Finished Doyle's Room

I finally finished grinding out the Doyle's Room promo from WeDoItAllVegas. It took me longer than I expected, because the Action Points earned are based on contributed rake. It would have cleared faster if I had played higher limits, but I mostly played NL$100 because the NL$200 tables there seemed a bit tight (though it's difficult to tell with their software, because it doesn't give % Players Per Flop statistics). I had to play just over 3100 hands, and most of that time my bankroll just floated in the range of +/- $100. I didn't seem to get many good hands, and when I did get a monster, I rarely got paid off. I think I only got paid off once when my AKs made a straight on the turn and I got called by a smaller straight, but shortly after that I gave most of it back to the same guy when he turned a straight vs. my AA, and I couldn't lay it down, even though I was almost sure I was beaten (still a weakness of mine :( ).

Anyway, luckily I finished up the promo on the positive side of variance, and ended up with a profit of $198 at the tables, and earned a $135 sign-up bonus and a $50 Ebay gift certicate, for a net profit of $383.

I also played in the $50+5 Bounty tournament tonight, since all new players get a full rebate for it. I ended up finishing a modest 186 out of 770. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?), I didn't get seated next to anyone famous, though I noticed that Actyper, who also happened to be playing the same tourney, got seated at the same table as Chip Reese and Hoyt Corkins. Oh well, it was a good experience, nevertheless, with a good chance at a very nice prize pool. At least I managed to go deeper than Acty, who finished 346th :) .

I also placed a free $100 sports bet at BetWWTS.com, but unfortunately that one didn't win. Actyper was kind enough to split the referral money with me, though, which needed to be rolled over 1x. Luckily, our resident sports betting guru Riverrun helped me bet the referral money on an NFL game, which ended up covering, so I made a profit of $50 from this promo.

Earnings-to-date: $9169

PokerSavvy Blog Tour Video

Part One:



Part Two:



Winners:

1. Kajagugu - $500
2. Katitude - $300
3. Dornie - $200


The folks at PokerSavvy are pretty cool. They made a video, along with commentary, of the last Blog Tour $1000 freeroll tournament that I played in. It shows only three of the big hands I was involved in, with the last one being the horrible beat that knocked me out in 7th place. Check it out, it's almost like we're on TV!

If you are a blogger and would like to play in the next event, just email PokerSavvy support at (support at pokersavvy dot com) to let them know you would like to sign up for the Blog Tour. The next event is planned for mid- to late October, and if 50 or more bloggers will be playing, they will bump up the prize pool to $1500.

As for Doyle's Room, so far I am down a little under $100 playing mostly NL$100. I seem to have hit a cold streak, not getting any good starting hands, and not hitting much on the flop. I didn't get AA or KK until I played about 800 hands, and when I did finally get them, they won small pots or just scooped the blinds. As for the Bounty tourney, I had to postpone that until next Thursday, since I had to watch the kids tonight. Still looking forward to that one, I hope I get seated at Doyle Brunson's table.

Finished Poker.com

I signed up a few nights ago at Poker.com to do a PokerSavvy promo for 750 SavvyPoints. This was a pretty easy promo as it took me only one night to complete, two-tabling NL$200 for about 3 hours. Poker.com has arguably the best software out of all the sites I've tried so far. It's nicely laid out, and the graphics, sound, and animation are all very well done. Sorting through the poker tables is very easy as you can sort by columns as well as apply a filter. They also have a nice chat interface where you can use a variety of smileys, and they have unique mucking options such as the ability to show just one card, and a rabbit option where you can show your cards and ask the dealer to show any remaining, unseen community cards (so players can see if they could have made their draws if they had called). Competition there is on the weak side, as I did notice a few bad players even at NL$200. Traffic, though, is somewhat light, as I couldn't find any NL$100 tables going, so I had to move up to NL$200. Other negatives include incompatibility with PokerTracker, and a currently non-functional hand history feature. Overall, I ended up making $165 at the tables after winning two medium-sized pots with KK (also had AA that night, but won a small pot), but didn't catch any monster hands to trap people with. The bonus there is pretty difficult to clear, though. After earning 1000 comp points to clear the PokerSavvy promo, I was only halfway to clearing the first $10 bonus installment at 2000 comp points, so I decided not to chase the bonus and just moved on.

