Looking back @ 2007: part II

As promised the next and last chapter of my review of 2007.

Thx to the fine results today on Titan Poker my loss is decreased to $35,88. Not bad for my first serious year of online Poker/gambling. If I don't add my losses in a online casino I made a profit of $89.22. So again a lesson learned. Stay away from those bloody things.

To goal which I had set in the beginning of December is reached. My online bank account is break even. Due to the final withdrawal of today.

First let me compare my December stats with those of November.
November December
SNGs played 82 52
ITM 31 21
ITM % 39,02 40.38
ROI 18.05 17.5
Profit $81.8 $51

I played a lot less due to the discovery of Littewoods. The increasing ITM% is promosing but can be neglected. The decrease in ROI can also be neglected. In both months the average profit per SNG is around $1.
I'm winning less than 10% of the SNGs I have played which is not high enough. This should be increased in the next year.

The goals for 2008!
- Make a profit. At least double the BR I have at the moment. The current online BR is: $342.
- Make a 250$ profit on Titan.
- Increase my SNG win % on Titan to at least 15%.
- Recover my losses on Littlewoods ($101) with only cash games. The actual loss is less but I did not include the rakeback into this. Cause it will be my first rake recovery I first want prove.
- Keep my blog alive. While this looks the most easy part it is very common that a poker blog suddenly disappears due to bad beats, private reasons or the writer just lost interest in the blog.
- The most difficult one will be to improve my poker level. The action plan for this has been set.

In the beginning I will only be playing on Littlewoods (cash and occasionally a head hunter) and Titan (SNGs and some cash games). Probably I will refund my PokerStars account for the bloggerments and some MTT and open an account on another room for Rakeback, check out some of the best rakeback deals on the top left side of my blog).

And last be not least a reminder to MrPink. MrPink your goal for the next year is and I'm quoting you: at the end of 2008, making a profit of at least $150 per month on the 25c/50c level.

For the rest I want to wish you all a nice slide from 2007 into 2008. I also hope that all of you will succeed in the targets for next year (if they are not interfering with mine).
Dremeber

Looking back at 2007: part 1

Why in 2 parts? Thats simple. I finished playing on all rooms beside 1 (Titan Poker).

I started with this blog this year to cover all my bad beats and glorious moments within online poker never thinking that it was possible to make online mates. Thx for all the support during the though times and all the advice when I posted again a (in my eyes) bad beat. You guys made me a better poker player.

Also I discovered the wonderful poker forum Raise the River. These guys started almost the same time and created a nice poker community full of advice and banter. Good luck next year guys!

Besides starting this blog I also started my own poker Bloglisting: The amateur Poker Bloglisting. At the moment there are already 83 quality Poker blogs listed, if not already on there, It is not to late. Add your blog and give it the exposure it deserves.

Now the moment where you all have been waiting for. My poker results of 2007 (except Titan poker).

PokerStars
Most of 2007 I played on Pokerstars, if I should believe all reviews about this site one of the toughest of them all. For sure one of the biggest. I'm very proud that I walked away as a winner from PokerStars. An astonishing profit of $53.07. Also my biggest achievement happened on Pokerstars: I won Bloggerment 19. My only MTT win of the year :(.
While I really like the site, I have no BR on it anymore. It was time to move on.

Ultimate
After PokerStars Ultimate was the next stop and again I walked away as a winner. Here no glories moment just a profit of $20. While making a profit I really don't like this room. I will only return if they give me some free money.

LittleWoods
Littlewoods is the first PokerRoom where I did open an account with a rakeback deal. A nice 38% rakeback deal. On littlewoods I decided to only play cash games. But things are not running well. Mainly cause I was chasing my deposit bonus. Because of this I played above my limit which resulted in a loss of 100$. The positive side of things is is that my cash game is improving and that I did clear my 25GBP in deposit bonuses. I expect that around 10$ will be refunded as rakeback in the beginning of January. At the moment my BR there is $62.14 add to that the RB and voila you have my cash game BR for next year. In 2008 I will only play cash games on Littlewoods not on any other room. The ultimate goal is to recover my losses.

