Bonuses are cool

Every now and then absolute sends me a coupon in the mail, usually some kind of special bonus, but it generally isn't that much, maybe $35 for $100. Well, I got one last week that I had to hit up, 100% up to $100!! So I coughed up the $100 and hit the limit table again, been a LONG time since I did that. It didn't start off good, lost about $20 the first night, but then made a comeback over the next few days to bring myself about $20 up. Then I had one of those terrible nights you hear about. In about 2 hours of play I lost nearly $60. At .50/1.00 levels that's pretty bad. Nothing seemed to work, the only pots I won were when I raised preflop and everyone folded. I figured I'd never recover fully from that, and went to bed pretty pissed off. But I woke up the next morning with a fresh attitude and decided to sit down and spend my Saturday morning trying to clear this bonus. I ended up playing 3 tables and everything started clicking again. Amazingly I cleared the bonus $20 up, so I won back that $60 in 3 hours. I cashed out with $220, not bad for $100 investment!! Once again I'd love to put that money in another site, like maybe UB since I already have bonus money sitting there, but I'm probably going to take it out, I still have my sit and go fund working.

Speaking of that, I haven't played any in a long time!! But I did notice that on AP they have $2 sit and goes, which PS doesn't. I have $68 in that fund, so I took it out of PS and put it in AP. These are the traditional single table sit and goes, not the 5 tables I was playing before, so I have to get myself in that mindset, it's a whole different ballgame, patience is definitely key. When I get it up to the $150 mark I'll put it back in PS, because they have various size sit and goes at the $5 level, I think 9, 18 and 27 person tourneys, so I can choose which ones to play and any given time.

In the 72os league, I just missed my goal of top 10, finished 12th. Not bad, my best finish yet. But I did have a very good championship event, finished 3rd!! I've always played badly in that, so that was very satisfying. Doc999 won, I was at his table for a long time, he played very well, had a demanding chip lead that was hard to overcome.

And lastly I finished the blackjack trail with $400. Not bad, but not anywhere near what I was hoping. I cashed it out to pay some bills, so that's cool by me.

Casino's Suck

Yeah, you heard me!! Well, they don't ALL suck. In my last post I said I was going to use 4Flush's casino bonus plan to build a bankroll. Everything was going well....put the initial $100 in Starluck, cashed out with $265, put $100 in Planetluck, cashed out with $200....then all hell broke loose. At this point I had my $100 up to $365. The next casino to hit up on his list was Play United. The only problem is, they've since decided to take blackjack off of the bonus list!! There was SO much money involved at this site, potentiall $750 in bonuses, that I figured I could give it a shot. Put in $150 to get the $150 bonus, so my account had $300 in it. I decided to take my shot at Deuces Wild video poker, I've known in the past for this to be a game that you can usually at least come close to breaking even if you play the right strategy. Well, in about 4 days I lost the ENTIRE $300 just playing $1 games!!! And to top it off I wasn't even CLOSE to getting their wagering requirements to clear my bonus anyway. This pissed me off, but at the same time I figured I really only lost bonus money from the other sites, not my own money. I still have $215 left, so I've doubled my money. It's unfortunate that I couldn't get anything to work out at that site, it could have been a major boost in bankroll. With this setback, I'm just going to take that last $200 and put it in the last site on the list (can't remember it's name off hand), and get the $200 bonus from there. I'll only need to play around 16 hours of blackjack to clear it, so I should still have around $400 when I cash out. I'm not sure what I'm going to do from there, I may just take it out for stuff at home, or maybe put some of it in to start playing the limit poker tables again. There's other casino bonuses to hit, bu they are all sticky bonuses, I'm not sure if I want to get into that or not.

On the poker front, not much happening, I maybe only played 2 or 3 sit and goes this week, too busy with work and these damn casinos.

In my 72os league, I can't believe it, I missed week 6!!! I was at my computer ready for it, but lost track of time and totally missed registering in time!! That dropped my to 22nd. I'll play the wildcard tonight and try and push myself back into the top 10.

