Topsoyales Long Adventure

Okay, to set the scene.
I'm almost 19 and from the UK and been playing since my 18th birthday.
Twice now I've got my roll to 10k and withdrawn everything in order to pay for uni.

No I'm secure moneywise with a steady flow from a summer job too, I'm ready to start a proper grind from somewhat low stakes, playing sit and go's, and MTT's, of which a large amount will be the 180 mans on stars.

I've just deposited $500 and set my deposit limit to not let me deposit again, and I hopefully will never have to (except for reload bonuses).

Aims of the operation:

1. Primary goal - Reach 10k within a reasonable timeframe.

2. Build up those FPP's (I'm currently a SilverStar) in order to buy a few items on my wish list:

Items:
iPod Video (20000 points)
£250 gift certificate (30000 points and GoldStar needed)
Sharp 26" TV (50000 points and GoldStar)

3. Become a much better tournament player

4. Keep a blog updated

So it will begin.
I'll be grinding some $10+1 sit and go's and the $4.40 180 mans for the time being and see where it takes me.

Wish me luck!

hi

just a tip for you
if u made 10k before t wice then why dont u play bigger stakes ? if u have to play tournaments, $10 SNG are basically same as $20 SNG.... and both dont take genius to beat at 10-15% roi. and u make twice the money.
u need like 30 buyins for these kind of SNG's so u can comfortably take shots at $20 and move down if it dont work. gl.

LOL @ everybody being so young!
I'm 7 years older than you are and I feel like a grandpa.

When I was 19, I woudln't even think about playing money in a casino. Such taboo.
How does a few years change a person...


GL w/ your ops m8!

gl with the new OP. I need to start a new one of these things becaues it really helped me focus last time.

Cheers guys.

Yeah I've played much higher before and probably will take shots fairly early, but I want to be rather conservative as this roll wont ever be replenished.

I'm also hoping Taipan will be my guide through the turbo sit and go's, that man is a genius.

Okay

So one day in and about 4 hours of turbos played.
Up $50 after an initially brutal first session.

Played roughly 14 $16 turbos and for the first 6 at least I honestly thought that I'd forgotten how to play them.

I looked over the histories though and hadn't done too much out of line, mainly a case of coinflips in late stages not going my way, but I posted a couple of hands in the sng forum anyway.

Luckily I then picked up a very nice 5 in a row itm streak, with 2 wins and saw a nice profit after the second session.

I personally think I'm playing the same decent / above average game I used to be playing and so far it's working.

My ROI previously has been around 15% for turbos at the $16 level and a bit higher below that, so keeping that up would obviously grow the roll at a fast rate.

Just playing a few hands of $0.50/1 stud late evening to unwind before work tomorrow.

Played a considerable amount while at work today as I've had very little to do for the entire morning, and things have gone very well.

Once again (and I hope this doesn't become a regular thing) I started out horrifically losing all the key all-ins early on and pushing in good spots only to run into big pockets.

I thought it was going to be a bad day as my roll shrunk to just a few dollars under $400 but then like before, BOOM, winning streak of 4 and a couple of cashes in between, and nice variance comes calling.

I have decided that with turbos being even more swingy than I cared to remember, I'm setting a target for moving to the $27's at $1600, giving me just under 60 buy-ins. I think that will be plenty to cope with the low ROI / high variance I'm expecting. I'll also move down if that hits $1350 and just rebuild steadily.

Obv it's very early to be setting this goal but I'm in the mood to plan this out and I'd rather know where I'm heading than just playing until I realise how much I have.

With playing at work being very feasible (at least until I get a harder project to work on), I should be able to play a large number of turbos per day - approx 40 at work and then another 15 at home when I'm not busy. This is 4-6 tabling btw. This should mean a very fast bankroll increase, and of course the inevitable downswings should be over in a shorter time frame.

BR now at $679.28

Oh and my FPP's are almost at 4000 which puts me on track for the iPod in about 4 months if I keep up the havy play.

Things are looking very promising at present, and I hope they continue.

Good luck man, hope you do well.

How much do you play a day? How many tables at a time?

Roughly 30-50 turbos a day when I can, sometimes a lot less.
Generally 3-4 tabling but up to 6 when I'm feeling on form.

So, been playing for a few hours today and down to around $600 again. My turbos I've made a couple of poor pushes and calls, but I've been running so bad in the sunday million double shootout sats it's unreal.

Played 3, made it to the final table twice. Combined I was outdrawn 9 times on all in hands, managed to scrape my way back into it and the same happened again over and over.

Managed a $35 rebate in one for 5th but if any would have held up I'd have $215 in tourney dollars right now.

Really frustrating because I know the standard of play is horrific and I should manage to take down a few if I keep playing.

Anyway, I'm back off to multitable the $16's and see if my luck swings nicely this afternoon.

At least on a good note I'm over 4000 fpp's now which is making me feel like I'm getting somewhere towards my items.

End of my day at work and probably wont be playing any more this evening.

I seemed to be playing ok, just not brilliantly and I can put a couple of bubbles / 3rds down to mistimed steals and reraises.

My early game is fine and I have great confidence in lasting until at least mid-late stages. My mid stage play is decent, but I either tend to get too loose trying to steal and accumulate chips, or I get too tight and miss valuable opportunities. I think I need some work there to remain consistent.

Bubble play used to be a strong point but I have started missing good pushes and I'm turning into a bubble nit. Still, with a little reflection on that all should be fine, and I'm generally still finishing either 1st or 4th due to my bubble agression (Which I take as a good sign).

So, I'm down about 7 buyins from yesterday at $564.
Thats not terrible at all but I feel frustrated with some close bubbles and outdraws at key times.

I think it's probably good tbh that I've had a losing day so early as it makes me re-evaluate my play and stops me getting too excited about winning streaks.

Also, don't know if anyone else has noticed this but the $16's seem much better quality during late morning and early afternoon UK hours, with generally at least 6 players in at 100/200. One table today had us 7 handed at 200/400 with even stacks. I might have to start playing more when the bulk of US players are on at night for fishier games.

GL man. You know I stagnated at $500-$600 for at least a month on the $16s and $6.50s. Thats why i ended up switching to cash. DaGoat had a similar problem I seem to remember. Still if you run as sick as Tai in the turbos you'll get there (may have to mix in a few mtts though

Oh my god I'm so frustrated right now. It seems that every time I'm in a good or even dominating situation, I end up saying "No, not the runner runner again!", and it's seriously denting my bankroll.

I'm now down under $500 and I've temporarily switched to regular speed sit and gos to see if thats any nicer.

