Rakeback vs No deposit bonus

In the beginning when you are learning the game, no deposit bonuses are the heaven on earth. It is only later on when you understand the game, start to love and play much more that you understand that it was a gift from the devil. For sure if you start playing a lot of ring games.

At least that is what happened to me. Almost for all the room where I have an account on I'm there cause of the fact that some site offered me a no deposit bonus. The only exception for me is my account on Stars.

So the lesson learned is: rakeback is the heaven on earth for somebody who plays frequent poker, No deposit bonus is the devil's advocate. For the room where I have an account on, it is to late. But when I will create an account on a new room, it will be with rakeback.

The problem I have now is that there are lots of Rakeback sites out there, now I have to find the one which I can trust most.

My BR at Ultimate is cleared. I like to think that it was due to a bad beat. Was holding KQ suited. So I do a raise of 2$. Got one caller. The flop is 5Q5. So I decide to raise 5$. Got a re-raise so I shoved all my money in the middle of the table. And got a call. The 10 on the river give him 2 pair. QQ and 1010. So I was way ahead when I decided to go all-in.
Good that I cashed the 50$ yesterday.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Thank you Ultimate

When cleaning up my mailboxes I stumbled into an email of Ultimate. I quote " We haven’t seen you at the tables for a while, and we miss you! So, we’ve added $10 to your account to get you back to the tables. "

So I decided to give Ultimate another try. First very cautious on the 0.05/0.10 tables. When my BR had hit 17$ it was time to work again on the fence of the Chicken Run.
After a day working it was time to gamble and hit the Bad beat Jackpot table 0.25/0.50. With my miserable 17$. 15 minutes later it was 83$.

To recover all my looses at Ultimate I did something what not many of you would have done. I have collected 60$, resulting in a 20$ overall profit on Ultimate. The downside is that I only have 23$ left to play with on Ultimate. 2.20 is invested in a buy-in hunter and the remaining stack is at the moment again on the same bad beat table.

I know many of you would have left the money on there to have a decent BR but Ultimate is not my friend and it is nice to withdraw for the second time in my poker life some money. Now I have finally a room which was profitable for me.

Also it decreases the urge to withdraw some money of my Stars account.

Cheers,
Dremeber

Back from Holiday

Hi all,

I'm back and just in time if I have to believe the news. At the moment the south of Spain is being flooded. More about my holiday later on.

First lets talk about poker. Had a great result yesterday in my biggest tournament ever. I decided to try a MTT with a buy-in of a least 11$. 2348 participant and 225 places. Never thought that I was capable ending ITM for sure not even to be in the top 100. And yes I ended in 99th place. Had a great chunk of luck when my pair of 10s defeated the pocket dames.
Finally I received my FT no deposit bonus of 50$. Already made 60 of it.

Back to the holiday. The start was not so good, with a delay of at least 5 hours and rain on the first day. We drove around 2000 kilometers. Seeing almost all the top spots in the Costa Del Sol. The end was like the start with a lot of rain and a delay of 30 minutes.
But I can advise everybody to do a fly-and-drive in the south of Spain.

BR at Stars: $120+
BR at FT: $60
Cheers,
Dremeber

Holiday

Hi all,

Nothing much to report. Tomorrow morning at 5.55 our plane to Malaga will have its take off.
Than 8 days of fly and drive and 3 days relaxing at the beach in Marbella.
Plenty of chances enough to bring my Spanish classes in practice.

So I would be playing poker until Saturday the 22th of September. Which will not harm me I guess. Now my BR is above 100$ I find it difficult to play at the 2c/5c ring games and I know that I will be slaughtered at the higher stakes. So I'm playing SNGs again, mixed with some MTTs.
My best results of the past few days where for sure my 4th place in Bloggerment 25 (which was won by Mair, congrats) and my first place in a 1.10$ 45 seater at Stars. Also should have ended ITM in a 180 seater. But after the second break I gave some chips away to be bubbled out with AK and a K on the flop. To bad the villan had the other to Ks.

My current BR is now at 107$. So there is a big chance that I will end September above 100$. The question is what to do next. If I withdraw 60$, I have recovered all my stakes at Stars. But then my BR will be crippled again and I'm not confident enough that I can save my BR again. Probably I will withdraw everything above 100 at the end of the month and then setting a new challenge. I my BR drops below 100, I will withdraw something around 25$, to bank some of my winnings. I can deposit this again when Stars has a new deposit bonus or try another rooms with a RB deal. Well see.

