The Decision!

Wow it's been awhile since I've written a blog post. Well I wrote a couple but decided not to publish them since I felt they were unnecessarily negative and served no good purpose. I'm really good about blogging when things are going well and I have something to brag about but I don't blog much when things are going bad or just not so great. 


Variance reared it's ugly head the beginning of May and it's all been downhill since with little recovery. I think the runbad has improved and I've made a few final tables but no wins or decent cashes so my bankroll took a hard hit. As a result I made a decision to go with Imawhale.com staking group. I've looked into other staking groups before but I've always decided against them because I didn't want to have to worry about getting knee deep in makeup and I didn't feel that there were enough positive aspects of the groups I've had offers from. Imawhale is different, they reset makeup after each set of 300 games so you don't end up up to your eyeballs owing them every dime you make. They also have a Skype group for the MTT players and it's a great group of guys (yeah as usual I'm the only female) all of whom are good winning players, some even great winning players. We can share hands and strategy and help each other to improve. The support is great! If anyone is looking for MTT or cash game backing I highly recommend this group. 


I really think this has been one of the best decisions I've made in a long time. I'm really feeling good about poker again and looking forward to working with this group. I've never fully understood why so many poker players were staked but I'm starting to really understand it now. So here's to all the good that's to come! 

Up, up and away...

Well looks like the graph is moving the right direction. After a fairly slow month it's finishing up with a bang. Tonight I finished 4th in the $22 $17.5K guaranteed and 8th in the Sunday High Roller $60K guaranteed for a total of $2993 for the day bringing my total profit for the month up to $3666.  So far this year I've made just over $11K.


I really feel like my play has improved considerably. I've had a few coaching session over the last few weeks and they've help tremendously. I'm more willing to make riskier plays when necessary and I seem to be getting the timing of these plays right more often than not. I made a pretty dumb mistake tonight in the $17.5K which probably cost me a thousand or so, yep costly mistake. It was due to a couple of my worst leaks, 1. Acting too fast and 2. Not fully thinking through the villains range in that situation. I was also being a bit of an aggrotard with that play. Live and learn though, mistakes might cost me but at least I think I'm learning from them.


One more day to go so maybe I'll get lucky and win some more money tomorrow. Until then....


Edit 4/30: Finished 3rd in the $33 $6K guarantee tonight for another $740. Ran like God in that game until I ran my AJs into 99 and whiffed. Oh and I forgot about swapping some money to Hero so my actual profit for the month was actually about $4100 before the $740 tonight which actually counts for May since the game finished after midnight. 

Black Friday One Year later...

This time last year was one sad sad sad day for online poker in the U.S. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first found out, I doubt I'll ever forget it. It's kind of like when Elvis died, yeah I'm that old, or when Princess Diana died. I remember where I was and what I doing when I heard about those two tragedies too.

I was just starting to actually become a consistent winner at the game. On Black Friday I was getting ready to go out and run some errands and looked at my phone and saw an email from Lupe Soto and LIPS about the indictments. I remember throwing my phone on the bed a saying some things about it. I didn't realize the full extent of what was happening until a couple of hours later when I got home and saw all the talk on Skype, Facebook and Twitter and realized I couldn't register for any games on PokerStars.

I had over $4000 in my account and of course panicked a bit about that. I tried to make a withdrawal but later went back and cancelled it. One of my very first reactions, and this was way before anyone knew about the mess Full Tilt was in, was thank God my money is on PokerStars. I always felt that it was safe and that I would eventually get it. As everyone knows PokerStars came through and had everyone paid in a very short period of time.

PokerStars was starting SCOOP and I had already won a couple of satellite seats through the blogger freerolls and I was looking forward to the SCOOP games. It was the first time I was actually rolled to play most of the mid stakes games and I had great hopes of doing well. The ladies Sunday $55 had just started back up and I had final tabled 2 of the first 3 games and had gotten to play with Vanessa Selbst and Liv Boeree, I had even busted Liv in one the game and had gotten doubled up by Vanessa in another. These things like everything to do with Stars was over thanks to corporate greed, political corruption and government meddling in our private lives. Thousands of professional online players were out of work in the worse economy in decades. A billion dollar industry was shut down and all for what? I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Well that's the past, it's still sad but it's over and there is nothing we can do about it. On to the present, of course I'm still playing online and I'll continue to as long as there is a place to play. It's been a rough year with lots of poker ups and downs. I've managed to bust a bankroll more than once during the year but I had a good month in October and the last couple of months have been the best ever. Hopefully the DOJ will leave the remaining sites alone for awhile and things will continue on an upward trend. My game has never been better and it's improving daily. I have to say I don't think my game would be where it is without Black Friday. Making money on PokerStars was so much easier than it has been on Merge. For so long the competition was so tough there was no choice but to work hard on improvements. So I guess as they say every cloud has a silver lining and when one door closes another one opens.

Nevada and now New Jersey seem to be making great strides in legalizing online poker within their states and maybe this year we'll finally see some good federal legislation pushed through. We can continue to work for it and to hope but at least the states are starting to move in the right direction.

Well Happy Black Friday anniversary to everyone, such a sad day it was.

March Madness 2012...

At the beginning of the month I wasn't sure how much I was to even going play Poker Maximus events but luckily on Sunday, Mar. 11 I decided to play a few games. I bought into the $33 event 23 with only a $167 bankroll, not a bankroll strategy I'd actually recommend. I ended up finishing in 3rd for my best cash ever. After that I was a full fledged MTT addict again.

