Great month and other ramblings...

Does this sound just exactly like a poker play or what? 1.) Yes definitely my life has always been chaos. 2.) Uh yeah for sure! 3.) Yep, adrenaline junkie here. 4.) Of course, visualize those wins and they'll happen. 5.) All my life and always, rules? who cares about rules. 6.) Yes, winning poker players have to be very persistent and tenacious or else they'd never stick it out through the God awful downswings. 7.) Yep biggest thing, every loss isn't failure but an opportunity to learn to do it better next time.

Now on to bragging about my amazing wonderful month! Finished with a nice bankroll and a few wins and several final tables. After 5 months of the downside of variance it's so nice to be on the good side finally. I'm actually really enjoying the game again and look forward to playing every day I can.

Merge has reopened to the US and the volume has picked up and the field has soften slightly. The site really needed some fresh errrrrr well people, let's be nice. :-)

Anyway, here's looking forward to another great month, which started with a win after midnight tonight so it was a really great way to start a new month! Onward and upward!

Oh and things are looking up for legislation too so keep on pushing!

It's good to run good!

After over five months of running consistently below EV I decided to take some time off from poker. Best thing I ever did! I took three weeks off and only played a few sit-n-goes to keep up my skill at multi-tabling. I didn't play any MTTs or cash games during this time. Breaks are good! I took the time to re-evaluate my game and my mindset. I didn't start playing again until I really found the desire to play again. That desire hit me about Wednesday of last week.

On Thursday I finished 2nd in the $3r $5.5K GTD for $770 then continued to make several other final tables. Tonight I took down the $16.50 $5K GTD for $1025. This was my first win on Merge for over $1K and it certainly feels nice.

On a side note, the above graph is earnings from zero. I won $100 in the Hero freeroll in May and I've never made a deposit. (and Chad Hills wonders why I support this money losing vice, see below.) Next stop $5K.

While Black Friday really sucked I have to say I'm not sure I would have put as much work on my game had I been able to continue playing on PokerStars, well as long as I kept winning like I was. Due to the stiffer competition on Merge since Black Friday it's been necessary to step up my game quite a bit. In the long run this is good and I feel I'm a better player because of it.

On another note, Chad Hills with focus on the family is such a self righteous ass! I commented on one of his blogs about online poker and he responded by making an insinuation that he's looked up my stats on Sharkscope and made it sound like I was a losing player. I quote: "I even looked your “handles” up on the SharkScope.com site to see how successful you’ve been in online poker, and I was left wondering why you support this money-losing vice?" Can you believe it? He's basically lying to make his case more believable. If he looked up my stats he saw where I had won but he makes it sound like I was losing. He goes on to talk about how so many that comment on his blog make out like they are winning players when they are not. I got so tilted over this I took out my frustrations on the virtual felt and the $5K take down was the result :-) If heaven is full of fools like him they can have it!!! Well he's an insignificant piece of crap as far as I'm concerned!

Until we meet again may we all continue to run good and win lots! Don't forget to do your part for online poker legislation! We need it if for no other reason than to spite the self righteous assholes!

Get off your asses!!!

Garfield by Jim Davis

A lot of people think of poker as nothing but mindless gambling and a waste of productive time and money. A lot of people are way wrong! Mathematical experts have done extensive studies proving that poker is a mind sport and game of skill just like chess and bridge. Judges in several U.S. States have ruled poker is a game of skill.

So the why does the DOJ insist that the UIGEA applies to poker? Because they are misinformed by politicians who are out for the interest of the all powerful and all contributing brick and mortar casino industry who fear online poker will cost them revenue. They are also misinformed by others like the right wing politicians who insist on not accepting poker is a game of skill and want to legislate morals and by state Attorney Generals like Preet Bharara in New York.

Poker is the most difficult game I've ever tried to master. Good players spend hours studying and reviewing and working on their game just like chess players and golfers do. It's time to put an end to this silly and senseless prohibition of poker!

Poker is a game of skill and a game which many Americans not only enjoy playing for casual entertainment but for many it is (was) their full time well paying job. Legislation and regulation of online poker will create thousands of jobs and bring in billions in federal and state tax revenue.

While I honestly wish we could just have legal unregulated poker instead of having the government interference it's just not going to happen so supporting H.R. 2366 now is the next best thing!

What can you do to help?

Write or email your senators and representative and ask them to support H.R. 2366. The Poker Players Alliance makes the job easy by having a pre written letter ready to send. All you have to do is take 2 minutes and click a couple of buttons! Click here to send the letters!

Take less than one minute to do the daily actions on 2p2! Click here!

Sign the poker petition at We the People: Click here!

Call your senators and congressman and ask them to support H.R. 2366!

Stop making silly excuses not to do these things! The three top things literally take under 5 minutes a day! Squeaky wheels get the oil! The more voices we have speaking the more likely we are to be listened to.

Narrow minds and poker skillz...

Well the battle for legislation and regulation continues. The PPA and now Fair Play USA (backed by the brick and mortar casinos) are doing a good job of getting the word to the powers that be in Washington. We are at least being heard according what the lobbyist are saying. Some of the strongest opponents are starting to come around a bit but it's still a steep climb.

