I haven't had too much time to play this month. I was on for only 6 hours and I'm stuck about $700.

The first day I played I got stuck as deep as $9,000. I was playing ring games (6 or more players) and heads up. The ring games were going well and I picked up a few hundred here and there. It was the heads up that almost got me. I played 50/100 with this one guy I normally beat pretty easily and he got me for $3,000. It was much worse at one point but I managed to make a come back. I'm not sure what it was but I think when I play someone heads up for too long my style starts to be predictable and beatable. I need to keep those sessions shorter like before. Luckily for me I beat someone for $4,000 playing 100/200 and that brought that day's loss to around $2,000.

The next day I came on for a quick game and grabbed $890 in 30 minutes. Took a few days off and grabbed another $400 in 10 minutes. That's how I need to do it. Hit and run in between working on other projects. It keeps my life in a nice balance of everything and not too much of one thing.

The games are still thin on Full Tilt with 15/30 games being the only constant action. 30/60 and above come and go like a 3 Card Monty game. Thanks to a deposit limit on Poker Stars I'll have to wait a little longer before I give it another shot.

Tournament/Cash results:

I tried to win my way into the main event by playing the $1,000 satellite but was card dead and had to buy my way in. After busting out of that event I played a little 100/200 to try to get my buy in back. I know I said I wasn't going to play that anymore, especially the night before the main event, but I played anyway and made my lousy $1,000 back.

I got to sleep late that night but not so late that I wouldn't be fresh that day. We started with 20,000 in chips. Things started a little faster then I wanted to but the cards were good and it worked out to a small early lead. I didn't get involved more then I should have but a few hours into the event I got snapped off for 5,000 of my 23,000. It wasn't that big of a deal, I didn't tilt any money off, but from then on I couldn't get any traction. I bleed money and got knocked out 10 hours into the first day.

I went downstairs after that to play more 100/200, maybe I'd get my 10k back like I got my 1k the day before. I didn't really think that but I kind of did. The game looked good, everyone playing passively and calling a lot, but few of my hands held up. With so many people drawing on each hand I was up against a lot of cards. Many people made 2 pair or better by the river. Dropped $5,000 and went home. I decided not to attempt a comeback that night.

Online:

The next day I woke up and made the 5k back almost instantly and felt good. Played more later that day or the next (I forget it's been a while now) and lost money back. The last few sessions of February turned out to be slow. I won more money but it wasn't anywhere near the pace of the earlier days. One guy managed to get 11k playing heads up with me. It was funny, I was playing him and a full 6 handed game. I'd fold almost all the hands I got dealt in the full game and only played big hands. Almost all the money I lost to him I won back during the full game.

The last session or two of play was really thin. Not that much action on full tilt and still nothing working on Poker Stars. I haven't played in about a week. The hourly rates I was getting early this month have gone away for now.

The (Live) run down:
Tournament buy in @ $11,000
Cash loss @ $4,000
Old loss @ $2,400
New loss @ $17,400

The (Online) run down:
Withdrawn cash @ $4,000
Account @ $35,293.54 ($33,293.50 FT, $0.04 PS, $2,000 EW)
Old profit @ $45,332.28
New profit @ $5,181
Total Profit @ $50,513.28

Last month I made $20,023.24 online. This month I made $30,490.04 online and played 58 hours for an hourly of $525. The last days really dragged my hourly down. On the 21st my hourly was 3 times higher at $1,500.

This month was 50% better then last but taking into account the $17,400 I lost and all the extra hours I put in at the casino it turned out pretty shitty. I played way more hours at the casino then I did online and all it did was bring all my numbers down.

I'm not sure how much I'll get to play this month. I have some projects I need to get back to and my apartment is a mess. I'll get my shit together first and then start hitting the sites again.

End of Feb final numbers are $13,090.04. Still pretty fuck'n nice!

Holy shit, this time I really almost went broke. This wasn't just a scare but a real account busting loss of over $28,000 and with only $7,000 left online. How could a day that started out so nice turn so ugly? It all started on Wednesday, I played the games I normally do and was up $3,500 very quickly. I needed another $1,500 to hit my goal of $10,000 this week. I had the subject line of "Gooooooooooooooooooooal." All ready to go. That would just have to wait.