My biggest Poker mistakes in 2007:
- Using no deposit bonuses!
- Chasing deposit bonuses and due to this playing above my BR!

I guess that part 2 (The Titan part) will come online at the 31th of December. In that post I will also explain my goals for next year.

The best wishes for 2008!
Dremeber

Merry X-mass

Nothing much to report. Just popping by the say Merry X-mass to all of you.

I hope none of you are planning to place their presents on ebay. The first ones were already placed on ebay the morning before Christmas. Ouch.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Cash attempt 2 and Titan

First lets start with the bad news. I suck at cash games and a lost my last part of my BR @ littlewoods yesterday. I can't believe that I really suck at this part of Texas Holdem Poker. So, I decide to take another attempt and uploaded a new 25 GBP. The problem is that I have to fund my account @ Littlewoods via my C-card, cause they don't accept my online bank but hey it is almost Xmass so I consider it as a gift for myself.

But I have set some rules.
- I have to ignore the fact that I'm chasing a deposit bonus from which the validity end at the very beginning of 2008.
- I will only play cash games with this money, so no headhunters, no SNGs, no MTT.

And as always my starts was very promising. Only played 56 hands today but had one monster hand. Taking down a pot of $26.79. Sweet. I ended the session with a profit of $7.46 cause I lost one buy-in with KK (ran into Pocket Pair of Aces).

Cause I wanted to start with a plus I switch to Titan and decided to play a 36 seater 5$ SNG. It was ages ago that I played one of these but it paid off. Second place. Not a win but I was close. When the opponent was at the border of elimination I call his all-in with AJ, facing his A8, but the 8 on the flop saved him.
Cause this second place brought my BR above 100$, I decided to guide another $25 to a safer place, creating a bigger starting BR for next year.

If I compared my online bank account with the start I'm only missing $20. But cause there is still a healthy $80 on Titan I will have made a profit. Even if I add my losses at the cash tables of littlewoods to the calculation I will have green figures.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

cash hands evaluation

After my good start of friday everything went quickly downhill.

After having played more than 1000 hands I'm down 6.6$. So time to look at what happened.

These hands listed below are good for a loss of around 38$, which is more than my initial BR was.

KK cracked: loss 6.15$
Hand started okay with KK. Started with a steady and firm raise of 2$. The flop was in my eyes completely harmless but cause there was enough money in the pot I wanted to take it uncontested so I went all-in. When the A fell on the turn I knew enough. The question I have know is how can you call an all-in raise with AJ and a flop with did not help you.

QQ cracked: loss 7$
Again a blow in the face. While he had the flush possibilities, I myself would never have called it.

1010 cracked: loss 6.25$
Morons are rewarded I guess.

2 pair vs a higher 2 pair: loss 5.18$
My own stupid fault. But it so hard to lay down 2 pair.

straight vs flush: loss 4$
Should have played it differently. Cause he did call on the river with only one club on the board, I did not expect that he was chasing a flush.

Full House vs 4 of a kind: loss 3.25$
This one did hurt a lot. While I was behind during the complete hand you never expect to face a four of a kind.

2 pair vs a higher 2 pair: 2.75$
Again the villain made his second pair on the river. Ffs.

So a lot to learn.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Cash games and Neteller sucks

I have signed up via RTR on Littlewoods, thx to RTR I got a nice rakeback deal. Besides that I can collect some deposit bonuses.

I deposited 30 GBP, which is around 61$. And if I clear 500 MPP they will give me a bonus of 100GBP. The first 25 GBP will be released when I have reached my first 185 MPPs. Already cleared 20% of this step.

But it is not all positive news. When I tried to open the account I discover that they did not support MB, which is my preferred online bank. So, I tried to open up a Neteller account.
When I tried to deposit some money it was unclear to me if I could deposit money with my MC. So I opened up the online support. Result, Neteller does not allow a deposit with MC from Belgian residents. WTF, MC is family of VISA, which was supported. So I decided to close my Neteller account. There is no use in having one if I can not fund the account. Maybe I will open it up later again if I can withdraw some money from Littlewoods.

