Rags to Riches: My Quest to Poker Glory

Quick Post: I played a bit more before I went to sleep last night and took down one huge pot before I went to sleep. It was a very interesting hand that I'd be interested to hear comments on. Here is how the hand played out....

I raised preflop (UTG+1: this means that I was the second person past the big blind, 'Under The Gun +1') with JJ to about $1.50 and got three callers ($6 in the pot now). I have to admit that at this point I am not too fond of my jacks. Flop comes 5s/8s/9h. Pretty decent for me but I am cautious because of the three callers behind me and the straight/flush draws out there. I'm also worried about someone slow playing AA/KK/QQ. I am first to act so I throw out a $4 bet to see where I stand, hopefully I can take the pot down right here.

To my dismay the guy right behind me goes all in for is last $11 ($21 in the pot now) with two people still behind him left to act. Now I'm really hating this hand and am ready to fold it. Here is where it gets interesting. The guy next to act takes forever but eventually calls the $11 and so does the third person (third person had less than $11 so he was all-in now also)! I can't believe this. I am almost positive that I am slaughtered in the hand right now.

If it was just me and guy behind me who pushed in I would have let the hand go and waited for a better spot. However, there is now almost $50 in the pot and it is only going to cost me $7 to call. Also, I know that if I fill up (meaning if a jack hits the board) I can win what is currently in the pot and the $25 in front of the last player who still has money (in hind sight this may have been assuming too much, but I had the feeling that if he has gone this far, that he is going to the river). This is giving me approx. $75-$7 implied pot odds (pot odds are a bit much to explain here so do a google on pot odds if you are interested and do not know what they are) so I make the call.

The Turn drops a second 9 onto the board which now looks like this [5s/8s/9h - 9c]. I am sick to my stomach at this point. Now, not only am I beat by QQ/KK/AA but also by A9/K9 etc... I pretty much gave up here and checked (this was a wuss play but I knew I was beat, knew the guy would call any bet and didn't wanna throw out any more money). To my complete delight, it was checked behind me and I got to see a free River card.

The River brings a third 9 and board now reads [5s/8s/9h - 9c - 9d]. Very interesting. I check again for the same reasons stated previously and the hand was checked behind me. I flip over JJ show nine's full of jacks. (I'm holding my breath at this point as PokerStars takes it's time revealing the next person's cards, building the suspense). The next in line flips over A8! I couldn't belive it! He put all that money into the pot with A8! Third in line flips over 5/5 and all becomes clear (fourth player mucked his cards so I do not know what he called with).

My instincts were correct, I was slaughtered at every stage of this hand (except preflop and post river) but Lady Luck bailed me out, only a third 9 or a Jack would have saved me at the River (as the guy flopped trip fives and filled up on the turn, but the third 9 filled me up better). In the end I raked the pot, had almost $60 in front of me, was up $35 for my short little session, so I decided to call it a night.

I am now sitting just shy of $660 (actually have $659.87 or something like that). Please feel free to comment on this hand.

Here is the most up to date info. Still hitting the 10c/25c NL tables and as of right now the plan is to continue on doing so until the roll hits $1,200. I will probably end up moving up limits earlier but theoretically I should wait until I have 25 buy-ins of the next level (which would be $50 each). Also I am playing in the $10 Deepstack tournaments at PokerStars on weekends.

Bankroll (Last Post/Today) |$591.24 / $626.91
Profit | $35.67
10k On-Pace? | ($1,039.77)
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | ($9,373.09)

Ended the night up around $15. Puts me at $613. Still playing slow and steady ABC poker. Not making alot of fancy moves, not bluffing a lot (no point because you will be called down with just about any hand online). Just playing tight, waiting for big hands, and trying to get maximum value from them. Yes it is boring as all hell but it works, so until this stops being profitable I will not deviate from the strategy. Proof pics will be posted some time after tomorrow's session.

Up and down yesterday with a net of -$4. I was down to $504 at one point, then went on fire and took down three consecutive $15 SnG's to be back up to $604 by the end of the night. Emotional rollercoaster. It was even worse for me because everytime I got knocked out of a tournament or SnG, or lost a big cash hand, I had the best of it until the River. But as the donkies are so fond of the saying, the River counts, so The Dude must abide.

