Bonus Clearing at Party and Gaming Club

I cleared a reload bonus at PartyPoker, making $177 at the NL$100 tables, and $110 in bonus money. I also did a Gaming Club reload, losing $51 at the tables and earning a $50 bonus. Was actually down around $300 at one point due to a streak of cold cards, running into a monster hand (my AKo vs AA on a board with AK), and a couple bad beats on the river, but managed to grind back to break even.

I also cashed in some PSO points for $200 in Absolute gift certificates, and a set of Copag cards ($15). I withdrew $1000 out of my bankroll.

Cake Poker is now offering rakeback through affiliates, so I'm planning to sign up through Bonus Whores to try out the site. They have some interesting promotions, plus several people in the home league I play in are regulars there.

Tonight is the last event in the PSO League. Currently I'm in 12th place, and need to finish in the top 5 to earn a league prize, so I'm guessing I'll need to finish in the top 3 tonight to have any chance. Good luck, everyone!

Earnings-to-date: $10,713

PSO League Tourney #6

I final-tabled the PSO league tourney again, this time finishing 2nd out of 98, for a prize of $98 plus 17,500 PSO points. I played fairly solid, but a little more aggressively this time, by defending my blinds from steals with a re-raise when I felt I was ahead, and often attacking weakness by raising in late position with any two cards if there was a single limper ahead of me. This helped me pick up a lot of small pots, and kept me ahead of the blinds with a comfortable, above-average stack for most of the tourney.

I became the chip leader for a while when I flopped a flush draw, and called a guy to the river where I made my flush and almost doubled up. From there, I pretty much cruised into the final table, where I stayed around top 2 in chips. When it got down to 5 players, I started getting really card dead, plus a lot of my steal attempts were meeting resistance. I bled chips until I became the short stack with 3 left. I had to push in the SB with K7s, got called by AKo, but the board was kind to me and paired my 7.

When it got to heads-up, I was behind about 3:1 in chips. I don't have a lot of heads-up experience, so I'm sure this is a weak point in my game. It went back and forth for a few hands, then I ended up pushing with 98s. Yeah, it wasn't such a great hand to push with, but it was getting late and my wife was getting on my back, so I figured my cards were live and it was worth a gamble. I got called by KQo, and the flop paired my 8, but the turn paired his K and I was done.

This finish should put me in the top 10 overall in the league, giving me at least a decent chance to finish in the top 5 for the league prizes. To take first overall, I'll still need to get a first place finish in one of the last two events, or maybe a top 3 finish in both of the last two events. Pretty unlikely, but you never know.

I played a little bit on Party a couple nights ago, and made $129 at the tables. I haven't really played much lately due to other priorities, but will start playing more regularly again in November. I'll tally up my winnings from the league games after the final tourney is done.

Earnings-to-date: $10,212

Brief Update

I played in the PSO League Tourney #5 tonight, and finished 9th out of 112. It's amazing how far you can get with just a little bit of luck and nothing else. All night long, I had pretty crappy starting hands. I only had 3 premium hands, AKo once, KK once, and JJ once, all of which won only small pots. I flopped trips once, but all the other flops I saw didn't hit me with anything better than top pair, and I only managed to accumulate chips by getting lucky with some mediocre hands.

JTo - in SB, I called a min raise from the button, who had KK, I flopped trips and managed to stack him.

98s - had to push with this when I was down to only 2.5BB, got called by K2s, flop paired his 2, but I managed to river a straight.

56s - flop came up Q87, I pushed with the OESD, and got called by AA and 87s, turn was a 4 to make my straight.

K9s - all-in preflop, got called by KQo, I managed to make 2-pair on the river.

And that was the extent of my hands. A couple other times I was all-in preflop with a slight lead, and managed to survive. My last hand I was the short-stack at the final table, had to push with A8o, and was called by AJo. Now if only I can have both good luck and good cards for the next tourney, then I might have a decent chance at taking first place.

I did a CasinoRewards reload, 100% up to $150, played it like a sticky and busted out for a loss of $150. Did the Bet365 Casino bonus (#5 on Actyper's Top 10 Casinos), and finished with a profit of $164. Played a bit of poker on Party (which, BTW, feels like a ghost town now after banning all US players), and made $9.

I've removed eCasinoDeals from my Recommended Poker Links. DO NOT sign up for any promos there. That affiliate is a complete joke. Customers there have not received their points or their orders for 3 to 6 months, now. I myself have about $120 in points there which I may never be able to cash in. Supposedly, the owner is having some personal issues, but no one really knows what the heck is going on 'cause he doesn't even have the decency to post an update :(

Earnings-to-date: $10,083

Year-End Goal Reached!

Yay! I reached my year-end goal of $10,000 tonight, with two-and-a-half months to spare. I did the Victor Chandler casino bonus last night (#4 on Actyper's list, or #6 on his other list -- not sure which one is more up-to-date?) and finished with a profit of $55, and tonight I played a bit on PartyPoker and finished the session with a profit of $77, putting my earnings-to-date at $10,060.

I played in the PSO League tourney #2 last night, also, and finished 37th out of 108. Nothing interesting to report there. I'm actually going to take a bit of a break from poker for the rest of this month, except for the league games. I've got a lot fiscal year-end accounting to work on this month, plus some projects at home that I need to finish, so I'll have to put poker aside until I get that all done.

