Trials and Tribulations of an Internet Grinder

Days 20-22
374 Hands
+191.10

Very uneventful 3 days. I ahve been super lazy and getting in a laughable amount of hands. I keep starting of my sessions with a quick little prfit and just wuitting to keep myslef in a positive mindset. I know that by doing this I am costing myself money, but I feelt hat it is very important for me to have a positive mindset about poker before going to Vegas at the end of this week. I am planning on taking some shots at the Bellagio 2-5 NL game and if things go well I hope to play at least one session of 5-10 NL ($1k buy in). I may play in the Party $750k tommorow but I may just decide to play a bunch of 1/2 NL and actually make some money.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 12,446/60,000
Overall $ 1,564.67
$38.43hr - 41 hours

MTT'S
None (-618)

Days 17-19
1,775 Hands
+103.51

I have decided that posting my results everyday is a bit of overkill as far as stats go. I will now post my stats in 3 day updates so that i have a bit more tot alka bout in my posts and more hands to gather stats with. Over the past three days I spent much of my time playing at the card club and also played a couple MTT's at the casino. I ended up making about $400 in this span. As far as my online play goes, I was very disgusted with my results and overall nature of the game lately. I feel very fortunate to ahev turned evena small profit for the last few days as I was subjected to some of the sickest coolers of my poker career. The type of hands that play out in a fashion in which it is almost impossible for me to fold even though i am fairly certain i am beat. Lot's of best ahnd vs. 2nd best hand scenarios. But ig uess that is poker at it's best/worst and I will keep on grinding. I am really trying to make some money this week as I am going on a quick 3 day trip to Vegas from June 5-8.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 12,072/60,000
Overall $ 1,373.57
$34.77/hr - 40 hours

none (-618)

Day 16
401 Hands
+145.75

Well today I wasn't able to get in very amny hands, but what was great is that I actually turned a profit. I am feeling really good even though I only made about $150, it just feels great to post a winning day. I took my brother to the local card club i play at for some live 1/2 NL. I came up about $180, so that was pretty nice. Right now I am playing in a $55 MTT on party but things are not looking too promising. I hope I can get my lazy as into gear and actually put some decent hours in this week because I really want to be able to bring $5k out to vegas with me next month.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 10,297/60,000
Overall $ 1,270.06
$36.92/hr - 35 hours

MTT'S
Party $55 104/322 -55 (-618)

Day 14-15
1,041 Hands
-75.12

So I still suck at poker. Everytime I start one of these challenges I decide to just lose money instead of win. I guess I should be happy that I lost less than $100 over the last 2 days... If things don;t turn around soon i will move back down to NL100, this is something that i really do not want to do, but I will if I have to. Part of being a great poker player is being good at bankroll managment and right now my roll is tumbling down to the $8k range. I wish I was playing horrible but instead I am just getting killed by the deck. It also sucks to lose because it makes palying a good amount of hands harder to do, as you can see. Hopefully, I can still salvage the rest of the month and at least make $4k in May (including rakeback).

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 9,896/60,000
Overall $ 1,124.31
$34.21/hr - 33 hours

MTT'S
None (-563)

Day 10 - 13
1,853 Hands
-562.63

Well, as you can see it was a rough few days. just to give you an idea, I lost with AA all in preflop 4 times, got all my money in to a $500 pot with a guy drawing to one out and lost. In addition to that I just couldn't get anything going during any of my sessions. I was however pleased with my ability to stay cool and not tilt away any of my chips after those losses. In some cases i just quit ym sessions early and let myself cool down. I also played a bunch of live poker over these last few days and things went great. I won $1,800by winning a 50 person live MTT and I also made about $500 in the 1/2 NL game at a local card club. I have decided not to include my live stats in my records as I don;t put my winnings into my "official" bankroll. Hopefully things will go better over the weekend as I am going to try andplay at least 3.5k hands by monday.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 8,855/60,000
Overall $ 1,199.43
$40.61/hr - 30 hours

MTT'S
Party $109 297/ 490 -109 (-563)

Day 9
697 Hands
-375.06

Well, these are the days that poker players hate most, losing days. I seem to have a problem beating the late night donks on party that try to give their money away. I lost a $700 pot after getting all the money in on the turn with top 2 pair against a flush draw. In the two MTT's I played things went horrible an dmy bustout in the party 500k was due to my horrible play, which really made me mad. I didn't think that I would be able to sustain the winate i saw during the start of my challenge, but I really hope that things turn around. I also added a little bragging list of final table appearances to the right of my blog page.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 7,002/60,000
Overall $ 1,762.06
$75.36/hr - 23 hours

MTT'S
Party $215 825/2320 -215 (-292)
Party $162 205/ 375 -162 (-454)