I've just looked over my play for the day and being honest, I see 2 big mistakes and a couple of marginally -ev plays over about 30 tourneys.

I just seem to be on a major cooler right now.

I've had to stop playing for a few hours because I just got two outer out-full-housed on the bubble. It's just so painful to see beat after beat and seemingly no end in sight.

I'll probably move back to $16's soon and work through the variance, moving down to the $6.50's at $350.

Any advice to cope with this, as it's also starting to affect my gameplay confidence?

I have been on a major cooler as well for the past few months or so.

I think I am starting to get out of it, but for me a lot of it is playing the 180-man tournaments, seeing as I am not so good in large fields and I am working on that.

What has helped me is playing the 5.25 HU matches. Some of the people there are very bad and it is an easy $5. But the $5 isn't as important as pretty much owning a person and feeling that you actually know what you are doing. It helps a lot.

Here's a tip - in regular sit and gos, when people raise they ALWAYS have the goods (up to 4-handed, at least).

Ok, seriously depressing now that my BR is at $402.
I've looked again through all my HH's and I've made about 4 mistakes in total, only 1 of which actually cost me a decent amount of chips.

On the bubble in the tourney I just played, I had a maniac pushing into my BB with atc which was fine considering the blinds. Four times I called and had him dominated and he outdrew everytime to take me from chip leader to bubble boy. It's a recurring theme and it's horrible.

Pokerstars is having a scheduled server restart so I'm playing some cash games until then. Hopefully I can grind back up to $500 today.

Yes!
Back to $500 on the button exactly.
Played some 1/2 stud and took a shot at a 2/4 game with weak players.

I can essentially just restart this operation and hope my luck turns around in the turbos.

Ok, so back to my original $500 and a slightly altered plan.

I know turbos are my best game but I don't think I'm emotionally ready enough to cope with my current $16 turbo downswing, so I've decided to move down to the $6.50's and grind it up a fair bit for now.

I'm not setting a goal for moving back up to the $16's, I just will when I believe I'm ready.

Hopefully someone can inform me that the play at this level really is utterly terrible?

After a good couple of hundred games I'm sitting with $477 in my BR, which basically feels as though I've gone now where at all, even though a fiar bit of this is horrid variance.

It seems to be evening out now which is a good sign so hopefully I'll start to show profit and stay there.

However, I'm about to set a new goal to keep me stimulated on my quest.

New goal for week:

Earn 5 seats to the Sunday Million and take the T$

Should be do-able with the double shoot-outs, and poor level of play.
We'll see how it goes.

I'm essentially looking at qualifying once a day.

That's all for now.

Only played a couple of hours this morning and so far I'm back up to $562.

Figured it would be a horrible day again after a nasty 8 ootm streak in regular sit and go's, but my Sunday Million sats came through for me.

Played 4, won a seat in 2.
Both good results because they weren't full tourneys, so only top 2 paid out seats opposed to the usual 4 plus rebates.
Also, felt good because one was a turbo and the other regular, so both sides of my shootout game are working.

Obviously without the sit and go swing it would feel a lot nicer but it's good to be back in profit again anyway.

Going to play some more now after my lunch break and see if I can get the 5 seats I wanted in one day.

Btw, these things are so lucrative to any decent sit and go player who can adapt to the payout structure being a little flat after the first round.
The ICM calcs on the bubble are very revealing about the strategy change you need.

Goals:

BR: $562
FPP's: 5548 (almost retained silver status for the month too)
Sats to Sunday Million: 2/5

I've been thinking about doing some Sunday Million sats- which ones do you do? Are you doing the cash ones or the FPP ones?

Cash

$11.70 double shoot-outs.

Also, I'm doing them UK morning / early afternoon time, where they rarely fill and so your first table is shorthanded (normally 3 or 4).

As it gets later, you have to beat a full 10 table first, but there are 4 seats up for grabs at the final table so it's still good and very profitable.

Firstly no-one understands heads up play in the first round, or short handed for that matter, and secondly all you have to do then is come top 2 -4 depending on entrants for a $215 seat.

Great value.

Just got a $35 rebate in my last one for 4th place (2 seats), after a horrid call by villain but meh, thats still good for just over an hour.

Currently in a good mood as I just won my 3rd seat this week and it's only Tuesday morning.

Fairly easy 3 handed first round table with two weak passive players, not much to comment on. One knocked the other out after about 15 hands with queens againt jacks.

Then I scraped back to even heads up with low blinds and just dominated from there against Mr-fold-everything-unless-it's-aces.

Second round table came around quite fast because of the short handed round 1's. (less than 30 entrants - also giving a nice overlay)

Second round - As a regular paced sit and go I played a super nitty pre-flop game early on and watched and laughed as about 4 players were eliminated really poorly by the same player. I felt pretty sorry for all of them, when they got big hands cracked by the chipleader and table idiot playing trash.

Anyway, my first break came around level 4. I was down to about 1335 chips and managed a free flop from the BB with pocket nines. Hit my set on a scary board with multiple callers, got all-in easily and evaded 3 cards to triple up.

Sat back for a while and only played two more hands all tournament. Final 3 left with 2 seats up for grabs and no other prizes. Big chipleader from earlier is bullying pretty badly and I pick up pocket 10's. I push over with the short stack and they instantly call with pocket nines. Awesomely bad call by them.

This stupid idiot then dwindles their chips down against the other solid player in the final three, and I take them out eventually with a coinflip.

+215 in T$

I also just managed to win another first round match in a regular speed double-shootout so I hope I can take that down to.

BR now at just under $750

Now the BR is at $949 oh yes!!!

Just took second in the second round of the shoot out I was just talking about for another seat. I'm on course for 10 a week at this rate, and just 1 away from my weekly goal.

That final table was a nightmare. I played well to about 6 handed but picked up no hands and was short stacked. Made a very bad call all-in and runner runnererd trips to double up. Got some proper bad abuse in the chat box after that.

4 handed was fine with everyone on equal chips but one player kept disconnecting so it lasted forever. There was a big multiway pot which lead to -->

Three handed with a huge chipleader, another guy with 1500 chips and myself with the same. Action went, raise, fold, fold for about 3 levels with no one budging and just as I thought I was doomed to 3rd, short stack pushes into chipleader with k8 and gets called by ak. Thankyou sir!

I'm actually over the moon right now, and my only decision is whether to keep the T$ for tourneys or to sell for cash. Realistically I'll probably use the T$ pretty fast so I'll keep them for now.

I'm still amazed how poor the play is in these shootouts though.