Focus on the Family and other conservative groups pose strong (but basically invalid) arguments against legislation. I'm really trying to understand the mindset of people who insist on pushing their values off on other people. One of their biggest arguments is poker shouldn't be invading the family home via the internet. Oh, wow but it's okay if I leave my family at home and go to a casino to play but I can't be allowed to stay home with my husband and daughter and play online. How does this logic even make sense.

Another big argument is they try to say poker is a game of chance not skill and it's nothing but another form of gambling and online gambling is, has always been and should remain illegal. That's not even true! There were NO laws pre UIGEA which made online gambling illegal in any way. They try to use the The Interstate Wire Act of 1961 as the basis for this argument but the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Wire Act only applied to sports betting and not other online gambling. It plainly says "bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest" and even then it only applied to transferring funds via wire. Internet didn't exist in 1961 and neither did the current methods of electronic funds transfers so this law clearly doesn't apply to internet gambling. The UIGEA only makes the funds transfers between the bank and the site illegal as well. So therefore, gambling online isn't illegal only the money transferring is.

It's a waste of time arguing (commenting) on the posts/blogs of these Focus on the Family people. They are totally closed minded and will never agree with anything we say. These people are generally basically ignorant (even though some are smart in the book sense of the word and even successful) being ignorant and closed minded is what allows them to believe the way they do. It's the basic tenet of their entire belief system. If they allow themselves to consider other schools of thought they would have to realize that their basic belief system is fatally flawed.

As for skill argument, they refuse to consider that poker has been proven by many experts to be a game of skill equal to chess and bridge. Again no need to argue with them but if you've played serious poker you will readily agree that poker is a very hard game to master. especially tournament poker and sit-n-goes. Speaking of a poker tournament, there is little difference (other than the game obviously) in a poker tournament and golf tournament. In a golf tournament you pay a entry fee (buy in) there are usually administration fees included. The largest portion of the entry fee goes into a prize pool which is paid to the winner or top finishers depending on the structure. The winners are generally the most skilled golfers but alas there is an element of chance. The wind may turn your ball in a direction you didn't intend. The cut of the fairway or green my cause your ball to roll away from where you desired, etc. In tournament poker you pay a buy in with a rake (administration fee usually around 10 to 15%) the prize pool is divided among the winners according to the structure. The winners are usually the most skilled players but the dealing of the cards creates an element of chance just like the wind and grass cut do in golf. The biggest difference, I can play (or could before Black Friday) tournament poker online at home with my family. When my husband plays in a golf tournament he is generally away from home for five to seven hours. Of course if you're playing live tournament poker you're away from home quite a bit too but wasn't having the option of doing it online really nice.

Well let's keep our fingers crossed for our "one time" for poker legislation in the U.S. Please help to make our voices heard above those of our conservative opponents by doing the daily tasks posted on the 2p2 action thread found here.

This article in Forbes just came out a few hours ago: Indicted Banker and Payment Processor Fight Federal Crackdown On Online Poker With Powerful Legal Papers. These two winning their argument would be one more sweet victory for online poker in the US! Can I get a "One Time"?

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."

-Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) U.S. President.

This quote is attributed to Lincoln but there is no real proof he actually said it but nonetheless I find it appropriate and quite correct.

Cheating, tapping the aquarium and other ramblings...

All the buzz in the poker world right now is about José “Girah” Macedo scamming high stakes cash players for over $30,000. Basically it boils down to a few young immature poker players working together to scam some people who unfortunately trusted them. More information can be found here. It's sad that this happens and while it does shed a bad light on poker, and particularly online poker, one should realize that cheating, scamming and lying goes on in most fields to one extent or the other. How many people have gotten ahead in the corporate world by stabbing someone else in the back, plenty. How many people are guilty of some form of insider trading, plenty. Actually my guess is more crooked business goes on in the corporate world in a day than happens in the poker world in a year. I also think it's over looked more in the corporate world, if not almost expected. You cheat and scam in the poker world you will be caught and exposed and blacklisted by everyone in the field. No excuses are good enough for people caught cheating in the poker world. I really commend everyone on 2+2 for getting to the bottom of this and exposing the cheaters. The saddest part in my opinion is that the guys involved were winning players who should of been able to make an honest living from just playing poker and had no real need to cheat in order to make money. Unfortunately one of the lessons most people learn from this is to watch out who you trust, which is a shame since I believe most poker players are pretty trustworthy people.

Now for people who insist on tapping the aquarium. I was playing in a 10NL cash game earlier and there was this sweet fishcake at the table. He was running 48/10 or so over quite a number of hands and he would get lucky and win a pot or two then lose it all back. I lost some money to him in an earlier hand but had won all of it back plus almost another buy in. Then some brilliant idiot decides to say something like "...and that's why you never get ahead". I relied with shhh! stop tapping and this big mouth goes on to say the guy doesn't know the difference. Well the guy immediately tightens up and I wasn't able to win any more off of him. I've seen this happen so much since I had to start playing on Merge and I just wish people would realize how stupid it is to do this. Poker players win off people who play the game badly and when someone points out to them that they are playing badly it's screws it up for everyone else. So people if you can't say something nice to someone at the table don't say anything at all! Keep your tilted ranting to yourself and STFU!

