The Poker Bonus Chaser's Journal

Friday night I played at Nine Poker, looking for those little fishies to finally pay me off.  And they did!  I was running over a $3/6 table for a good two hours.  Love those maniacs and calling stations when you can find them.  The deck was slapping me in the face, too, which always helps.  I pulled about 40 BB in that session.

Gave back about 25 BB of it on Saturday, of course.  I had a cookout with my neighbor Bubba, and we slogged down quite a few beers.  After he left I headed for my computer.  I learned long ago that I should stick to micro-limits and freerolls when drunk, but I decided I could take these fish two nights in a row, even drunk.  Well, I paid for that rationalization! 

By the time I figured out I should be in a freeroll, it was late.  I started one at Pitbull poker anyways.  I was having a great tournament, and when the bubble burst I was second.  The play was pretty tight, and it seemed to be taking forever.  It was late, and my head was nodding.  Sitting second with 17 players left I just stopped.  I couldn't take it any longer, and I went to bed.  When I checked in the morning I saw that I'd placed fifth.

I also played a $25 NL table while I was in that freeroll.  I sat with $17, and early on I got stacked to $3 when my KK got outdrawn.  I built it back up to $17, and then my AA got beat by 97o and I was back to $4.  Darn those premium hands!

Sunday was the BullsBetting bounty Tournament at PitBull.  Only 10 of us played, but it was fun.  I got knocked out when my AK failed to hit vs QQ all-in pre-flop.  I think I was 7th of 10.  Allus was the big winner - Congrats!

Posted by Bullajami at 04:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My little Nine Poker fishies took me on a wild ride last night.  I won two nice pots early, and then went on a long dry spell.  I made it to 120 hands played, and those were still the only two pots I'd won.  Along the way I had AA cracked (but made a good laydown on the turn - always tough with AA) and lost a flopped set to a rivered gutshot. 

My stack was down a bit, and I was getting irritable.  It seems that I have been having these dry runs of cards lately, and always when the action is juicy!  I was verging on tilt, but still able to make good decisions (how hard is the decision making when one is dealt crap over and over?), and understand that I didn't want to miss this opportunity - there were 3 big fish across the table from me (I was in seat 8, they were in 2, 3 and 5).  They were all three playing nearly every hand to showdown, and if they weren't shifting their chips back and forth, one of them was busting a good player's hand.  (Like my AA and set!)  Anyway, its my experience that winning fish will stay at the table, so I was looking forward to getting a few hands where I could clean up.

It was not to be.  I was still running about a 6% vp$ip when they checked off my table at about 10 minute intervals.  Drat!  Fortunately, Action Poker Network seems to have a high proportion of players who will sit at a $2/4 table with $20.  I started catching cards and stacked a couple of those guys to get back to even.  I also managed a QQQAA hand with pocket QQ, and got lots of action from "Mr. I Love A-rag".  By 145 hands I had drug 4 more pots, was back to even, and tired of poker.  Happy to be even after a session where I pulled only 6 pots in 145 hands.

Posted by Bullajami at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I went looking for donks, and donks I have found.  The problem is that they kept confirming that they were donks by showing me how they had outdrawn me by showdown.  Grrrrrr.  It was a night for negative variance, but I was only down about 15 BB by the end.  Nothing in the form of beats that we haven't all seen before, except that I had slick or suited slick 4 times in the first 3 orbits, flopped TPTK all 4 times, and never took a pot with it.  That stuck out in my mind as out of the ordinary.

I really hate going card dead for a long spell when there is a donkfest going on in front of me, too.  Watching the crappiest hands take down huge pots while I play good poker by folding my trash gets me a little frustrated.  I did take down a nice NL pot at the end of my evening when my set of fours became fours full of fives on the turn, but donkzilla thought he would blow me off the pot with his flushdraw.  I smooth called, and he made his hand on the river.  He check-raised me all-in, and I stacked him.  That was cool. 

Happy Chasing!

Posted by Bullajami at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am chasing a reload at Nine Poker.  Their bonus terms amount to 67% rakeback, calculated on contributed rake (not MGR), so there are better deals out there, but my current need for wimpy competition is taking precedence.  I was finding it this weekend at Nine Poker, that's for sure.  Unfortunately I couldn't make it pay off as hugely as I would have liked, but I am a bit ahead, despite getting below average cards for the most part, and taking a few suckouts.  I did have a really frustrating streak where the competition was at its absolute worst, and I couldn't get a single decent hand.  Pots were averaging about 12+ BB, and I couldn't snag a single one.  Very unhappy, that.