-d.arthur

Someone has brought it to my attention that some people don't understand how I am magically transferring money from one poker room to another so I will explain that here.

I have two accounts with online transfer services. One is with Neteller, the other is with Firepay. These accounts are necessary because you cannot directly deposit money from your checking account/credit card due to many of these institution's stances on online gambling.

So, these two accounts are linked directly to my checking account. I deposit from my checking account into either my Neteller or Firepay account, then from one of those two into my online poker room account. Now, to transfer funds from one poker room to another, I just withdraw from one poker room (into Neteller/Firepay, note: you cannot withdrawl from PP into Firepay for some reason) then deposit into the other. Very simple. This allows me to take advantage of all of the deposit/sign-up bonuses that the various poker rooms offer :)

I hope this is detailed enough.

Reached the $600 mark tonight! $1k here I come!



ps: While I was posting this I had one more free hand before the big blind came to me (I was going to quit after this hand). I ended up picking up AQ, flop came Q high and I ended up picking up another $8 before all was said and done.

So here are the lastest stats. I finally have all of my bonus money and have consolidated all the funds into one account. I may try and hit the bonus at FullTiltPoker next. I hear they have a 100% deposit bonus.

note: for the poker tracker stats that I posted, NL/PL $25 = NL/PL ($0.25). It is simply two different notations. Party Poker uses the max buy-in ($25) whereas Stars uses the size of the big blind ($0.25). I am trying to figure out how to combine the stats today.

Status:
Bankroll (Last Post/Today) |$456.93/$591.24
Profit | $134.31
10k On-Pace? | ($1,075.44)
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | ($9,408.76)

Played in a $10 tourney tonight. 1,304 entered, I took 30th place. It was good for a $45 cash. It was enough to put me back to even for the night. I had been bombing at the cash tables, and washed out of two SnG's before I entered this tourney. I like the way I played, pretty solid all the way through, I had a shot at making the final table but ran into an opponent with AA that put me out. Incidentally first place was over $3k. Maybe I should concentrate on furthering my tourney skills. I'll post the proof pictures sometime tomorrow once the instantbankroll.com bonus clears from neteller into my Stars account. The total should be just shy of $600.

UPDATE: The promotion was legit. Not only is it legit, but they gave me the money within about 48 hours (way earlier than the 8-10 days in the ad) and they deposited $125 into my account where only $100 was advertised. Definately check this place out.


Ok, this appears to NOT be a scam. I got an email this morning saying that the money was put into my partypoker account and also received an email from partypoker confirming this. However, due to PP being down for maintenance I was not able to verify this personally. I will update again tonight with details. If it turns out to be on the up and up, I highly reccommend everyone do it. It's a free $125 for doing what you'd be doing anyways.

note: you can only do it if you have never played for real money on PP before.

I want to take a few minutes to suggest that anyone who is serious about improving their game, and never having to redeposit again, checkout pokertracker.com. It is a piece of software that allows you to track just about every statistic that you could want about your game by reading the hand history files provided to you by your preferred poker room (almost all of the online sites are supported).

Some of the most valueable stats that I look at are:

VP$IP - percentage of times player voluntarily put money into the pot pre-flop with the hand. Putting money in the blinds is not considered voluntary unless you call from the SB or call a raise from the BB. This lets you see if you are playing too tight or too loose.

Avg/Hand - average amount player won with the hand per times dealt. This lets me see if I am over/underplaying certain hands. For example I noticed that I was losing alot of money with pocket eights, leading me to believe that I was overplaying them, now I let them go if there are overcards on the board or if I don't flop a set.

W$SD - percentage of times player won money when going to showdown. This also goes along with over/underplaying hands. If I am going to a showdown alot with 2/2 then there is a problem.


I highly recommend that you check this piece of software out. It is free for the first 1,000 hands, and after that it is only $55. Believe me when I tell you that it will pay for itself. The stats listed here are only about 0.01% of what this program offers.

Well I decided to experiment tonight with a new style of play for me. Typically I play ultra tight, ultra aggressive. This means that I sit back and wait for pocket pairs or the top five premium hands (AA, KK, QQ etc...). This has paid off for me, however it is an extremely boring way to play cards. I decided tonight to experiment with a more looser style of play, trying to see as many flops as I could for as cheap as I could. As such I included hands such as 4/5suited through J/Tsuited into my normal rotation as well as small gappers like 5/7 and 6/8.