Just playing another regular speed double shoot out now. I'm posting an example of how poor the heads up play is in the first round which pretty much assures you a shot at the final table at least once every four times. I've been making it past the first round with ease over the last couple of days and it's due to stuff like this:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t30 (2 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Hero (t2830)
Button (t3170)

Preflop: Hero is BB with 8, 8.
Button raises to t120, Hero calls t90.

Flop: (t240) A, 8, K (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets t3050 (All-In), Hero calls t2710 (All-In).

Turn: (t6000) 7 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t6000) K (2 players, 2 all-in)

Villain shows a 4
Hero looks shocked

Final Pot: t5660

Notice we're just into the second blind level, that's 15 minutes of folding and playing about 5 good hands. Other 2 players at my first table got eliminated first hand against this guy.

Easy.
Now to try and win my 5th seat.

damn dude thats incredible.

So how do you start with very shorthanded if it is a SnG? Or is it a tournament with an actual starting time?


Keep up the good work man, you are doing very well.

It's got a preset start time.

The final table has to be 10 handed and the format is that the winner of each first round gets a seat at the final table.

This means you need 10 tables regardless of the number of entrants, so say 35 players enter, thats 8 tables of 4 players and 1 table of 3.

Great work dude...keep it up

3 in a row

BR: 1141

These things are FUN

I would advise anyone building a roll to take down a couple of regular speed ones. Other than the ones I'm registered in obv.

The final table bubble play is atrocious. I'll post the last hand of the one I just played later tonight but seriously it was the stupidest push given stack sizes ever, especially 3 handed with 2 seats left.

So, as far as my goals:

Weakly goal of 5 seats to Sunday Million COMPLETED TUESDAY

Normal goals:

BR: 1141 - Most definitely heading in the right direction pretty fast.

FPP's: 5764 (Silver retained for month) - 1/4 towards my first item, the iPod

Learn to play good in tournaments: Well I can play satellites and shoot outs rather well now.

Keep this blog updated: So far so good I hope.

Stars has decided to have another scheduled server restart so no more sats for me for the next few hours.

Played one early this morning and came 2nd on my table in the first round, didn't play heads up very well at all and the guy seemed competent. Managed to level up the chip stacks and went out with ak against jacks.

Oh well, I really shouldn't be disappointed, but having a nice run of just destroying first round tables makes me think I should be doing it every time.

Anyway, played some 2/4 stud cash games since all the sit and gos and tourneys have disappeared, and made about $20 in an hour or so.

I sort of miss playing stud to build the roll (for those who aren't aware I started off my poker career playing stud and have played up to 5/10 before), so it's nice to go back to it and play a little. The players were still bad but not quite as poor as some of the regular losers in the past.

I'm now having a poker break for most of the day to get some work done and wait out the server restart. I'm going to start playing MTT's a fair bit more now due to my decent BR, and I'm rolled for the $10 180 mans so I'll try and fit a few of those in over the next week. I'm still going to be playing the double shootouts because the opportunites are too great to give up, and hopefully I'll earn another couple of seats at least by the end of the weekend. Maybe on Sunday the competition will be even worse and I can fold into a few seats.

Goals:

BR: 1153 (of which $797 is T$)
FPP's: 5902
Seats: 5/5

I tried one of those double shootouts last night- you were right they were pretty soft. I don't have the bankroll right now but I think I might try to play in a couple more because they are so easy.

You were playing 5/10 stud and your 18? You're crazy man.

Good luck with the 180's.

Not crazy, well maybe a bit
I had the roll for it and being 18, carefree.


An update.

I may as well rename this operation - How many Satellites can TopSoyale win?

Looks like my satellite play is even better than I thought; I only played two shootouts today and lost both of them, but then uncovered a little gem of a tournament and had to play it.

The WCOOP 2nd Event PL 5 Card Draw sat
$8.80 R+A

A little out of my roll but knowing how to play 5 card draw reasonably well, I figured I had a good chance against a lot of the field. (Plus I've obv been doing nicley in sats recently, and this was after the server restart so players were playing any tourney that was coming up)

Something like 42 entrants, down to 31 by the end of the rebuy. I rebought first hand for the double stack, added on at the end of the period, coming to ~ $24. Good seat ratio, with top five getting seats to the $215 WCOOP event, and 6th to 10th getting $24 back, so essentially my buy-in returned if I missed out but made it deep.

Play was horrendous as expected, with many obvious holdem players overvaluing small pairs and even just high card hands. I kept a decent stack throughout, being about 4th after the rebuy period, and staying around 6th for the rest of the tourney.

Proceeded to go card dead in the late stages but stole my way to the final table of six players. With one to go before the sat seats, it was between myself and the other short stack to go out first. Everyone else did as they should and kept out the way.

It was slow going but eventually the other short stack ended up all in with a set of jacks, and a big stack had slow played his quad 7's to end the bubble. Feeling slightly sorry for him to go out like that but who cares, I got the seat and 215W$.

I'm pretty certain I'm selling the W$ as I have no other use for them at all so anyone who knows where I should go or wants them either post in here or PM me.

BR: 1361

Of which T$ - 748.80
W$ - 215.00

Ok, so you need to explain this to me because I am ignorant.

I understand that $T is tournament dollars. These are a part of your bankroll (like for instance if you have $500 in real money and $500 in $T it will just say $1000 at the cashier). But you cannot cash these dollars out, you can only use them to play more tournaments.

So what is $W?

Also, what kinds of poker have you/do you play? And how long have you been playing?

The W$ are given like T$ but for any event that is world series or WCOOP.
Basically you can use them to buy into any other world series event or qualifier but seemingly nothing else.

They're no where near as valuable as T$, hence me wishing to sell them.


History trip then:

I opened an account at Pacific Poker on my 18th birthday and deposited $80, netting another $20 in bonus. I had been playing 7 stud for matchsticks with my family for years so I went to the low limit cash stud tables and started grinding out a roll. It was up to $3500 in no time once I started taking shots at higher levels playing very under rolled.

Obv I thought I was invincible and after cashing out $2000 after about 4 weeks play I lost the rest.

Took a little break and read some literature on the game and found some forums. Basically I learnt how to play well and more importantly bankroll management before it was too late. I went back to Pacific and got up to 10000 in about 2 months playing properly (for about 6 hours a day while at uni). I realised I needed the money for course fees and such things fairly badly and so cashed it all out except for $300 which I quickly lost playing stupid limits and MTT's.

Pretty quickly wanted to be playing poker again and found Pokerstars. This time after finding FTR, I concentrated on SNG's, while playing a variety of side games, and in about 5 months took my roll of $250 to 10k again. I was ecstatic but once again money worries came down on me and I withdrew.

