I Did It!!!

It's the end of the Take 2 promotion on Full Tilt and I am happy to say that I made a healthy profit. Much like what djm182 posted the other day, I think this is the first time I have bonus whored and made a profit. All told the profit broke down as follows:

Actual Play - $28.40
Free Bonus Offer: $10.00
Take 2 Bonus: $50.00
Rakeback: $3.84

Total Profit: $92.24

Not too shabby for someone who split time between .10/.20 and .25/.50 LHE for the month. This bonus was really easy to clear. If I fired up 3-4 tables at a time at .10/.20 I had my point within a lap and a half and could quit if I chose to do so, which I did a lot. Here is the graph for the hands played:

(click to enlarge)













As you can see I had a very lengthy break even stretch. I was not watching the Deuces Cracked videos as much and my play really showed. Once I got back to watching over the last few sessions of the month the play started to improve. In talking to Zooks I think I did run really good on the month. I had AA 10 times in 3k hands and they held every single time. In limit that's practically impossible, but I did it.

What did I learn?

I definitely learned a lot over the month. The single greatest thing I learned was how to use my HUD stats on other people to my advantage. It allowed me to try steals a lot more in late position and it told me when to fold hands like AJ and QQ to raises and 3bets vs certain opponents. Another thing I learned was to be more aggressive in the hands that I do choose to play. Raise pre-flop to isolate a limper and cbet almost every flop.

What my stats tell me?

(click to enlarge)





My VPIP and PRF stats are pretty solid. I think I could raise more pots than I currently do. I should be raising the A6 and K8 hands when I am in the cutoff and hijack positions when its folded to me. My attempted to steal the blinds should be way higher. Similar to above I just need to open up more hands in later positions.

Overall I think it was a smashing success for me.

Tis better to be lucky....

Meant to post up on Friday but got lazy and forgot. So you get some quality reading, er something like that, on this fine Monday morning. Starting with Tuesday, had a decent little session grinding on my PLO tables so decided to play Skillz which was PLO8. Played tight, don't remember much, before I knew it we were 4 handed. I think had 1 or 2 KO's then won a big pot 3 handed but couldn't capitalize HU. Actually there was a big hand HU where I think he had AA3x and I had A235 or something to that effect. It went all in pre and there was no low to be had so that pretty much crippled me but I hung around and for a little before dying.

Wednesday night had a nice winning PLO session and decdided to play the Mookie. Played it like shit. Played the AIPS Razz freeroll on Stars. Started A234 and was getting capped by someone with a 9 low draw on 4th and couldn't get there. Freely gave away my chips after that.

Thursday was an interesting day on many levels. Played hookey from work to go to AC. Met up with a buddy and decided to play the 10:15 turbo bounty at Harrah's, figuring if we both busted early we could hit another tourny before heading home. Only 30 people in, which is a little disappointing but a very winnable size. First hour was particularly quiet. Second hour won a big pot with 84os in the SB where I flopped trips and turned a boat. Not much going after that, things stagnated around 14 left, then picked up until we had 7 left, 2 from the bubble. Of course I had no bounites to this point and they stop paying bounties at the FT (no idea why). Any whore, we get to the bubble (6 handed) and I have 26K UTG, the blinds are 3k-6k and going up on the next hand to 4k-8k. I find A7dd and ship, of course a chick with 12K wakes up with AK and I cannot suck out. BREAK. Awesome I have to wait 10 minutes to bubble. Come back and I'm in the BB for 8K, 1 limper, I get a free look and check. Miss the flop, he shoves, I fold, he shows TP. Sweet 6k left in my SB for 4k. Folds to cutoff who shoves, I look (why I don't know), find A3 call-in, and see the cutoff has AQ. Flop A45....turn Q....river 2 baby! Up to 18k. Next hand folds to me OTB, shove with A4, BB calls with 88, flop an ace, it holds. B2B 3 outers FTW! Now we lose the bubble and 5 handed I'm try talking of a chop and I guess the CL was waiting for 1 more to go out, needless to say 2 bad beats and a race later he is out in 5th. Three handed it all comes to roost. I'm still talking chop on deaf ears when I shove......the A and the Jay. That fuckin whore of a hand. The SB calls (who has me covered) and the BB calls (who has her covered), three way allin against A2 and A8. Flop KK4...Turn COCKSUKING 2...river blank. Knew that was coming. No complaints. Got lucky when I had to and still had a nice cash for a little of 200. BTW when I was talking chop 3 handed there was 300k in chips on the table and the blinds with 8k-16k, it was sick. I knew this would happen but I figured people would just want to end it. Oh well, guess they knew more then me.