Day 8
831 Hands
-264.16

Well I started the day up about $100 but silly me decided to take advantage of the saturday night, drunk donks. And of course I ran and played horrible to lose a good 2 buy-ins. I was happy to get out and go on a 5 mile bike ride which I was proud of since online poker can make a man VERY lazy. In the morning I played in two Bodog WSOP ME sat's only to lose one with KK vs Q9 nad the other with AK vs 66. I think I will try a couple more tomorrow as there is about a 100% overlay in these things. I am currently playing a party $77 MTT and made it past the first hour which is solid for me lately. :) I have also decided to add my MTT results to my daily updates, but not as part of my "challenge". For the most part I use rakeback to make up for any of my MTT losses at the end of the month. After my 3 final tables in a row last month, this month has been horrible and it looks like all of my expected $1800 in rakeback will go back into my roll.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 6,305/60,000
Overall $ 2,137.12
I Need $ 3,862.88
$104.08/hr - 21 hours

MTT'S
Party $77 198/320 -77 (-77)

Day 7
315 Hands
+175.98

Today I was busy with my "real" job and I decided to take it easy in the poker world. Only played for about an hour today, but booked a nice little profit. I think I am going to take tommorow of from cash games and play a bunch of WSOP ME Qualiferes on Bodog. I really want to paly in the big dance this year, so hopefully things will pan out. Also I must point out that my current hourly rate is a bit too high to sustain so i expect that to drop at some point. I would hop to sustain at least a $75/hr rate.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 5,474/60,000
Overall $ 2,401.28
I Need $ 3,598.72

$134.78/hr - 18 hours

Day 6
970 Hands
+540.15

Well I lied about boycotting the Party Supers. :( I played for 3 hours just to get busted on the bubble when I shoved AK and got called by 99. At least for my sake, the 1/2 NL tables treated me nicely, and I was able to book a nice little profit to erase yesterday's disaster. I am still not happy about the amount of ahnds I have been getting in, but single tabling MTT's is the cause of that. I think I will start posting some interesting hands daily to help keep my blog worth reading.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 5,159/60,000
Overall $ 2,225.30
I Need $ 3,774.70

$132.59/hr - 17 hours

Day 5
554 Hands
- 503.71

Well as you can see, things have been going VERY good for me over the last week. With that being said, it should be no suprise that I had a horrible day today. I feel like I was playing well, things just weren't going my way. I lost one $500 pot when I flopped a flush against a guy who flopped a bigger flush. Another $400 pot I lost could ahve been avoided but I failed to go with my read and fold QQ on a 25J rainbow baord, but the guy made it obvious he had AA/KK. I can;t expect to win $200+ everyday but I do hate losing more than $500 in less than 600 hands. Oh well, I still love poker.

P.S. I played in a $60 live MTT at ym local, crappy casino and lost with AA vs 44 all-in preflop. :(

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 4,189/60,000
Overall $ 1,685.15
I Need $ 4,314.85

$124.52/hr - 14 hours

Day 4
1026 Hands
+ 203.44

Things are still going my way, I was up over $500 until the end of my session when I made a bad all-in call with trips top kicker against a guy who rivered a gutterball straight. I am still happy with my play overall and feel like I am doing really well with my continuation bets. I played the Party Super tonight (shame on me!) and got knocked out in the first level with KK vs AA. This time I am serious about "boycott" of the Party MTT's for a while. This weekend I will be playing some WSOP ME sattelites at Bodog which look like they will have some good overlays. (Shhhh!)

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 3,635/60,000
Overall $ 2,188.86
I Need $ 3,811.14

Day 2
1239 Hands
+ 809.63

Things are going great, only problem is that I am not playing very long sessions. I feel like the longer I play the higher the chance i end up losing a huge hand. I know this is a bad way to think about and play poker, but oh well. 800+ hands played in one day isn't exactly miniscule, at a B&M casino it would take me about 2 days of straight playing to get that many hands in. PLayed the Super Monday and 10pm $109, as usual I barely won a pot in each and was out in first hour of both. I think I will take a few days of from MTT's and focus on playing insane amounts of 1/2 NL since that seems to be my personal ATM currently.

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 2,609/60,000
Overall $ 1,985.42
I Need $ 4,014.58

Day 2
923 Hands
+ 468.14

Spent 3 hours single tabling the 500k on party jsut to get knocked out by a 2 outer after all the chips went in on the flop. : ( At least the 200 NL games are going well. I would love for this hot streak to keep going forever but it won't. :(

6k in 50 Totals
Hands 1,370/60,ooo
Overall $ 1,179.75
I Need $ 4,820.25

Decided to start an actual challenge to hopefully make some money to take to Vegas for the WSOP in July. I am setting the modest goal of $6k in 50 days playing 60k hands. This will be NOT including rakeback which I will use to pay my bills and to fund some online MTT entry fees. I am going to help motivate myself to play as many hands as possible during this time by posting my results daily.

Day 1

447 Hands
+ 707.65

Didn't play much today, but it was easy to quit early after getting up a nice amount quickly.

6k in 50 Totals
Overall $ 707.65
I Need $ 5292.35

Well I ahve decided that I want to go out to Vegas for the WSOp and hopefulyl sattelite into the main event. If that does not happen then I at least want to take part in the highly lucrative cash games that will be going on during the series. In order to boost my bankroll I will be playing 90k hands of 1/2 NL between now and July 1. If I can keep up a modest win rate of 3ptbb/100 hands I should be able to make $10k-$12k including rakeback during the next two months. I seem to always fail at these challenges but maybe this time things will be different as I have some good motivation and school ends next week.