As for me and my game, not much new there. I'm still running like a three legged dog on an icy road in MTTs. I started playing some cash, as I mentioned earlier, and cash games seem to be going much better than MTTs so for now I'm playing cash five or six days a week and only playing low stakes MTTs one or two days a week. Hopefully my bankroll will begin to improve, as well as my luck in MTTs.

Well good luck and hope you all win, win, and win some more!

You don't know what you've got till it's gone...

AFTER - AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!

BEFORE - HOW GREAT IS WAS!

Last night I picked up a copy of Bluff Magazine from Sept. 2009 I had laying around the house. As I flipped through the pages seeing all the ads from PokerStars and Full Tilt I realized how much we don't appreciate what we have until it's gone.

We could have gotten behind the Poker Players Alliance and pushed harder for legislation before the DOJ shut down these sites but we were happy enough with things the way they were. We had what we thought were two great sites to play on and getting money on and off was very easy. So why did we need government interference in our poker lives. Well I think we all learned why on April 15.

As I thumbed through the pages of Bluff I remembered how I looked forward to every Sunday and the Sunday tournaments. How I normally made a nice amount of money each week on PokerStars. How great the software was and how smoothly it ran. How after a session I could go back and load games in the Universal Replayer for an easy review. I thought about what great promotions PokerStars always had going and most importantly how much I trusted them. I thought about all the women I met (virtually) through the PokerStars Women's League, not to mention how much money I made off those women's games. I wondered if I realized how great it was at the time.

Thanks to our nanny government all that is gone now. We now have only small sites to play on with little volume and little game choice. The software is slow and buggy and hand history and in game last hand review is terrible. I have to say some of the sites do have good customer service but some are terrible. Getting money on and off is slow and difficult and making decent money seems almost impossible and can these sites be trusted?

We can go on this way or we can get busy and push hard for legislation. I'm am trying to do my part by contacting members of the house and senate asking them to support legislation. You can do your part too. The Poker Players Alliance has an ongoing thread on 2+2 poker forum where you can get links and names for senator's and representative's Facebook pages and email addresses to ask for their support. You can find the thread here, please help by making these contacts as often as you can.

Until we get legislation I'm afraid things won't get a whole lot better, so keep pushing your representatives and senators. Make your voice heard!

Legalize it and live and let live...

America's prisons are overrun with people who committed victim-less crimes. I have no idea how many tax dollars are spent prosecuting these crimes but I'm sure it's in the millions. The DOJ's recent indictment of the three major poker sites and the anti-online gambling laws are just one more way the U.S. infringes on peoples rights and freedoms.

So you want to legally play poker online, why should you not be able to. You want to smoke pot legally, you should be able to. Then there is prostitution, regulate it and tax it and protect the women. If someone wants to watch porn in the privacy of their own homes they should have no one trying to stop them but there are plenty of people who would stop this too if they could.

First off there is the tax revenue and keeping people safe with proper regulation. Can you even imagine how much tax money the U.S. could bring in from online poker, legalized pot and prostitution. I'm sure it would be billions of dollars a year. With proper regulation everyone who be much safer than they are now.

The point is whether you think these things are right or wrong is irrelevant, people are going to find a way to do these whether they are legal or not. Why not make them safe and make tax money from them. Our government needs to stop spending so much time and money trying to legislate morals and more time trying fix all things that are wrong in this country.

On a funny note, notice how all these things start with P, so...

Legalize it!

Pot

Poker

Prostitution

Porn

WSOP another year of no go...

Well I had hoped for 2011 to be my first year at the World Series of Poker but after April 15 and the shut down of PokerStars and Full Tilt my plans were aborted. After losing my job in October and then losing my second job, playing and winning online at PokerStars, there was just no way to swing the trip. This is the third summer since I started playing poker that I've watched the WSOP from afar. All I can do now is hope that "maybe next year" I'll make it there.

Hoping for next year is really getting old. I didn't get to one single live tournament I wanted to play this entire year so far. I'm hoping and planning to go to Tunica for the World Poker Open, which is actually to date the only tournament event I've ever been able to attend after going in 2009, so let's hope this one comes through.

Finished 3rd in the $1000 guarantee tonight on Cake Poker, first final table in awhile. I've just had trouble getting any momentum going since Black Friday. Maybe things will start to turn around soon. After all I'm sure I have earned quite a few Sklansky Bucks over the last 6 weeks with the crappy way I've been running.

My attitude has improved some after taking a week off from poker, but it's still hard at times not to get pissed off and fed up about this whole online poker thing.

Well here's to maybe next year and good luck to all who are lucky enough to make it to the WSOP this year.

Time for a change...

The title of this blog is not a pun on Obama's hope and change but seriously how is that hope and change working out for you. For me it isn't working out well at all. I've purposely avoided discussing my personal feelings about life after "Black Friday" but I guess it's about time I talk about it. Things have pretty much sucked since that day. I loved playing online poker and I loved playing at PokerStars. In the beginning of my poker playing days I chose to play on Players Only/Cake because at that time the Cake network was much bigger and better than it is today and I felt more comfortable playing there than I did on PokerStars and Full Tilt. For a new player the network was much softer and fields were much smaller so it was a great place to learn the game.