I had found a niche playing the less popular online games like stud and draw, with a good ROI in the turbo sng's too. However, with no money to really devote to online poker, I tried to bonus whore various sites for pretty much the last 2 months for quick profits, and cutting a long story short, ended about $30 in profit for a big waste of time.

I'm going back to uni in about a months time so over this summer I planned to settle down and grind up a bankroll that I could keep on Stars and keep grinding away. I picked up a full-time job over the summer break for 11 weeks so I have enough money to keep me on track at uni, and now I feel less pressure playing poker.

Which is where this blog started.

I feel most at home playing games other than hold'em as I feel I have a greater edge over the competition. I've never really focuseed on hold'em at all and I doubt I ever will (obviously talking about cash here, not tournies).

Now I've also found that satellites are amazing value and I can play those too. This time when my roll reaches 10k I wont have to withdraw anything and I'll set up a new operation which I really haven't thought about yet.

So I sold the W$ to PSmoney for 80% value which wasn't too bad.
This morning I opened up a double shootout and managed to get knowcked out first hand by a moron.

3 handed, he raises on the button 3xBB to 60, I reraise to 200 with pocket kings, he pushes over, insta-call by me.


Left me feeling a little miserable so I switched to stud cash for a couple of hours and ran a nice little profit up.

PLayed 2/4 on Stars, 2 tabling for most of the time but with low traffic I ended up playing just the one. Put in something like 250 hands and won about $110.

I'm back to loving stud.
I think for a game like stud with huge variance it may be wise to be very conservative with the bankroll approach. Normally I'd say 300BB but I'm thinking more like 500BB to be safe, so I might just play some 1/2 and grind up a bit first.

Started up another double shootout just now and I'm registered in a couple of MTT's so we'll se how those go this afternoon.

BR: 1430

Last night I had some free time to play (Girlfriend at work) so I played a few MTT's. Not a total waste of time but not the best use of it either. I bubbled in two and went deepish in one, only to finish in 55/2090 which didn't pay out too nicely. I broke even, maybe +$3 for the evening. Not too bad, but I think it helped having a rest from my normal games and playing something I really enjoyed.

Today I stepped back into the 2/4 stud games and I don't think I'm going back to anything else anytime soon.

Basically I opened stars this morning looking for some nice tournies or sats, and found very little of interest. I was drawn to a $39 sat to a WCOOP event but then realised my roll really can't handle that sort of thing. Briefly considered some sit and go's but I think I've come to the realisation that I don't enjoy them all that much.

So I looked under the stud tab and saw the juiciest 2/4 game running for weeks. Every player but two I had noted as a fish when I had last played stud a few months ago. None had seemingly improved.

Myself and the two other solid regs at the table pretty much demolished the rest and new, even worse players kept flooding in. With a nice run of cards and some good luck evading the chasers gutshots and so forth, I've found my bankroll rapidly rising over the last several hours.

I'm still interested in playing the Sunday Million sats as they are excellent value, and I'll be playing MTT's when I can if I find a good structure, but from now on, I'll be putting in a lot more hands at the stud tables.

I hope no one is disappointed that I'll now be posting stud hands, but I see this as profitable even if one of my goals was to become a better tournament player.

So, to update my goals:

BR: $1685 at time of writing (having sold my W$ and T$)
FPP's: 6564 (not moving as fast as I hoped but still on course for GoldStar this month if I knuckle down)
Improving tournament play: Sort of on hold until further notice
Keep updating: I'm trying

FFS post those stud hands!

If it's not too much to ask, some introductory strategy insight would be even better!

Anyways good job, and I'm thrilled that you've been experiencing success in a very lucrative and interesting game.

I'll get on it after my session tonight.

I've been thinking about a strategy post on stud for a while now. Could be a nice little project taking sample hands I play too and discussing them.

And Thankyou.

2/4 Stud hand
I have no idea how to convert this into a nice format so any help would be good.

My thoughts on the hand.

Easy raise on third with buried kings and a queen up. Hopefully villain thinks I'm stealing with a strong door card and calls along with a worse pair. I keep betting out which I think is correct and pick up the four flush.

At this point villain pairs his board so I just call behind. I think this might be weak and I should raise here. Opinions?

Seventh I catch my flush and villain surprises me by leading. Normally a two pair would check here and call off a bet my me to reduce losses if I caught a hand and pick off a bluff if I miss and bet out. So I actually think villain might be very strong and I just call with my flush.

Still not sure if a raise is good on seventh as I have an underrepped hand that looks scared of a two pair and if he 3 bets I'm lost.


PokerStars Game #11550715637: 7 Card Stud Limit ($2/$4) - 2007/08/18 - 06:05:09 (ET)
Table 'Athamantis' 8-max
Seat 1: zxcvbnm58 ($88.75 in chips)
Seat 3: quan1212 ($94.75 in chips)
Seat 4: cognoscenti ($128.75 in chips)
Seat 5: OOeggroll ($23.50 in chips)
Seat 6: sk8ram ($78.50 in chips)
zxcvbnm58: posts the ante $0.25
quan1212: posts the ante $0.25
cognoscenti: posts the ante $0.25
OOeggroll: posts the ante $0.25
sk8ram: posts the ante $0.25
*** 3rd STREET ***
Dealt to zxcvbnm58 [4h]
Dealt to quan1212 [3c]
Dealt to cognoscenti [Tc]
Dealt to OOeggroll [3s]
Dealt to sk8ram [Ks Kd Qs]
quan1212: brings in for $1
cognoscenti: folds
OOeggroll: folds
sk8ram: raises $1 to $2
zxcvbnm58: folds
quan1212: calls $1
*** 4th STREET ***
Dealt to quan1212 [3c] [8h]
Dealt to sk8ram [Ks Kd Qs] [4s]
sk8ram: bets $2
quan1212: calls $2
*** 5th STREET ***
Dealt to quan1212 [3c 8h] [Jc]
Dealt to sk8ram [Ks Kd Qs 4s] [2s]
sk8ram: bets $4
quan1212: calls $4
*** 6th STREET ***
Dealt to quan1212 [3c 8h Jc] [8s]
Dealt to sk8ram [Ks Kd Qs 4s 2s] [Ah]
quan1212: bets $4
sk8ram: calls $4
*** RIVER ***
Dealt to sk8ram [Ks Kd Qs 4s 2s Ah] [Js]
quan1212: bets $4
sk8ram: calls $4
*** SHOW DOWN ***
quan1212: shows [As Ac 3c 8h Jc 8s 7h] (two pair, Aces and Eights)
sk8ram: shows [Ks Kd Qs 4s 2s Ah Js] (a flush, King high)
sk8ram collected $32.25 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $33.25 | Rake $1
Seat 1: zxcvbnm58 folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 3: quan1212 showed [As Ac 3c 8h Jc 8s 7h] and lost with two pair, Aces and Eights
Seat 4: cognoscenti folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 5: OOeggroll folded on the 3rd Street (didn't bet)
Seat 6: sk8ram showed [Ks Kd Qs 4s 2s Ah Js] and won ($32.25) with a flush, King high

Down to $1630 after a serious cooler session at the stud tables.
I was gently grinding up a few dollars at a time and then just got hit in the face with cooler hands.