I also got in a mood Saturday night to play some MTTs.  I played 7 in quick succession at Will Hill, but never got any higher than a bubble out (11 of 82, I think it was).  The I took 3 beats where I was the favorite going in, and couldn't hold up.  I lost two all-in races, and on my bubble out, I was short and all-in with AQs, and the SB had big slick and called me.  I was pretty disappointed in the results, but I can only think of one or two donk moves I made.  I think in my bubble out I was too timid when there was still 20 of us.  I should probably be more aggressive then.

The very first MTT I played I had JJ on the very first hand, UTG.  I made a small raise, and got two callers, then the BB came OTT for a decent sized raise.  I called as did one other.  Flop came Q 8 5 and BB bet out.  I raised the pot and it folded to BB who thought forever and called.  Turn was another Q, and he checked.  I made a probing bet and he called.  River was a blank and BB went all-in.  I laid it down and he showed K5s, for bottom pair.  Not terribly remarkable that he played me and won, but what was remarkable was that he then started pistol-whipping me in chat.  He gloated about getting me to lay down middle pair (he had misread my hand, and thought I was playing the 8).  He was really quite a jerk about it.  I was OK, and never responded, as I was getting all kinds of good material about him, from him, but I never quite get why someone has to be A-holio at the tables.

Very next hand he is all-in on the flop, and gets called by AA.  He shows Q2s and loses most of his stack.  The third hand he is again all-in pre-flop and loses to a pair of nines.  I typed "GG, CYA" in chat, and he let loose with a flurry of obscenities at me on his way off the table.  That was rather amusing!

Posted by Bullajami at 08:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...I get my arse handed to me.  Playing Will Hill $2/4 full ring.  I was also playing 2 X $1/2 tables.  I had made a tidy profit the night before at Will Hill, so I figured, I should muli-table, clear out the bonus, and then move on to Hollywood.  How much damage can I do, right?  I started out pretty well, hitting a couple of nice draws on my $2/4 table, and building up a nice stack.  Then the bottom fell out, and the cards turned against me.  In addition, I made 3 poor call downs that cost me at least 6 BB. 

Why I would make call downs to flop re-raises or turn check raises on Uber-tight Will Hill while holding top pair hands with no redraws is not known to me.  It is a serious flaw in my game.  I also think I do it most consitently when I am multi-tabling FRLH.  There is something in that mixture that makes it hard for me to lay down a hand.  I am not sure I need to fully inderstand WHY to make it stop, though.  I am just going to stop playing more than two tables at a time. 

That's not as easy a decision to make as it ought to be.  I made a significant amount of money in 2005 playing 3 or 4 tables of FRLH at a time.  I am making much less at poker this year.  Mostly due to my decreased amount of play, but also because I had a horrible downswing earlier in the year - which I may still be in.  Additionally, when I do play, I am playing fewer tables and lower stakes.  It all adds up to less income from poker.  This has been offset by sportsbetting, but it's still difficult acknowledge that I am not going to getback to last year's earn rates any time soon.  C'est la vie!

I still have an hour left at Will Hill.  Hopefully I can find a good table tonight.

Posted by Bullajami at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finally remembered to check my Empire account last night, and sure enough, there was a free $15 there at 10X.  I took it to an NL $25 table and doubled it on the third hand when I flopped a set of nines, and fishboy wouldn't let go of his flush draw when I went all-in after he re-raised me.  (He did not have the odds.)

I split it and took $15 each to two NL $25 tables.  A horrible fish gave me two unbelievable opportunities to take his money, and he rivered me both times, and I was stacked at that table.  Irritated, I logged off and forgot to  mark him as a buddy.  I lost about $2 at the other table, so I was down to $13.

I came back after dinner and played one table for about an hour.  I almost got snuffed, but fought back from < $3 to clear it with about $12.50 remaining.  I am pretty sure that I did not play 150 hands before it was "unrestricted".  I got busy with other stuff and forgot to import my hand histories.  Ooops!

About 11:00 p.m. I took that $12.50 to the blackjack tables and doubled it to $25 (and some change).  Now I have $25 in my Empire account, and I am not sure what I want to do with it next.  Perhaps its time for a quest?  I'll contemplate that.

Posted by Bullajami at 09:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I sponsored a $300 freeroll at PitBull Poker on Sunday.  I am going to have to proclaim the event a success.  18 people showed up for it, and the top three were paid a nice prize for their time and efforts.  Yours truly finished 9th of 18, getting knocked out holding a pair of threes I had pushed first in with an M of about 3.  I donated all my chips to the eventual winner, Allus, on that hand when he called holding a pair of eights.

Pitbull posted the freeroll as "BullsBetting Freeroll".  As PitBull has many $50 freerolls daily, they draw a lot of freerollers.  Posting the $300 freeroll with that title has drawn about 20 new members to the forum, most of whom were hoping to get the password to this event.  I thought about it, as I have a soft spot.  One of the new members unwittingly convinced me that I shouldn't let them in by something he wrote.  He wrote something to the effect of "Your freeroll was intended to draw new members, and now it has, so you should let us play."

