The Past Three Days

Didn't play as much poker as I wanted due to appointments, honey-dos and a renewed self-commitment to exercising! But I did get a lot in during the time I had.

Sunday, 2/19/06

Only setback the entire 3 hour session was when my KJo in the SB flopped a straight but lost to an all-in flush draw. I had him well covered, so I only lost $0.68. I finished the session up by $5.68 plus another $0.80 in bonus worked off. Nice profitable session.

Monday, 2/20/06

With the end of February closing in and two Crypto monthlies still outstanding, I decided I needed to try to clear Littlewoods this day. I still needed 80.25 raked hands. For those of you who don't play at the Cryptos, they changed their requirements to receive the £25 from playing 5 hours to accumulating 200 raked hands. You get credit for 1 raked hand for every £1 raked per hand. If it is raked from .25 to .99, you get 1/4 of a raked hand. They went from being great, to being tedious. However, I am not complaining because I am doing quite well at the Cryptos. However, one of the reasons why I decided to do this NL Quest was because I have been running bad at the limit tables for about two weeks now, and needed a break. I finished the bonus chase at Littlewoods, losing a total of £0.77, so I finished up overall at £24.23. Not bad. I also had 36 raked hands to finish my last $10 in bonus at Absolute, and decided to finthattaht one off. Big mistake. I lost $34 chasing that at a pair of $1/$2 tables. Horrible.

Tuesday, 02/21/06

After finishing Littlewoods yesterday, I decided to tackle my last Crypto monthly: TotalBet. Problem was, the recent update didn't take, so I had to uninstall, then re-download and install. That ran into serious problems, so, on the Phone with customer support in England, I finally got it squared. I settled in to play a single table of £1/£2 at TotalBet along with a $0.01/$0.02 table at both PokerStars and Ultimate Bet. Here's how this came out:

1. TotalBet was a goldmine today. I managed to finish off 43.75 raked hands today and earn £50.25 in the process. For those of you keeping score at home, that's ~$87, in a little less than 3 hours. Sure does make me feel better about the state of my limit game. Alas, I get in these ruts and downturns where I either completely miss the flop, or hit the flop and lose good hands to either better hands or suckouts. I know the swings are inevitable, but it does get to be a bit debilitating.
2. PokerStars was yet again, very sub-optimal. After 4.5 hours [some of it two-tabling when I finished at TotalBet], I only made $0.39, Part of the reason was getting AQo in the SB hammered on a Q-high flop by a slowplayed QQ. Despite this set-back, I managed to make that small profit. I have ideas about how to change the Quest for PokerStars.
3. Ultimate Bet, once again, proved to be a good fit for the quest. Despite losing another flopped straight, this time to ATo that hit it's four out fullhouse, and a few other choice hands, I cannot believe how loose players are here. I realize it is extremely low stake NL, but I am amazed at the loose calls. I made $2.65 plus another $0.59 in bonus. I have no doubt, that as I progress up the NL ladder, that this entire bonus will get cleared.

Finally a few notes:

• I will dropping my buy-in at PokerStars down to $1.00, instead of $2.00. The max buy-in at this level is $5.This would be a 20% buy-in rather than the 40% stated in the quest rules. One of the reasons I need to do this is that it has become apparent that after a few blinds at UB, players are more apt to call my all-in with $0.67, than they might at PokerStars should I go all-in for $1.87. They appear to only call something that big when they have a near unbeatable hand. I also think the players, on average, are that much better.
• For those who do not play at the Cryptologic poker rooms, here is a list of them:
• Classic Poker
• Sun Poker
• PokerPlex
• Littlewoods
• Interpoker
• TotalBet
• UKBetting
• William Hill
• Ritz Club London [no Americans]
• BetFair [no Americans]