On the tournament side, I ended up busting out of the Paradise $10K tourney shortly after the first break. I chipped up fairly early when my 22 made a set on the flop, but after that I didn't get any good hands and dropped to an M of about 5. After the first break, I picked up KQo UTG, and decided to push with it. I realized afterwards that this was a mistake, and I should have waited for a better hand and/or better position. I would have needed a better hand to push UTG, as the likelihood of running into a real hand is much greater with everyone else still to act behind me. I got called by AKo, flop came up AQT, and I wasn't able to outdraw him.

Absolute also gave me $10 free to play with, so I worked that up to $12+ playing NL$25. I then played a $10+1 SNG, and bubbled out in 4th place, after falling for a trap when a guy slow-played his trip jacks.

I signed up at Doyle's Room today to do a promo for a $50 Ebay gift certificate through WeDoItAllVegas. Doyle's Room has a decent sign-up bonus of $135, which clears at a reasonable rate if you play NL$100 or higher, and works out to be 100% rakeback. They also give every new player a full rebate to the $55 Bounty tournament, where you can play against Doyle Brunson himself, along with Todd Brunson and Mike Caro. I'm looking forward to playing in that one this coming Thursday.

Earnings-to-date: $8736

My Best Online Tourney Finish

I'm primarily a full-table cash game player, but lately I've been trying to play some more tournaments. It's a nice change of pace from grinding it out at the ring games, but with two young kids to take care of, it's often difficult for me to set aside the time needed to play tourneys. I also don't want to invest a lot of money into tournaments right now 'cause I feel my game still needs a lot of improvement, so what I've been doing lately is playing in a lot of affiliate freerolls, tourneys where I can buy in with points, or sit-n-go's if a site happens to give me some free cash to lure me back.

A couple nights ago I had my best MTT finish to date. It was a VegasPokerPro Green Chip freeroll where I placed 2nd out of 95. The prize pool was pretty modest, but the players were fairly decent, definately better than your typical poker room freeroll where a lot of donks push with garbage. I managed to double up early with AA, but eventually started falling behind the blinds until I reached an M of about 5. I then was able to pick a few good hands to push, and managed to work myself back up to about an average stack. I only sucked out on someone once when I pushed with 44, got called by TT, and made my set on the flop. The rest of the tourney, I just played solid poker, and made it to heads up, where I was behind 2:1 in chips. My heads-up experience is very limited, so I'm sure I ended up playing too tight. My final hand I got sucked out on when I called all-in with K7s, opponent had 97o and made two-pair on the flop.

I also played in a PokerSavvy $1000 blogger freeroll at the same time, where I finished 7th out of 21. I was at the same table as Actyper for most of the tourney, so that was pretty interesting watching him play. He ended up finishing 5th. The players, as I expected, were pretty tough, but I think I managed to hold my own. Unfortunately, I got sucked out on pretty badly on my last hand, where I was way ahead on the flop with trip aces, but my opponent made runner-runner flush. It was a great experience, though, and I had a lot of fun and will be looking forward to the next one.

Tonight, I played in a $500K qualifier on Superior Poker where I bought in for 200 POP points. Only one seat was given for first place. Again, I made the final table, and finished 9th out of 151. Tomorrow night, I'm playing in a Paradise $10K invitational freeroll with about 350 players, so I'm hoping my luck and/or good play will continue.

