Still grinding away

Its several months since my last update. Not much in the way of news, had a couple of months of not playing much, just couldn't raise the enthusiasm. Anyway I think my jaded-ness (is that a word, well it is now!) is wearing off and I'm starting to play more. Haven't been keeping very good accounts, but I think I'm about $500 up for this financial year from freerolls in the main, made $65 on party poker freeroll earlier this week - I was 6th, 1st place was a $5500 package to Vegas would have been nice to get that. Ah well, couple of months when I need to take some chances on a late entry to WSOP, don't rate my chances unless I can get lucky AND get my concentration together.

I bought a laptop and a USB mobile t'internet dongle (with 1G a month vodaphone connection) - one of the reasons for buying it was that I'm fed up with AOL/Ipoker issues. I reckon (with discount on computer) that this extra internet connectivity costs me about £3 per week .... and 1G is plenty for my needs. In fact 100Mb would probably be enough as I can play most of the time using my normal wireless connection. The laptop means I spend more time playing poker with half a brain and watching telly from the sofa with the other half as against sitting in my office with no telly to distract me. Hell, I can now play poker sitting on the loo if I so desire - not that I have so far, but if I ever do have a gippy tummy then I have the technology :-).

Anyway - I'll try and keep this blog more current - promise.

End of Year Report

Well my poker financial year ended today with a grand total profit of $7772, plus a $10K entry to the WSOP. Not bad, the final 3 months (nov,dec,jan) of the year have been so-so with a profit of $1600 or so (and no losing weeks since Nov 2nd!). One "big" win of Euro600 coupled to a lot of smaller wins, it must be time for me to hit a substantial win again soon. Carried over are two tickets for Virgin festivals (worth Euro150 each) the first of which plats in Newcadtle in April.

Obviously winning the entry to the WSOP was the highlight of the year and that will be fondly remembered for a long time to come. Now that I've actually been to the WSOP my next Poker goal for 2009-2010 dream is to get into a major live tournament and win some cash. To do that I've definitely got to risk more than I do now. My secondary target is to exceed $10K winnings from online poker in the next financial year. Thirdly - I want to play much more live poker, so I'm going to have a virtual £500 to invest in live poker this coming year, the idea is to play through that amount and (hopefully) end the year with more than I started. So I intend to publish some live game stats on here.

The final thing to do is mention (once again) my thanks to Punters Lounge as at least half my profits are due to their efforts in poinying me at value games of online poker. Heres to a good 2009/10 season!!!!

How much the $7772 represents in "real money = Nritish Pounds" is hard to figure, with the fluctuations of the £ versus other currencies. If I take it at todays rate of $1.50 or so to the GBP then it represenys £5000 or so - or (say) £100 a week. This is an acceptable (amazing in many ways) amount for the low risk strategy that I employ. One thing I have definitely noted is that the key to winning tournaments is patience - the amount of money I've not won by jumping in with big bets too soon is large. Patience is highly coupled with mood, I have definite periods when my mood isn't right for playing poker and generally I am fairly sensible and stay away from anything likely to be expensive when I recognise that I'm not playing well because of this.

The profits from my poker represent a nice lot of "spare" money that allows me lots of lifes little extras. I've said it before (and I'll say it again) as a proper job then unless I increase my level of play (and therefore risk) then the pay level is crap (less than minimum wage), but I look on it as a hobby (I still enjoy the game) where at the end off the day I get paid for playing. The money won, is something akin to figuring out what your handicap is in golf - the way I see it I'm a good club player who on a really lucky day might qualify for the county championship and get 3rd place. If i didn't enjoy it I'd stop, I'd probably also stop if I lost money over any significant period.

Dribs and drabs.....

Last two weeks have a recorded profit of $19 and $95 respectively. Thats not the whole tale, I ended up 2nd overall in the October festival league which gave me a seat in a forthcoming Virgin festival. The seat is priced at Euro150 - but you can only win them and their true value is much in excess of this. Have also won entry yo various other freerolls including the next vroll final and the Bluesq bubble. The winning of seats such as this is a valuable part of my profit plan. Tonight (Sunday) I won $50 from a freeroll found on Blackpool Club poker - all I had to do was sgn up for their facebook group - freebies are there to be found and exploited.

MY chest is giving me a lot of problems at the moment, my lungs seem full of phlegm, maybe I need a visit to the desert air of Las Vegas to survive the winter. Hehehe - any excuse for a visit to Vegas.

So I now stand at $+6184, my overall target of $+7000 by start of february 2009 looks assured and thats not counting the other non-attributed seats I've won to WESOP and Virgin festivals.