I will not go so far as to say that this style does not work, but I will say that it does not work for me, and may not work for anyone short of a leprechaun with a rabbit's foot in each pocket on Party Poker. With the quality of play being what it is I highly reccommend that you stick to playing very conservative at party poker. You will be bored, but you will eventually get paid off.

The end result of the experiment was me losing about $40 but in the process I unlocked one of my bonuses which put $25 back into my account so the loss didn't hurt so bad. Now that the bonuses are unlocked (I am now waiting 8-10 business days for the processing of the other $100 instantbankroll.com bonus) I have withdrawn all funds from PP ($145 funds + $25bonus +$100 bonus) and am going to put it all back in my Stars account for a net gain of $170 at PP.

You may be asking- "Why transfer back to Stars? I thought you said Party Poker was like free money?" Well the answer is this; While the money will come at PP, the game that I am forced to play there is extremely boring. I feel like I can play against more fundamentally sound players at Stars and beat them by outplaying them instead of just waiting around for the best cards. It is overall a much more satisfying experience in the end. Also, I like the User Interface (UI) at Stars better, and Stars has a better variety of games/buy-ins. Also, I think that I am going to drop back to $10NL instead of the $25PL that I was playing at PP ($25 buyin was the lowest they had that would qualify the hands played towards the bonus I was working towards). I feel more comfortable at this level at the moment as $25 is still a relatively big chunk of my BR (5%) whereas $10 is not (2%).

So, for some reason Party Poker lets you deposit funds through Firepay, but not withdrawl them the same way. So in order to get my money I had to set up a Neteller account. Therefor I want have any 'proof' pictures for a few days because my money is in limbo while my Neteller account gets verified.

Without the proof though here are the most current numbers:

$278 (Stars) + $165(PP) +$25(PPbonus) +$100(instantbankroll.com bonus) = $568

note: I am still skeptical of this instantbankroll.com bonus, the whole thing sounded sketchy but I had no reason not to try it, so I will believe it when I see it. Guess we'll see in a few days. I withdrew all the money from the account before I told them to process the bonus to ensure that they can't rob me. I'll be sure to update the site with whatever happens.

Hey, I am sitting here wondering if people are actually reading this or not (other then my fiance and close friends) and following my progress. I love doing it as it helps me keep myself in check, but it is a rather time-consuming effort to create all the picture files and make all the calculations, so I am wondering if I should continue on.

So please, if you are reading my plog (poker blog, get it? =D) and either learning something, getting the slightest bit of entertainment, or just curious to see if I succeed, please do me a favor and post a response (comment's can be added at the bottom of each post) to this thread and let me know.

I am more than happy to keep doing, but would like to be doing it for a reason other than my own accountability :)

thanks,
-d.arthur

This has nothing to do with poker, I just wanted to make one statement.

If you go to the gym with product in your hair and a collar on your shirt, you are a douchebag, period.

Having trouble finding an ATM late at night? No problem, stop by Party Poker and turn 50c into $1,000. Party Poker is almost too good to be true. Sometimes I think that it would be easier for the other players to save time and deposit the money directly into my account. Here are the most up to date stats (disclaimer: I may play more later tonight after 24).

Status:
Bankroll (Morning/Night) |$416.21/[$280.39(PS) + $176.54(PP)]= $456.93
Daily Profit | $40.72
10k On-Pace? | ($1,209.75)
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | ($9,543.07)

So, my plan was to make the rounds to all the different online poker sites and cash in on all of the sign-up/deposit bonuses that they offer. I decided to transfer $100 from my Stars account to PartyPoker. In this way I get a $125 sign-up bonus ($25 from PP and $100 from a referral service that will deposit the $100 in 8-10 business days; both unlocked after I play 1,000 raked hands) and a 20% ($20) initial deposit bonus (unlocked after 140 raked hands - after the other bonus is unlocked).

So far at Party Poker the competition is laughable. I have played 506 of the 1,140 required hands for the bonus and am up $35. The lowest limits available at Party Poker is 10c/25c ($25 max buy-in NL/PL). 90% of my hands were played at Pot Limit Hold'em. The players are so weak I may just forgo the other bonus sites and stay here after I unlock the bonus.

Here are the updated stats.

