All Hail The Royal!

I'm in the middle of playing a sit and go on PokerStars.  And for the first time in who knows how long I had a Royal Flush.  I was playing JK clubs, and flopped an ace high flush.  A player ahead of me went all in with pocket aces, and of course I called. The third player in the hand folded.  A 10 of clubs came on fourth street, and the Queen of clubs on the river, giving me the Royal.

A Sad Lack Of Patience.

So sad.  I'm currently playing a sit and go on PokerStars.  One of the players at my table ended up being the bubble boy, and there was no need for it.  He had a good stack, and a sitter was about to get blinded and anted off.  But apparently this guy wasn't paying attention to the other table where the sitter was, because he decided to go all in with AQ, only to be beaten by another player with AK.  There was absolutely no need for it, all he had to do was wait a couple of hands.  Instead he ended up with nothing.

I Have A Bankroll Again.

I've  won $1.10 over at PokerStars.  So look out, I may soon be at a table near you.

Well, probably not.  It's not hard to go through a puny bankroll like that in short order.

My Giant Bankroll.

It's been a good while since I've won any free money from PokerStars.  But today I managed to make the money in the Weekly Round 2.  I won $1.10, so now I have a gigantic $1.11 bankroll to use to conquer the sit and goes.  I'm still thinking of putting 25 bucks in and resurrecting my 100 Sit and Go project, but with my new windfall I can play 4 of them without putting in a cent of my own money.

PokerStars Messes Around.

I'm a bit annoyed with PokerStars tonight.  They're messing around with their Weekly Round 2 freerolls.  They've changed the schedule for them, reduced time per level to 8 minutes, and they will no longer offer tournament leaderboard points.  It would be interesting to know why.  Too many computer cycles that could be better spent, from their perspective, on their new Spin and Go gimmick?  In general the number of no deposit needed freerolls seems to have gone down over the last year, which would seem to indicate they want to concentrate more on people who will deposit money, instead of the folks who want to win money or tournament entries with no deposits.

No Money, The Sequel.

Unfortunately I didn`t make the money in today`s Weekly Round 2 either.  But I came very close.  And I know exactly which late hand it was that cost me the tournament, one where I had aces, but folded because I thought another player had a stronger hand than he did.

Hey, Stud. Nice To See You.

I'm back at it on PokerStars, playing another Weekly Round 2 freeroll.  I'm doing a lot better today, which is a bit odd.  Today's game is Limit 7 Card Stud, a game I don't play that often.  Perhaps I'm taking less questionable risks than I would with No Limit Hold 'Em.  Then again it just may be my day.

Oddly a game I do more poorly at than I think I should is Limit Hold 'Em.  I think it might be because I play too many hands, and don't fold quickly enough.

No Money Today.

I just got knocked out.  Boo hoo.

Made It.

I'm not exactly burning up the table today, but I made through the first hour of the Weekly Round 2.  Unfortunately I only have managed to win one hand so far. 

Look Out!

I'm playing in PokerStars Weekly Round 2 this morning.  So if you're thinking about taking part as well, withdraw now, because I'm going to crush you all.

Hopefully you believe such boastfulness.  I could really do with the money right now.

Even There.

People in some very surprising places play online poker.  Tonight I'm playing in an Omaha Hi/Lo freeroll on PokerStars, and one of the players on my table is listed as being in the Palestinian Territories.  I wonder how many customers PokerStars has there.  You'd think that there wouldn't be many.

A Rare One.

I just had a 8 to Queen clubs straight flush on PokerStars.  It's been a good while since I've had a straight flush.  I'm playing Omaha Hi/Lo, and luckily for me there was no low hand, so I took the whole pot.

Spooky.

Most weird.  I'm sitting here playing a couple of tournaments on PokerStars.  I was dealt 9c8s in both at roughly the same time.  I wonder how often that happens in a day.

Lucky Break?

I hadn't played poker in a week due to relatives visiting.  They left this morning, and I decided to play in the Weekly Round 2 on PokerStars, having a ticket for it.  I ending up coming in 112th out of 6361, and winning $1.64.  And it was in pot limit Omaha Hi, not one of my better games.  Maybe I should take a one week break more often.

62 For 53.

It's been a while since I've posted about my 100 Sit and Go Project, but here's the latest results.  I just played number 53, and I came in 9th, winning 62 cents.  My current balance at Pokerstars is $20.71.  So I've won some money, but I've used that money to play other things, not always successfully.  Still, I've got a lot of banroll to have fun with.

Poker Will Make Me Rich.

The title of this post is sarcasm.  I did win some money yesterday.  A stunning $1.06.  One of the things that resulted from depositing at PokerStars was getting to participate in a month's worth of freerolls.  I won 56 cents in one.  In the evening I played number 25 in my 100 Sit and Go Project.  Through sheer stubbornness  I won 50 cents.  Yep, Viktor Blom had better look out, I'll soon be playing him on the really big tables.