Played a little when I got home late on Thursday, dusted off a PLO buyin at 1 table but was up 2 at another. Weird session. Should be happy with the win but the dusting off on the one table annoyed me more then it should have. Need 3 more days to make 15 for the month on the 2 for 2 thingy on FTP. Not bad since vacay in the middle kept me from playin about 10 days this month.

PokerSlut Tour XV HORSE

Profitable Week

Pretty sure I was born to play slot machines for a living. Or at least it seems like it. I'm glad I found my future profession when I turn 70.

I went to Wheeling Island Tuesday night. I got there at 7pm or so, just after a tourney started. They had two tables of 2/4 running and 5 1/2 games going. I got an immediate seat in the 2/4 game. In the first lap I was in the cutoff and raised it with QQ and got 6 callers on an 8 handed table. Flop comes 234dd. Someone leads, I raise and 2 people call along with the original raiser. Turn is the 3d and it gets checked around. River is the 5d. I have the Qd. The bettor on the flop bets, I call and one other calls. Lady had a straight flush with the 9d6d. I guess having a $135k bad beat jackpot makes people play anything that could result in hitting it. After the hand the table started falling apart and after 1/2 hour we were down to 4 handed and the table broke. There was only one seat in the other 2/4 game so I called it a not for poker with a $33 loss.

Earlier in the night I signed-up for their player rewards card and received $10 in free play. I sat at a penny machine and promptly dusted that off in around 15 minutes. Probably would have only lasted 5 minutes if the damn spin button would have worked better. After that I walked over to an empty Pai Gow table and bought in for $40. The table minimum was $10. No fortune bonus, no dragon hand, no being the dealer. Straight Pai Gow. You know what's gonna happen, right?

I went 3-0-2 in my first 5 hands with trips twice and a boat once. Sure glad they didn't have the fortune bonus. New dealer comes in. First hand I picked up a hand I have never had before, 9875432, the worst hand possible. After that I went on a good run over about an hour or so and left up $45. Add that to the poker loss and I walked away with a $12 profit.

Fast forward to today I was able to get an extended session of 2/4 in. Extended for me at least. The day was mostly up and down. My low point was -40 and my high point was +50. After my last hand I was exactly at even. I ended up going over for a couple hands of Pai Gow before I hit the door and won $8. Ship it.

On the way back to the hotel we decided to head over to The Meadows for dinner. This place was gorgeous. It is a slot parlor with a harness track. Word is that they may get poker soon and table games shortly after that. If they do this will by far be the nicest place in the area. The place kinda reminded me of Fallsview Casino. Wheeling Island might as well shut their doors. They had a cash giveaway, $400 at 6:30 and $10k at 7pm. We got 5 entries each. You also had to put a little through the slots as well. I went to the Monopoly machine that treated me so well in New Orleans. This one as a nickel machine. I was gonna put a max of $10 through it. When I was down about $5 I won 510 credits. I played a while longer and cashed out up $10. I am a (winning) slot jockey.

Total profit for the trip was $30. Not a big win, but a win none the less.

Next trip with a casino is back to Detroit the week of October 19th.

P.S. - Almost forgot to add that I won a seat in the AIPS freeroll last night. Playing a freeroll razz tourney. Yes, it WAS as painful as it sounds. Good to hear from nzgreen again as he called in sick to work and played. He won a seat. Tough luck to Jerry who bubbled.

Odds & Ends

Been struggling to find time to post. I know, I know no excuses but you'll just have to deal. Despite my rambling, incoherent, disjunct, and grammatically incorrect style, I do try to only post when I have something interesting to say. Well, dammit, things have been pretty boring in the poker front but I do a few loose ends that should lead to some interesting discussion at some point.

First off, have been grinding on the 6 max PLO tables with fairly decent results. Mostly playing the cap limit games for a few reasons. The biggest being that the play is so effing awful on these that it I think it may make them more profitable then the regular PLO tables. Also I'm finding it easier to multi-table with these then the non-capped versions.

Next of the agenda, since I have been playing more PLO I decided to get some books. Picked up "Farha on Omaha" and "Championship Omaha" by Cloutier and McEvoy. Haven't picked up the Farha book yet and just getting into the Cloutier one. I promise some form of illeterate poker write up when I finish these. I'm sure it will help you all immensely.