I played this one guy heads up and couldn't make any hands. He was so aggressive and nothing I did worked, I just kept losing and fast. It was almost as if he had a view of my cards, knew when I was bluffing or missed and just put the pressure on. When I made a hand he didn't pay me off. The first time I played him I only lost $5,000 which wasn't so bad. I took a break and came back for more punishment later.

When I came back to play again I started to win the money that was lost to the punisher. A little at a time I was making it back but that wasn't good enough. I haven't lost to anyone playing heads up yet and I wasn't about to start with him. I found him sitting and waiting for a sucker like myself to sit down and I did just that. He then proceeded to take another 12 or 14 thousand from me. It hurt, a lot. My head was spinning and I couldn't believe the hole I dug myself in and how he was beating me so badly. At one point I was looking for spyware on my computer that might give him a screen shot of my cards. After he was done sodomizing me he decided to leave and let someone else have some fun with me. Almost immediately my luck turned around and I thought I was on my way back. It turned out to only be a short term turn around, apparently more suffering was necessary. At this point I was stuck about $20,000.

It was around midnight and the action started to die down on Full Tilt so I played on poker stars too. I couldn't make anything go there either and busted that account. At my worst I was stuck over $28,000. I got down to the last $7,000 I had online and only the smaller games were being played. I wasn't sure I could make my comeback with only those games but I didn't want to sleep just yet. I steadied my loss at that level and made small gains. I opened up 4 tables and played as low as 5/10. The combined size of the games would give me enough action to make a comeback improbable but still realistic.

I set a short term goal of being stuck only $22,000 and then go to sleep. That sounded like heaven at the time. When I finally hit that I actually did quit and push away from the computer. A few moments later I came back and kept playing. I felt I was playing so well that I might be able to do even better. Over the next 8 or so hours I inched my way back, playing multiple games, to being only stuck $6,500. No big drama, just little wins here and there. I couldn't believe it, I actually made back over $20,000. It was crazy, if I could make that in one night why don't I do it every night? I'm actually not sure of the answer to that one. Burn out maybe?

I was awake for 24 hours total that day and got some sleep on Tuesday afternoon. After being awake for so long I did my typical schedule of sleep / eat / piss / sleep / piss / sleep / eat / wake up for real. It worked and I'm somewhat fresh today.

I played some more this morning, a little scared but still confident. With a few ups and downs I made it back to being stuck about $2,000 (that's a profit of $4,000 for just today). I was hoping for the goooooooal subject line today but that'll have to wait. I played a total of 24 hours, lost $28,0000 and won $26,000 of it back. Crazy…

I'm going to head over to the commerce now to play in that satellite today. I hope a win a seat so I don't have to spend $10,000 of my winnings. Wish me luck.

Quick update to the previous post I just made:

I thought before I'd go to sleep I'd see what the sites look like and if there are any good games. Normally it's a bad idea to play at this hour just in case I get stuck I wont have the energy to get even but I saw a game I liked and sat down.

I played heads up 50/100 and got some good hands fast. Grabbed $2,199.50 off him before he went broke. It took 13 minutes to get the job done which is nice since it kicks my win for today up to $5,885.04 and my hourly to $1,900.

ok sleepy time...

My plan to get in the main event:

The main event is coming up at the Commerce Casino and I'm going to try to get $10,000 this week for the event. It's one of those events that when only 6 players are left gets aired on TV. I've already won the money this month but that was just general winnings. I like marking off money and saying "this is for such and such." It works well as a short term goal. If I miss the mark I'll still buy my way in but I'd be nice if I picked up an extra $10k, don't you think?

Regardless of whether I win that money or not I'll still try to win a seat by playing a super satellite. That works by having everyone who wants to play put up about a tenth of the price of the seat they are trying to win. In this case it would be $1,000. The prize money gets pooled and divided up into $10,000 prizes. There are no first, second, third or any other places. You only win a seat or you don't. So if the there are 1000 people entered the prize pool would be $1,000,000. Divide that by $10,000 (the cost of each seat into the main event) and you get 100 seats as prizes. Once the 101st person gets knocked out everyone else wins. It doesn't matter if you have a mountain of chips or just one in front of you, play stops and everyone gets $10,000.

