A new challenge

Okay, August is almost over. No use in looking back if I made a profit or not. Cause I know the answer will be no!
So for me it is better to look into the future, hoping that I can report at the end of September that I made a profit.

Apparently I’m more a ring game player than a SNG or MTT player. So September will be a Ring Game month. It is hard to set any goals cause I wont be playing as much as I want to in September although I have 3 weeks of from work. We (my wife and I) are still discussing if we are going on a holiday or not. If we are going we are still discussing if it will be a 8 day or 10 day holiday. The only thing that is sure it that it is going to be a fly and drive to the south of Spain. If we are in Sevilla at the right time we probably will try to catch or a CL or a Primera Division game.
Besides that another goal for the month September is to finally start and finish with the coop. I have been postponing this for to long.

While I writing this post I was also reading the 50$ to 5K$ challenge on the Raise the River Forum. Yorkshire Pudding came up with the idea and was quickly followed by Cogsgoigne. Kenn121 threw in his own challenge, which will be the crown of the challenges. He is going for it and wants to turn his current 3200$ BR into an astonishing 10.000$ BR before we call the current name October! The strange thing is that I believe firmly in all 3 challenges. These guys play rock solid poker. Oke, they still have some leaks but I know if I see them sitting at a table I will run away.
So I added my own challenge to this thread. I cannot stay behind. While my challenge will be peanuts for some of you it is a monster for me. My plan is to turn my current BR of 34$ into 100$ before the month of October.

This will force me away from the comfortable 1c/2c tables and drives me to the level above. Woohoo the 2c/5c tables. Don’t underestimate this change! If I have for instance QQ and raise 5 times the BB and the board will be AK2 suited, it will cost me a lot more then the 10 cents now. There is a 15 cents difference, which is still a lot for me. But by playing the 2c/5c tables I have a big chance of finally clearing my 40$ bonus. Assuming that I can clear my bonus it should be easy, otherwise it will be very hard.

So, forget the Penny Poker Challenge and remember the 100$ October challenge.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Th penny poker challenge day 8

I may not complain these days. Playing rock solid poker at my level the 1c/2c tables. Today a profit of 6.62$.
Today I made again a profit and this for the 8th day in a row. Never imaged this when I started last Monday with 2.19$.
So I decided to give the 2c/5c tables a try and bought myself in for the minimum to see myself making a 4$ profit within 15 minutes. So I decided to bank my winnings and mow the lawn.

During the football I registered for the Benelux MTT but got kicked out after half an hour, when my A10 failed to beat the all-in KJ after the flop. He made the straight on the river.I have the feeling that I'm mastering the 1c/2c tables. The problem with this level is that it is hard to build a decent BR. But as long as my BR is below 40$ I will have to force myself to stay there. It is better to make some small profit there then making no profit at all. I still leave the table when I have increased my buy-in with 50%. Still in a phase that I cannot afford big downswing so I have to bank relative soon.
Still I can make some improvements on this level. I have to learn how I can make the most of my nuts!

The bad news from the week is that some blogs from RTR members are hacked. I hope they all come back with a new blog, cause I was reading them on a daily basis.

Only 19 points to go for clearing my deposit bonus!

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Day 5 of the Penny Poker Challenge

First I have to correct something. I had an error in my plan sheet. I withdrew the 1$ buy-in + fee from the mtt from my BR but I didn't add the $ again. So, in stead of a loss of 0.97$ I made a profit of 0.03$.

Today I had a session of an hour and a half. Lost 2 buy-in and decided to buy myself in for 2$ at the 2c/5c tables. This saved me. I doubled up there within the first 15 minutes. Nobody believed that I was holding the nuts FH. Thx guys.

So for today a profit of 1.04$.
Current BR: 24.96$.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Mixed feelings: Penny challenge day4

For the first time in the Penny Challenge I had to leave more money at tables than I intended to. Made a loss of almost a $. I hope I learned from it.
The biggest losses were made when limping in with mediocre hands and BB with only limpers, hitting the second highest possible pair!

