I stopped playing poker

I pretty much stopped playing poker since Black Friday. Here's an updated graph of my online poker career. I realize that there are still some poker sites open to the US, but I am really trying to work on my school work right now. 

I have made great strides in my life since my last blog post. Black Friday may have been a great blessing in disguise for me. 

I leave as a struggling 25NL 6-max player with an extra $500 in my pocket (including rakeback and bonuses) and a whole lotta fun experiences.

Farewell poker community, I may return someday.

Princess Cruise Pokerpro TR/Rant

I just got back from 10 day Alaskan Cruise starting from San Francisco. I was on the Sea Princess ship, which had one PokerPro table.

It was $1/2, 50 min, 200 max.
The rake was 10% up to $7 and they raked pots with no flop.

The donkament structure was $50+$10 with 1500 chips, blinds starting at 50/100 with the blinds going up every 15 minutes. (lol, no I didn't play those)

Summary

Overall, I ended up losing $265 over 400 or 500ish hands. The mega whales ended up sucking out on a ton of hands on the first few days of play and the 4 other 25/8 "regs" ended up valuetowning them to death before I could take my money back. One of the more annoying things of this cruise was that 3 of the regs were two brothers and an uncle, who keep talking during the hands. I might fold like 20 hands in a row and when I raise, they will say "WHOAA!! I didn't see this guy play yet, or they would start guessing my hand out loud while the whales were playing with me. After showing so many solid starting hands playing about 15/11, even the mega whales started to catch on. I found it difficult to get paid off during the last 2 days of play, where as the annoying obnoxious 25/8 "regs" kept getting paid off. On one of the last 50 hands, there were 3 limpers in front of me and I raised to $16 with kings (because when I raised to $10-12 with KQ and get 4 callers I whiff too much). The whales actually folded. Where as the "obnoxious looking" "reg" 3bet shoves with aces and two whales call.

Some Afterthoughts

I only played live at a casino once before this cruise and it was b4 I actually learned the game seriously, so I don't really have much of a comparison.

1. People talking during the hand pisses me off.
2. Playing against a family who call themselves sharks playing 25/8 pisses me off.
3. Open limping small pocket pairs is not a leak here.
4. Overbetting preflop and on the flop with strong hands is very profitable.
5. Betting 1/4 or even 1/5 of the pot on the river with top pair hands is not exploitable. People tend to look at bet sizing like $5/$7/$10 instead of $15/$30/$60.
6. People seem to be more willing to put a ton of money in on draws then with top pair.
7. Playing with the same players everyday sucks.

8. I asked the 25/8 "obnoxious looking" "reg" who probably won $800-$1000 during the trip what stakes he plays online. He said he doesn't because he thinks it's rigged.

Fuck You Pokerstars

So I'm still at FTP right now here is overall earnings progress so far.

Even though PokerStars are fucked me over by chasing away fish with the buyin changes.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/pokerstars-announcement-changes-nl-pl-cash-game-buy-ins-758670/

AND raised the microstakes rake.
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28/internet-poker/hold-pokerstars-when-did-you-start-raking-these-pots-800827/
http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/room/rake/

After I finish this promo at FTP, I'm am coming back because I am a fucking sell out pokerstars fanboy. 

Please don't upset me anymore PokerStars. I love you. <3

Some Goals

Been awhile since my last post. I had to handle some school work because I'm such a procrastinating degen.

A few updates since I haven't been posting.
1. Moved to 6 max poker
2. Moved to FTP temporarily (you heard me right). Will be back at stars in a month though.
3. Currently sucking really bad at FTP 5NL SH.

Goals:
1.  Put a good amount of study/school time in each day even if I got nothing due.
2.  Run on treadmill more and do some push-ups
3.  Fix my 6 max before I go back to pokerstars.
4.  Stop playing like a nitting robot or a semi tilted fish.
5.  Update blog more often and post graphs/pictures.

Pokerstars changes min/max buyins for cash games!

http://www.pokerstars.com/poker/games/rules/ring/

So I'm still playing at 5NL, so it actually doesn't affect me at all YET. Although overall the changes seem extremely good, there are 3 things that worry me. The fish are going to go away, the fish are going to go away, and the fish are going to go away.  The fish are no longer going to go in the 40-100bb and will all move to the 20-50bb tables. Fish are losing players, and hate it when they get stacked for huge amounts. Therefore, they will go to 20-50bb tables, where you lose less and skill doesn't play as much of a roll.

I think Pokerstars can help fix this by two ways (that have probably be brought up in the 2p2 forums multiple times).

One, change the 20-50bb tables to 20-40bb. This will close the buyin overlap and possible less bad fish will go to the shallow tables and buyin for 50bb. Plus buying in for 50bb when everyone is 20bb around you is kinda stupid.

Two, label the table shallow, regular(or no label), and deep. The fish will be more inclined just to join the regular tables and not the ones with weird labels. Maybe I'm just a selfish asshole, but the fish really need to know they are playing in the fucking shorty games.

And going back to my own poker...

I transferred my FTP money over to Stars and have enough to move up to 10NL, but I'll probably wait until Hold'em Manager comes out with a new update first. Some people seem to have problems at the new min/max buyin tables that are not at 5NL, but at every table 10NL+

FTP Take 2

So I ended up going back to FTP to take their free money. Basically the deal goes. Play from April 3rd-11th everyday and earn at least 5 ftp points each day (about $.50 per day) and FTP will award $25 dollars. LOL at my minimalist approach seen below.

I just played like 20 minutes of 5NL Rush poker a day and got a free $25 bonus, when I only raked $5.28. That's a 10% increase to my bankroll! I'm going to add the rest of my FTP money to my Stars bankroll through 2p2 player transfers and I will be closing in on the $300 mark. Even though I'm rolled for 10NL, I'm going stick to 5NL for a little bit longer. I want to have a good amount of hands with a solid win rate before I move up. Plus, Pokerstars changed their min/max buyin policy, so everything is all screwed up except 5NL and below. I'll go into more detail about that in my next post.

Thank You "Cry Me A River"

For finally adding my blog to the damn Micro FRNL blog list. Now people can actually fucking read my blog instead of me talking to my damn self. I don't know whether you finally added it because I finally made a RSS feed, or I have a decent amount of posts now, or you're just REALLY SLOW at responding to your PMs, but whatever the reason thank you. (He'll probably never even see this message lol.)

I thought I lost my chances with getting my blog posted when he got mad about my post on encouraging under aged online poker LOL, but maybe he forgot 'insert embarrassment emoticon here'.

Since my blog has been opened to the 2plus2 community. I will work on improving it for possible future followers. This includes improvements like:

1. Make your opinion known
2. Link like crazy
3. Write less
4. 250 Words is enough
5. Make Headlines snappy
6. Write with passion
7. Include Bullet point lists
8. Edit your post
9. Make your posts easy to scan
10. Be consistent with your style
11. Litter the post with keywords
12. Steal your ideas from google (like I just did for the above list)

I think the ones I need to work on are 2, 3, 6, 9, and 11. I want to post many more posts, but make them shorter and more interesting. Honestly, when I read other people's blogs, I just skim. I don't want to read a 4 page essays. So, I am definitely going to make my future posts skim friendly for dumb, impatient people like me.

Don't be afraid to use the follow feature on my blog. I won't think your a stalker. In fact, I might even decide to stalk your blog as well if you stalk mine. =)