November Poker Results

Bonus Whoring
After the poor start to this months bonus whoring, as highlighted in the previous post, I managed to turn it round slightly with a big push in the last week.

I cleared the Will Hill, Interpoker and Laddies bonus over a total of 5k hands; the Laddies bonus being cleared solely at NL (2,500 hands of 0.1/0.2NL for a $100 bonus).

So bonus money for the month is about $250 and I made $120 from my play ($197 at NL and a $77 loss (short-term -ve variance) at $1/$2 Limit). In terms of BB/100 I ran at 14BB/100 for NL and (2)BB/100 for Limit.

Obviously extremely pleased with the results at NL and in $ terms this is better than my return at $1/$2 Limit when I am running at 1BB/100. I also think the risk is lower at NL as I tend to lose lots of small pots and win large ones. Each time I sit down I feel like I am going to come away a winner [although only 60% are winning sessions] whereas at $1/$2 Limit I am never that confident - I am much more at the disposal of variance. There are a number of truly awful players on Laddies (and quite a few good ones picking them off).

So NL was a pleasant change and has helped me increase the free $10 that Laddies gave me up to $226 (excluding the $100 bonus I made). I can see a little challenge for 2007 coming up in relation to that free $10.

What is most striking about my stats vs. Limit is that I have a really low WTSD% (approx. 20%) but I win approx. 60%-65% at showdown. I guess this says that I am a bit risk averse at getting my chips in and therefore I could probably increase my win rate but at the expense of higher variance.

I should read the Sklansky/Miller NL book that I recently got for free after finding some points I'd forgotten about at Poker Source Online. Problem is, I usually lose money after reading a book as I try and incorporate too many changes into my game at once.

My win rate is pretty good anyway but not as good as it could be; there are a number of players on Laddies with 20BB/100 win rates over 5k hands.

Stats below.







Will I step up at Laddies? Well I am not too sure. If I get the $10 up to $500 then maybe I will move up to $0.2/$0.4 but if my win rate is going to at least half that I’m making at the moment then (obviously) I am much better staying at $0.1/$0.2.

Not too much to say about Limit but see stats and chart below :-



Limit Chart since October :-




Tournaments
November was the first month in which I made a concerted effort to participate in a number of MTTs. I focussed on the PL Mansion added series ($1k added - $500 to the winner) and the Sporting Odds Champions League series ($1.5k first prize) as these appeared to have the best added value and a low buy-in.

In total there were 19 tournaments (13 SO & 6 Mansion – although 1 Mansion tourney was in Oct). I was very pleased with my results in that I managed to win one tourny at both Mansion and SO and in total (including the wins) I had 7 final table finishes and 4 ITM top 3 finishes. In both the heads up matches I managed to overcome a significant chip deficit, and had about equal luck as my opponents (maybe I got a bit lucky in the SO heads up).

From MTTs I was up approx $70 on entries (from $56 of entry fees) but more importantly however I managed to place 1st at Mansion (good for $500) and in the top 10 at SO (good for $50) for the overall series of MTT’s.

So in total I am up $620 from tournies for the month, making an overall total of about $1k when added to the cash games and bonus money.

Thankfully I have now reached the target I set at the beginning of the year of making $12k in 2006 and therefore no pressure in December to get lots of hands in. The profit for the year excludes the Mansion $7k package (to which I had more important things to see too - she is worth it) and the $3k Mansion World Cup trip. So it has been a pretty good year for me and it looks like Mansion are definitely my lucky charm :)


December
No short-term goals for December, just take it as it comes and maybe do something different like reading the mountain of books I have stacked, playing some PSP games, catching up on movies and TV series and putting a 250mg HD in my Sky+.

I still have the Sporting Index bonus to clear, Interpoker and Will Hill Monthlies, and Party have just offered me a $75 bonus. I could be good for $375 of bonus money in December. Its tempting but I may not bother.

The only way I can see me clearing the bonuses is if it happens early on in the month. If I can keep up the momentum from this past week I may try and clear the interpoker and WIll Hill bonus over the weekend. SI is going to be more painful and I would definitely like to play a bit more NL at Laddies.

I will also spend the time to think of some new challenges, and not just poker related ones, for 2007.

