Day 6/7 - A review of the week

Well I didn't feel like posting yesterday, but I played my first session at 5nl and ended up $12, bring my account to $112.  Today I got my weekly rakeback which came out to $38.22 which has brought my bankroll up to $150.22.  To those who don't know, the websites take out a portion of your winnings, called rake, which is how they profit off of the games.  You can make a special deal with the sites, called rakeback, to get 27% of that money back every week.  So that is always a nice extra boost at the end of the week.  


This first week has gone much better than expected, as I thought it may take a while to move out of 2nl being it's such a small amount of money.  But now I have more than enough for 5nl and should have enough money to move up to 10nl by the end of next week, as long as I dont hit a downswing.  Once I figure out how, I'll post my PokerTracker graph on here too.  Hopefully I can play some tournaments this weekend, as they always seem to be extra soft on the weekend.  Well that's all for now, be back tomorrow!


Chips And Games 8 Player Folding Octagon Poker Table Top

Day 5

Current bankroll: $100.64.  +$5 of the bonus unlocked, the rest from cashing in the Daily Dollar.  So I broke the $100 mark 2 days before my goal, now I get to move up in stakes. Woohoo!! And thats all, I'm going to bed now.

Day 4

Hey ya'll, just finished up todays session, which turned out to be a pretty good one. I didn't play any cash games on Full Tilt, but enrolled in a few 18 and 45-man $1 tournaments.  I failed to cash in the first couple ones I played, but was able to finally take down first place in a 45-man and third place in an 18-man tourney. Overall these two wins, plus one or two min-cashes gave me a $13.01 profit for the day and brought my roll up to $93.03.

Then, for the first time this week, I fired up Pokerstars and grew my bankroll by 2.5 times.  First I finished 9th in a $0.10 360-man tourney, then took down first place in a $0.25 45-man tourney.  At the end of the night the money in my account grew from $2 to $4.76.  While it doesn't seem like much, this was a huge step in building my bankroll on stars.  It would have only taken a couple of unlucky hands to make me busto, but now with almost $5 I have quite a bit more breathing room.  I'll probably keep playing these tourneys on stars until I get up to at least $30 before I start playing cash games.

Well thats all for tonight, so goodnight!

The Full Tilt Poker Strategy Guide: Tournament Edition

Day 3

Just finished up my latest session, I won $6.16 playing cash games and cashed in the Daily Dollar tournament for $3.50, bringing my total bankroll up to $80.82.  Should've probably gone deeper in the DD, but lost with a flush to a full house in the middle stages which really crippled me.  I'll probably keep playing the DD most nights since I can enter with 200 FTP, which is a pretty good deal since 1st place > $1500.  No interesting hand to post tonight really, plus I'm pretty tired so I'll keep it short.  Oh and I almost forgot, I got a $50 bonus from Full Tilt which I'll be unlocking in $5 increments as I play more hands.  I'm thinking that I should be able to get past $100 by Friday, which means I can move up to 5NL(.02/.05 blinds) this weekend.  Well that's all for now, Ill be back at it tomorrow.

Trademark Poker 500 Dice Style 11.5-Gram Poker Chip Set 

Day 2

So, I just finished up my second day of this challenge up +$6.42, bringing my total on FTP up to $71.86.  The session started off a little rough when I lost with pocket aces to pocket queens all in preflop and he spiked a queen on the turn.  A couple hand later I lost with my pocket queens to pocket kings on a K Q 5 board.  Luckily I was able to turn it around although it took awhile.  This was my favorite hand of the day:


Full Tilt Poker $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players - View hand 551910
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $3.43
BTN: $1.95
SB: $3.83
BB: $1.16
UTG: $2.46
MP: $2.81

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is CO with A A
2 folds, Hero raises to $2.02, 1 fold, SB calls $2.01, 1 fold

Flop: ($4.06) 9 6 J (2 players)
SB bets $1.81 all in, Hero calls $1.41 all in

Turn: ($6.88) 3 (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($6.88) Q (2 players - 2 are all in)

I got the idea to do this from a thread on twoplustwo (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/confession-i-used-nlo8-angle-shooter-865/) where whenever the guy had pocket aces he would raise to an amount that would only use one chip, confusing his opponents into thinking they were calling a min raise.  I his case, he be playing with 50 cent blinds and raise to $50.50. I did the same thing, just raising to 2.02 instead.  I've tried this a few times, but I was pretty excited b/c it's the first time it actually worked!