Online and playing big:

I played a little today and almost went broke. I played someone new heads up 100/200 and proceeded to go on a steady decline. First $2,000, then $4,000, then $6,000. This was all in less then 30 minutes. I managed to stop some bleeding and made it back to losing $4,000 when he suggested we play higher. I figured why not, I'll have to win fewer hands to get even, sounds like a good idea. As soon as I sit down at the 200/400 table I win 3 or 4 hands in a row and get even. I didn't realize I was even otherwise I would have quickly quit (or I'd like to believe that I would have).

Before I could do a count I was back to even in the new game and still stuck $4,000 overall. I kept things there until this one hand that would have gotten me even almost drove me nuts. That single pot was over $4,000. I had the guy dominated and he kept raising me with a draw. His chances of winning weren't bad but they weren't good either. I wasn't so pissed about losing the hand as I was about losing it right then and with it being pumped up with so much money. Couldn't he get lucky on a different pot that wasn't as big or my "go home pot"? Anyway, I managed to get even and dodge what would have surly been at least a $12,000 loss. I can only quit losing when I'm broke.

I went on to play some other ring and heads up games to win over $3,500 today. It took less then an hour for the first ordeal to finish and 2 hours bring in the actual profit. That puts my hourly rate at $1,275.

I'm starting to outgrow Full Tilt's games so I put $3,000 on poker stars and made some of the money there. They have almost as many players as party poker did and the games are almost as big. I can't really play big with that money but I should have a decent bankroll there soon.

I got the withdrawals started again. I can't withdraw as fast as I'd like but at least money is making its way out. I recently withdrew $6,000.

The (Online) run down:
Withdrawn cash @ $6,000
Account @ $34,112.54 ($23,621.50 FT, $4,491.04 PS, $6,000 EW)
Old profit @ $41,646.74
New profit @ $3,685.54
Total Profit @ $45,332.28

Online play:

It feels like so long ago when I was crying for some kind of momentum to get my game going. It's less then 6 weeks now and I've can't withdraw my money fast enough. I'm back to the levels I was at before party poker shut down.

Yesterday I played heads up 100/200 and got over $4,000 from some bitch. It's not that much for the level but the way she was crying about it made it feel like so much more. I even had a friend of mine watch while I beat on her. It took me less then an hour to nail her. It was so fun at the end when she got really pissed off. She was drawing dead, made her hand anyway and kept raising. The chat log looked like:

"askhj342 you think so good12"
"POS/MF go to hell 034sdk "

I told her I was at least $4,000 better then she was and that seemed to shut her up. Both her bitching and the money felt really nice.

I took a break, played a little more after and picked up another thousand or so. I've been playing both fullish games and head-up while keeping to the 50/100 and 100/200 levels. Those levels are part of how I'm able to make even more money so much faster. My hourly rate this month is way over $1,000.

Tournament info:

I've decided not to play any more tournaments until the main $10,000 event. I'm going to try to win a seat by playing a $1,000 special tournament for that event. If I don't win a seat then I'll just buy my way in. After finishing 15th before, working for over 16 hours, getting no sleep and only making $4,000 I realized it's just not worth the time. It only makes sense if you hit in the top 3 or 4 and that kind of thinking, to me, is like trying to win the lottery. I noticed I just wasn't into it when I played that last tournament. Those lower events are so top heavy with their prize payouts, it's just not worth it. 

Another reason I'm not into the tournaments like I thought I would be is that the cash games just aren't what I remembered them to be. I just sat and labored in a shit game which I couldn't beat. Then crashed for days until I recovered from the hours and hours I played straight. It's just not worth the time when online is so easy.

Correction:

I realized I did "The run down" wrong last time. I figured that I lost $5,000 without adding tournament info. I'll split the run down into cash and online for now until the events are over. So the last online run down should have showed a profit of $9,190.