GL at the tables.

FBF

Lazy Fuckin Whore

Well after playing a reasonable number of hands during October I have not been able to get myself motivated to grind out the bonus whore hands this month. Same old story with me; I hammer it for one month, think I can hammer it more the following month, then end up doing (relatively) fuck all.

One of the main problems is that I don't like Tribeca and I have a Sporting Index bonus to clear. There are only ever 2 $1/$2 tables going, and i think, although I am not sure, that you can only play 2 tables at once anyway. Paradise also pissed me off with the shite change they made to the bonus.

So I've got about 500 hands in during this month and I am a small loser. I Need to crank it up in the second half of the month but should clear about 2,000 hands for the Crypto bonuses. I Can't let those Willy Hill and Interpoker bonuses get away.

However, I have not been completely lazy. Instead of grinding through the $1/$2 limit cash games I have been dabbling in a couple of other areas.

MTT's
Firstly, I've been playing a lot more tournaments than usual (that equates to between 5 & 10 a week for me), spurred on by some excellent added value through the Punters Lounge poker forum. In addition to the added value the quality of play against other PL'ers is very high and I am sure that going up against opponents of that calibre will only improve my game. I reckon that those tourneys must be some of the toughest low stake MTTs on the net.

I'm therefore focussing my play on the Mansion added tourneys and the November Sporting Odds Champions League. I am running ok in both of them and took a lot of pleasure from winning the first Mansion added tourny against the talent of Punters Lounge.

I took a podium finish in the first SO CL game (3rd for 60 points) and then had a some bad beats, and found myself in a few bad spots, before finally getting in the points again tonight (13th for 34 points). Hopefully 94 points will have me standing in the money at the moment.

As a result of this I have started to move up the ranks in the PL "Best Poker Player" challenge here. Given that I don't enter too many of the daily focus games I am pleased with this.

As long as I don't get bored then one month I'll take a crack at a top 10 or podium finish in the BPP challenge. Top 5 would be very difficult and I think I will need to be playing the majority of the focus games to have any chance. Currently I do not have the time.

Ladbrokes NL Games
Spurred on by the efforts of GaF at his Blog I have been messing about at the beginners NL tables at Ladbrokes. Laddies gave me a free $10 so I thought I would see what I can pony it up to. After a run of good fortune over 800 hands I am up approx. $90 (good for 28BB/100). If only that win rate was sustainable in the long run. Anyway, its good to see a bit of positive variance for a change and I am intrigued to see what I can run at over 10,000 hands.

More importantly I have been enjoying the game much more than grinding the limit tables and aim to get my balance up to $300 before stepping up to the 0.15/0.30 games with 10 buy-ins. I am such a risk averse little fuck.

Anyway I'll also probably be bored of it by next month and be back to something else like the 6 max games again.

Anyway, great to have a passion that actually pays you money and here's hoping for greater efforts in the second half of the month.

Parashite Poker

Just logged onto to Paradise Poker to try and clear the $120 bonus I had stacked. I was hoping that on a Friday night there would at least be at couple of $1/$2 full ring games going.

First off, no full ring games going. Bastards. Even worse, 9 $5/$10 players (2x 5max), 10 $3/$6 (2x5max) players and 10 $2/$4 (10max) players. Thats your lot on limit games above $1/$2.

Secondly, they have a new promotion called 'Paradise Pay Day' that appears to be shit beyond belief. Upon first checking the cashier I was like a dog with two dicks when I saw that $5,000 had been added to my bonus account but upon reading the T&Cs it was clear that Paradise are screwing the customer.

The clearing rates appear to have been doubled such that every 100 points earned now releases 5 measly dollars of bonus. It was pretty poor before, now it is absolutely terrible. Not only does this shit rate apply to the $5k it applies to the $120 I had stacked there.

Anyway, the cash has been withdrawn from there quicker than you can say 'call in the administrators'.

So it really looks like the arse has fell out of Paradise Poker and I am not sure if SportingBet PLC are going to turn it around. I wouldn't be surprised to see an acquisition of SB or a divestment of Paradise poker in the first rounds of consolidation in the gambling sector.

Off to Sporting Index.