called for $0.80

> Dealing the Flop $4.65 ( )
> SB checked
> BB bet for $4
> MP1 folded
> MP3 called for $4
> SB folded

> Dealing the turn $12.60 ( )
> BB bet for $5
> bobbybellona, you have 10 seconds to respond
> MP3 went all-in for $13.60
> BB called for $8.60

> Dealing the river $39.80 ( )
> MP3 wins $39.80 with a Straight, Seven high ( )
> BB shows ( )

BR May 10 $1139

Well it's that time of week again - my mid-week day off work. Caught a spare hour in between doing the chores which was probably a bad idea actually since i was running to the lav every 2 minutes, must have eaten something dodgy last night. Did manage to play a few hands. Hand of the session I took a nice little stack looking to get my first ever straight flush (Yes in almost a year of playing and thousands of hands behind me my current best hand is still AAAA).

> Game # 345,755,416 starting.

> Dealing Hole Cards

Hero is Button

> UTG folded
> UTG+1 folded
> UTG+2 called for $0.20
> MP1 folded
> MP2 folded
> MP3 called for $0.20
> CO folded
> Hero called for $0.20
> SB called for $0.10
> BB checked

> Dealing the Flop $0.90 ( )
> SB bet for $0.60
> BB folded
> UTG+2 folded
> MP3 raised for $1.20
> Hero called for $1.20
> SB called for $0.60

> Dealing the turn $4.35 ( )
> SB checked
> MP3 checked
> Hero bet for $2.50
> SB called for $2.50
> MP3 folded

> Dealing the river $9.30 ( )
> SB bet for $2
> Hero raised for $8.40
> SB went all-in for $6.40

> SB shows Two Pair, Nines over Deuces
( )
> Hero wins $26.10 with a Straight, Queen high

OK so the river saved me, but I had a stack of outs (20) and just about playing the pot odds. On the river I certainly didn't put him on KT for the nuts so I knew I had him. All I could do for about 10 minutes after was shout 'nine deuce!!!!!' was that it???

BR May 11 $1150

Have you ever tried to limp raise AA or KK from UTG? Everyone seems to have success with that so you could try that instead of raising and getting the one caller to fold the flop. Just be careful that if you limp and you don't get a chance to raise preflop, don't get too attacted to them as many different kinds of hands have been able to limp.

Thanks for the tip, briachek. Yes I have tried limp raising to differing degrees of success. Usually on these tables I find the pot is unraised more often than not before the flop making it a -ev play (in my limited exp i hasten to add).
Works perfectly fine with a LAG or 2 on the table tho so I guess it depends what the table is playing like.

After finishing my whoring on City Poker and the weekly Golden Riviera bonus, I decided to change sites again and go for Ultimate bet with their 40% deposit bonus. I took the $425 I had from City and scraped the $500 for UB so I could get the max. Also not just for the whoring but now I'm able to try out pokertracker and going to get the full version ASAP.
I tried it on my very first session at UB and looks like it works a treat. I quite like the UB software actually, little confusing at first but got used to it by the end of the session.

Just one table at $25 NL to ease me into it and what a session it was. The first 15 hands AA, KK, AA, JJ wow won them all and took a stack on each to boot and was $40 up after those 15 hands. Shame the session petered off later on with trash cards but thoroughly enjoyed making some money for the first time this month.

Hand of the day (only cos it was my biggest pot)

Hand #5781837-5860 at Pleasant Beach (No Limit Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 12/May/05 15:54:13

Hero is Alchemist74 in CO

Pre-flop:

UTG folds. UTG+1 folds. UTG+2 folds.
MP1 calls. MP2 calls. MP3 calls.
CO raises to $1.50. Button folds.
SB folds. BB folds. MP1 folds.
MP2 calls. MP3 calls.

Flop (board: ):

MP2 checks. MP3 bets $.75. CO
raises to $5. MP2 re-raises to $20.85. MP3 folds.
CO goes all-in for $32.25.
MP2 goes all-in for $23.25. CO is
returned $9 (uncalled).

Turn (board: ):

(no action in this round)


River (board: ):

(no action in this round)

Showdown:

Alchemist74 shows .
Alchemist74 has : three aces.
waragbuz shows .
waragbuz has : three sevens.

Hand #5781837-5860 Summary:

$2.60 is raked from a pot of $52.35.
Alchemist74 wins $49.75 with three aces.

Session overall was up $33.95 with 19.5 Ultimate points giving me $1.95 bonus.

After, put all the hands into my evaluation version of PT and got the following results:
124 Hands, 1.83hrs, $Won 33.95, 37.04(74.08) BB/Hr, 54.76(109.52) BB/100, VP$IP 14.52, PFRaise 3.25.
I hope this can continue but I know it was just a good session, more likely to tail off markedly after a few sessions.