The (Online) run down:
Account @ $36,427
Old profit @ $29,213.24 (Removed incorrect live games loss of $5,000)
New profit @ $12,433.50
Total profit @ $41,646.74

This whole month I only played 14 hours. That puts the hourly rate @ $1,500

The (Live) run down:
Account @ $5,000 (started at $7,400)
Tournament buy ins @ $540 (#14 02/7/07) / $1,580 (#15 02/08/07) / $1,060 (#17 02/10/07)
Tournament wins @ $5,515
Cash game loss @ $4,735
Total profit -$2400

I think if I ever do play in the casino I'll try to stick to no-limit. I almost always win playing that (online or live). It's limit that kills me when I play live.

Long ass entry, sorry.

Ah fuck. I played the shootout tournament event on Saturday like shit. I started out paying attention but then I got bored or antsy and busted out after 2 hours. Thinking it was just too much tournament play back to back I went down to give the cash games a shot. I just wanted to win the $1000 I put in that day plus a little something extra for my time.

I put down $2,000 in a $10/$20 no limit game. I was playing well and everyone else wasn't. In just a few hours was up $3,000. Then the bad players went broke and the cards got ugly. Shortly there after I was back down to even and my name was up for the $100/$200 limit game. 

I moved my money over to the limit game and thought if I play well I can pick up a quick rack ($2,500) and head home. I wasn't able to get any traction in that game. Every time I got a little ahead I slipped right back down. Most of the time I was just trying to get back to even, never mind making a profit. Slowly getting even wasn't even in sight. I saw what was happening and slowed way down. It's hard to remember all the ups and downs but at one point I had to pull extra money out of the ATM ($2,000). At about that time I was folding just about every hand. I wasn't getting in bad situations or running bad, I was just not getting anything playable. That was fine with me, I'd rather get shit and not play then good cards and lose. Slowly I started to make a comeback but then I fell right back down again. I borrowed $3,000 from a friend and kept in the game. I had almost $9,000 in front of me before I was headed back down and all in with my last $800 on one hand. I got lucky and won the pot with that hand. I'm not sure what I would have done if I lost, go home or keep playing. In just 20 minutes I was back up to $5,000. That was the last swing downwards. I hit a wall at about $8,000 and decided after being awake for 43 hours straight and playing for 36 hours it was time to go home.

I crashed almost right away and slept till this morning. I woke up a few times to piss and eat a little before going back to sleep. That turned out to be 24 out of 28 hours that I slept. I woke up today and felt good. I was only stuck $5,000 which wasn't that bad. Mostly I was upset at how long I was playing for. Why try so hard at the casino when it comes so easily online?

So now what do I do? I should do some work, clean my house and get the laundry done. . ... But first I'm going to get my money back damn it! I only played online for 3 hours this month and I was up $3,000 so I knew I could do it. I can't make a losing blog entry, damn it, I just can't.

I got on and started out at $30/$60. That didn't seem to be high enough for me so I put $1,000 on poker stars (fuckers wouldn't let me put more) so I could play bigger games. I lost that in 6 hands, wonderful. I went back to full tilt and played heads up $100/$200. It was the biggest I've played in months but fuck it I want to get even and I want to get even FAST!

After a short lived lead I got stuck with a player as much as $5,000. I got a good amount of it back before she quit me. Then another player sat down and milked me for $2,500. There must have been a line of players waiting for me because as soon as one got up another sat down. I took the next guy for a little money before he quit. Now mind you I've only been playing for 2 or 3 hours at this point and I was stuck when I should have been winning.

One last person sat down and the battle was on. I had his style down. I robbed every pot I could and only got caught a few times. We kept going back and forth while trash talking each other. At one point I made back all my money (on his back) plus $3,500. I was going to quit him because he said I would lose all my money if I didn't. There's nothing I like more then leaving a player stuck when he says something like "you're going to go broke." I tell him "thanks for the advice, friend" and then leave the game with him fuming. But I couldn't quit this guy, he was playing so bad. So I stayed in and not only did I gave back the $3,500 I was up but another $5,000 of my own money. I was stuck again and feeling like shit for not leaving before. Many of hands later I wound up busting him up for $8,000 of his money and making a profit of $6,200 for the day. All that shit in 4 hours. During this game I got dealt 559 hands in 185 minutes. That's 1 hand every 20 seconds.

Ok so that means I won back the $6,000 I lost playing the cash and tournament games at the casino. With about $200 in profit since Saturday morning that makes my hourly about $4. Sweet. Prior to all this shit I also won $3,000 online earlier in the month. Let's get to the rundown.