Also I won my first big cash hand.
Decided to call with my KJs from first position. The flop was a dream flop giving me the set of Jacks. Not willing to completly slow play the hand so I raise 0.5$ with one checker in front of me and 6 people behind me to react. 3 of those decide to call.
The turn was even better, giving me the FH. Besides giving me the FH it also gave other flush and straight chances. The see what people where chasing I decided to raise another 0.50$ giving everybody the correct odds to call. To me surprise and delight the first one to react behind me goes all in for 3.60$, to make it even better the other one want to isolate this player and goes all-in for 17.52$. My call was a no brainer.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Looking back at 2007

The year is almost over and before I going to post my new challenges and targets for next year I would like to discuss how my poker play evolved during the past year. Be warned this is going to be a long post but even for poker player with much more experience and a much higher level it still can be good to read the complete post. It will fresh up your mind and learn again how a real poker fish thinks, for which you can benefit in the beginning of MTTs.

I feel that my learning curve this year was steep but I know that I’m net even half way. Like I have posted before: I don’t like reading about poker theory, I’m a man. Meaning that if I buy a new gadget the first thing I do is putting the user manuals in a drawer to discover months later that I should have read it, but because I’m a man (chaotic) I need to ask my wife to find it for me. Probably I did some searches already and overlooked it several times. This of course did hinder my progress substantially.

Let’s see on what areas I made some progress this year

- I feel that my A-game has improved and that it is now on a acceptable level for the low limit SNGs. Unfortunately I don’t reach this a-game level enough and to be honest my a-game is still below average but it probably twice or trice as good as in the beginning of the year!
- I finally know and understand that a Full House is ranked higher than a flush. Had to learn this the hard way!
- Until a month or two ago I thought that one type of play style was sufficient. My play was like an open book to the bigger fishes in the pond. Too predictable and monotone complete SNG. To start over again with the start of a new SNG, which made it even more easy for the bigger fishes who were making notes. Burnlymik, Biakkax and MrPink opened up my eyes that I really have to shift gears. I’m trying to do this but if I don’t pay attention I still slip back in my comfort zone. Now I open up my starting hands and increase my aggression depending on how the SNG is evolving.
- I did overplayed the all-in, I guess like all newbies. I now understand that if I want to steal I never should do it with an all-in cause from that point on you don’t have any power anymore in the hand. If you face a call there is no way out and believe me I tried clicking my heels three times in a row without success.
- Stealing. While in the beginning of the year I tried to steal in the beginning of an SNG I now understand that it is not worth the risk. There are many reasons for this. Firstly there are a lot of morons in the beginning who can’t let a hand go. Also there is no reason why you should donate your chips in this stage. Now I still steal not enough but at least my steal attempts have shifted to the correct moments within an SNG, namely the bubble and the ITM play.
- Things which happen in your private environment do influence your play. Poker is not like most hobbies where you can set your mind to zero and forget all the problems in the world. This last part still is true but everything what happens in your private life does really have an influence on your play. Now I try to avoid playing poker when having a bad day at work, small fights with the wife etc…
- Pot odds. While I still don’t master this I now sometimes can life with some bad beats cause I gave the villain the correct odds to call.
- Calling an all-in. Thx to Rob, I now call all-in less often than I did before and this extends my tournament life a lot.
- Turbo SNGs and 6 seater SNG do not fit my play style. Way not aggressive enough for those. So since a month or two I stayed away from these which improved my ITM%.
- I don’t have the patience for big MTTs nor for multiple table SNGs.
- At the cash games I’m the ATM.
- Last point is my Tilt level. I still go very easily into tilt level but I know how to deal with it. And this is stop for that day cause playing will hurt my BR even further.

Things to focus on in 2008.
- I should be more aggressive during the bubble phase of an SNG. Maybe my ITM% will drop but I expect that my profit will raise. At the moment I’m ending enough time in the money but to often I’m the shorty, going out in third, while the big (at least for my BR) money is within the first 2 places. Here I need to find a fine balance.
- Improve my cash game play, cause that were the easy money is on the low limit tables.
- Besides knowing the existence of some poker concepts like squeeze play, check-raises, etc… I should try to learn then!
- Try to read some poker books.