Anyway I still ahead of plan and cause of the strict play of the last days, my BR was ready from a small setback. According to plan my Penny challenge BR should be at 3.83$, but it still is on 8.05$.


Some bad new about PT. I played my 1000 free hands quicker than I anticipated. Forgot to turn it off when I was playing the MTT below :(. If I once have a BR about 500$ I maybe purchase it but 55$ is too much for me at the moment.

No the good news. As a treat for my committed play in the last few days I played the Benelux 1$ MTT. Played so good Poker but @ the FT I was completely card dead. Still ended fifth. Good for 15.87$. Second time a FT in this MTT, one day I should win this!! I hope.

So the future is looking a lot brighter again. My BR is now 23.92$ while I started on Monday with a miserable 2.19$.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Penny Poker Challenge: day 3

It was still a profitable day for me. But I didn't run as smoothly as the 2 other days.
Played 202 hands, which is a lot for me, and made a profit of 1.66$. It should have been more but I lost 0.30$ within my last hand.

I got 33 in the SB. Only one limper in front of me. So I call.
The flop appeared to be nice for me: K36 rainbow.
The limpers raises to 0.04$ and I decide to call.
The turn is an A. I take the lead and raise 0.04$ and he calls.
Te river is a 5. He raises 0.10$ and I re-raise to 0.20$. He calls instantly and turns a pocket pair of 6s.

In total I made a profit of 6.85$, which brought my BR to 9.01$.
As you can see below I'm still far ahead of my plan.


To the one playing the RTR league tomorrow. Lot's of fun. I have to skip it due to my BR but even with a decent BR I would have played cause I have to play the quarters tomorrow evening in a tennis tourney.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Challenge day 2

As always I had a good start with again a new challenge. I managed to bring my BR to stunning 7.31$. Way ahead of plan! Let's see how long I can continue with these winning sessions.

In the past 2 days I have played 177 hand on the micro limit ring games and made a profit of 5.19$. Does not sound much but it actually means that I have tripled my BR, which sounds more impressive.

Time for some Pt stats! Still meaningless with only 177 hands played.
VP$IP: 18.64%
PFR: 6.78%
73.31 BB/100 hands
Went to SD: 25.64%
Won at SD: 80%
AF: 1.16

Made the biggest profit with QQ. Had them twice and they were good for 2.32$. AQo at the second place with a winning of 0.79$ (5 times).
Lost 0.10$ with 42o.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

New challenge: Day1: The kick-off and preparations

As posted in previous post my BR forced my to a penny challenge. Yesterday I installed PT and I managed to configure it so that I records my plays. Not yet to the points where it will auto assign level to the other players.

With a new challenge also a new plan has to be written down.
My goal is beside to build a new BR is to try to make a profit of 15% of the current BR per day. I started the challenge with a BR of 2.19$.

Some rules I have set for myself.
1 – Only play on the 1c/2c 9 seater.
2 – Max two tables at the same time
3 – for each table the minimal buy-in (1$)
4 – leave a table when my stack at the table is above 1.50$ (allowed to buy-in again)
5 – when I lost 2 buy-ins it is done for the day!!!! Really have to follow this one.

The status so far:


Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Forced to the penny tables!

I was playing with the idea of depositing fresh money on my Stars account after my Tilt session of Sunday, which left me behind with a miserable BR of 2.19$. The idea behind funding the bottomless pit again is that I’m only 25FPPs away from clearing my 40$ deposit bonus. But I have until the end of November to do this. So there’s no rush to chase those FPPs. To get back on track I’m going to follow the ideas of the Penny Poker Challenge of Raise the River.

I’m curious how long I can last with this miserable BR. The danger is that if I start with a loosing session it is all over before it begins. So super tight is the way to go I guess. Cause I consider myself more as a SNG or MTT player I will still participate in Freerolls. Woohoo.