In August of 2009 I made my first deposit on PokerStars and then in September I deposited on Full Tilt. I was still a pretty big fish in those days so for the first few months I pretty much deposited, lost it in a month or two and made another deposit. Then in February 2010 things started to turn around on PokerStars and it was all uphill after that. That is until April 15, 2011. For more of how I began playing poker I cover it here in my first blog.

I had played on Carbon a little during the first year I played on PokerStars so it was an easy move there for me and I even had a few dollars on the site. I knew it wouldn't be the same but I never imagined how bad it would really be. I had advanced to the mid-stakes MTTs and MTSNGs on Stars and had a comfortable bankroll for those stakes. Now I'm not comfortable having much money online due to all the uncertainty so like so many people I'm back to playing low and even micro stakes and it's really funny how much harder it is to go backward than it was when I played those stakes a year or so back. Not to mention I've been running bad and just can't get in enough volume to balance the variance.

Most days I just feel like giving up online poker completely but then what? It's also like admitting defeat and I hate doing that. I just feel like the cat who's been kicked to the curb. I really don't know what to do with my time and I'm just losing my love of the game. PokerStars was an amazing poker site with great customer service and terrific volume. The games were great, the guarantees were wonderful and it's so enjoyable playing there. No other site can even come close to comparing.

So for now I'm still trying to figure it out and decide what I want to do. So much is just up in the air. I honestly don't think that the site available now will be around too much longer for US players, I hate to say it but it just doesn't look good.

For what it's worth I believe strongly that Caesar's entertainment and their friend and puppet Harry Reid had a big hand in the DOJ going after PokerStars and Full Tilt. Reid has introduced a new bill that will highly benefit his home state of Nevada. By ridding Caesar's of their two biggest competitors, PokerStars (and their partnership with Wynn) and Full Tilt, the road is paved with gold for Caesar's when and if federal legislation is past. I'm amazed, disgusted and appalled that our government has become what it has and both sides are equally to blame. More about Reid's attempts can be found here.

For now I wait and see...

Coming Soon....

I'm working on a review of the remaining poker rooms opened to US players. I mentioned this in a blog I did on Wednesday but Blogger has been having technical difficulties and that last post seems to have disappeared.

I am waiting to hear back from Doyle's Room on a few questions and I need to find out a couple of things from Bodog and Cake and then I'll do the review after I've played a couple of games on Doyle's Room.

What's next?

The action of the US Department on Justice has had a profound affect on the lives of many poker players, as I and many have discussed many times since April 15th. At this point all that can be said, thought, speculated and surmised has already been repeated in many a blog. Myself and others have written about using this time to take our game to the next level by study and review. Many have written about having to move out of the country to continue playing online.

Online pros have lost their lucrative contracts with the three poker sites involved in the indictment and they are either having to leave the country or figure out how to continue to make a living doing what they love. Others still have large sums of money tied up on the two sites that haven't paid out yet. All this said, yet again, it's time to figure out what we do now.

I recently purchased The Poker Mindset by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger. I'm now three chapters in and I really wish I had purchased this book two years ago. Since April 15th my mindset has been anything but productive for my game. I'm so pissed off and feel so cheated that I tilt over the least little thing. Why, because I don't want to be playing on Carbon Poker or Bodog or any other site except PokerStars. PokerStars was my constant companion for the last two years. When I was down or upset PokerStars was there with thousands of players and hundreds of games to play to keep my mind off of all the things that were bothering me. I totally enjoyed playing there, well except maybe during the worst of my downswings but even then I still didn't want to play anywhere else. Poker seems to have lost so much of it's allure for me right now.

So to the title of this blog, nope I don't have an answer but I wish I did. I have no idea what's next. At this point I trudge on and study and work on my game. I try out the others sites in hopes of finding one I enjoy half as much as I enjoyed PokerStars. I study and read and review (if I could just find a site with a decent method of saving hand histories so I can review my games). I hope the DOJ doesn't decide to shut down the remaining sites but that is a possibility that we all have to be aware of. Most of all I stop and I realize this is yet one more bump in the road of life. I realize how many other things I have to be thankful for and most importantly I work on my mindset. I do my best to stop being pissed off and accept what has happened and do what I can to improve the situation while accepting that what I can do is minimal.

I've been asked quite a bit about other sites and depositing and rakeback and all the general questions. While I'm no expert in online poker sites I do know quite a bit about how to find a new site and deposit and get rakeback and all those things so my next blog will be a review of each site still available in the U.S. (based solely on my experience and opinion) along with how you sign up, get rakeback and deposit. Until that update if you are interested in Cake or any of the sites on the Merge network please go through Rake the Rate using my referral code (a girl's gotta make money where a girl can) here. Click on the tab that says Rakeback Offers and choose the site you're interested in and follow the instructions. Merge pays 35% rakeback and Cake 33% (I will tell you now I'm a bit leery of Cake) by using my link you get 35% (on Merge) of your rake and I get 4%. You can refer people using your referral link after you sign up and you will get 4% referral rakeback on any of your referrals and I will get 1% from everyone you refer, certainly a win/win situation for us all.