If I can improve and these 3 things above I will make a profit in 2008.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

Trying to lift this blog to a next level

This will be my non poker internet challenge for next year. I already have taken a head start with the redesign of my blog. It is funny to see that after 8 months I'm back with the original template. I altered a little bit with the help of Mair, who created my banner. At the moment I'm really satisfied with the lay-out.

There are if I calculated correctly a quadzillion poker related blogs out there. The one better than the other. So to be realistic the competition is murdering. Why do I think that my blog has a reason of existence? Besides the fact that it is my ventilation place and some kind of a poker diary there is none. But than something like prides kicks in. Stupid pride. I hate u!

The biggest problem for me, besides decent poker results, is content!
If you are a good respected poker player it is not hard to make a blog with thousand of visitors each month. But what to do when you are not so good in playing poker, nor a great writer?
So, I have to increase my writing skills and not by a little bit. A colleague of mine is currently on a working trip to China and wrote such a great, funny, interesting email about his experiences there, incredible. He should create a blog and I will try to convince him.

At the moment this blog is attracting around 500 visitors each month. If you are reading this you are one of them, thx! My aim is to lift this to 750 to 1000 visitors each month. And with visitors I mean real visitors. It is easy to achieve this by using a site like blogexplosion where people have to browse trough all the listed blog to build up credit so that the site will show their blogs to others. You can see it like a pyramid game. Ok, it is traffic but not quality traffic. And yes I admit I have done this in the beginning of the blog to get exposure (but not many people using thes type of sites are interested in the thrilling game of poker!!). Still use it once in a while when doing a blog challenge. Simple 2 blogs are compared with each other by 15 members and the one with the most votes wins.

But there is improvement. Google are showing my blog more and more often than the previous months. At the moment around 20% of my visits are brought by search engines, which is a good %. The most traffic comes via the linked list of other blogs. But for me it is hard to build this. For me it feels like spamming other blog, with a comment like: please add me to your like list. While on the other hand if somebody leaves a comment like this on my miserable blog I feel honored.

I'm trying to write my own SNG guide. I hope it will be finished by the end of this year.

If you, yes you, who had the guts, nerves and patience to read this complete post have any ideas how I can lift this blog to a new level, don't hesitate to let me know!

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

AA and KK cracked in one SNG!

Did not play a lot, just didn't had my mind set on poker.

Played 3 SNGs. In the first I went out pretty soon. In the second I got third.
Got kicked out when I knew that the villain was trying to bluff me out of the pot after the flop. After the flop I was one spades short of the flop so it was worth a try. I lost the hand eventually but I was glad that my read was ok.

The third was told me that I wasn't going to be my day. I doubled up in hand 12 with 1010. In hand 52 my AA were cracked by KQs. For once I did try to slowplay them from the button. After the flop which was pretty harmless I went all-in. Not pot odds in the world justify a call with nothing and an only way out of a runner-runner straight. The problem for me was that in the same SNG also my KKs were cracked. This time by a pocket pair of 8s.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

My first December win

And it only took 24 attempts!!! A little bit shameful to be honest but I can tell u it is a real moral booster and thats just what I needed.
Played 4 SNGs today and results are ok. 3 times ITM and once fifth. This fifth place was mainly due to no luck and no cards.

Also, I can finally write that the December figures are back in black. At the moment I have a astonishing profit of 3$. After my withdrawel of 25$ my BR is back at 83$. If I would withdraw another 25 more I would have withdrawn my complete deposit but I'm going to wait. For once I'm not going to be the chicken like normally. If I add this life BR to my online bank account I'm break even for the year, even better it would mean a small profit of 13$. But still 23 days to go.

Thx for all the comments, really meant something to me. Also made me change my game a little bit.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

December update

First of all, thx for all the tips. I'm trying to adjust my play and trying to use these tips to increase me level a bit.
Since last post, I played 6 SNGs.

SNG1: 4th
Did not play bad at all. Only went a little bit overboard when trying to steal the BB from the SB with K9. I was 3rd in chiplead the BB last. I decided to go all-in and he called with A5. Stupid and silly move. I guess it was my only incorrect decision but it did cost me a paid place.