That's all for now!

Hitting The Blackjack Trail!!

# tourn.: 92
ROI%: 40.53
ITM%: 29.35
Net: $44.58
Bankroll: $74.58
1st: 3
2nd: 3
3rd: 2

First, poker news...only played a few this week. Best finish in the sit and goes was a 3rd, also had a 5th in there. I also played one of the big PokerStars $1 MTT's, played against over 1500 players, managed a respectable 122nd. Only brought in $1.58, but I at least cashed!! LOL I'm just about halfway to my $150 goal.

In the 72os league, sitting at a pretty 7th place after the first 5 events, only event 6 and the wildcard to go!! My goal is to stay in the top 10, never been that high before.

Now, about the title of this entry....I've put some money in to hit the casino bonus hunt!!! They're such big bonuses, it seems silly to not try. I'm starting at the standard $100, put in StarLuck and got an extra $100 from them. I've been playing blackjack, which really is the standard for bonus hunts. Right now I'm sitting at $180....would be better but I got greedy and played around $30 in keno and video poker. HAVE TO STICK TO BLACKJACK!!!! It's the only casino game where you at least have a chance if you play proper strategy. I should be cashing that one out tomorrow and going on to PlanetLuck for another easy $100. My goal here is to go through the bonus plan set out by 4Flush, at which point I should have around $900-$1000 dollars, not bad for $100 investment. Then I'm going to take that money and start playing my limit poker, hitting up the bonuses there. With this jump in bankroll I can finally start playing a little higher limits (probably 1/2) and hit the good bonuses. I just want to get the bankroll to a point that I can supplement my income with earnings on the tables....just enough to pay some of my normal bills every month would be great.

Another Slow Week

# tourn.: 85
ROI%: 39.49
ITM%: 28.24
Net: $40.20
Bankroll: $70.20
1st: 3
2nd: 3
3rd: 1

Wow, interesting week. My ROI and ITM went down, but Net and Bankroll went up!! LOL Reason being is that I only cashed once this week, but it happened to be a 1st, which pays $14. I don't think I played badly over all the others, just a mixture of bad luck and cold cards. You'll have that. I have some friends that ask why I don't move up to the $5 with the tournies I've been cashing, and runs like this is why. I'm sticking to my guns and hanging in there until I reach that $150 mark. I really wish my ROI and ITM were higher...I think if these were standard single table sit and gos it would be, but I like this 5 table format.

In 72os league news I finished a really bad 58th two weeks ago, which dropped me to 12th in the standings. That was a bad night with really bad cards, not too much fun at all. Last night I fared better, finishing 21st. I probably could of hung around longer to move up a couple of slots, but I've finally moved away from that trend, I used to do that alot. I've lost the fear to put it all-in. Last night I was down to around 6-7 BB, had AQos so I pushed it, ran into AK. Oh well, I'm not upset about my move, just got unlucky and hit into a bigger hand.

Back to the tables!

I'm BACK

Wow, it's been a VERY long time since I updated this, but I thought I'll try and get back into it. First a little update...last time I did this I was doing the bonus hunt. I had my $100 up to around $250, but I ended up having to cash it out. :( Then about 2 months ago I decided to do the sit and go route. I didn't have much to invest, so I put $30 into PokerStars to play the $1 games. I turned my $30 into almost $60 and cashed it out!! Now I think I'm finally ready to do this again for real without having to take it out. So, I put $30 back in PS. It's now currently up to $65.60! My goal is to use the 30 buy-in rule, so I'm going to continue playing the $1 sit and goes and tourneys until I reach $150, then I can move up to $5. What I really like about PS is that the $1 sit and goes are actually 45 people 5 table MTTs, so I think I've been getting some pretty good experience. I've really noticed a change in my game, with all the hands and situations I've been seeing I think I'm starting to make better decisions. Of course they don't always work out, I've made some great all in calls lately just to be rivered out, but I was at least happy in my decision making. I'm going to try and update this every week with my stats, so here's what I got now (these tourneys pay top 7):

# tourn.: 72
ROI%: 42.69
ITM%: 30.56
Net: $35.60
Bankroll: $65.60
1st: 2
2nd: 3
3rd: 1

These numbers only reflect touneys played since I've put in the 2nd $30.