Let us trudge on and hopefully prosper.

Lives turned upside down!

I'm trying to put my best effort forward and move on since the dreaded April 15th but it's getting harder and harder. I've been playing on Carbon Poker and basically getting nowhere fast. The games are not plentiful so it's very difficult to get in enough volume to beat the variance and it's just not much fun. Nothing imports correctly to PokerTracker. The only way I can review my games in through PokerTracker and that's pretty painful. All in all nothing is the same.

I've read many blogs about the effects this poker crackdown has had on people and it's heartbreaking. People are having to leave their families and friends to move out of the country so that they can keep playing and making their living. Others don't have that option and we're stuck trying to figure out if there is anyway we can make money on the sites left. Many have just stopped playing online and are playing live but not all of them have the option of playing live. I can't tell you how many people I've heard of who are in someway disabled who played poker to make a living rather than living off the government and tax payers. Many have physical disabilities and some have mild mental disabilities that prevent them from holding down a regular job. Through online poker they were able to make a good living in the privacy of their own homes at a pace that was comfortable for them. Now they have no income and no choice.

It angers me when I hear back from my congressmen and senators and they refer to poker as gambling and inform me that it's illegal. I don't consider myself a gambler at all. I don't even play the lottery. When I go to casinos I rarely play slots or table games and if I do it's only for a very small amount of money. I play poker because I can win money at it and I enjoy it. Court after court has ruled that poker is a game of skill not chance yet it's being lumped in with all online gambling and being held prisoner by our justice department. When will this insanity stop?

I urge everyone to email your congressmen and senators and the white house. First send the canned email from the PPA but then follow it up with an email telling your own story. Explain how the crackdown has effected you personally. Let them know that you are poker player not a gambler! Then send them the same email once a week. If you're in a position where you can try to get your story in the local media in someway please try to do so. The best way we can get legislation and regulation of online poker is by continuing to be a very loud and squeaky wheel. Start squeaking loudly please! Below is the link to the PPA take action page please start sending emails now!

http://theppa.org/takeaction/

The Rug...

I've waited over a week now to write about the happenings of Black Friday (the day the online poker world stood still) because I didn't want to write yet another blog expressing anger or whining. So until I had time to take everything in and process it and get over being so angry I decided not to write anything. Am I still angry, yes of course. The rug has been pulled out from under me and I'm still trying the figure out how to proceed. Did I shed tears over this, yes I did and I may continue to. Neither of these emotional response will actually accomplish anything though so I'm doing my best to put them to rest.

What now? One of my earliest responses was one of my best responses and that was oh well now I'll have plenty of time to catch up on all those PokerVT videos I haven't had time to watch because I've been spending so much time playing. I've seen several people quickly react and cancel their training site memberships and decide to quit playing online for now. For me I plan on doing the opposite. I'm taking this time to work on my game as much as I can. There are still online poker rooms where I can play and as long as they're available I will continue to play online. I won't be playing too much, nor will I ever keep much money online but I will keep playing enough to get the practice and continue to improve my game.

I think improving my live game at this point is important as well. I've always wanted to start playing in a nearby bar league but with trying to keep my star status and increase my online game volume I never seemed to have time, now I have plenty of time. Bar league play is very much like freeroll play from what I've heard but I've always enjoyed freerolls :-). The league near me has some decent prizes and live packages to play for so hopefully the play won't just be terrible. I also figure I might meet some people who play home game tournaments and maybe I'll get invited.

I think, or at least hope, that poker legislation and regulation will happen and hopefully it will happen soon and when it does I hope to have taken my game to the next level because it will create some more fishfest for those of us who've taken this opportunity to improve to really make some money.

Today I read Dusty Schmidt's blog "Keep Going" and this is basically what he is saying as well. We can do as Dusty says and ride the escalator going down or we can ride the one going up. I choose the one going up!

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."
Harriet Tubman

Best Month Ever and the appendix...

Well March turned out to my best poker month ever. My profit for March was more than all of last year. I made Gold Star status on PokerStars and had a great month overall.

I still haven't binked a "big one" yet but at least I'm getting closer. I've had a 4th place finish, a 7th place finish and 14th and 17th place finishes in MTTs with over 1000 runners in the last 45 days. So hopefully a first will happen very soon.

I even managed to finally take down a $6.50 90 knockout on Full Tilt in March. Sounds weird that this is a big deal but I don't play on Full Tilt very much and even though I've played quite a few 90 KOs I've never actually won one until last month. I did win the non turbo non KO $5.50 90 man once but just never managed to win a 90 KO. So one more accomplishment in a great month.

Had a little set back on Monday. I had to go to the emergency room with bad abdominal pain and it turned out as the E.R. Doctor said "my appendix had gone south". I had it removed on Monday afternoon and had to spend the night in the hospital. I must say hospitals are the noisiest places on earth. I was so happy to come home yesterday and get some rest. Luckily my appendix hadn't ruptured so the surgery was laproscopic and I only have 4 small incisions. Most normal people get 3 incisions but as anyone who knows me is well aware of I'm not normal so I got 4 instead of 3.

Well here's to hoping for an even better April....