Status:
Bankroll (Morning/Night) |$349.95/[$280.39(PS) + $135.82(PP)]= $416.21
Daily Profit | $66.26
10k On-Pace? | ($1,250.47)
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | ($9,583.79)

As promised here are the Saturday morning stats (included are my stats for the 5c/10c NL tables). Also, yesterday I got a bonus offer from Party Poker so I will be checking that out. The deal is this: Deposit $100, receive 20% instant deposit bonus ($20), then an extra $125 once I play 1,000 raked hands. This would be a tremendous help to my bankroll so I am going to attempt to do that as soon as I can (offer expires in 60 days). I'll just transfer the $100 from the PokerStars account temporarily.

Once I'm done with the PP offer I'll probably go around and hit up the other online poker sites for the bonus money. It's an easy way to increase the BR.

So I had about 40 minutes before work today to goof around at the tables. Sat down at a $10 max buy-in NL table and was lucky to have a bunch of people miss their draws against my top pairs. Bought in for $10, cashed out about 25 minutes later for $15.45. I would have loved to have sat at that table all day because the competition was really weak, but alas, I have a job, and I already called in sick once this week.

Gameplan: Stick to the $10 max buy-in NL cash games and small buy-in SnG's until the roll reaches $625. At that point I can move up to the $25 max buy-in games (having $625 will give me 25 full buy-ins and give me the cushion that I need to withstand the inevitable swings of NL).

Current BR at $360 or so. It is a stretch to say so, but I am going to attempt to hit the $625 by months end (pretty good considering my original goal for March 1st was $150, then, once I hit $150 I upped it to $350). Stats will be posted ASAP from PokerStars and PokerTracker.

Played in a home game tonight with some guys from work. I lost $40 but I am very pleased as this is exactly as I had intended. I never played with this group of people before. Instead of spending the night concentrating on the cards and winning money, I spent it studying the player's habit's, betting patterns, playstyle, possible tells, and so on and so forth. This will put me in the position to be more profitable the next time I play with them. To be honest I went into tonight fully prepared and even expecting to lose, knowing that it would be more of a learning/research night then anything else. It was $40 well spent as I am sure what I learned tonight will make me money next time I play with them. So watch out Ritesh!

I did play online before I went over to the home game also. I took 155th in a 1,500 person tourney on PokerStars. Unfortunately the buy in was only $2 so the payout I got was something like $4-$5. I also sat at a 5c/10c NL table while the tourney was going and walked away with 95c more than I started with. Nothing worth spending the time to post new stats. so I will do it sometime after I am finished playing on Friday, or more likely Saturday morning.

Thanks again for the support!

My PokerStars ID is DHarrison. If you happen to be on, stop by my table and say hello or wish me luck. Any and all support is welcome. I typically play after work on weeknights (7pm -> 1am EST) and anytime/all day on weekends.

Pretty much break even for me tonight. Won a little, lost a little, paid back the Magician though so I have $30 less in my account than I did last night.

Status:
Bankroll (Morning/Night) | $383.68 (-$30) /$349.95
Daily Profit | $0.00
10k On-Pace? | ($1,316.73)

To Go:
March 1st Goal ($350) | REACHED
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | ($9,650.05)

Concentrated on SnG's tonight. I played in a few $10's, a few $20's and one $30, but didn't have success in any of them. Reluctantly I took the plunge and played in a $50 SnG and took it down!! The prize was $225. This puts my BR at $380 or so. However, I am going to transfer the $30 back to my friend who helped my out with the loan earlier in the week. This still leaves me with $350 and a daily profit of $70.

Status:
Bankroll (Morning/Night) | $281.93/$383.68 (-$30 for loan repayment)
Daily Profit | $101.75 (-$30 for loan repayment)
10k On-Pace? | ($449.66) (-$30 for loan repayment)

To Go:
March 1st Goal ($350) | REACHED
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | ($9,616.32) (-$30 for loan repayment)

Well, in addition to my little update below I'm going to include this one. I tried to go to sleep around 11 but was tossing and turning so I decided to get up and come watch a movie (Resident Evil: Apocalypse) and play another $5 SnG. Sticking to my strategy of playing tight early then loosening up as the blinds increased I was able to take it down. 1st place ($22.50). This brings my total BR up to $298.93, and my profit for the day up in the neighborhood of $50.