Rolled queens against rolled kings when I held a king on fourth cost me an awful lot and I don't see where I could have got away, and then some idiots calling with weak two pairs into my made flushes and straights to make fulls on seventh.

Grrr, frustration.
I also just got knocked out of a 180 man $10 by an idiot who decided to call a HUGE raise with pocket fives to hit a set. Now I have no trouble with calling a raise to hit a set, but a 6xBB raise after a limper. Oh well.

I'm sure it must just be today.

And now down to $1504

After one very poor stud player managed to river away my soul heads up.
I know heads up is really high variance, but omg I just got every beat I should have had for the next 3 years.

I'm stopping for today because going back under $1500 would feel really horrible right now.

I'm probably going to come back and stick to full ring stud while taking down a couple more shoot outs. Today has just been really horrible and I wish to forget about it quite fast.

Damn, too bad on the cooler situation, I know how ya feel.

Keep your head up, you already tripled your money, just keep grinding.

Cheers
It's still at $1500 after a few breakeven days.

I've used about 2500 FPP's to enter some WCOOP satellites and so far simply earned them all back for bubble places. So frustrating.

Today I managed 4th in the qualifier for the $320 6-max that paid 3 and 6th in the $215 PL 5-card-draw that paid 2.

I also played a $13 double shootout to the $530 Sunday Million that was winner take all and managed 2nd, which was painful to take.

High blinds heads-up, he raises with ak, I see aqs, I push over, insta call, out. With nothing for second I didn't play for several hours.

I seem to now be stuck around this mark, so I'm going to leave poker alone for a couple of weeks while I sort out my house for uni next year and enjoy my holiday and birthday.

19 on Thursday, and I haven't thought about it yet, best get some friends out somewhere.

So I reckon I'll be posting here again a little way into Sept, when hopefully I can kick the operation into gear again.

Cheers all

BOOM
I'm back with a totally new plan.

Now I realise in my first post I set out my goals saying that was my last deposit etc, but I saw a good deal and had to take advantage.

I cashed out of stars after using my FPP's to buy a few items and sorted out uni for next year so I now have no worries about that sort of stuff.


NEW PLAN

I've now moved to Full Tilt to take advantage of the generous bonus and a rakeback deal too. I also read a thread on some other forum about how much softer and better structured the stud games were, so I made the move.

I was hoping to move the entire roll over there but the deposit limits on my credit card were $600 so I had to accept that.

So, starting bankroll of $600, with $600 in bonus to clear within 120 days and a 27% rakeback deal that pays out every month.


This all happened about a week ago the day after I turned 19, so I'm changing the operation to "Topsoyales Year of Building". By the time I turn 20 I hope to realistically have 10K on Full Tilt and be able to make a few chunky withdrawals.

My first week has already been a rollercoaster. I ran very hot in the 1/2 stud games, then very cold, then managed to take down a $5.50 MTT for about $90, then ran break even in the stud games to end the week at approx $900.

My Playing Plan

I'll be 2-4 tabling 1/2 stud (depending on how many stud games are running) until my BR hits $1200. I can put in about 750 hands a day at least, normally about 1250, so this shouldn't take too long. Plus I clear the bonus along the way and pick up the rakeback at the end of the month.

Currently

BR: $900
Bonus Cleared: $100
First week: +$300

I knew the games were soft but seriously!!!!!

This guy has worked up his stack by chasing everything and anything and getting retard lucky.

I pick up rolled 6's and fast play them against this moron, and he decides to cap third and fourth with just a pair of kings, and then to hit his full hosue on sixth and seventh runner runner.

Full Tilt Poker Game #3446667292: Table Katie - $1/$2 Ante $0.20 - Limit Stud Hi - 5:08:38 ET - 2007/09/03
Seat 1: sk8ram ($45.40)
Seat 2: seeoll ($21.50)
Seat 3: adler10 ($27.10)
Seat 4: paperboy1111 ($26.70)
Seat 5: Gasti ($38.75)
Seat 6: edteach33 ($44.65)
Seat 7: BAYOU MOM ($35.10)
Seat 8: Yuppie Guppy ($83.35)
seeoll antes $0.20
paperboy1111 antes $0.20
adler10 antes $0.20
BAYOU MOM antes $0.20
edteach33 antes $0.20
Gasti antes $0.20
Yuppie Guppy antes $0.20
5 seconds left to act
sk8ram antes $0.20
*** 3RD STREET ***
Dealt to sk8ram [6h 6s] [6d]
Dealt to seeoll [3h]
Dealt to adler10 [Ts]
Dealt to paperboy1111 [4c]
Dealt to Gasti [Qh]
Dealt to edteach33 [5d]
Dealt to BAYOU MOM [2c]
Dealt to Yuppie Guppy [Ad]
BAYOU MOM is low with [2c]
BAYOU MOM has 15 seconds left to act
BAYOU MOM brings in for $0.25
Yuppie Guppy completes it to $1
sk8ram raises to $2
seeoll folds
adler10 folds
paperboy1111 folds
Gasti folds
edteach33 folds
BAYOU MOM folds
Yuppie Guppy raises to $3
sk8ram raises to $4
Yuppie Guppy calls $1
*** 4TH STREET ***
Dealt to sk8ram [6h 6s 6d] [8s]
Dealt to Yuppie Guppy [Ad] [4h]
Yuppie Guppy bets $1
sk8ram raises to $2
Yuppie Guppy calls $1
*** 5TH STREET ***
Dealt to sk8ram [6h 6s 6d 8s] [Tc]
Dealt to Yuppie Guppy [Ad 4h] [Jd]
Yuppie Guppy checks
sk8ram bets $2
Yuppie Guppy calls $2
*** 6TH STREET ***
Dealt to sk8ram [6h 6s 6d 8s Tc] [Ah]
Dealt to Yuppie Guppy [Ad 4h Jd] [Ks]
Yuppie Guppy checks
sk8ram bets $2
Yuppie Guppy calls $2
*** 7TH STREET ***
Dealt to sk8ram [6h 6s 6d 8s Tc Ah] [As]
Yuppie Guppy checks
sk8ram bets $2
Yuppie Guppy raises to $4
sk8ram raises to $6
Yuppie Guppy raises to $8
sk8ram calls $2
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Yuppie Guppy shows [Kd Kc Ad 4h Jd Ks Jc] a full house, Kings full of Jacks
sk8ram mucks
Yuppie Guppy wins the pot ($36.85) with a full house, Kings full of Jacks
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $37.85 | Rake $1
Seat 1: sk8ram mucked [As 6s 6d 8s Tc Ah 6h] - a full house, Sixes full of Aces
Seat 2: seeoll folded on 3rd St.
Seat 3: adler10 folded on 3rd St.
Seat 4: paperboy1111 folded on 3rd St.
Seat 5: Gasti folded on 3rd St.
Seat 6: edteach33 folded on 3rd St.
Seat 7: BAYOU MOM folded on 3rd St.
Seat 8: Yuppie Guppy showed [Kd Kc Ad 4h Jd Ks Jc] and won ($36.85) with a full house, Kings full of Jacks