As anyone who plays poker will attest to poker can be a brutal game with some brutal beats. Some days are so stressful and despite your best efforts nothing seems to go right. Other days every flip goes your way. I'd like to say I'm getting more and more used to it but I doubt that's the truth. I don't know if I'll ever totally get used to the stress and the tilt and the bad beats that seems so unfair. I'll continue to play and to try to improve and detach emotions from my game as much as I can but it's not easy.

I've had a really good month so far actually. I finished 7th in the $11r $50K for a nice 4 figure sum. I also had a deep run in two MTTs on Full Tilt and I accomplished something I've tried for ages to accomplish and oddly enough never have and that is I won a $6.50 90 man KO. So odd, I've had every final table finish several different times but I never managed to win one. I've won several 180 man MTSNGs on PokerStars and even a 1000 runner MTT on Stars but for some reason the 90 KOs alluded me until Monday night. I reached the final table in 9th place with less than 10 bbs and just sat patiently and waited for the right spots and finally got to the final three. I went into heads up with a 4 to 1 chip disadvantage but managed to take it down. My 7th place finish in the $11r was exciting and so was my 4th place finish in the $1r 6 max $2K but honestly I was more excited about finally winning a 90 KO. I think because I tried unsuccessfully for so long.

Well the month is almost over and this Sunday PokerStars is bringing back the Sunday Women's $55 with a new $5K guarantee and it will be nice to play with the ladies again. This is also Turbo Takedown Sunday and since the ladies game starts at 1:00 pm est I might take a shot at the Sunday Warm Up.

Well on to more pokering.

The Six Ps....

Someone once told me the 6 Ps of management, Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Well I've been thinking and there 6 Ps of poker success as well. All this has been said many times but by putting it in Ps maybe it's easier to remember.

Proper bankroll management, the most important aspect of your poker career. Without it you will always be broke. There a several good web sources for this P so I won't go into it here but here are some links: http://www.pokerlistings.com/poker-strategy-articles/bankroll-management and my favorite: http://www.pocketfives.com/blogs/jennifear/ and the ultimate Jesus rules: http://pokerbankrollblog.com/chris-ferguson-challenge.htm

Patience, next to bankroll management patience is the next important thing you have to master to succeed in poker. You may sit through who knows how many hands before you get anything playable. Your stack may start diminishing right before your eyes while you wait but if you are patient and wait for the right spot you will win more than you lose. Playing online helps because you can play several tables at once so you will usually have something going on on one or more tables. One thing I see so many people do is get really impatient when they lose a big hand and big chunk of their stack and just shove on the next hand. This is usually a mistake, wait for a few hands or a good spot and then get it in. If you push trash the next hand after a big loss you're going to get called a lot lighter because everyone will assume it's a tilt shove.

Perseverance, the old adage "if at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again" is never anymore true than in poker. "Poker's a day to learn and a lifetime to master." ~Robert Williamson III, this is so true. Don't expect to read a few books and/or watch a few strategy videos and go online or to the casino and win a fortune. You might get really lucky and win a big tournament but it's luck not skill in most cases and you can't win consistently on luck alone. Keep trying and keep studying, reviewing and learning and most importantly playing and playing some more. If you're following the first P you won't go broke while you're learning.

Planning, when you get dealt a hand plan out what you will do with it. If you raise with it think about the "what ifs". Don't just look at your hand and think oh great I have pocket jacks and I'm going to win a big pot. Pay attention to the action before you and then decide what to do with your hand. If you're in early position and the first to act make a raise but don't be set on playing them a certain way. There are only two hands I never fold pre-flop and that's AA and KK assuming I'm not on some exact satellite bubble with a few short stacks. Don't get married to your hand before you see what others are going to do. Think about how you will proceed on different flops, turns and rivers. Plan, don't be impulsive.

Pause, before every action pause and think your moves through. Never make rash actions. Think about what will happen next if you make this call on the flop etc. If you've ever watched Chris "Jesus" Ferguson you will notice that before every action he pauses for the exact same amount of time. This always gives him a minute to think before making a play and by pausing the same amount of time he doesn't give away tells.

Premonition, no I don't mean E.S.P. what I do mean is our sub-conscience mind sees and stores things that our conscience mind doesn't even notice. When we're involved in a hand our sub-conscience may be screaming fold you fool or call he's bluffing. Listen to this and you will see more times than not your hunch is correct because it's not a hunch. Your mind recognizes something in your opponents actions that don't make sense based on things you've observed in the past. Never be stubborn enough not to listen.

Well for those who've been playing awhile none of this is anything new but for any newer player may you find it helpful.

Moving on up....

Just finished a bit over 10K hands of cash since starting back to playing cash. After several fairly successful days of full ring cash games I stupidly decided to try 6 max, bad idea! I lost some money but still managed to stay in the black and maintain a positive BB/100.

Today I switched back to full ring and my first session of 562 hands went really well with a $108 profit. Full ring is so much less aggressive and softer than 6 max. The variance is very obviously lower. I seem to stress out and tilt much less at full ring. So full ring it is for now.

