So my new machine is now powerful enough to play on PKR. I love the games, love the graphics, but everywhere I look some lucky bastard has hit a set on me. I can't win and am down 4 buy ins in the last 24hrs.
What to do now, persevere I suppose.

Juts got one of those DELL XPS machines, some dude off ebay sold me it for 300 so am well pleased! Looks like the meanest thing ever!

Lets play!

I am playing a bit of XBox 360. I have always liked computer games. I'm playing HALO, COD 4 and FIFA '08/9.

I enjoy it but I have to say I'm crap at these games, the standard is so high on line. I'm just glad they don't play for money!

Still running pretty average, playing on ongame now.

I play the odd table of limit but i'm just getting killed. They always call my raises, bone dog any 2 2 river then outdraw me. It's impossible to work out where I am in a hand.

I'm killing the microstakes NL games but it's tedious playing for so little money. Anyway will look to clear the ongame bonus and move on.

Okay, running very bad now. I decided to play limit and have got my ass completely kicked. I know it's just a downturn but I can't hit a flop, keep getting outdrawn to 5 outers and 4 outers about once every 2 orbits. I am now $220 down on Absolute and I quit.

I will do my usual when running bad and take refuge at another site. Absolute can keep their bonus and Gold VIP status!

I am aware that I'm not the best player in the world but I have a sound understanding of the game. The trouble is that the games are so loose that no raise gets a fold, If I raise with 66 UTG I will get 4 callers and then not hit my set, see a sea of overcards and have to check and fold. Somebody with j2 will then pick up the pot. This process has been repeated about a million times.

PT says I have played 5234 hands at absolute and have lost $188, some must have gone in MTT buy ins and other ventures. I am loosing 3.02 bb/100 there. Time to leave.

Live tourney

Played in the EMS championships yesterday at Dusk Till Dawn, Nottingham. Very nice venue and excellently run tournament.

I feel that I played okay and at the end of the day you have to get lucky to do well in these things. I came in the mid 30s out of about 48 starters. Once the blinds get to a certain level the i feel you have to get your chips into the middle and start ante stealing or you are just dead. I had pushed 3 hands in a row and looked down to see ATh. I considered folding as my image was becoming loose however at the end of the day i couldn't just sit there so I shoved again and got looked up by AQo. I figured unless I ran into a premium hand the opposition wouldn't want to call of their chips, but I did and the board didn't help me.

I have played some more limit this morinng, I added a 4th table however things didn't go well and I found myself $50 down after about 1 1/2 hours so I'm having a rest.

Will crack on again later and perhaps go back down to 3 tables until I win back.

Limit again!

I am playing limit again, just cant help it. When you have no money bonus whoring has to be the way. There's just free money out there for a guy like me. I earn very little RB from NL however at limit you chomp through it!

I have been playing 3 tables, 2 $1/2 limit and one $50/1 limit. Lovely!

I rekon it will take me 10-20 days to clear the Absolute reload bonus.

Well got cained at the tables last night. I was about 8 buyins down but came back by playing limit and am only 4 down now. Have reloaded at Absolute Poker and am looking to clear their bonus. Absolute is a bit of a dodgy site with all of the scandal re superusers however it shouldn't affect me at the stakes I play at. I will do a hit and run on them ant try to get the $150 bonus out with my bankroll in tact. I left the site I was on after there was only one table available to play at at 50nl and I bust out after a guy called me to the river with a gutshot and i had AAA. That was too much !

So I have started from scratch and am now rebuilding.

I have turned my $200 into $700 so all is good, I'm comfortably beating the games and will move up once I hit $1000. This shouldn't take too long however I yearn for the rush of higher stakes play. I am naturally conservative so I will be taking my time getting there.

My mantra has always been to try to become a student of the game. I have read over 30 poker books and this will increase I assure you.

I'm a bit disappointed at the moment as I ordered Heads up No Limit Holdem by Colin Mosham from Amazon and they have emailed me to say that they cannot send it!

Oh well, the 6 max limit book by DG publishing is out 30/11 so I will be forking out for that one. I struggle to function without a good poker book to devour.

My latest reads are Power Holdem Strategy by Daniel Negranu and The Secrets of Professional Poker by Rolf Slothboom.

Negranu's book is excellent and I would recommend it to anybody, I particularly enjoyed his chapter on Small Ball and liked his thinking on using extra outs, I will try to incorporate this into my game.

Slothboam's book is a bit wierd. I love to see anybody's ideas and i certainly like Slothboom's approach however he admits to being a bit tight and seems to base his analysis on laying in tight games with high rake on the european poker scene which may not be the same as the games that you or I play in. I will read anything believing all players have ideas which will help my game and Rolf is worth a look even if he goes against the grain in some areas.

The Story So Far

Hi,

Name's Jon and I will be sharing my journey through the poker world, gaming and life in general.

Principally I will be sharing my poker journey as I try to make my fortune at the virtual tables.

On New Year's day 2005 I hit my head giving me concussion which lasted 3 months. I had to stay off work as I could do very little without feeling dizzy. I decided that to aid my recovery I would play poker on line so I took the plunge and deposited $25 into Pacific Poker.

I decided that limit poker was to be my forte and I first set about learning the starting hands and going from there. I had already played a bit for play money and had made a few thousand play dollars so I felt confident I could beat the low stakes games.

I ran my initial stake of $25 up to $14000 by late 2007.

I only played limit texas holdem and mostly played 1 or 2 tables.

In late 2007 I started to run bad to be fair to myself a big chunk of my losses came from Royal Card Club on the microgaming network going bust. I was on a 100bb downswing at the time which is about $2000 at $10/20 Limit Poker.

100 Big Bets is nothing at those limits but the loss of another $1500 with RCC going under left me $3500 down in a month.

This made me re-evaluate my position in the poker world, for me $10000 is a lot of money and I didn't want to run bad and have it all gobbled up in a month of running bad. I could see how volatile the games were at $10/20 and even though I had faith in my game I saw that that amount of money could come in handy and I decided to cash out and get married, which is exactly what I have done.

The money has paid for an engagement ring, a good chunk of my wedding and a slice of the honeymoon so Poker has changed my life for the better.

I left myself $200 in my account and am now trying to build it back up.

I have started to play No Limit Texas Holdem to rebuild as it will help me to stay motivated to crush the smaller games with learning a new skill. I considered playing limit but it was doing my head in playing 25/50c limit against the idiots as low stakes limit is no foldem holdem!

I am now going to try to get my bankroll back and get started towards playing semi pro.

Wish me luck!




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