That reminded me that the intention was NOT primarily to draw new members, but to reward the veterans, whose patronage enables me to sponsor these type events.  Drawing new members is nice, but it isn't why I set this freeroll up in the first place.

Now the question will be, "what is the criteria for the next freeroll event"?  For this one membership was the only criteria.  I may need to rethink that in the future as I am not too keen on feeding the freeroll army from the work of the BullsBetting army.  I'll figure something out in that regard. 

General consensus from the participants was that a good time was had by all.  There have even been a few pleas for some additional events, just so we can all play together from time to time.  I like that idea, and I will explore options with PitBull when my regular POC returns.

Other than that event, I played some $3/6 limit at Pacific and hit a nice run for a 10 BB session on Friday.  I also played quite a bit at PitBull NL tables, up a few $, and then Taz organized a limit game right before the freeroll where I lost $2 or something.  I also cleared $40 of a Party bonus playing $25 NL, and winning a massive $8 in the process.  I was up about $18 with 1 hand left to play when I got clocked by a slow-played set for $10.  That guy got me good, never saw it coming.  he was way better than most of the players at party $25 NL.

I am undecided where to chase next, but I probably won't play again until Wednesday as I have quite a bit I would like to work on at the site.  Happy Chasing!

Posted by Bullajami at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's become quite annoying to start every session in the hole and then clawing my way back to even.  I suppose its better than NOT clawing my way back to even, but nonetheless, why can't I have a killer night?  What's wrong with having one of those, Poker Gods?

Decided to two-table NL at iPoker last night.  $100 6-max and $50 full ring.  My focus was on the 6-max, and I was just trying to ABC/nut-pedal on the full ring table.  As fate would have it, I got crushed on the 6-max table and tore up the table I was barely paying attention to. 

There was a huge donk on my left at that 6-max table.  Unfortunately I got two decent hands against him when he had flopped full houses, and I lost two medium-sized pots.  I don't think I played either hand badly - in fact I think he played them badly and could have gotten more out of me on both.  He passed my money, and much more, to the patient player on his left over the next hour, losing about $130 and then quitting the table.  Once he left, so did I, as I felt my edge on the others at the table was questionably thin.

On the full ring table I was getting cards and action.  Near the end I was dealt AA in EP.  I limped and the BTN raise 8X the BB, folding everyone else.  I called.  I flopped a set, and checked.  He bet the pot and I raised the minimum.  He re-raised all-in, and I called.  His hand mucked, and I stacked him.  AK maybe?  Not really sure, but that hand put me back up for the night, so I punched out.  It was late and I was getting tired.  I did clear about 180 iPoker points this way, though, so that was considerably faster than before.

I have played all of about 3 table hours of poker this week.  That is ridiculously light, and I am starting to get frustrated by my lack of playing time.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew, but I honestly enjoy all of the things I am involved in (in no particular order):

• BullsBetting.com
• My new and expanding duties at ITH
• Playing Poker
• Chasing Sportsbook Bonuses
• Chasing Casino Bonuses
• My day job
• Doing things with my family

I just hope I can keep all of these things going and not become half-assed at any of them.  For instance, becoming a really good poker player requires constant study.  I have only read one book in the last 6 months.  I suppose I could have read some more this week, but then I wouldn't have been able to play at all!

One thing I am looking at is becoming more organized.  There are lots of moving parts in maintaining an internet site, and if I can become more efficient at that it will likely free up some time for other things.  An example of this is that I am always trying to find new sportsbook bonuses for myself and the members at BullsBetting.  I need a system to know which books I have already looked at and rejected (and why) so that I don't end up looking back at some book I have already considered a week before.  Problem is, it can be tedious and time-consuming to invest the time in developing these processes up front.  If I am organizing my online sportsbook information, I am not hunting up new bonus opportunities.

So many bonuses, so little time!  Happy Chasing!

Posted by Bullajami at 10:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Checking over the iPoker sites I decided the NL games looked juicy enough, and so I chucked in some cash and played for just under an hour at a 6-max $50 NL table.  I was pretty much card dead, which is too bad, as the play was lively at times, and I watched several people get a lot of chips into the pot on some very mediocre hands.  It seemed like it was going to be possible to clean out someone eventually, but in my hour that opportunity never materialized.  Real life intervened and I had to log out, but I have some hopes for future sessions there.

I did have a donk-like calldown on a new player at the table once.  Without that I would have finished even.  As it was, I was down a few $$.  Nothing major.  It did highlight for me (again) the necessity for having good reads on players - which I was never getting while 4-tabling.  Later in the seession I would not have called him down.