I like the faster pace of 6 max but I just don't do as well and tend to run into more decent opponents than I do in full ring. Another thing is I can play 6 tables of full ring pretty easily but I can only comfortably handle 4 tables of 6 max. So while 6 max moves faster with the 2 extra tables of full ring I think my hands per hour are about the same.

I've still played some MTTs and SNGs with mixed results. After playing cash where I can take a break whenever I please and stop and start my sessions when I want it's tough to be tied down to a tournament. I also get more stressed out in tournaments. I'll still continue to play some but I'm really going to concentrate on my cash game for now. I would love to get in another 10K hands by next Sunday but that will take some work and commitment. If I try hard I should be able to do it.

Well enough for now, next update at 20K hands.

Girls Rule!!!

Well I have to say after two months of runbad February was much improved. I finished the month up in tournaments and in cash. Yes I said in cash, I'll discuss this little wrinkle later on. As anyone who knows anything about me and poker knows, up and cash games are not usually found in the same sentence where I'm concerned but more about that later (cliffhanger...).

In February I participated in a $4.40 180 man challenge (games were played on PokerStars) through Full Contact Poker (www.fullcontactpoker.com). You could either go for it alone or have a partner. I choose to have a partner, my friend Rose. There were 14 teams for a total of 22 participants competing. All were men except Rose and I , thus the title of this post. Well to make a long story short (aren't you thankful) Rose and I won. We will each receive $225 for our efforts. Each team or individual had to complete 30 games and the top 25 counted. I played 19 and Rose played 11. Our total score was 666 (too funny huh?). Many of the guys are great players and beating them was no easy feat. Needless to say this win did wonders for my attitude after two months of runbad.

Now for the part about cash games. Eight days ago I decided to give 50NL (.25/.50) full ring cash games a try. Previously, and unsuccessfully, I had played 6 max cash games and done rather poorly. Well so far I have played 5,383 hands with a winrate of 5.81BB/100 and a $312.90 profit. I am simply amazed! I am actually enjoying playing cash games online and winning some, will wonders never cease. While a small sample size of 5,383 hands is not enough to really say I'm a winning cash game player at least it's a step in the right direction. I could just be on one hell of a heater but let's hope not or at least hope it last awhile. As you will see in the graph below I have been running a bit above EV.

Well hopefully my next update won't be about cash games going straight to hell. Until later, may the flop be with you.

Well I should have known better...

I've never liked STTs and why I thought I could stick with grinding them is beyond me. I seem to have started this year off on the wrong foot. The STT grinding was my 2nd attempt at something that just didn't work for me. So it's time to re-group and get on track.

I did decently well last year and ended with a small profit. So I've basically decided to improve on what was working. I will play what I want when I want and I'll work to improve that which is already working.

I love MTTs and MTSNGs and that is what I will play. You STT grinders and cash players can have those games and good luck to you. I don't know how you do it. As an MTT and MTSNG player I will have to just grow to love that crazy thing called variance. I will make every attempt possible to increase my volume and improve my game but I will play MY game. I will do what makes me happy and to hell with what anyone else thinks I should do.

I had hoped to be back to playing the PokerStars women's league games this month but PokerStars disappointed all the more serious women players by changing to the league to attract new women to PokerStars by making the league games micro stakes. I'm very surprised after the former league seemed to be successful that they ignored us with this change. They say they will be reinstating the $5.50 and $55 buy in games at some point but so far nothing. I think Stars ignored a fundamental aspect of good business by ignoring their existing paying customers and chose to spend their efforts to attract new customers instead. PokerStars marketing needs to send some staff members back to business school.

Well until next time, may your cards be live and your pots monsters!

Grinding the $6.50s on PokerStars

Well I'm amazed at myself, okay for those of you who grind out 500+ games a day go ahead and start laughing now, I played 103 $6.50 9 man turbos since late Sunday night, over 49 hours to be exact. I didn't do great only up about $1.90, go ahead I'll wait while you laugh some more, but it beats losing. I'm playing 8 to 9 tables at a time now so it's been pretty easy to get the 100 games in. I have committed to play 1000 of these this month and this is a pretty decent start.

Funniest thing is despite only being up $1.90 I made the bottom of the High Orbit Leaderboard on Star's Battle of the Planets, 86th place. So funny seeing my name there. Not huge but feels good no less.

The most games I've ever played in a month is 450 across all sites so playing 100 over 49 hours is a big jump in volume for me. I had to really push myself and I'll have to continue to push myself, especially through the downswings, but in the end it will be worth it.

Hopefully I can make at least gold star this month and if I get in 1000 of the $6.50s and a few other games I should make it. I'm getting sick of looking at that silver star every month.

Well here's to the grind.... wish me luck!

SKLANSKY BUCKS

Well first off after a rough go with the bankroll challenge, well not too bad really, I've decided trying to do it on PokerStars is too difficult because that's where my bankroll is and where I play to make money. Also sorting the challenge games from my regular games on Stars using PokerTracker just proved extremely difficult once I moved up to the $3.40 games. So I have put it on hold for now and I will start it back up on Full Tilt the first of February. I don't have a bankroll to speak of on FTP, only about $75 and I need to start winning on there just to prove that I can and build a bankroll on there so moving the challenge to FTP just makes sense. I made around $50 in the challenge on Stars by the way.