I went up to Harrah's Cherokee with my Mom for couple of days the day after this nice finish and played some live cash. Netted a $570 profit for a few hours play on my first day but then lost a couple of hundred the next day but left with over a $300 profit so not too bad, beats losing.

Then on Wednesday night I won the $11 2r 1a $8.5K guaranteed for another nice cash. I was on a roll, or so I hoped. Alas nothing else great happened. I had a couple of other cashes in Poker Maximus events but nothing great but that's just how it goes in MTTs.

Funny thing.... all my best cashes have been in March. In March 2009 I finished 49th in the Cake $250K guaranteed for $645. This was my first real money cash and I'd only been playing for real money for a few days before this game. Then March 2010 I won the $4.40 $2K guarantee on Stars for $640. March 2011 I finished 7th in the $11r $50K guarantee for $1571 and made the most in a month ever for a total of $3400. Then these two great cashes above this March. Next year I guess I should go to every live event I can find in March.

I hadn't played much on Carbon until recently since I'd mostly been playing on Hero so my previous MTT results weren't too great so below is what a SharkScope graph looks like when a fish gets lucky and wins some nice money...

Guess I'm going back to the cash grind now. I'll still do MTTs a couple of days a week but I'll mostly be playing cash on Intertops for April and maybe into May. MTTs can really drain a bankroll without something to supplement it so I really want to get to where I play cash for a steady income and MTTs for the extras. Needless to say I'm pretty happy with my results this month and hopefully I won't have such a long dry spell between good cashes this time.

Run good saved the day...

The Prop Bet:

Finished the 10K hands prop bet and won! Many thanks to the poker gods for the run good over the last 3K hands. Not that I ran that bad over the first 6 to 7K but I just stayed in the red during that time. It was my worst run since I started playing cash in January. One thing I realize and fully admit is there was some play bad mixed in during that downswing. I made some bad decisions and I paid for them. As you can see from the graph I didn't really run below EV very much at all but at times I wasn't running that great either. That coupled with some play bad cost me but that's poker. I learned from every mistake and corrected them as best as I could.

I have to say I was pretty happy about how well I handled the downswing. In the past I would of gotten all tilted and wanted to give up swearing that I just suck at cash instead of excepting that's just how it goes. This time I evaluated my play and figured out how much was my fault and how much was just normal unavoidable coolers and moved on, got back on the tables the next day and pushed ahead. I had only two episodes of insane monkey tilt and it went away really fast once I interjected a little logical thought.

The Month:

I played 19,142 hands this month with a decent profit for 10NL. I wanted to try to make it to 20K but after the last two days trying to finish the prop bet I was just too tired and/or lazy. Overall I was very happy with my February results. I'm playing pretty well overall and really improving my post flop decisions, which was a really weak area prior to this cash grind. I'm learning to slow down and think more about my opponents ranges and on what level they are thinking and thus making more correct decisions. Hopefully next month will go as well.

The Total Results:

Almost 30K hands down at 7BB/100 which is just amazing. My total Carbon bankroll is now $300. My goals for next month are dependent on what I decide to do about playing Poker Maximus games, the MTT event series running this month on Merge. In the past I would of been so excited about an MTT series like this but now I'm kind of so so about it. I hate to take much time away from cash to play for hours in MTTs and min cash or less. Of course there is the reason we play MTTs, those big cashes that actually happen sometimes but just not nearly often enough. I'll know by the middle of next week which direction I'm going and I'll post some March goals at that point. No matter what, I want to get in a minimum of 10 to 15K hands of cash and I'd love to move up to 25NL by month's end but that might be a bit of a stretch. For now, decision time...

25K hands, reality and keeping on...

This week has been a bit rough but I did get in over 5,000 hands. Of course I'm a tiny bit in the red but after getting down to -$50 I ended only .44 cents down for the week. The reality of variance set in but I definitely admit to plenty of play bad thrown in for good, or bad, measure. I really don't feel that I ran that bad overall but a few days I just played spewy and my losses were the result. This is what playing like a fish will do for you...

Luckily I've ended on a good note with the last three sessions being positive. I have four more days to complete 10,000 hands and I have to be in the black at the end so I'm hoping for a sweet heater and no more stupid playing.

As for MTTs well every time I play one I certainly remember why I decided to play cash. Sometimes I wonder why I didn't switch to cash a long time ago. MTTs are just gross! Well except when I bink a nice one but that just doesn't happen often enough.

Onward and upward with the cash grind, at least I'm hoping for upward...

Another week complete...

Another good week of cash games finished. As you can see I fell quite short of my goal of 7500 hands, I suck at volume. I only got in about 4200 hands but with a nice profit so while I'm disappointed in myself for not meeting my volume goal I can't complain about the profit results.

I've hit 20K hands and am still running pretty decently. I've had a few losing sessions of course but many more winning ones. While I very seriously doubt 10BB/100 is at all sustainable over a larger sample it's certain nice for now.

As for MTTs I really am not playing too many. I'm getting more and more hooked on cash and I love the freedom I have and not being stuck in MTTs for 5 to 8 hours straight. I get to eat at a normal time and play in 2 to 3 hour sessions and can actually work my games around my life instead of my life around my games. I might turn out to be a cash game player after all. We'll see how I feel around 50K hands.

I made a prop bet for the rest of the month with a friend. We have to play 10K games with a profit by the end of the month. We did a $5 bonus bet for the most profit. I need the motivation and I hate to lose prop bets so hopefully I'll win this one. I have 1K hands down so far.

Hopefully my graph lines will continue to climb, so next update at the end of the month unless something really spectacular happens between now and then.