Finally, something Jordan touched on with a post that I saw in my Sunday paper. Looks like poker is close to showing up in nearby Philly. While AC is only an hour drive for me, it's still tough to get there with any regularity. BUT if you put some decent games within 20 mins, now we are talking. Hopefully this will lead to some more regular live play and maybe me actually learning to play 1-2 NL as opposed to the monkey that I seem to be right now. Or maybe even a regular 4/8 or 5/10 game, but I won't be holding my breath.

Oh yeah and I actually played the Mookie last week and did so poorly. Maybe I'll play Skillz tonight if it's something interesting.

Take 2 Week 3

I should just copy and past my results from week 2. I only played in 4 of the last 7 days with a significant amount of hands only one of the days. I played pretty much break even for the week, maybe turning a small profit. I can only miss 2 more days the rest of the way which should be doable. Probably will do the minimum this week as the intertube connection here in Washington, PA is pretty sketchy. See what happens when you are near West Virginia?

Not too many significant hands but one that I played today kinda sticks out. In a 10c 20c game its folded to the button who raises and I have AA in the SB and 3bet. BB folds and THE BUTTON FOLDS. Even if you are one a complete steal don't you call one more small bet and see you can flop something? Guess not.

I am near Wheeling Island where they have a poker room and casino so I may check it out later in the week. Based on my prior post about the room it looks like I will be playing some 2/4 LHE. I am sooo rolled for that game :) .

PokerSlut Tour XV PLO DS

Nawlins

I am in New Orleans for a night before catching a flight home. I was able to go over to Harrah's for my first live sessions since the WSOP. On a limited roll I decided to play some 3/6. The table had an average age of around 60 or so. The one other younger guy in the game was a loose passive fish. This was the game that dreams are made of. I wasn't going to win that huge pot but I was able to slowly chip up throughout the 2 1/2 hour session.

Over the session I probably raised around 10 hands. The rest of the table combined raised an additional four times. My pre-flop raises were thinning the field and leaving in the weak passive players. I had a few decent starting hands. I had AK twice and lost both times with it. KK held. JJ held. and in the last hand of the session I raised 1010 UTG and the whole table folded.

I was able to steal on tons of spots with air or next to it. Couple of notable hands. I saw one older dude fold JJ on a J,9,8,6,4 board. I'm pretty sure I saw the board right. I don't even remember seeing any flushes out there earlier. One decent pot I won was with K3ss with a free look from the BB. I flopped the nut flush and 3 barreled it and was called in two spots all the way down for a decent pot.

The whole table was a bunch of tell boxes. I one hand I flopped top pair from the sb with K7 and lead and was raised from the button. I called the turn and binked the two pair on the river. I was going to lead out but the button was about to release chips so I let him bet and threw in a check-raise. I was called by an ace high missed flush draw. If I miss on the river I might pitch top pair there too.

I ended the session with a $77 profit. Those videos helped more that I would have thought in the live setting.

After hitting the buffet I was looking for some penny slots to throw $20 in and get a point to let Harrah's now that I show up there and try and get some more offers coming my way. I found a 1 cent Monopoly machine and played 20 lines at a time. Right away it was loss after loss with the occasional 10 cent "win". I was gonna quit when I got down $5 but right before it I hit the bonus round for two choices of squares. First one I got something special and looked up and I won 2500 credits. I didn't even know that was the big win till the lady next to me told me. With the rest of the bonus round I won 3240 credits as noted below in the pic I snapped.


I ended cashing out with a $25 profit. Ship the penny slots.

I had a $15 match play to play on any even money table game. I decided to play roulette. Since it was a match play I had to put up $15 0f my own money. I got the brilliant idea to put $15 on red and another $15 on black along with the match play. Ball landed on red (one away from single zero) and I broke even. All told I walked out with a $102 profit.

I run good in Louisiana.

Take 2 Week 2

Two weeks in the book in Full Tilt's Take 2 promotion. I have been able to earn my point every day so far the last 14 days. I am well on my way to clearing the whole $50. Here are the stats so far.


I am more or less on a 1900 hands break even streak. In particular the last 500 hands or so I have had very few premium hands and the ones that I do play are not connecting. I can't complain about showing a profit though. Take the $28 profit plus the $10 in bonus money I have cleared plus $25 of the Take 2 bonus plus the $3 in rakeback I have earned I am showing a nice $66 profit.