So now for the topic of this blog, Sklansky bucks and of course variance. This has been my worst online poker month in like.... forever! No, this isn't a whine post! It happens, no one can run good all the time and it was just my turn. If you don't understand variance and learn to cope with it you'll never make it in poker.

Sklansky bucks is a really interesting way to think about variance.

The official definition of Sklansky Bucks is as follows:

"Sklansky bucks are theoretical money won or lost based on the Fundamental Theorem of Poker. The FTOP is discussed in The Theory of Poker. Basically, if you lose a hand but your opponent made mistakes, such as drawing to a flush without proper pot odds, you may lose the pot but you have earned Sklansky bucks by causing your opponent to make a mistake. On the flip side. If you are drawing without odds but you get lucky and draw out on your opponent, you win the pot, but you lose Sklansky bucks."

from: http://www.sklanskybucks.com/

So that said I am due for some serious cash out in Sklansky bucks and I will hopefully collect this weekend and improve my outcome for January. I will be playing in the Turbo Takedown on Sunday after winning my seat this month in the first satellite I played for 500 FPPS. I am working on a Sunday Million seat and this time if I win one I will be playing. So here's to breaking the Sklansky bank and cashing in those bucks.

Below is my EV graph for January the blue line is net expected won in chips and the pink line is actual chips won, so as you can see I was definitely running a bit below expected value. My Sklansky bank runneth over.

The Challenge

After more contemplation and more run bad I decided to wage my own bankroll challenge on PokerStars. Starting with $100 and building to $1000.

I am now on day 6. Things are going okay but the last couple of days have been a bit rough. This was easier the first couple of times I did it than it is now. I think I have less patience with the micro stakes and the micro payouts than I did before but I'm also trying to adhere to stricter bank roll management this time.

I hope to increase my volume during this challenge and I am striving for a minimum of 30 games per day.

Here is how it goes:

I will play only:

60%*
$1 45 man sngs

15%*
$2.20 180s

10%*
.25/.50 limit cash games (can be limit holdem, 8 game or HORSE)

15%*
$1 and $2 MTTs or non turbo MTsngs

I will drop down if I lose 1/2 of my BR (original $100) by either changing to $1.75 9 man games or dropping to $.55 45s.

*I reserve the right to change the percentages as needed, as I may decide to do only the 45s :-)

Here are the results so far:

Bankroll Challenges

Grayson Physioc aka Spacegravy is working on a $100 bankroll challenge and doing videos on his journey for PokerVT. This made me curious about my own past bankroll issues so I looked back at one of my own from last year. I was curious about how I did it and what I played so went through my PT3 to find the results.

On February 1, 2010 I was totally broke on PokerStars, I had been playing on there since August 2009 and I had done nothing but lose. I was fed up and frustrated so I declared to make my last deposit and I only deposited $30. I started winning and by the end of March I had turned $30 into $1098 and I haven't deposited since.

I just looked back through my games to see what I played and I started out with a few $1 45s and quickly moved to a combination of $3.40 9 and 10 man sngs, $3.25 45s, $2.20 180s and some $3.30 27s. I played mostly these for the first month and by the end of February my bankroll on Stars was up to $372.

In March I started adding in some $5.50 27s and 18s and an occasional $4.40 180 and continued to win. On March 19 I played the $4.40 4 max 1000 cap MTT and won it for $640. This was a very nice bankroll booster and I ended March with a bankroll up to $1098. I withdrew $500 in April for a trip to Tunica for some live poker where I won about $1000.

I owe a tremedous amount of my success in poker to PokerVT and the pros there. PokerVT is hands down the best tournament training site online.

While anyone will notice I didn't practice traditional bankroll management guidelines during these two months but the way I did it worked for me. I also didn't get in a large volume of games either. At that time I typically played only 3 tables at a time.

With patience, discipline and perseverance anyone can turn $30 into $1000 in poker if you're willing to learn.

Graphs and charts of winnings below:

Goodbye 2010, Hello 2011

Well my first full year of playing poker for real money has come to an end and overall I can't complain. In March I won my first (and unfortunately last for the year) big field MTT when I took down the $4.40 4 max for $640. After a slight losing month in April I continued to finish each month with a profit until last month where I finished slightly in the red.

I've learned a lot this year and my game has improved considerably. I'm certainly not where I hope to be by this time next year but hopefully I will continue to win more and more. Poker is a never ending challenge and online poker is truly challenging. I've had moments where I just wanted to quit and moments where I never wanted to quit when things were going so well. Poker is tough roller coaster to ride but hopefully the end results will make the uphill climb well worth the struggle.

I've made some truly great poker friends and found a great support network of fellow players. I can't stress more how important it is to find others to share your love of poker with and to bounce hands and plays off of. Thanks to everyone who's made this year so great with your friendship and support.

In a few days I'll post my goals for 2011 and for this month. Right now I'm taking a bit of a break to decide which game to stick with. This has been a constant battle for me and one of the biggest hindrances to my success in poker. I truly believe specialization is the best way to become a good player but I've just struggled with finding the game for me.

Good luck to everyone in 2011! May all your poker dreams come true.