First I have to clear some things out and work out an approach.
Firstly I have to install PokerTracker and ask the guys at RTR how I can benefit from this.
The first big decision is if I have to split up my BR into 2 and play at 2 tables at the same time or concentrate on 1 table to begin with.
Figuring out when I should withdraw myself from the tables. Some moments are clear (when you lost your buy-in of the time limit has been reached) other are not. If your have a profit of 50% of the buy-in should you leave the table then and buy-in again to assure your profit?
Should I start short handed (6 seater) or on full tables (9 seater) (where you have to pay less blinds)?

If I understand it correctly I can only step up to the next level of ring games if my BR reaches 20 buy-ins, with one buy-in representing 100 times the buy-in. So suppose I want to step up the ladder to the 2c/4c tables my BR should be 120$.

Whish me luck, cause 2.19$ is normally not even a BR with which you can start such a challenge!

Cheers,
Dremeber

set 5 completed

I have completed set 5 of my 200 SNG 18 seater challenge @Stars.
But it is not a set to be proud of. Within this set I had my longest loosing streak. A streak of 14 SNGs. This resulted in a loss of 16$ within this set and only 3 times in the money (a shameful 15%).
Overall I'm luckily still in green figures. I have a profit of 18,6$. I paid in total 178,5$ as entry fee and stakes and collected 197,1$. I end up ITM 25% of the time. This should increase a lot.

Didn't play a lot of Poker. Went to Phantasialand on Wednesday and had the ride of my life in the Black Mamba. But I can assure u that I will never ride that roller coaster again.

In contrast with my previous promises I probably will play the bloggerment tonight. I like that MTT to much to miss it. And if I can win it once, I can win it twice! I hope.

Also I have the feeling that I did good by writing all my frustration down in the previous post. It kinda cleared my mind and I'm playing much better poker at the moment than before the post.

Also glad to see that Mia's Dad returned to the scene. Not only did he return but he is also forced to look for a new nick. Congrats mate.

Good Luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Not the last post but it is getting closer!!!!

Nothing much to report. Played 2 SNGs in the past 2 days and made a fucking profit of 0.85$. So my BR at the moment is increasing to 21$. Still 29$ away from my required level to play the RTR league or the bloggerment again.
At the moment I also don’t feel the need to play poker. Have suffered to many suck outs and made to many wrong decisions even after reading Harrington. I have the feeling that I don’t know anymore how to play poker. Harrington apparently confused me! I’m now in the middle of loosing streak of 14 18 seater SNGs. Never happened to me before. Also this shouldn’t happen to an average poker player. Don’t know what is causing this? Is it my BR which is putting to much stress on me? Is it just that fact that the stars are not in the right order for me? Or to most likely answer is that I suck in playing poker!
For sure the average level on Stars is to high for me. So my play will at Stars will stop if I cleared my deposit bonus (not very likely) or if my money dries out. If I succeed in the wonder of collecting the remaining 55 FPPs I will withdraw some more money from Stars and play with the remaining bucks the RTR league games and bloggerment.

I mentioned before in the some previous posts “The bottomless Pit” and I’m actually starting to think that it is better for me the follow the example of Mias Dad! The questions that I’m asking myself (in the hope the find a straw why I should keep playing poker) are:
1) Do I still enjoy poker? Yes but the eager to play is a lot less than before.
2) Can I make some small profit with playing poker or at least play break even? No way!
3) Is my regular life suffering from playing poker? Yes and no. No in the manner that I will always will put my wife, friends and family above poker. Yes, in the last 2 weeks I went so many times to bed with such a negative feeling about poker that it isn’t even funny anymore. I even have more fun at the time with removing all the dead mice the cats are proudly presenting to us than with playing poker. Yesterday evening it took me an hour and a half by chasing a still very vivid mouse under the dryer and washing machine. Did you think that I got any help from my cats? No way, there were thinking we brought it in so that you can bring it out again and that we can bring it in again.
4) Where my past results based on luck? While I should answer NO, I have the feeling that a more honest answer is Yes. Okay, you need some luck in playing poker. Sometimes you need help from the flop to strengthen your starting hand. But my BR is melting faster than the snow melts for the sun and although I like to believe that I’m also kicked out of an SNG by bad beats this isn’t the case.
5) Do I see an upswing coming? The answer to this is fearly simple: NO.
6) Will I deposit any more money? No No No.