Earnings-to-date: $10,060

Gaming Club Reload and PlanetLuck Casino

I finished the Gaming Club reload last night, and made a nice $267 profit at the tables, playing NL$100 at the Bad Beat Jackpot tables. A lot of people seem to dislike the play on the Prima networks, but ever since I started playing the BBJ tables after a recommendation from a PSO member, Prima has become one of my most profitable sites. The tables are fairly loose, but not too loose, usually with a %players per flop of around 40%, which from my experience is just about right. Any looser, and you will start to get sucked out on more often, and any tighter, it becomes harder to get paid off. Most of the people playing there tend to be gambler types or calling stations, who seem willing to put their money in with the worst of it. When I'm on Prima, I play almost exclusively on those tables, now, and only play the regular tables when there isn't enough traffic on the jackpot tables. Even during North American evening hours, however, there is usually a couple full NL$100 jackpot tables playing, so traffic is not often a problem. I plan to sign up at the Prima skin, 123Poker, for 60% rakeback at Supreme Rakeback, so that I can play these tables when I'm not clearing any promos or reloads. Anyway, combined with the $50 reload bonus, I finished with a net profit of $317.

This put me within $22 of reaching my year-end goal, so I decided to do the #3 casino on Actyper's Top 10 Casinos list, PlanetLuck Casino. I deposited $100, got an instant $100 bonus, and had to wager $1600 before I could withdraw. This time, however, variance was not on my side, and after playing $5 blackjack hands and clearing the requirements about an hour later, I ended up with a bankroll of $90. I decided to play a little more, to see if I could work it up to at least show a profit, but of course with a negative EV game like blackjack, that probably wasn't such a good idea, and after dropping down to a bankroll of $50, I decided to stop and cut my losses to a net loss of $50. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.

Tomorrow there's a $5000 PSO freeroll on UltimateBet, but I don't think I'll be able to play because of Thanksgiving dinner plans. I'll be there for Sunday night's PSO league tourney #2, though, so hope to see you there, and good luck to everyone!

Earnings-to-date: $9928

Party Reload and PSO League Tourney #1

I finished the Party reload last night, making $57 at the tables playing NL$100, and earning a $75 bonus, for a net profit of $132.

Tonight I played in my first ever PSO league tourney, and finished a disappointing 74th out of 123. I finished work late, so I almost didn't make it in time. I had to call my wife, who knows nothing about poker, and get her to register on Absolute for me. The tourney was running for about 5 minutes before I finally made it home. Things started off badly, though, when I picked up QQ in the SB and re-raised it, button called me. Flop came up KKx, I made a cbet, and was called. That forced me to check on the turn, and I had to fold to a bet. I had some pretty decent hands after that, though, getting QQ two more times, KK once, AKs twice (lost once), AKo once (lost), and JJ once (lost), all before the first break. I got sucked out on twice by a short stack, who managed to double up twice through me, first time AKs vs 86o and he paired his 8, then JJ vs 44 and he hit his set. That left me with an M of around 10 after the first break. My final hand, I fell into a trap when my opponent flopped a straight, it got checked around on the flop, the turn gave me two pair and I pushed. Oh well, at least I finished ahead of Riverrun, who was out before I even started playing :)

Earnings-to-date: $9661

Charting My Earnings Progress

For my own interest, I've charted the progress of my earnings from online poker and casinos since I started playing less than a year ago. Surprisingly, the road has been fairly smooth and steady, with maybe just one or two minor dips along the way. The most significant change occurred around May 2006, shortly after I switched over from playing limit to no-limit holdem cash games. My progress after that point has accelerated significantly. I will update this chart periodically to monitor my progress. It will be interesting to see how the chart will change as I start to add more tournament play to my game over the next year.

PSO Freeroll and Casino Bonuses

I played in the $10,000 Poker Source Online freeroll at Poker Room last night. I made it past the first break with about an average stack. Had aces cracked earlier on by KJ which made two pairs on the flop and crippled me. Luckily, I managed to double up twice, once with KK and another time with something else (can't remember). With blinds moving up, I dropped to an M of less than 10 when I picked up KK again in late position. With an EP caller and an MP raiser, I decided to push all-in. EP folded, MP thought for a while and called with AKo. Board came out with no aces, but he lucked out and made a straight on the river to knock me out. Sucks when you get nice hands in a tourney but still end up finishing relatively early :(

After a long grind of poker doing the Doyle's Room promo, I decided to switch gears and try out a casino bonus instead, by working my way down Actyper's list of the Top 10 Casinos. I had already done #1, Casino-On-Net, so last night I did #2, Starluck Casino. I deposited $100, got a $100 bonus right away, and had to wager $1600 before I could withdraw. I played Blackjack using a basic strategy chart, and flat betted $5 per hand. Got a nice run of cards and worked my roll up to $360 when I finished the wagering requirements about an hour or so later, for a nice profit of $260.

I also cashed in some SavvyPoints for a $100 Party Poker gift certificate. This week, I plan to do a Party Poker reload bonus for $75 and 750 raked hands, and a Gaming Club reload bonus for $50 and 500 raked hands.

I'm getting pretty close to my year-end goal of $10,000. When I reach that, I think I'll celebrate and take my wife and kids out for a nice dinner :)

Earnings-to-date: $9529