It's time for PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! PokerStars.com is the home of Free Online Poker Games, bloggers can play for free in the exclusive WBCOOP tournament, register here to play: WBCOOP

Registration code: 272692

Happy 2010

So I realize it has been a little bit since the last post, but have not been reaping the huge profits I was hoping for... The bankroll is indeed still going in the right direction though:



I also redeemed a little over 9K in FTP for a really sweet sweatshirt, that is currently coming in very handy in my neck of the woods...



Back on the horse for 2010 and hoping to put in some good hand hours. Good luck to the rest of you degenerates that read this drivel...

D

Been 3 weeks... but it's going decently!

I finally cracked my first $100 on my last post, a little more than 3 weeks ago. In the meantime, I read "Online Ace" by Scott Fischman (compliments of ohcaptain's poker bookshelf).



I really liked this book, and it was a quick read. Not a whole lot terribly new if you have read many hold 'em books, but still entertaining. The part that hit me the most was how adamantly Fischman advocates multitabling. I was somewhat cautious about going down this avenue, as I had been doing pretty decently focusing on a single table at a time, as advised in "Killer Poker Online". However, I find that at the stakes that I am typically playing ($2 SNG), the other players don't necessarily take your past actions into account on how to play their hand. It is based only on their cards, no stories are told, no reads are attempted to be made. In this regard, I think that just playing like a "Poker Robot" as Fischman advises may work at these tables. I started slow (with just 2 tables), but liked the multitabling aspect, especially since I typically only play 1-2 hours a day. If I did a single SNG, that may take about an hour, so my return would be significantly slower. Since I was able to build up the bankroll a bit, I felt comfortable undertaking this experiment. The results were good and nowadays you probably won't find me at less than 4 tables at once :D

It took a long time to get to that first $100, but in the last 3 weeks, I have rolled my bankroll up to about $200. See?



I also have nearly 5000 Full Tilt Academy credits (mostly from the SNG challenges, which were repeated 10 times each) and am in debate about what to do with these points. I can straight-up trade in these credits for Full Tilt Points, which would nab me the hat I was looking at 5 months ago, or I can use 5000 credits to redeem for a $26 Token. I am really leaning towards the token, but am fearful that my skills which are honed in at the low stakes may falter at this higher buyin and end up being a waste. Any thoughts?

Also, I received my Full Tilt hoodie (complements of the good boys over at ESPN's Poker Edge) this last week. Pretty sweet... Thanks Feldman and Wyman! I got a black one:

Finally...

After my last post, I have been working hard at the low stakes tables and SNG's. It's about 2 weeks since the last post, but here is the up to date bankroll.



Woot woot. Hopefully this first hundred is going to be the hardest...

Results of 1 week of Killer Poker

I figured that I would give an update on the progress after employing some of the techniques described in the book, "Killer Poker Online". I had built the bankroll up to about $35 using mostly the $2 SNG tables at Full Tilt (both 9 and 18 person). At that point, I decided to try my hand at a $5 SNG (9 person). Now I realize that this is outside of the limits of my bankroll if employing the Ferguson strategy directly, but I also wanted to test out my skills and see how competitive I am at this level. Low and behold, in my first $5 SNG, I took it down and brought in $22.50! Wooty woot... A little more work and here is the bankroll as of now...

A bit of a book review, because I think this book deserves a look...

In the Frugal Endeavor spirit, I have been trying to increase my poker aptitude without investing too terribly much. Fortunately I work close to a Barnes and Noble bookstore and have discovered the "Games" section that holds about two shelves worth of poker books. My good friend ohcaptain (who you have read about now more times than need mentioning) has quite an extensive home library of poker related books. One book that he does not have is "Killer Poker Online" by John Vorhaus.



Now flipping through this book, I didn't see a whole lot of strategy on what hands to play at what times during cash games versus tournaments, so it is not that type of book at all. What it does give you is pointers on how to psychologically play better poker online with that information already in hand. I found numerous portions of this book to be extremely helpful, especially the portions on Mind and Mood management. I had been doing a LOT of multi-tabling, which I thought was the best thing to do. In fact, after simply adopting an idea of maintaining focus on one game, the same as you would do in a brick and mortar casino, my returns have increased dramatically. I always thought, "Oh, this is a hand I have no interest in. Fold this 7-2 offsuit. Now what is new on website (insert your favorite website here)?" and would go to become distracted with something else until the alarm on the next hand told me it was my turn to act. It is odd to think that something as simple as "Keep your head in the game" written down in a book can have the sort of effect. I guess reading it was what I needed.

I also found a couple of similar type reviews on this book here and here. All in all, I think that most online poker players could benefit from portions of this book.

July 2009- Here we go...

So it has been a bit since my last post. This is not necessarily due to lack of playing, just lack of interesting things happening. A couple pretty awesome things have transpired in the last month or so:

1. I am now a rakebackpros.com member! Woot for 27% back on all rakes! :D Can't complain about that in the slightest. Especially since it still applies to SNG buy-ins, which is where I am spending the majority of my time playing.

2. I have about 1700 Full Tilt Academy credits for performing tasks at the tables. I am really crushing the SNG challenges. Too bad that it is limited to 10 times that you can repeat any given challenge. I've got my eyes on a sweatshirt that is 9600 credits, so I think I am well on my way. *edit - Just got word from the ESPN Poker Edge that I won a free Full Tilt sweatshirt for listening to their podcast and sending in the player of the day. Woot! * Maybe I'll be using my points for something else...

So I guess that will sum it up for now. The bankroll is dipping a bit, but I have high hopes for the near future. Playing a little more conservatively in the SNG and it seems to be helping.