BR May 12 $1184

Got my copy of pokertracker registered today, so much info to take in, probably going to have to spend a day finding out how it all works. Along with that got GT+ and UltimateHistory and excessions auto-rate rules so now we're rocking. I played a few hands tonight and everything works pretty good except that when you sit down at a table, all the GT+ stats get mixed up and you have to put them next to the correct player again, I can cope with that unless someone knows a fix for it??
I'm going to leave UB running all night with the max tables open (5) and get a stack of hand histories so I can go through them tomorrow.

BR May 14 $1201

After leaving PT running all night loading histories, I wake up this morning to find about 3500 loaded on and stats available. Using GT+ I jumped on a table and start playing and what a difference. Played this hand in the middle of the session and made a move I wouldn't have dreamed about before. I only did this because villain (SB) had been seeing lots of flops and making lots of raises but he was a losing player, something I would have struggled to work out before.

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold'em, $.25 BB (9 handed)

MP1 ($11.65)
MP2 ($38.05)
MP3 ($9.65)
CO ($42.10)
Button ($25.95)
SB ($26)
Hero ($29.70)
UTG ($7.80)
UTG+1 ($16.10)

Preflop: Hero is BB with , .
UTG calls $0.25, UTG+1 calls $0.25, 1 fold, MP2 calls $0.25, MP3 calls $0.25, 1 fold, Button calls $0.25, SB completes, Hero checks.

Flop: ($1.75) , , (7 players)
SB bets $1.75, Hero raises to $5, UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, MP2 folds, MP3 folds, Button folds, SB calls $3.25.

Turn: ($11.75) (2 players)
SB bets $11.75, Hero raises all-in to $24.45, SB folds. Hero is returned $12.70 (uncalled)

Final Pot: $35.25

BR May 15 $1219

All I can say is PT and GT+ rocks......and I suck.

Was going along quite happily tonight, about 30BBs up in half an hour making some good plays and stealing in prime spots, then nothing for a while.

I then caught a fish who hit his straight on the river against my overpair after I kept raising his weak bets losing my gain and then some.

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold'em, $.25 BB (8 handed)

Button ($24.50)
SB ($38.05)
BB ($38.25)
UTG ($7.65)
UTG+1 ($25)
Hero ($20.95)
MP2 ($9.70)
CO ($34.05)

Preflop: Hero is MP1 with , . UTG+1 posts a blind of $0.25.
1 fold, UTG+1 (poster) checks, Hero calls $0.25, 4 folds, BB checks.

Flop: ($0.85) , , (3 players)
BB checks, UTG+1 bets $0.5, Hero raises to $1.75, BB folds, UTG+1 calls $1.25.

Turn: ($4.35) (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $1.25, Hero raises to $4, UTG+1 calls $2.75.

River: ($12.35) (2 players)
UTG+1 bets $1.25, Hero calls $1.25.

Final Pot: $14.85

UTG+1 shows ,
UTG+1 wins $14.15 (rake $0.70)

Having looked at it again I probably deserve it for giving him pot odds with my raises, don't think it would have made much difference though.

And then 2 hours in, struggling to get back to even I catch QQ, raise it up, 1 loose, 1 slight loose. I pot bet the flop, but of course I have to tank it in on the turn with a K (this is the bit where I suck) on the board and find one of them married to AK (no draw), figured both for a draw.

Ultimate Bet No-Limit Hold'em, $.25 BB (9 handed)

UTG ($19.80)
UTG+1 ($13.25)
MP1 ($12.85)
MP2 ($5.90)
MP3 ($42.70)
Hero ($23.15)
Button ($8)
SB ($7.20)
BB ($22.90)

Preflop: Hero is CO with , .
UTG calls $0.25, 4 folds, Hero raises to $0.75, Button calls $0.75, 1 fold, BB calls $0.50, UTG calls $0.50.

Flop: ($3.10) , , (4 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $3, Button folds, BB calls $3, UTG calls $3.

Turn: ($12.10) (3 players)
BB checks, UTG checks, Hero bets $19.4 (All-In), BB calls $19.15 (All-In), UTG folds.

River: ($50.40) (2 players, 2 all-in)

Final Pot: $50.40

BB shows ,
BB wins $47.90 (rake $2.50)

Am I doing something wrong, the converter doesn't convert my hands fully???
Oh well always tomorrow.

Lost $36 on the tables and gained $4 in bonus

BR May 16 $1186

First, make sure you click the "show results" box. Other than that, the converter just likes to mess up occasionally.

First hand, if you were confident enough to keep raising him (he didn't have two pair or something), REALLY make him pay.

Second hand, I would raise to 4x bb or $1 preflop on hands. If these guys are loose, you had to think that the K could hit them. They checked to you and I would have to take the free card and decide on the river what to do. In this case, you can fold to pretty much all but the weakest bets.