Online bankroll @ $23,993.50
Live bankroll @ -$5,000
Old profit @ $20,023.24
New profit @ $4,190
Total profit @ $24,213.24

My online hourly rate is $1,390.60 for this month and $479.28 since I started this blog. My live hourly rate is shit so I'm going to ignore it.

 I'm still pretty sleepy. I think I'll get another 20-30 more hours of sleep before I feel normal again. That puts me back in action at about Thursday.

So much has gone on the past few days. I'm hardly sleeping and crazy busy. With going into the casino and also working on the other projects I'm spread pretty thin. My social life now is practically nonexistent. With all that going on I'm happy I at least have some good news to report.

I've played in two tournaments so far. A $540 turbo 6 handed no limit and a $1580. Each event lasts for 12 hours during the first day and then continues on the next day at 7pm.

The turbo had 340 people enter and I got down to 42nd place. I would have only started to win money if I got down to 18th place or lower. Despite not making the money I felt really good about that play. It was the first event I played and made it deep in the event. I was aware of everything that was going on around me. I felt good.

The next event I played on Wednesday with 378 other people. My head was focused and I was ready for this. What I wasn't ready for was the lack of sleep I was getting. I have only been sleeping for 4-5 hours each night and that would almost cost me the event. I started Wednesday by waking up at 6:30am doing some work and then going into the casino to play at 3:30pm. I was sharp at first and picking up a good amount of chips. Unfortunately the lack of sleep started to catch up with me and I started to go downhill after the 1 hour dinner break at 7pm. I was giving away all the chips I picked up earlier and almost went broke. Thankfully I got my shit together quickly, woke up and started winning from then on. I stayed focused and a few hours later there were only 40 players left! I made it further then the day before and I just had to make it to 28 to start cashing in. After some time and a lot of good play I was in the money! Before long it was 3:30am and time to go home. Only 16 players left, I had a good amount of chips and it was the first time I made it to day 2 of any event. I felt great.

I came back the next day ready for battle. Unfortunately for me the battle was short. I was knocked out at 15th place and took home $5,515 in prize money. Minus the $1,580 entry fee my profit was $3,935.

Results @ http://www.cardplayer.com/tournaments/results/6850

I'm going in to play another tourny today. I hope I keep improving and maintaining my focus. I know I can't go far in all events, shit happens, but as long as I play well I know something big is likely to happen.

I'm also still making some money playing online. I'll save that and the rundown for the next entry, this one is long enough.

Over the past few days I found time to play here and there for just a few minutes at a time. In total I played for 2 hours. In that time I picked up a cool $2,400. Yes that's right a nice $1,200/hour. Nothing major managed to happen this go-round. I did get a good share of cards while I was playing. Also, most times I just played less then 20 hands at each table with a max of 61 hands in one game. Hit and runs left and right, online is so good like that.

I noticed that I've been targeting short games (less then 5 players) and even heads up more often. It's a good spot to be in if the person you're up against plays like ass. Then each one of his mistakes gets magnified and costs him a lot more. The same goes for if I play like shit or am up against a good player so I have to pick my spots.

With that extra cash it brings my profit to a tiny bit over $20,000. I won't get to play any more this month so I'll finish off here. I really wanted finish this month with a nice clean number and what's cleaner then $20,000? I guess maybe $40,000, huh? Well that sounds like a nice goal for February.

The run down:
Account @ $14,803.50 (I'm working on the withdrawals)
Old profit @ $17,623.24
New profit @ $3,285.25
Total profit @ $20,023.24

Three games got me the most amount of money:
30/60 for over $7,000 playing over 2,000 hands
15/30 for over $6,000 playing almost 3,000 hands
50/100 for almost $6,000 playing over 250 hands

This month I played for a total of 56 hours. That breaks down to $357 per hour. The rake (the money the poker company takes from each pot for the service of dealing cards) added up to $3,500. 17% for just dealing cards, sick.

The last thing I'll bring up about this month is once I booked two wins in a row I never lost again. That's a great stat but the reason that happens is because I'll stick with a session until it's a winning one. Great when it turns my way. Shitty when it keeps going in the toilet. The withdrawals should protect me.