Saturday 31 January 2009

Tick, Tock, the end of month is nigh.

So The first month of 2009 draws towards its end and I am racing to get to the Top VIP level on Plex....thats 50,000 points total and I need about another 700....I'll make it no problem but I want to get done by 6pm so I can go and play a local live game at 7, such is the life of a poker addict like me. !! LOL
Mind you it's been a fairly calm and good last week or two so quite content really after the savage ups n downs of the first fortnight. I'm going to still be down a touch for actually playing but well covered with bonus + r'back so the bank roll will go in the right direction even if not by as much as I would have liked. Also , I will now be earning the bonus 25% faster/more too.
APAT season 3 has started and the Online league begins Sunday. It's a club(region) team based thing and I have signed up for Blackpool which might be a mistake as not enough have joined to give us the best chance, you definitely have an advantage the bigger your team. You can sign up for Blackpool here


So next week I got the first APAT National at Walsall to look forward to and of course tonights fish fest to exploit after this last 250 points to get now...grind...grind....grind.

Stay lucky chumps

Sunday 25 January 2009

Late new years review & resolution

JESUS ! Just checked out my stats from last year, to find out exactly where I made my money. Here are the year totals:

Online : +$990
Live : +$210
Staking: +$1190
Bonus & Rakeback: +$6320

Total: $8710

Quite incredible just how important a good bonus and rakeback deal is. About 3/4 of my profit coming from it. Less than a $1k up online for the WHOLE year.

So what am I going to do this year?

To be honest, haven't got any set targets.

Would like to play more well structured events live and find a game online where I feel I am capable of winning all the time LOL..... don't know if that exists, but do feel I should be able to play at Plex and grind a fair profit through using the dataminer and tableselector of eyepoker and hopefully will improve further....maybe analysing my own game is something I should do more of.

Anyway I am whittling on now, so until next time, stay lucky folks.

Friday 23 January 2009

No Posts = No News

Or pretty much so.

Its not that I haven't been playing , in fact quite the opposite, I have been playing as much as ever. Total grind on the PLOmaha Hi/Lo tables at Poker plex, multi-tabling at $20 and $40 mainly. Typical start to the month where I dived downhill and then climbed right back up and into a slight profit but the last 5 days have taken a $500 plunge which is a bit demorolising, so even after r'back+bonus only going to be up a little at this rate.
I am trying to reach the top level (7star) of the VIP reward programme at Plex , which doesn't mean much except I get points 25% faster and so earn 25% more bonus basically. Every little bit is good though !
Dissapointingly Blue Square have altered their monthly GUKPT league and it now includes the 4 weekly online games but also ALL live play at all grosvenor casinos which basically means if you cant play live regularly you have no chance in the league. I have played this league most months for the past 2 years, so feel a bit betrayed..........think I might them an email telling them, let you know how it goes.
As far as live games go, have entered the first APAT tourney at Walsall on Feb7th/8th, although still got to negotiate the passout properly for that yet.

Catch you later folks, promise to post more very soon so stay tuned and stay lucky!

Monday 5 January 2009

FA Cup and Stoke madness

Had a great weekend before the grind of work starts again.

Saturday joined the throng of blindly loyal Barrow AFC faithfull in a once in a lifetime experience to a premiership ground at MIddlesbrough. 80 coaches left Barrow as a ghost town. I expected "our" boys to get completely outclassed and probably go down 3 or 4 zip, however as it happened "our" boys got more than outclassed, I was amazed at how big the difference was. The Barrow boys would have won a 22 man brawl, as they were much stockier and heavier than the Boro lads who were all built as racing snakes and it showed on the pitch. In the Conference the Barrow donkeys might be able to kick and scrap there way in games , but on the riversides perfect grass the barrow boys were just trying to get close enough to still see the ball as Boro player after player ( especially Stuart Downing ) glided past their opponents. The fact that the final score was only 2-1 is the most amazing part as 8-0 would have been a truer reflection of the game, but it did create a lot of excitement in the Barrow 'kop' and Boro did panic just a little at the end. It would have been a great injustice but a fantastic fairy tale if "we" had pinched one and grabbed a replay in Barrow. A great day tho, wonder if it will ever happen again.

Yesterday went down to Stoke to play a great tourney ~ 226 players !! £2500 added money!! and a special £3000 prize for the top online registered player. As it happens I had a little play was above average for most of my time, but then mistimed a few moves, maybe made a slightly rash push with my JJ on the end when it ran into QQ. Afterwards I had a great time playing on the dealers choice cash game, first time I have seen one at my level and had a great time playing/learning some new games for the first time. Maltese Cross, Padooki, Irish poker, Joker Poker and also played PLOmaha Hi/Lo live for the first time. Even maages to have a little win when I hit a Royal Flush in clubs again in a game of Maltese Cross!!!.


They were a good bunch playing and were happy to explain to me the rules of the new games, some of which really make your head scratch. It reminded me how much fun poker can be, might see if we can get a local one going.


NEWS FLASH: Congrats to Paul Robinson who has just won himself a seat in the European Masters event in Tallinn next month. Good Luck and enjoy Paul !

Thursday 1 January 2009

December and year accounts

Just got back from a great w/end out at Middlesbrough and Stoke watching the FA Cup and playing a great poker tourney, more on that another time.

First here are the Accounts for December

PokerPlex : down $460
Boylepoker : up $440
Full Tilt: down $30
PokerStars: up $230
PokerTrillion: down $80
VirginPoker: down $20
Playing live: up $200
In total for playing up $300

Bonus this month of $290 and pokerplex rakeback of $270, Full Tilt rakeback about $30

So +$890 for the month.

and +$8710 for the year.

NOTES:
1. Rakeback was less than my bonus this month for the first time. Whilst this might at first seem bad it actually means I am getting more back per $1 rake. I get 30% rakeback so my bonus this month was >30% meaning I was getting the equivalent of about 63% total rakeback, which is good by any standards ( this does not include the actual value of poker plex points which probably adds about another 3%). I hope next month to increase my standard to the 7 star ranking which earns Plexpoints at even faster rate (25% quicker), increasing my rakeback upto 70%+. I will do a year analysis soon and I am sure it will show that I make more from bonus+rake than from actually winning at the table.
2. This doesn't include the Virgin festival seat that I have won, as I dont include sat prizes unless it is actual cash.