Adventures on the Poker Felt

I’ve been struggling for several months with the motivation to play focused and disciplined online poker.  There always seems to be some distraction keeping me from putting in the hours I should.  But now that football season is over and the Bolts discovered another epic way to implode, I really have no excuses not to bang away at the tables.

A few months back I mentioned some interest in grinding 45 man sngs.  These can be very profitable although mind numbingly boring.

A recent sharkscope chart:

I’ve been dabbling in MTT’s again without much success and find myself getting frustrated after losing a bunch of consecutive races.  Yesterday, I lost 10 of 12 flips and shut things down.  In one flip, i flopped a set with presto only to crash and burn to runner/runner broadway.  Standard, I know.

Rush Poker has been a real shot in the arm.  Although the beats can come fast and furious,  I’ve found i’m able to let them bounce off me because I really don’t have much time to dwell on them.

Bodog is running a new promo for sports fans Feb 15- Mar 14.  Cash in 3 single table sng’s a week and you’re entered into a drawing to win tickets, airfare and accommodations to the SuperBowl, NBA Finals, NHL Stanley Cup finals and the World Series.  They’re also kicking in $500 spending money for each event.  It’s a pretty awesome package.  Get more details on the Bodog Ultimate Sports Fan Experience.  They’re also running two $5k freerolls for players who qualify during this promotion.

Full Tilt is kicking off FTOPS XV today.  I doubt I’ll be playing any events but I’ll definitely be grinding satellites.

Full Tilt poker has introduced a sick twist to online poker, the game we love to hate.  This bastardized version of online cash game crack is “Rush Poker”.

Before Rush Poker, you’d see an average of approximately 65 hands per hour playing at a 9-handed full ring cash table.  Now with Rush Poker you can see over 4x as many hands.

I found it somewhat difficult to keep up with more than two Rush Poker cash tables going.  I also had two other standard tournament/sng tables up at the same time.  But even if I had shut those down, I could see myself having trouble keeping up with more than three Rush Poker tables running simultaneously.

And yes, they have Omaha HI Rush Poker tables. :puke:

Full Tilt is crushing the rake on these new games.  Rush Poker is a great way to accumulate rakeback.  It definitely makes accumulating points for Iron Man and TrulyFreePokerTraining much easier.

Full Tilt is running their double guarantees this week (Jan 25th-31st).  I was hoping to see some overlays but they’re easily meeting and exceeding their guaranteed prize pools.

got my money in good and junk kicked for the umpteenth time.

Happy New Year all! Be safe and prosper.

Please let our hands hold up in 2010.

We’ll be collecting frequent flyer miles over the next couple weeks.  Not as many as some tournament reporters/writers but a few thousand anyway.

We’re off to CLE tomorrow to visit with Tina’s family, exchange x-mas gifts and go to the Browns / Charger game on Sunday.  Originally, Tina said she’d be sporting Brownie garb but finally converted from what is Cleveland sports despair to SoCal sports where winning is a reality (Bolts/Lakers/Angels/Ducks).  The Chargers haven’t won a SB but are on their way to winning their 4th straight AFC West title and KO’d Indy from the post-season each of the last two years.  They aren’t the discombobulated franchise that is the Cleveland Browns.

Norv > Mangini

We return Monday night, regroup for a few days, then repack and head to Vegas Saturday morning.  Our flight is expected to arrive at 12:30pm PST and the ’09 WPBT Winter monkey shove contest is expected to start at 1pm.  I’m hoping they allow late registration until the 1^st break like most casinos.  If so it will still be close, rushing from McCarran to Paris Hotel to checkin/drop off bags and cab over to Caesars.

I haven’t signed with any of the last longer blogger dream teams at this point for that reason.  If someone wants to add me to their team with an alternate, let me know.

See some of you in Vegas next weekend.

You ever think to yourself,

“why do i do stupid shit?”.

I limp or call when I should raise.  I check when I should bet.  I call when I should fold.  I raise when I should check or call. I re-raise when I should just GTFO.

Luck is such a HUGE factor in this game, I need to bet when I get lucky and think I’m ahead, and bet big enough so it’s not a no-brainer call.  Why give brain dead button mashers a chance to catch up on the cheap?

I’ve really been rethinking my pre-flop/post-flop tendencies.

A session doesn’t go by that I don’t want to kick myself in the balls for doing something stupid.

Happy Turkey and Football Day! The absolute best holiday of the year.

I’ve dabbled in these before but i never took them seriously.  The structure isn’t that good.  They can become a crapshoot at the final table but I’ve adjusted well.  Lots of dead money in these.

I haven’t made a ton of money playing sngs on FTP but, I plan to change that in the coming months.

Monkey pushbot poker is a lot easier than playing post flop in cash games.  There’s a good reason why online pros are 20 tabling sngs.