So, as you can see I have mixed feelings. I started playing poker with full enthusiasm like every starting player. Did not have many dreams or goals but I guessed I should be capable of making a small profit (read figures between 10-15$ in a month or something like that). But when I look back at the last 3 or 4 months when I really started to learn how to play poker. Understanding pot odds, continuation bets, etc… I have to admit that I failed in all my challenges I have started. There were very challenging challenges to almost impossible but most of them where very realistic challenges which I should have easily reached if my poker level increased only a small bit. But no did not manage to do this. Maybe my level is a little bit higher than 3 or 4 months ago but I estimate that the increase is only a little above 10%. A 10% of nothing still is nothing.
Also I noticed that overall there is a lot less friendly chat in the chat rooms when playing poker. I like some banter and some friendly chat like in the league games and the bloggerment. My main goal of playing poker is to spend my free time in a enjoyable way but more than 90% of the players on Stars are only focussing on the cards playing multiple tables at the same time etc…

The only achievement I made is the poker bloglisting which I will keep administrating. Last night there where over 60 blogs! But I guess this blog is lying on intensive care. It is not fun for me to write negative posts time after time again. And I can understand that this will not lure a lot of readers. People are interested in winners and not in loosers (like myself). I still will read your blogs and cheer with the great results (with a lot of envy of course) you are all collecting. Some of the bloggers are getting outstanding results. Both on micro stakes as on higher stakes. Keep on going guys and girls.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Poker? Not for me.

I'm tired having one bad beat after an other. Always running into higher pairs.
So, I have decided only the play one or 2 games this week.
In stead I will enjoy myself but the never boring Bingo. Yep, thats right bingo.

Better 2 loose some peanuts there without frustration. Give it a shot at: Astrobingo

Cu,
Dremeber

Captain obvious!

Had a whole post written down for but I guess the picture says it all.
Bottom line.
1) BR down to 38$. So for sure I won't be participating in the Bloggerment 21. Damned!
Maybe I will play the RTR league game but I doubt it.
2) Will never play on Ultimate again!
3) I have to take measurement but I don't know with one yet. Like I sad a few weeks ago there is no use in funding a bottomless pit.
Good luck,
Dremeber

Set 4 completed

80 SNGs far in my 200 SNG challenge.
Set 4 was OK. 6 times ITM, only one win. Four times bridesmaid and one third place. Meaning a profit of 11,85$. Not bad, I guess but I feel that I should do much better. Or is this my best? We will see.In total I cashed now 175$. In total I have a profit of 32$ now. With this money I try to fund my RTR MTTs. O man, these are so much fun to play. I really like these. So, that is my biggest motivator. Cause if my bankroll is below 50$ I should not play these tourneys. At the moment my BR is at 52.24$. And I'm only 83 FPP away from clearing my deposit bonus.

Yesterday I went tilt on Ultimate. Lost my complete BR. Had 2 deposit a new 20$. Still 30 rake hands to go before I can receive my bonus on Full Tilt. Will shot down stars for this evening and will reach this requirements.
BR @ Ultimate: 21.03$. Yes a small profit of 1.03$.

Cheers,
Dremeber

The bubble boy

I did reach the FT, quiet satisfied with that but not with being the bubble boy after having the chiplead. Don´t know what struck me but when I did get the chiplead I completely froze up. Playing TOO tight. Have to admit that I was card dead but still, should have been involved in much more pots. At a moment I was holding AK not suited. One raise before it was my turn, I call. An all-in after me, the original raiser calls. So I was putting at least a pocket pairs somewhere and decide to fold. What a stupid fucking mistake by me. I would won the pot with a pair of kings. At a moment the blinds are getting to hurt me so I decide to go all-in with K7 unsuited to run into pocket pairs of 10s. As you can see, I will take it as a man and I will post the bubble picture on my blog but I can assure you that it really hurts to be the bubble boy!!

