Breaking the Bank

Well, I've trudged through quite a few SnG's over the past couple of days and haven't done too bad. I'm up around $10 right now. I'm playing the .50+5 turbo and ultra turbo games mainly. I seem to do better at them since within the first couple of blind escalations I've hit a good pot or two. My strategy has been to play just about anything that can make something to the flop until the blinds hit 50-100. Examples would be 56o, A5o, and suited cards and premium hands. Once the flop comes out I either bet or fold. No checking. This does lead to some wild swings in stack size, but it's working for me right now.

Also, I mark everyone! By the 30th hand played I like to be able to have some sort of read as to how the player plays. Are they a TAG or LAG, do they c-bet when they have low pockets, do they have a tendency to freak out with high pockets. Just something to let me know the next time I see them. This has done wonders in the last week.

I just caught a huge pot on a boat against a flush because the guy was a chaser and I knew it. The flop was 6hTcAh and I had Ad3s with him on the button. I threw out a min bet and he called. The turn came out 3c and I bet the pot, he called again. I pretty much had him figured for hearts when the flop came out Ah making my boat and his flush. I waited a minute and checked it to him and he went all in and I called. Sure enough he was holding a flush to my boat and I felted him. Damn, I love that feeling!

Anyway, just wanted to update a little since I don't have much time to get on here lately. See ya all at the tables!

Getting Better

I played in the $150 CC freeroll last night and took 6th place for $5. Not too bad. I was up and down in my stack all night. I started slow and nothing really happened till the second blind escalation. By first break I was in the top ten. Then I got knocked down to 28th with 36 remaining. I tightened up and caught a few good hands to double up on and brought myself back to 2nd at one point. Then everyone got aggressive, including me,at the final table and my stack took a couple of good hits. I played good hands, but I played them against better ones. That's how it goes. Well, five bucks in UB isn't a great start, but it could be better. Now off to the SnG's to try to make it into something.

First Week

Well, I started this blog with the intentions of writing in it once a week. But after I posted my first blog in it, things went haywire. So I'll do it now. I played in several freerolls that week ranging from prizes of cash to Ultimate points. Over a four day period I played in 9 good sized tournaments. Most of them were on Ultimate Bets (UB). Here's a rundown of what I played that week.

8/20 Ultimate Bet 5000 point f/r out early
8/21 Cardschat.com $150 f/r on Ultimate bet out 33 of 58 (this one sucked for me)
8/21 Pokerspace.com $300 f/r out early
8/22 UB 5000 point f/r placed 20th for 100 pts
8/22 UB 4K GTD Feeder placed 4th (bought into this with the pts I won, then placed for seat)
8/22 Ultimate Bet 5K feeder 20 person SnG out on the bubble
8/22 Cardschat.com $100 Carbon Poker f/r out in 7th place/5th paid
8/22 Ultimate Bet 5K GTD Rebuy out in 190th
8/23 Cardschat.com $200 Full Tilt f/r out somewhere around 50th

So it wasn't a completely unproductive week, but I never do as well as I want to. I think that's every poker player! In the next blog I'll talk about the two tournaments that I did well in; the UB 5000 pts and the UB 4K feeder tournament.

As of right now, I'm still at $0. But I've got more opportunities to play for cash, so that's good.

CC Bodog $100 FR

Hmmmm, this one didn't work out as well as I wanted it to. Welcome to poker. I made some bad decisions within the first few hands and got low on chips. Then, not much farther into the tourney made my final mistake. I had AJ suited in late position and the flop gave me top pair with J's. I went all in with it and got beat by slow-played rockets.

Oh well! There's always another one around the corner.

UB $500 Bonus Dollar Tourney

Well, even though it wasn't a tourney for real money, I still did very well in this one. I placed 10th out of about 2800. That gave my Bonus Dollar account a boost of $10. And that can be turned into real money later!

This tourney was grueling for me though. My cards weren't cold, but they were luke warm at best. I think my best hand was QQ throughout the whole 3.5 hours. I did use something today that I've been spending a lot of time on learning here recently. EV value. I was in a hand on the BB with T5 diamonds and UTG raised to all in (about 2800 chips) right of the bat. I thought about folding as soon as I heard the chips fall, but one player in MP called with around 1200, and then the small blind called. I had about 18k in chips and SB had around 9k. I seen that the pot was big so I took a stab at it with my suits. The flop came out with only one diamond and no pr for my hand. I thought I was in trouble til SB checks it to me. I checked. The turn come another diamond and SB checks it again. Well, I know that I played the EV all wrong, but I was pot committed and made a pot sized bet. This would've put SB almost all in and he folded. Luckily, for me, the river came a diamond and I caught a really nice pot and evicted two players from the game.

I still need some more learning on EV, but now I understand why some players will call with junk in their hand. I can't wait for the CC freeroll at Bodog tonight. Hoping to see a final table for the second time today!

CardsChat.com

The website I mentioned earlier is CardsChat.com. Seriously folks, this has to be one of the best out there for poker knowledge. I've been to several others (won't mention names) and they just don't compare.

They have several freerolls each week that have really nice payouts and good competition. The freerolls are on most of the sites, if not all of them, that I play.

Freeroll Note

If you want to play in freerolls that are sponsored by CardsChat.com all you have to do is become a member and make 50 quality posts! Please don't go there and think you can spam the threads up and get away with it. They catch you! It doesn't work! They will delete your spam posts and more than likely your account. Remember... Quality, not Quantity!

I would definitely go check out the bank of knowledge there. If you don't believe me, you can keep up with this blog and watch as my bankroll grows. I will try to post most of my games on here weekly and also any threads on CC that have helped my game.

Good luck on the tables!

Getting Started

Well, this is the beginning. I started playing poker over 5 years ago and have had limited success. I've always been just a little better than most of the donkeys playing at my tables. But I found a website called CardsChat.com and have been studying up on how I can get better at my game.

Already I have started placing more often in the top 20 in MTT's (Multi-Table Tournaments). Two already this past few weeks. But I want to get better. I'm going to start by playing freerolls and try to build a bankroll out of them. I don't really want to put any more money into deposits, but later, if I'm having trouble, I might.

I play on several different sites. My screen names are...

-Ultimate Bet- dcrys1979
-Carbon dg1267
-FullTilt dg1267
-Bodog dg1267
-PokerStars dg1267

If you see me on any of these sites say hello and let me know you come here. Who knows? I might take it easy on ya! LOL