I played in two $5 18man tournies tonight. Took 3rd place in one ($18) and 2nd place in the other ($27). I guess I am better at SnG's than cash games. I will still play at the nano limit tables for fun and to try and improve my game, but my focus will stay on where I seem to be making my money.

Status:
Bankroll (Morning/Night) | $253.27/$281.93
Daily Profit | $28.66
10k On-Pace? | ($551.41)

To Go:
March 1st Goal ($350) | $68.07
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | $9,718.07

(the photo service for the blog seems to be down now so I will post the proof later tonight or early tomorrow morning)

Thought I'd post a schedule of the forecasted end-of-the-month totals that I will need to meet in order to be 'on pace' to hit the $10k by the end of the year. As you can see I am extremely behind schedule at the moment. There is a good reason for this though.

1) The schedule is forecasted out for a 12 month run, I did not start my quest until the last day in January so I have in effect lost a month.
2) I am starting at the sub microlimit tables (sometimes called nanolimits). So on a good night I can maybe take home $10 or $20. As my BR fattens I will be able to sit at the higher level tables, thus, increasing my expected profit.

So in the future when I post stats I will also include the 'on pace' numbers which will let you know where I stand in relation to this forecast (note: negative numbers will be represented in parenthesis. ex ($100) would mean that I am behind schedule in the amount of $100).

Well, I think that I have come to the conclusion that I am better at tourney play than I am in cash game play. I played cash games all day yesterday and was down about $30 when I decided to play in two $10 SnG 1 table tournies. I won the 6man table ($46.50) and placed 2nd at the 10man table ($27.50). I'm not sure what this means. Maybe I should stick to these short tournies from now on. I'm posting my PokerTracker tournament stats today.

Status:
Bankroll (Morning/Night) | $214.83/$253.27
Daily Profit | $38.44

To Go:
March 1st Goal ($350) | $96.73
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | $9,746.73

Big swing last night. I was having a night filled bad beats including having AA and KK cracked in consecutive hands. I made a bit of a run at the 10c/25c PL table but I was still down a lot. Out of frustration I bought into a $25 Sit N Go (1 table, 9 people). Now, this practice of buying into tournies out of frustration is one that I am sure you have all experienced, and one that I have tried to stop myself from doing. However, I always seem to do well in 1 table Sit N Go's o I gave it a shot. I currently have over a 1,000% ROI (return on invest) on all of my SnG's (mostly 1 table's).

Well I guess you can see where this is going. I won the $25 tourney, cashing for $112. That put my up by about $50 for the night. Following my little run at the SnG, and brimming with confidence, I went back to the same PL table from earlier in the night and took down another $20 in profit.

Also, seeing as how I have already reached my March 1st Goal of $150, I am going to make a new goal of $350 for March 1st.

So here are the most up to date stats.

Status:
Bankroll (Morning/Night) | $139.36/$214.83
Daily Profit | $75.47

To Go:
March 1st Goal ($350) | $135.17
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | $9,785.17

And as always, here's the proof! (I will be posting my PokerTracker data again soon as soon as I stop jumping from game to game and between tournies and cash games).

Well a bit of bad luck struck me early on tonight as someone hacked my Pokerstars account and took all my money. However, the most generous man ever, XxMagiciaNxX from the Cardplayer forums, graciously donated $30 to me in order to get me going again (I of course changed my password). I took that $30 and turned it into $140 bucks tonight. Pretty much guaranteeing that I will hit my goal of $150 for March 1st. Here is the status so far.

Status:
Bankroll (Starting the Night/Ending the Night) | $30/$139.36
Daily Profit | $109.36

To Go:
March 1st Goal ($150) | $10.64
Jan. 1st, 2007 Goal ($10k) | $9,860.64

So, if anyone here is a regular reader of the CP forums, be sure to give your respect and courtesy to the Magician. He is a great man.

And as always, here is my proof:

Ok, I had a bit of a strange night. I played 10c/20c Limit and was up about $12. Then I decided to play a few Sit N Go's and it didn't go so well. I then decided to take a seat at the 10c NL table and cleaned house. I made up all my losses plus about $4 more. Another baby step towards my goal.

Status:
Current Bankroll | $79.57
Today's Session | +$4.09

To Go:
March 1st Goal | $70.43
Jan. 1st 2007 Goal | $9,920.43