My stats are looking pretty good. The VPIP and PFR have slipped a little bit over the last 1000 hands or so. I actually want those numbers up, not down.

Pokersluts was a disaster last night. It was LHE and I tried to use my cash game strategy. Epic fail. This kind of epic fail:

That one is for Columbo.

PokerSlut Tour XV Limit Holdem

Worst...Beat...Ever

Warning, bad beat story ahead. Like you couldn't tell by the title already anyways. Here it goes...

I think I was handed the worst beat I have ever taken at a poker table last night during AIPS. It was pretty much the perfect storm. It's not about the $5 buyin. It's about the side bet that a lot of the Poker Soup crew has on the player of the year standings. I have a slim lead over Jerry. Luckily nobody made the points last night.

The hand that took me out was a doozy. Part of the perfect storm was who my loss came against, Heffmike. He has to be the luckiest motherfuckin' blogger who has ever walked the earth. I have seen him put so many horrific beats on so many people it is just sick. I used to hate his game but anyone who gets that deep that much is not a fluke. He is a very good player.

To set-up the hand we have around 30 people left paying top 15. I am down to 4 big bets and looking to find a hand to 3bet pre and let it play out. I find KK23 and am going with it. With Heffmike 2betting right in front of me this is the perfect spot. Even if I have a worse hand I go with it here because he is likely to open light in this spot a lot.

(click through for hand replayer)


Our pre-flop stats show us the following:

scottc25 -
Scoop: 74.08%
Hi: 74.08%
Lo: 43.91%

Heffmike -
Scoop: 19.29%
Hi: 25.92%
Lo: 0.00%


After the flop I have him so far in jail its fucking sick. About as good as it gets in Omaha really. He is dead to running queens or running jack 10. Here are the percentages:

scottc25 -
Scoop: 97.93%
Hi: 97.93%
Lo: 63.41%

Heff -
Scoop: 2.07%
Hi: 2.07%
Lo: 0.00%


I guess my only solace is that he was bounced out on the bubble. What can I say, I take great pleasure in other peoples misfortune.


Following-up on the Take 2 challenge I cleared the second hurdle today. I have earned $15 of the $50 so far. I took some beats early today as my wall can attest to. Losing this morning cost more than the $5 in poker. Fixing the holes in the walls will cost $20 to fix. I think I might have an anger problem.

Week 1 of Take 2

It's the 7th so we are one week down in the Take 2 promotion on Full Tilt. I have been able to get my point each day so far. Now I only have to get points in 18 of the last 23 days of the month. With a couple of work trips including one to New Orleans, I am going to need those days.

Not including the $5 bonus I have earned so far I am up a touch under $25.


Respectable numbers in my opinion. I guess I am not shocked when I see that the 10c 20c game is waaaay easier than the 25c 50c game. Having the HUD running from Poker tracker makes a world of difference. I know when to raise when tight players are behind.,I know when to discount and aggro player raise, etc.

I might try and play more hands this week, concentrating on the triple points happy hour between 1pm and 6pm. Not sure if I should make an effort to play more of the lower game or higher game.

The videos have helped a lot. I am 4 videos into the first series.

Pokersoup.tv Invitational

Another week off from the Pokersluts means another Pokersoup tourney. This time we are giving away a stylish pokersoup.tv hat for 1st place. Come see if you have enough to beat Blaz in a limidonk game.


Pokersoup.tv Invitational
Sunday, September 6th
Full Tilt Poker
21:00 server time
H.O.R.S.E
password is pokersoup

Go to the Pokersoup web site for more details.

Take 2

Full Tilt has a good promo going right now called Take 2. If you play 2 tables of ring games simultaneously and earn one point per day you are able to pick up free cash. It's extremely easy to pick up one point a day. This runs through September so there is plenty of time to make the max of $50. Here is the money breakdown from Full Tilt's site:

Get up to $50 in Cash

The more you play during Take 2, the more cash you can earn. Reach four different levels depending on the number of days that you play and you can earn up to $50:

• Level 1: Play for 5 days and receive $5
• Level 2: Play for 10 days to get $10, for a cumulative total of $15
• Level 3: Play for 15 days and take home another $10, a cumulative total of $25
• Level 4: Play for 25 days and you’ll earn an additional $25, for a cumulative total of $50

One added benefit is that you earn double points on both tables. Not a bad little deal.