Grrrrr, well good luck to him if he does that a lot. I'm currently following him around with a bucket.

I now feel very much in pain.
My BR has just dropped substantially to $730 after a bombing of bad beats on multiple tables.

I also followed a massive fish to 2/4 heads up stud where I initially destroyed him for a buy-in, then he decided to chase everything possible and got so so so so lucky.

I quit before anything worse happened.

Having now under $750 feels like a huge backwards step to me, as most of my profit has now come from the bonus alone. Yet I'm playing solid poker and I know I'll earn it back nice and quick.

I just can't see myself doing that at this very moment.

Basically this a huge vent post!!
I need to calm down, sit back in my 1/2 stud games and grind myself up again.

OK, I calmed down, played some more stud and mixed in a fair bit of razz and now I'm back up to about $899.

It feels much better and I'm currently very happy with my game and style of play. I think if I ever see a decent 1/2 razz table going it's worth a look, because the competition at razz is really weak.

Just 10 minutes ago I had some idiot cap on third street with a nine showing against my 43a. I then caught a 6 on fourth and he blanked with a 10 and called my bet, before proceeding to call me all the way with a rough 10. I was pretty happy to rake in that pot. Added to buddy list!

So now I'm just going to keep multitabling the low limits until I clear the bonus and reach $1200. Hopefully I'll reach $1200 first so I can move up and clear the bonus a little faster at 2/4.

I've been told in the past that the FTP bonus clears ridiculously slowly, but I've already cleared $140 in just over a week and I don't see much of a problem.

I ckecked my rakeback this morning to see I'm due about $30 to be paid on the 23rd, all collected in five days of playing, so I have high hopes for this month to collect well over $100, maybe even over $200.

I'm also on for ironman status if I keep up my play. Does anyone know how badly it affects rakeback and if there's even any point?

I'm sorry to hear about your downswing.

Hang in there. Full tilt stud and razz is soft. I can sometimes be seen donking around when i have nothing better to do. You see I only like to play one table at a time because I need to keep track of upcards (usually there only *IS* one table at relatively decent stakes) and 1-tabling is a waste of my actual poker time... so when I'm in a university lecture I fire up my 1 table, play tight and tune out when I get a hand to play.

what limits are you playing BTW?

Currently my roll is $900 ish so I'm stuck at 1/2 unless I see a seriously fishy 2/4 game running.

In the past I've played stars games up to 10/20 and thats when I started running into some trouble.

Opened up FT this morning and saw zero 1/2 stud games so I opted for a change of pace and fired up a set of four $11+1 turbo sng's. These used to be my bread and butter on stars so I figured it was worth a shot at Full Tilt's competition.

Nice set: Came in first, second, second, third for a tidy profit to take me much closer to $1000.

My mini-aim for this week was to attempt to reach four figures and now it looks promising over the next couple of days. Might try and run a couple of turbos if the stud games are on the low side.

BR: $977
Bonus Cleared: $180

So a quick update.

Didn't play very much this weekend but the times I played at the end of last week were horrible. I've been running cold in every game I play, but in the worst way I've encountered so far in my short poker career.

I win lots of small pots and work my stack up nicely on a good stud table with weak players, then get a huge hand and get outdrawn or completely coolered to give back most of my winnings plus some more.

On one table on Friday evening, I had doubled my stack of $40 to $80 at the 1/2 table and was dealt rolled nines. Lots of bets went in the whole way and as hoped for, the other bettor and raiser had a big pocket pair, two kings with an ace kicker.

It gets to sixth and he pairs his board with 4's. I'm still a decent favourite and it gets capped again, only for him to hit another 4 on seventh and for me to miss everything and lose the hand. My stack dwindles down to $52 or so, when I play a big flush draw fast, hit it, and get whacked in the face with a straight flush miracle on seventh. Ultimately coolered and being down about $15 I left.

This has been the pattern of events as of late and I can't catch a nice run of cards to save my life. Luckily I've still been bonus clearing and a good chunk ($260) has now been cleared.

The problem is that my BR is sitting at $902, meaning I've only earned about $42 from actually playing. That fact disappoints me as I've been playing a solid game and firmly believe I should have cracked 1k by now. Looks like a mental block too, as every time I get near 1k I have a bad hand or two and get knocked back down.

On a good note, I'm very much on track to receive Iron Man in my first month at FT which is nice, and my rakeback stats are showing promise for a nice bit of extra cash to fly in at the end of the month.

My mini-aim for this week is going to be to put in a solid number of hands at 1/2 stud (10k), playing the $12 turbos when no tables are running, to hopefully at least get past four figures.

BR: $902

Say hellooooooooooooo to variance

to quote Forrest Gump:
Variance happens...

Finally things are getting back to a good speed of building.

I was getting somewhat bored with playing breakeven stud and the occassional sng, so I took a shot at a small field MTT that I was a little under rolled for. However, I still felt comfortable and before I knew it I'd final tabled the thing and had a decent stack.

Then came a nice payday. It would have been huge for me had I not had to leave with only four players left and a dominating lead, but events could not be helped and I had to sit out and accept fourth place. I'll post some hand histories later when I retrieve them.

Full Tilt Poker Tournament #26951184 $20 + $2 Tournament NL Hold'em
Buy-In: $20.00 + $2.00
89 players
Total Prize Pool: $1780.00
Start Date: September 12 9:00 AM ET

Dear sk8ram,

You finished the tournament in 4th place.
There has been $195.80 added to your account.