Lucky 13.

If this keeps up you're going to think this is becoming a poker only blog.  It's not, I promise.

Tournament 13 in the 100 Sit and Go Project turned out to be the best one yet.  I came in second and won $3.82.  I've played better than I did tonight, but sometimes all you need to do is play well enough.

I Played There.

I've been playing poker online since June of 2006.  During that time I've played on various sites.

The bulk of my playing has been on PokerStars.  It was the first place I played as a result of their World Blogger Championship of Online Poker.(Watching Spike's gambling competition show King of  Vegas was also an influenc in getting started.)  PokerStars has become the dominant online poker site, and unlike some of its rivals managed to survive the US crackdown on Americans playing online poker.  As noted in recent posts this is the only site I've ever played on using my own money.

I played on the ill fated Full Tilt Poker.  I played on it occasionally, and first had an inkling about the goings on in the US when I was unable to connect to the site.  However it's possible Full Tilt might have had trouble even without the crackdown.  It was already facing a number of lawsuits, including one from one time Team Full Tilt member Clonie Gowen.  PokerStars has picked up the assets of Full Tilt, and apparently will reopen it in November of this year.  I never managed to win any money off of them. 

Probably the most obscure poker site I played on was ScorePoker.  This was a site run in conjunction with Canadian sports channel The Score.  I did manage to win a golf shirt in one of their freerolls.  One feature that I liked about their software was that if you didn't play at all in the first levels of a poker tournament you would be booted out.  It eventually ceased to operate, presumably because the network didn't see any value in keeping it going.

For a while I played on the European based MansionPoker.  I signed up for their card room because of the TV series Poker Dome Challenge, which Mansion backed.  I did win some money at some point, but eventually decided to stop playing there.  I think I may have a software disc they sent me stuffed in a drawer someplace.

Then there was UltimateBet, the site that Phil Helmuth and Annie Duke were the spokespeople for.  As I remember it I stopped playing there after its software increasingly disagreed with the computer I was using at the time.  UB was another poker stite that was having trouble even before the US crackdown, having to reveal in 2008 that it had been heavily comprimised by cheaters able to see the hole cards of other players.

I briefly played on PartyPoker.  I didn't stay for very long, as for some reason I found the table software they were using at the time hard on the eyes.

First Result.

How did I do in the first official tournament of the 100 Sit and Go Project?  I came in 15th, 3 places out of the money.  I did very well initially, including quad aces in my secon hand, but I didn't manage to capitalise on that.  Oh well.

On the other hand I just had a nice present.  I just picked up 2 bucks in a freeroll I stumbled across.  I came in 11263rd out of a field of 50,000.  I'm currently playing in the Weekly Round 2 freeroll, and I'll be playing in a couple of freerolls connected wtih making a deposit.  So maybe I'll get some more morey in those.

The Not So Big 100.

Prior to this week the only real money I've poker with online has been money I've won from the poker site.  But this week I changed that, although I've been thinking about it for a while.  I decided to make a one time deposit to PokerStars so I could launch what I'm calling the 100 Sit and Go Project.

A sit and go is a poker tournament is a tournament with no fixed starting time, but a fixed number of players.  Once that number of players has signed up for the tournament it begins.  It's a format used both live and online.  I intend to play 100 25 cent sit and goes.  Primarily I'll be playing the 90 player No Limit Hold 'Em version, although I'll probably play some of the 45 player version as well.

Why 25 cent tournamemts?  That should be pretty obvious.  You can play 100 of them for 25 bucks, versus a more expensive tournament.  PokerStars does have cheaper sit and goes, but they're turbo and hyper turbo tournaments, where the blinds rise a bit too quickly for my style of playing.  The cheapest is a 2 center, and as you can imagine a 2 cent tournament where the blinds go up every 2 minutes is pretty much a free for all where people play exceedingly loosely.   "Hey, it's only 2 cents!"  I want to mainly play the 90 player version because the payoff if you make the money is better, even if you have to get through twice as many players. 

As I said this is a one off deposit on my part.  So I paid with a prepaid credit card, a Vanilla brand Mastercard in this case, which is currently usable for deposits from Canada.  It cost me a bit in fees to buy it, but it meant not using my bank account.  I have no reason to suspect PokerStars of any wrongdoing, but the fewer people who have access to your bank account the better.  It also keeps me from being tempted to redeposit if I don't have much luck.

I'll only play one of these in a day, and chances are not every day.  I want this little experiment to last a good long time.  After all it would be pretty easy to burn off 25 bucks in no time, and what fun is that?