On the negative side, I lost $149 a few days ago playing on PartyPoker. I had cashed in some PokerSavvy points for a $100 gift certificate, and I also wanted to withdraw some of my bankroll, so I had to do some cover play. I should have quit when I played enough hands and was down only about $5, but I continued playing and had a run of bad luck. For some reason, I just cannot do well on Party. Up until this point, I was break-even at the tables, now I'm in the red about $150. So from now on, I'm going to only play the bare minimum on Party when I need to clear a bonus or do any cover play for gift certificates or withdrawals to my bank account.

So, after winning $75 in the VPP freeroll, cashing in a $100 Party GC, and losing $149 at Party, I have a net profit of $26 to my bankroll. I withdrew $1483 from my bankroll, leaving myself $1275 online.

Earnings-to-date: $8571

Finished PokerStars

I signed up for PokerStars through Internet Texas Hold'em, and selected "Harrington On Hold'em Volume 3", "No-Limit Hold'em: Theory and Practice", and the DB Dealer Button/Timer as my gifts. I've already got HoH volumes 1 and 2, which are great, so I was eager to get volume 3. The Sklansky no-limit book was kind of a toss-up, though. The reviews I've read have been mixed, and his books tend to be rather dry reading, but since there wasn't any other book I wanted, I figured this would be a decent reference text. The dealer button is kind of a cool gadget that I've been eyeing. Usually, I just use my cell phone alarm as a timer for my home games, which is kind of lame, so I'm sure I'll be able to put this gadget to good use.

The play at PokerStars was a bit tougher than I'm used to, after having encountered a lot of soft play at Mansion and Superior Poker. I started off with NL$100, but since the pot needed to be at least $20 to get any FPP, the points were accumulating too slowly, so I moved up to NL$200. Then came the roller coaster ride. I started out on the positive side, up about $100, then made a couple questionable calls where I didn't give my opponent credit for having a hand. With AJo I flopped top-pair-third-kicker, but lost to AKs 'cause I didn't believe my opponent had a better kicker, and with KK I held an overpair to the board with a gutshot straight draw, but lost to a guy who flopped a set, smooth-called my flop bet, and re-raised me all-in on the turn. This took me down to a loss of over $300. I then decided to tighten up my play, and focussed on playing just one table at a time, as opposed to two. I managed to get back above even, and finished the promo with a whopping $4 in profit at the tables. Since PokerStars didn't give me any kind of bonus money to clear, I'm gonna settle for that tiny profit, and just move on to another site and promo.

So I ended up with a profit of $4 at the tables, and cleared the promo for about $60 in books and poker accessories, for a net profit of $64.

Earnings-to-date: $8545

Finished Mansion Poker

First of all, way to go Steelers! Pittsburgh did end up beating the spread in their very exciting season opener, so congrats to everyone who participated in the Mansion Sportsbook promo and ended up earning a hefty $1000 (assuming you didn't hedge)! This was by far the fastest and easiest $1000 I have ever earned! Props go to Mansion for putting on such a great promo, and I hope everyone who profited from it will show their support for Mansion by at least trying out their new poker site. I know for sure that I will be back later on to play some more poker, as I still have a decent bonus to clear, and also the games there have been quite profitable for me. I also might try their PokerDome qualifiers to see if I can win a seat package to their PokerDome TV show. BTW, fellow blogger Actyper will be playing this Sunday to win a PokerDome seat package, so best of luck to him, and hopefully we will be able to see more than just his sexy back on TV!

Since my last Mansion update, I have made an additional $111 in bonus money and profit at the tables. It could have been a bit more, but I suffered a couple bad suckouts on the river a few nights ago. Overall, I am up over seven buy-ins ($728) in about two weeks of play, so I am quite happy with the site and would highly recommend it to anyone interested in trying it out. Combined with the sportsbook promo, this gives me a net profit of $1111 since my last update.

Next up will be a PokerStars promo. I have been wanting to open a Stars account for a while now so that I can try out some of their tournaments, so I will be doing a poker book promo through Internet Texas Holdem.

Earnings-to-date: $8481