I know that u all will be sad that there will not be any updates on this blog for the next 2 weeks but plenty of good blogs in my link section or on RTR.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Back on track and even important bonus cleared

I finally cleared my deposit bonus on Stars. A great 40$ which almost doubled my BR. September is looking promising.

Besides clearing my deposit bonus I also recovered some of my losses of yesterday. Yesterday I lost a fucking 8.09$. Can only blame myself. Playing way to loose. Probably cause I only played on one table. So I shouldn't do that again.
The profit of today was 6.44$. I was playing 2 tables and railing Cogs in the 4$ 180 seater. Bad luck mate. Your all-in move pre-flop was correct with AQs but his call with pocket sevens also (based on his stack).

Still no confirmation about the holiday. Was hoping to get the confirmation today but I guess the travel agency was closed cause the mother of my aunt (who's running the agency) passed away last night. So I can fully understand that there were more important things in their lives. And if we don't get the confirmation, we will book another one.

Current BR: just above 87$.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Hectic days

Yep, the last working days before a holiday are always hectic. Of course at work I want to have my tasks finished so that I can really enjoy my three weeks of.

Yesterday I didn't even had time to play poker. Immediately after work I went to the travel agency to book our holiday. Its going to be 2 weeks in the south of Spain. 8 days Fly and Drive and 3 days doing nothing at the beach. Really looking forward to it. If I'm lucky I can buy some tickets for the game Sevilla - Huelva. Well see.
Than I had to rush to the Spanish class. Yep, third year now. I may say that I can fluently order my cerveza.

If it was not enough I had an indoor soccer game at 10.
Was really exhausted when I cam hone at midnight. At 2 a.m. the dumbo decided that it was time for a SNG. Went out in the first hand when my 2233 was beating by 333. That's life!

Only 4 points away from clearing my bonus. So that should be feasible for this month.

Current BR: 52.09$

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Bad play still some profit

Don't what hit me but I played some loosy poker today. Lots like I lost my patience.

For instance my worst play of the day:
Sitting on the button I got dealt K7 of diamonds.
3 limpers in front of me, I decide to call hoping on a good flop. SB calls, BB checks.
The flop is Jd4h4d.
SB bets 0.20$, another player calls and me the fucking moron also calls. The river is the Ace of clubs. So still a small chance on the flush.
The SB checks, I raise 0.15$ (still not knowing why) and the player behind me checks and the SB folds.
The flop is my nightmare a K of clubs.
I bet again 0.15$ and the other goes all-in. Guess what I did? Yep, I call. Thinking that he had a jack or something like that. And I was correct he had a jack but also a fecking 4.
The result is that for the first time this month I lost a buy-in.

Still I ended the day with a 2.03$.
BR is now 46.14$

Edit: Just played 2 SNGs at stars to have some variation. Two times a 3.25$ 6 seater SNG. First time I was the bubble boy. Second I was the winner.
It was a strange feeling to play a SNG again. Specially when we were HU. I have the feeling that I playing rock solid poker (at least for my level), avoiding the risks, making the good laydows (here is where the money is) and having the guts the overplay some weaker hands when the opposition is out of position.

BR is now: 51.34$

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

First September update

As said in my previous posts before this month I want to reach a BR of 100$ on Stars. I know that this room is not the easiest room to play on. I started two weeks ago with 2.19$ on my account after yet again a stupid tilt session.

I moved up a level to the 2c/5c table. To be honest there is much difference between this level and the 1c/2c level. The advantage that this level has is that it is possible to collect some FPPs. Earned 4 of them in the last 2 days. And the best is that twice I wasn't involved in these hands. So, still 11 more to go, to clear my 40$ deposit bonus.

In the first 2 days of September I played 311 hands and made a profit of 6.39$. Played 6 sessions and made a profit in all 6. My lowest profit in one session was 0.35$ and the biggest profit in one sessions was 1.6$. Total playing time was 317 minutes meaning an average profit of 1.20$/hour.

My current BR is 42.92$. So 42% far in my September challenge.

Cheers,
Dremeber