SNg2: 10th
Did not survive one hand. Went AIPF with AKs and lost against AJ. J on the flop. I should not call an all-in within the first 5 hand.

SNG3: THIRD
Finally ITM again. Only third because my pocket 6s did not stand against AJs.

SNG4: THIRD
Again third. This does not help me. The third is nice for the ITM stats but it is costing me money :(. Again the pocket pair did not stand against 2 overcards. This time my 88s where beaten by A10.

SNG5: 9th
Little bit pissed about my exit. Really card dead during the complete tournament. In the BB I got dealt K4u. The SB is the only one to complete. The flop is 8KQ with 2 hearts. The SB raises 120 (pot sized bet), I have Top pair and I don't think that the SB has a K or made 2 pair so I decide to re-raise to 240. Maybe my raise was to small cause I'm giving him 3 to 1 one odds for the flush (which is the only situation in which he could call, in my opinion at least). He re-raises all-in, which I think indicates weakness. So I decide to call. He turns over Q6. The 6 on the Turn seals my faith.

SNG6: SECOND
At last some recovery for my losses. Did play close to my A-game. Was not good enough to claim the victory.

My stats for December so far are:
SNGs played: 20
ITM: 7 times (35%)
ROI: -22,73%
Loss: -25$.

Overal SNG stats @ Titan:
SNGs played: 102
ITM: 38 times (38,24%)
ROI: 10,09%
Profit: 56.8$.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber

I'm a donk, the stats can't be wrong.

Forget all the challenges, forget the bright future. Forget getting break even this year. I'm a poker donk and probably I will stay a poker donk. A while ago I brought to you the Paedocyprisis. It is the smallest fish alive. This was around the 17th of July.

Let me put it like this. If it was swimming in the poker pool it would hunt me down and eat me.

I know that variance it part of Poker, that once in a while you face a bad beat or that you made a bad read. I can even understand that you have to bluff sometimes and that once in a while your bluff will not work and you will ran into a real monster. But if this all comes together Poker can be fucking frustrating.

I know that I'm not a Poker God, also the looks point into this direction :). But I capable of doing better than the stats I'm facing at the moment.
Played 3 SNGs today and not even close to the Money. This month I'm already down by 27$.

Notes for this donkey:
- A9 is not a good starting hand.
- Don't always think that a check of the villain means that the flop did not help him.
- If the board gives somebody a flush or straight possibility, back down cause they will get the needed cards.
- Don't count on a flush or straight cause the Poker Gods are against you at this moment.

Can anybody tell how I could/should have played this hand differently?

Maybe I should quit!

More luck at the tables than me!
Dremeber

Strange results yesterday. Played 7 SNGs, ended 3 times ITM and 3 times as last!!!

SNG1: 9th
Stupid, stupid, stupid. I tried to bluff someone out of the pot with a JJ3 flop. Unfortunately the villan had a 3. Still had a flush escape but the cards were not with me.

SNG2: 10th
Again stupid play of me. First hand sitting in BB with AQ unsuited. One caller and the SB completes. I raise to 120 and the initial caller calls again. The flop is QJ9. Cause I'm scared for a 10 on the turn or river I go all-in and run into the already made straight.

SNG3: second
The last hand hurts a little bit. Holding 89 in the SB and I have around 2k chips less. I raise to 700 and he calls. Flop: 946. The villan raises 1000. I want to take this pot without a fight and because I feel I'm ahead I go all-in. He calls with A6 and as expected the A pops up at the turn.

SNG4: 10th
One nasty flop. Sitting in BB with Q7. A hand I would normally never play but it checks to me. 7 people in the pot. The flop QQ4 looks like a dream but turns into a nightmare. I check cause I'm first to act and the button raises 60, the SB calls and I raise 120. The next card is a J and the SB and me keep re-raising each other until we are both all-in. Never could have guessed that he had pocket 4s.

SNG5: second

SNG6: 10th
Ran into AA with my AQ. Flop has a Q as highest card and rest is history.

SNG7: Third

So, yes I played really bad poker in some SNG. But still the month starts with a mighty profit of 1.5$. Yeah.

Good luck at the tables,
Dremeber