[later] just discovered the upgrade of my blog has distroyed my sidebar profit listings .... will attempt to remedy that asap.

A modest week

Last week was one of those so-so weeks, good in parts. Profit was $70, but I probably have a guaranteed result in the monthly Virgin festival league due to a first and a 7th adding points to my performance in week 1. Since only best 4 count I'm well placed to get something from this.

Ongoing uearly profit now stands at $6070.

I've been playing a lot of Virgin (Boss network) raked hands. Well above the normal numbers I play to qualify for the tue,thu,sun vroll satellites. Aim is to qualify for the bosswide Euro25K game at end of every month, The results from the "el cheapo" fixed limit games I play to achieve raked hands were looking very profitable until I came up against some muppet who insisted on raising everything and unfortunately got a run of luck that was beyong belief. I still ended up ahead but will keep an eye out for this plonker in the future - hios run of luck was too good, almost enough to make me believe that he had a back-door into the software (like the absoute poker scandal). i can't believe he really did because the snmall stakes involved wouldn't warrant it.

Got the final of the Inside Poker pokergod on William Hill tonight (Tuesday) - 40 contestants with (I beleieve) a $10K cruise package up for grabs - heres hoping.

Apologies - I've been slacking

Its a long time (6 or 7 weeks) aince my last entry. Thats been due to taking a holiday, discovering a browser game called Travian and some chest problems. For several weeks my "work ethic" was even lower than usual and I played very little in the way of online poker. I wandered up to Nottingham and played in the PL WSOP £50 live game but my heart wasn;t in it - mind you I was very impressed with the facilities at Dusk till Dawn and got a free T-shirt :-). Poker seems to be providing a lot of my clothing nowadays!!

Last week my poker improved somewhat and I've done well in the first two Virgin Festival games on Monday and Tuesday. I had an exceedingly lucky 2nd place in one of the "New Littlewoods" freerolls and that gained me $540 and on Sunday (despite Aol mucking me about with network problems) came 6th in the Virgin vroll. Overall I had $+566 for the week and my total year now stands at just over $+6000. With the dollar having improved against the £ this means I'm ahead of last years results in GBP terms - although its all bad accounting as its exceeding hard to figure out exact amounts due to currency fluctuations. Perhaps I ought to start a deposit/withdrawal trail to figure out true profits in GBP.

With the state of the world economies I've started to liquidise some of my assets. I've purchased about 15 bottles of malt whiskey (special deal from Waitrose), converting cash into "trade goods" - now all I need is a shotgun, a years supply of beans and a hideout in the hills and I'm ready for armageddon - hahahaha. Thank god I didn't have a fortune invested in shares - or I'd be bemoaning the huge losses in this blog.

Anyway enough for now. I will try to get back to my more regular update schedule.

Charging ahead....

Its been a reasonable week pokerwise. The best result was from PaddyPower on Wednesday, the "battle of the sites" where we had a PL knockout to see who would represent PL in a future game. I came 2nd for a profit of $118, pity it wasn't first but I must admit to some luck in getting to 2nd. Head-to-head was against McG and my Ax lost out to his KQ. Overall I ended the week $+145 giving a yearly ongoing of $+5167, but along the way also gained some points which may lead to more success.

I've broken through the 5K barrier

A reasonable weekly profit of $156 brings my ongoing total to $+5023, beating the $5K barrier. A 1st place in Mondays Virgin Festival league got me $40 plus some valuable points in the league which will hopefully give me some winnings late in the month. Tuesday had a very fortunate 2nd place in the Gnuf $1 baby (a consistent little earner) for $77, Wenesday it was $25 from a new site "The Blackpool Club" for 16th spot in a freeroll, Thursday I was 2nd in the Betfair Annette FR which won me a $212 seat in the Friday $20K tournament - unfortunately I got virtually no cards in that game. Saturday was pretty much a non event and on Sunday my usual Virgin vPoints game earned me 8th place and 1000 points (effectively £10). My stock of vpoints is gradually climbing and instead of converting them into cash I'm saving them with the intent of working my way towards the 50K points required for a free return flight to Vegas - up to 8297 at the moment.

So all in all it was a fairly reasonable week, the biggest disappointment being my failure to get any money from the Betfair $20K game.

My sleep patterns at the moment are exceeding wierd, too many late nights and late awakenings. At least this Thursday I got up (just!) in time for breakfast with Terry and Jake.

No poker this coming Tuesday as its a London pubcrawl. Its a pitybecause Tuesday has more than its fair share of good games. Lets see if Monday can perform well.