In the weekend I made some progress in my challenge to clear the 50$ no deposit on Full Tilt. Cause it was my third deposit bonus the guys from YPC gave me, I had to play first 50 raked hands on Ultimate (where my last 50$ was awarded). I still have to play 88 raked hands. To achieve this I´m play the 0.05/0.10$ ring games. A month ago I deposit 20$ on Ultimate. After some good session I had some really bad ones, dropping my account to 6$. But this weekend I was capable of turning this around and my account stands now on 18$. I´m going to try to reached this today on 3 tabled, each with a 6$ bankroll. With some luck, I will reach the requirement and get a 50$ free bankroll on Full Tilt. After this depending on my bankroll at Ultimate I will find the bankroll to 50 so that I can withdraw or just fire it all away!

Another goal for this week is to keep my bankroll above 50$ on Stars. If not I cannot afford to participate in the Raise the river League nor the bloggerment. While I think the buy-in is pretty fair for these tourneys it bites a big chunk out of my BR. I hope that I have cleared my deposit bonus at the end of this month. Still 95 FPPs to go. So a lot of 18 seaters to go. But it looks bright. I should be capable of collecting this last FPPs with my current bankroll.

Luckily Unibet did me a favour. I had deposit 20€ on my sportsbook account (for the new football season). The day after my deposit they started with a 50% deposit bonus up to bladibladi offer. Cause I had no intention to deposit any money any more I decided to sent them an email to see if I could still profit from this offer. A day later I got an email that they would give me the 10€ deposit bonus! Great thx guys.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Set 3 Finished and first league game

I finished my third set of 20 SNGs last night. Like always the 1,75$ 20 seater!
Nog great result, but still a small profit of (you cannot believe it) 0.10$.

No first place :(. 6 times ITM.
And twice the walk of shame.About the Raise the River league game. I ended in 7th place. Not to bad but also not so good.
In the first 20 minutes I won a major hand. My pocket pair of queens cracked not only pocket pairs of Kings but on top of that they also crushed the pocket pair of Aces.

After reaching the FT I crashed under the pressure after I was bluffed out of my BB with a suited hammer (27). Better next time I guess.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Poker blogs

As some of you know or not know I'm the founder of the Poker bloglisting.
Never thought that it would attract so many Poker blogs. Already 56. Not bad I guess.
The page has about 1000 visits each day. There are some first class blogs and the blogs covers all level of stakes!

To be honest I started it to have an extra site to promote PokerNetOnline, which is giving away no deposit bonuses. At the moment I collected 130$ which is the basis of my bankroll. But it is time to move on. So I decided to support some guys who deserve it!

Since last Monday I have placed a banner of Raise the River on top. The forum is fairly new but the guys behind it put a lot of effort in it and have some great ideas. This Friday they will start with the Raise the River Premier league. I'm curious who is going to be crowned as champion. i doubt that the title will go to Belgium but I'm going to give it a shot. And yes I will be there tomorrow! So lots of reasons to support them and give them some free advertising space.

Nothing much to report on the Poker Front. While writing this I'm playing the Benelux 1$ MTT. Not going so bad 16the out of 45 left, with 18 paid places.
Before I played 3 18 seaters. Once third, once fourth. So a small profit for today. Better a small profit than a loss.

Also, I'm trying to convince some fellow countrymen so that Belgium can form a team in the Bloggerment but no success yet!

Tomorrow also the Jupiler League in Belgium starts, so from this week on, I have to split my time between my poker blog and my sportsbetting blog.

Cheers,
Dremeber

I have been interviewed

Apparently it doesn't only happen to famous people!

You can find the interview here.
My interview!
It would be nice if you could give my blog a good rating!

Thx,
Dremeber