In other poker news, so far we've played 3 games in the 72os.com league, I've finished 4, 44, and 32 which puts me in 7th place!! I just need to keep it up, I'd love to finish in top 10 this season.

Until next week!

Good Week at Absolute

Did very nicely at AP this week. Started out with $100 and $35 in bonus money, cashed out with $210!! Can't complain about that. Actually I DO have something to complain about. I busted my butt to finish off the bonus by Thursday night because I wanted to cash out to use the 50% redeposit bonus at UB. Well, still no money. I contacted support today, they said that it has been delayed due to increase in population (ever heard that before?), and I should have it by MONDAY!!! DAMN YOU!!! The promotion at UB ends Sunday night. So now I have to decide where to go to next. I'm still considering Paridise, they have a 25% signup bonus, which would be $50...plus I can get some free books from www.internettexasholdem.com for signing up!! I guess I'll figure that out when the time comes.

Still haven't decided if I'm playing the 72os wildcard event tonight. I'm in the top 20, so I'm pretty secure in getting into the championship event. I may be in bed anyway, have to work midnights this week so I might be napping before I have to go in.

Till next time!

On The Bonus Prowl

Yeah yeah, I know I said in an earlier post that I wasn't going to play the cash games. I've been known to lie. Well, not lie, just change my mind very easily. It's all Mathew Hilger's fault. I went to his site, and started reading up on the bonuses that poker sites offer. The more I read it, the more I said to myself "self, you love to play poker, why not take advantage of all that free money out there?". I have to admit, I made a good point. I've started doing this before, as you may have read in this blog, but I always got ahead of myself and played above my limits, so a bad day really took a hit. Plus, I think I'm a lot more disciplined now. I received a letter from Absolute Poker that offered me a $35 bonus on a $100 deposit in May. I know that AP has reloads ALL THE TIME, but not at 35%. So, I took the plunge and deposited $100. I also told myself that I was NOT going to play anything higher than .25/.50 until I got up to $300 bankroll (300BB rule). So far in two days of playing I've cleared $10 of my bonus and won around $60 at the tables!! By the time I clear the rest I should be over $200 total. Always feels good to double my money. The bonus is painfully long to clear at .50 cent levels, but I'm sticking to my guns. I'm now officially a bonus whore. You know what, I don't like that name, I'm changing it to "Free Money Opportunist". Yeah, much better. The hunt is now on for where I'm going to go next. I've already made deposits in the past on AP, UB, PS, Party and Empire, so I lost out on their signup bonuses. I'm doing my research, finding what sites have the right bonus to match what I have to deposit AND have the right limits. The Crypto sites have nice bonuses every month with not much of a deposit, but you have to play 1/2. It looks like Paradise Poker has a 25% on up to a $200 deposit, so that would fit nicely. Hopefully by the time I finish the AP and Paradise bonuses I'll be over $300, so I can move up to .50/1.00!! If not, I know that AP will have another reload, so with that I should be over. I'm going to start tracking my bankroll on here.

Oh yeah, I haven't given up already on my $20 tourney a week effort. I didn't do one this weekend because I put the $100 deposit in, but hopefully next weekend I'll be able to start that again. I just got a $3 an hour raise at my job, so coming up with that extra $20 should start becoming a little easier!

Boy oh boy, I really stunk it up again in the 72os tourney....I think 153. Had my AK get busted up by pocket 3's. I hit my A on the flop, but unfortunatly he hit his 3 as well. There goes my hope of a top 5 standing. Maybe I'll take this next wildcard event off, collect my head a little. I knew from the start that I wasn't all there while playing. At least I know I'll be in the championship event!!

This week I hope to finish off that AP bonus!! GL to all!