I've been tempted to play some $1 sit-n-go tournaments, so I may do that tomorrow instead of playing cash games, just to switch up a bit.  And I'll end my post with a super sick bluff by Phil Ivey against Paul Jackson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Qap3VT_ZY

Doyle Brunson's Super System: A Course in Power Poker, 3rd Edition

Day 1

Well, I just finished my first 2NL session since staring this challenge and I'm up $15.44 so my bankroll is now at $65.44.  Nothing too exciting, although this hand was pretty interesting. It made me lol:



Full Tilt Poker $0.01/$0.02 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 548830
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (BB): $2.00
UTG: $3.23
CO: $5.33
BTN: $6.33
SB: $9.37

CO posts a big blind ($0.02)

Pre Flop: ($0.06) Hero is BB with A 3
UTG calls $0.02, CO checks, 1 fold, SB calls $0.01, Hero checks

Flop: ($0.09) 5 A K (4 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG bets $3.21 all in, CO folds, SB folds, Hero calls $1.98 all in

Turn: ($4.05) K (2 players - 2 are all in)

River: ($4.05) 3 (2 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $4.05
Hero shows A 3 (two pair, Aces and Kings)
UTG shows Q 2 (a pair of Kings)
Hero wins $3.78
(Rake: $0.27)

Normally I would've snap folded this, but this guy had a habit of just shoving all in any time he was checked to, so I figured there was a good chance I was ahead.  I did this to him just a couple hands later too lol.

I also played in a 2500FTP (points you earn for playing at the site) were the top 50 got a ticket into a $216 FTOPs tournament.  Unfortunately I finished in 85th out of 814 when my AK lost to AA on an A high flop.  It would've been a nice boost to my bankroll, but oh well, I didn't lose anything for playing it at least. I think I'll be trying to use these free satellites to try and make a little extra, but we'll see how it goes. 

Poker Winners Are Different

And so it begins...

Hi all,

So you guys are probably all reading this and are wondering what I'm talking about.  Well, as many of you know I have been playing a bit of online poker at Pokerstars and more recently Full Tilt Poker for the past few months.  Nothing too serious, but I've been doing fairly well and have been able to make some money.  Unfortunately, since I am currently unemployed I have been having to tap into by online bankroll more than I would like to pay for stuff like groceries and what ever other stuff I seem to waste all my money on.

I have recently withdrawn all but $50 dollars on Full Tilt and just $2 on Pokerstars, so as a challenge to myself and obviously as a way to make money, I will be trying to turn that money into $2000 by the end of the semester.  I chose $2000 because that will be enough to get be to 50NL ($50 buy-ins) were I can make consistent money.  This won't be easy, but I've seen a few people pull even crazier stuff than this, like turning $5 into $1000 in a week, so I believe I can do it (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54/poker-beats-brags-variance/week-long-prop-bet-676/).  The plan is to play mostly 2NL ($2 buy-ins) cash games until I can get up to $100 on FTP with possibly a few cheap tournaments. Since I only have $2 on Stars I'll be playing only the $0.10 tournaments until I can get at least $30, then I can move to cash games.

My reason for making this blog is to help me stay focused on my goal and stay within my limits since I will probably be tempted to play higher stakes than I should at this point.  I will hopefully be posting updates every night, detailing my sessions and the state of my bankroll.  The last thing I wanted to mention is that there a couple of sites out there that can give you a better idea of what I'm doing. They are:

twoplustwo.com
deucescracked.com

Both of these sites have helped me to progress as a poker player and I will continue to use them during this blog. I will probably play a short session tonight, so if i do I'll post results.  Thanks everyone for reading, and if anyone has any questions please ask!

Oh, and in before "You know online poker is rigged, don't you?" and "It's impossible to win in the long run." lol

Why Work When You Can Play Poker T-Shirt, Texas Holdem T-Shirt, XX-Large