You have earned leaderboard points for this tournament.
To view your current leaderboard points use the link in the Cashier window.

Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.


Very nice regardless of a possibly missed 1st place, and my bankroll has now been boosted back up to around $1170. I personally now feel much more confident with my game and have a new gameplan to mix in some lower buy-in MTT's when I can.

I'll try to update this blog a bit more too, as it now tends to be once a week or so.

Current BR: $1170
Bonus cleared: $280

mind telling what's *that* important? I know a forklift could not dislodge me from final 4 in a decently sized tournament...

I'm hoping someone had a baby

Girlfriend was in the midst of a family crisis and badly needed a lift to see someone, and I was the only one available.

Admittedly I very much wished to stay and finish it off but this was serious.

Euggghhhh.

After what appeared to be a nice start to the day building on top of my MTT success, everything went horribe all of a sudden.

I figured I could multitable some stud and razz to take me over $1200 where I would consider moving up in stakes to 2/4.

Then I ran cold again and ended the day on $1119 with $300 in bonus cleared. That now means I've earned $219 from just playing 1/2 and the MTT, and the rest of my profit is just bonus money.

Meh, I'll still take it, I just really can't seem to go in the forward direction at the moment regardless of whatever game I'm playing. I'm just plain running bad in everything.

I think I really need to buckle down and focus on one area of my game and just stick to that. I'm finding the stud games way too swingy and the razz games are worse with everyone chasing everything. Obv in the end solid play gets rewarded but it just hurts too much right now when I lose a huge pot to an idiot.

I'm still enjoying MTT's the most, but my schedule doesn't really allow for me to play more than a couple a day, and they are ridiculously slow for bonus clearing.

Looks like sng's are my way forward.

Now, I want opinions on whether to play the $12 turbos, which I believe I'm comfortably rolled for, or to play the regular speed $20+2's? Maybe I could even play higher buy-in regulars as the ITM should be much higher. Is this correct thinking?

I guess if everything goes bad I could always switch to NL cash and jump on that bandwagon. Doesn't sound like me though.

Anyway:

Bankroll: $1119
Bonus Cleared: $300

Fairly break even today in terms of cash games (mainly razz with a little stud all at 1/2), but I saw a decent profit in the $20+2 regular sng's.

I think they're going to turn into my focus over the weekend when I have more time to play and I'll try my hand at a fair few MTT's too.

I also won my first ever 6 max sng and the competition seemed very weak there too, so I'll try and mix in some of those.

I've hit my goal of 1k for this week and I've put in a fair amount of play to keep me on track for ironman etc.

So my mini weekend goal is to play approx 40 regular speed sit and gos at the $20+2 level, whether they be 9 man or 6 max. I'll then see what my ROI and ITM is over that small sample and assess how they seem to be going for me.

I'll update this when the weekend is over with stats of this little mini operation.

Current BR: $1170
Of Which Bonus: $320

Weekend play went badly, but for a reason I didn't expect.

I barely managed to play at all and got disconnected from practically all of my tournaments, eventually giving up after about two sets of $20+2's at the point where I couldn't reconnect at all to FT.

If I could blame FT I'd feel ok because I'd probably get the entries back, but this was an Internet Service Provider fault and so apart from being angry, there is little else I can do.

Meh.

In other words then, this weekend involved little play, and a loss. Both of which are the opposite of what I was aiming for. So I'm going to extend my sng operation over the next week and try to reach $1350 by the end of friday including bonus.

That would make me a happy man.

Current BR: $1086

So it's Monday morning and that means the start of a new week with a restored internet connection. Let's have a nice week please!

As mentioned in my previous post I'll be putting in a fair amount of $20+2 regular speeds to try and gauge my ROI and see how successful they could be. I do have a concern with exclusively playing the sng's though, and that is to do with bonus clearing and even Ironman to a certain extent.

Basically I'd have to multitable the sng's for long hours each day to clear my bonus at my current rate and keep on track for Iron status for the month. This wouldn't be a huge problem as I have the time, but I have a feeling I'd get rather sick of them by Wednesday or Thursday, maybe even earier.

So I'm going to mix in razz cash games to ease the boredom and rack up the FTP points faster.


Today has started fantastically well btw, as I've been running so so hot in the razz games I sat in. I've been two tabling a 1/2 game with a weak 2/4 game for about an hour and a half and my bankroll is now sitting at $1176 + a couple of tourney buy-ins waiting to begin.

This is a nice leap back to where I wanted to be, and puts me on course for my weekly goal of $1350. I honestly believe I should be able to crack that figure before the end of the week barring any randomly bad days. (Also assuming I don't slack on number on hands.)

I've crossed the half way point of clearing the bonus now much sooner than I expected, as I was told that FT was notoriously slow on bonus clearing conditions. Looks like I'll have no problem at all clearing it before it runs out, and I'll probably do it within 2 months in total.

Taking a small break right now to catch up on some work and wait for some MTT's to play a little later. Then it will be back to grinding sng's and cash games.

Current BR: $1176

My decent streak of cards continued through the day and I'm now coming to the end of my shift at work while looking at a BR of $1253.

I've been playing sub-optimally at the razz tables IMO (marginal calls and some weak folds) but have still been able to grind out a nice winrate against the numerous donks with their buy-ins on offer. I saw some utterly terrible chases and value bets / raises today by a certain group of fishy players, and I really hope they're still at the table later tonight when I play again.

I've been able to raise boardlocked lows all day long and just watch the money roll in, all the time enduring the chat of these fish saying that they can never catch on seventh etc. It's made me smile several times throughout my session.

Anyway, I'm going to try and just keep up the amount of hands I'm playing and hopefully continue to run good. I stopped playing a little earlier than usual at work because I just wasn't bothered by the game anymore and figured it was a good time to take a break if I was actually bored.

I'll post again after tonights session if I feel rejuvenated enough to play in the first place.

Still on course for the $1350 by the end of the week, and my points are rolling in now that I'm mixing in some 2/4 games, which is clearing the bonus at a decent rate.

Current BR: $1253
Of Which Bonus: $360

Hey Topsoyale

If you are going to concentrate on playing mainly sng's I would suggest you give one of the cryptologic or ongame sites a try as you can get 50% rakeback which will be much better than the Stars points or the 27% you get at Fulltilt. You are not in the US so you have the luxury of playing on these sites. Not sure hown many tables you play at once but I have no problems getting three shorthanded turbo tourneys going with a combination of $50 or $100 buyins on these sites, plus I believe the level of play is worse on these than at Stars or Fulltilt.