I am somewhat disappointed at the rate the bonus is clearing at $50 NL SH.  About $1.65/hour so far.  That's fairly anemic by my reckoning, but it may be what I have to become accustomed to as I proceed - at least for now. 

$300 Freeroll.  I wanted to remind everyone that I am sponsoring a private freeroll at PitBull Poker this Sunday.  All you need to do to get in is to join the forum and have an account at PitBull Poker.  I am trying to give away $300, and I hope some folks turn out to get it!

Posted by Bullajami at 07:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Decided to work on my NL game a bit last night so I picked a juicy looking $50NL table and went to work.  It was looking donkalicious when after 2 orbits one player had already handed out $110, and had reloaded a third time.  Unfortunately, I could not get a single playable hand.  I had not seen a single flop during this time.  Grrrrrrr.

Then I managed  KQs on the BTN.  It folded to the C/O, and he raised to $1.  I decided to just call (he had been overly aggressive and I thought I might get to trap him).  The SB raised it to $4, and the BB (Mr 3 reloads) called.  The C/O called, and getting 11 - 2 odds on that pot, so did I.

The flop came AKQ two suits, and while I managed two-pair, I am not liking that flop too much at all.  SB, the pre-flop raiser, comes in for $6, and is immediately raised to $16 by the fisherking.  The C/O re-raises to $26 and all-in, and I know I am way behind to somebody, so I lay it down.  SB dumps his hand, and fisherking calls, showing a KTo.  Ah me.  C/O had the JTo, and took in a nice pot.  So, it was a good laydown by me - something I need to appreciate more in NL.

I finally got my chance with fisherking a few orbits later.  The table was now 7-handed, and I called first in from the SB with Q8s.  Fisherking, now in my BB, checks.  Flop comes QQ8, and it checks around on the flop.  Turn is a T and fisherking bets $5 into a $1 pot after I check it.  I smooth called.  River is a 9 and I check (fisherking likes to bet people off the pot).  Sure enough, fisherking bets $12 and all-in into an $11 pot.  Drat that I got to him when he was short-stacked!  I called and he showed K9o.  He would have called a pot-sized re-raise with his hand on the river, but NO-O-O-O, he's already out of chips when its Bull's turn!

That busted him for the fourth time in an hour, and he quit the table - which immediately broke.  I was up $2 at that point, and called it a night - it was 10:00 and I was tired.

Posted by Bullajami at 06:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was in Pittsburgh from 28 June to 06 July doing the family-in-law thing.  I took my laptop, but there just wasn't time for much poker.  I dabbled at Pacific a bit and came away about even.

Since returning home I have played a bit at VIP.  I wanted to claim one more $10 increment of that bonus and then cash out before they became a Prima skin and everything tightened up.  I had a juicy loose $3/6 table, but lost $25 chasing that $10 bonus.  Crap happens.

I had a wild ride at the InterPoker/InterCasino chase on Friday.  I posted about it in the High/Low section of the forum, but in a nut shell, I was killing it at Blackjack and then moved to a juicy £3/6 full ring game needing just a handfull of MPPs for that bonus completion and got SMOKED.  When your set loses, your stack suffers. 

Party gave me a $40 bonus and I have played 4 $6 SNGs with it.  Highest finish was 4th.  No luck at all, although I have to say I pretty much donked away the third one all on my own.  I was tired and frustrated and my play showed it.  I took the remaining $16 to the NL $25 tables and ran it back to $44 in about half an hour.  Here's an easy formula for you.  Good tables + good cards = Bull wins. 

Played the ITH People's Championship on Sunday.  The first hour it was raining cards on me, but the play was so tight I could not turn it into a huge stack.  I rivered a straight flush, but the player holding the nut flush on an unpaired board would not re-raise the river.  A player flopped a set of aces, but slow-played it allowing me to draw to an inside straight on the turn for free.  I probably could have stacked that player on the river, but I failed to re-raise - I still can't quite figure out why I didn't - the play was too obvious with the big river raise.  I guess I'll chalk it up to being an MTT noober.  I was getting some chips, but I was also getting an inordinate number of low pocket pairs that had to be laid down on the flop, and those were costing me some chips.

After the first break, the play loosened up a lot, but I couldn't catch a break with the cards.  The only decent hand I had was a pocket KK that took down the pot pre-flop when I re-re-raised all-in.  I laid down a top pair hand on the flop on an all-in re-re-raise from SANDSSTORM, and then I got all in 3 times on essentially coin flips and lost all three.  Poof, I was out 27 of 42.

I think I will be back to cash games and bonuses tonight.  My taste for tournaments is waning again.

Posted by Bullajami at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)