Stu

Cheers
I might move there soon but I'm still clearing the FT bonus and I like the ring games there too at the minute.

Quick update:

Last night my internet was shaky again so hands were laggy. I lost a couple of decent pots to some chasing fish but I shrugged it off and stopped playing after a fairly short session.

Current Bankroll: $1221

Already completely fed up today.

Been getting coolered on the bubble of sng's, outdrawn on seventh in razz and stud, and just generally running cold again.

Why I can't have more than a couple of days in a row of good play is beyond me.

Bankroll is now down to $1105 with a little invested in tournaments. Another £20 of bonus will be released soon too, and I'm still in solid profit, but it's so downheartening to keep dropping back down under $1200 everytime I reach it.

Lets hope a tourney I'm in goes the distance.

Current BR: $1105

End of another day at work, back up to $1170 but should be much higher.

I went pretty deep in a couple of MTT's. I squandered one chance at a win with a stupid semi-bluff reraise 3-handed against a guy who obviously wasn't folding his made straight. The other I cashed when it got to the final two tables but then for some reason I decided that I could push really wide into a big stack and pretty much just doubled my buy-in.

Meh.

Honestly a little disappointed that I've taken a backwards step today but I'm still just $30 under $1200 so I'm not fretting yet. I still think $1350 is possible by Saturday if I can force myself to play a little tighter.

Solid start to Wednesday so far.

I've been playing purely razz cash games, and after a decent length session of full ring, I found I was up about $5. Not brilliant for the time invested.

Then I found the number one player on my buddy list sitting at a 2/4 heads up razz table.

Some background on this guy: Firstly I've seen him only a few times at the razz tables and he stook out like a saw thumb every time. Constantly calling down with 10's and rough 9's against good boards, and consistently failing to raise when it's obvious he has the best hand. Utter fish! Secondly I know he's vastly under rolled for 2/4, so he's possibly playing on scared money too.

So I open up the table and watch in horror as within 3 hands he's outdrawn me on seventh to basically double up his initial $40. In one hand I have a32 and he caps third with an 8 showing. I then catch a 5 and it gets capped again on fourth with him showing a 9. OMG. Then I blank and pair up everything and he hits a rough 8 on seventh to take it away.

The guy then laughs in the chat box and tells me how bad I am. Now normally I resist chatting to idiots but I was so frustrated with this guy that I went mad at him. After about 1 hour of name calling by him and calling me a suck out artist, I had all his chips for a $38 profit. Plus to make it sweeter he called off his remaining $20 showing trips on fifth. NICE!

So I leave because I'm fed up of arguing with this guy. As I click stand up I notice him challenging me to any heads up sit and go with a $200 buy-in. I laugh and ask him if he can really afford to risk his whole roll. I was quite impressed with that one.

As I'm writing this I've just noticed that another guy has taken a buy-in off him, and there is now a waiting list 3 strong. Good game sir.

Current Bankroll: $1232

So I played for a few hours between 1/2 and 2/4 razz and ended up with $1233 and initially reaching the $1300 mark.

I'm near collecting my next installment of $20 bonus though which will take me over $1250 all things being good.

Hopefully by the end of the day I can have the $1300 leaving me to get $50 on Friday and reach my mini-target for the week.

I'm still running quite badly at everything though so I'm impressed I'm up as much as I am. My recent games of razz have really consisted of getting owned by chasers who cant fold pairs and big cards.

Hmm, I'll update towards the end of the day hopefully with $1300.

*Edit*

About 10 mins after writing this I'm down to $1188 with about $30 invested in tournaments. A generally horrible hand did most of the damage.

2/4 razz with a really weak loose table. Third gets capped which is somehow normal for this table. I hold a23 so I'm clearly in the lead. Four players to fourth, two have an 8 showing. I catch a 4 on fourth and lead out, getting called by all three other players, two of whom bricked with high cards. The other has a board of 67.

On fifth I catch a 7 so I have everyone beaten comfortable with a made 7 and draw to the wheel. 67 guy catches an 8 and raises, the other two catch low cards and it gets capped. I'm very happy at this point. Sixth capped again unimproved, with 678 catching a 3. The other two finally fold seventh but 6783 guy catches a 2 to improve to a 6432a.

In a capped pot pretty much everywhere!!!!!

Painful.

So I'm under $1200 again and just had my aces cracked by a moron in an MTT. Grrrrrr.

The $20 bonus should take me over $1200 again but then I'm taking a break because I'm so angry right now.

Back to $1229

I'm still in a bad mood though as about $130 more should have been mine all for river suckouts and idiotic chasers. Added to the fact that I bricked so hard; I literally couldn't catch a cold.

I had a perfect seat too with a REALLY loose moron to my left who would reraise with any 3-card 8, regardless of the other upcards. I managed to get the pot capped on third at least 6 times with a much better hand only to brick 4th or 5th with moron man improving all the time.

So frustrating. I left the game when I realised I was chasing too much after this guy.

So, $1229 with $400 being bonus cleared. That means I'm up about $23o from actual play. This is ok I suppose and at least it isn't negative.

I'm going to try and put in several hundred more hands tonight at the 2/4 level in razz and see how much I can make. That is of course presuming my internet connection doesn't keep dying again.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!

Got disconnected for the umpteenth time to lose another pot and I'm fed up with internet service providers.

Bankroll has dropped to $1170 again so basically I've gone no where after about 2 weeks now.

Eugghhhh.

Back to grinding 1/2 and multi tabling razz until I'm a fair way over $1200 then make the swicth to 2/4 again.

I just can't make money to save my life right now. Very disappointing.

On a much nicer note, today is my last day of work of my summer break so I'm a free man for a week or two until uni starts.

That means much more poker if I want to! Which I guess is debatable right now haha.

Anyway, it means I'll have longer sessions so I can mix in some more MTT's which I'm happy about.

Anyhoo, my weekly goal looks to be a failure so I'm just trying to get back to $1200 by the end of the day now, all from 1/2. Hopefully I can play ok and do it pretty fast.

Back to around $1130 going into next week. I'll be playing just a little over the weekend as I'm visiting my girlfriend at uni and will be busy.

From Monday I'll be MTT'ing like a mad man and hoping to crack $1200 and then $1300 again. Of course one big win and I could shoot up considerably so that is what I'm aiming for.

An excellent Sunday.

Girlfriend let me play for a couple of hours while she went off with some friends and I took down a $20 + 2 razz tourney with 16 entrants for $160.

Nice!!!

Back to:

Current Bankroll: $1265