Feel like I had a disappointing night last night but still end up with $47 added to my bankroll.
Last night was the last night of Stars double points promotion. I still had a decent chunk of points to earn and any I didn't earn last night would take me twice as long to get. I decide to spark up three tables to help cross the bonus finish line.
Table 1,2,3 +$5
Just getting started and I'm winning a little on all three when called upon to put the babby to bed.
Table 4 -$17
When I return later I struggle on one table where a floater on my immediate left is targeting me. The rest of the table seems to take turns too. Same story. Call my pre-flop raise. Call my c-bet and bet out to take it away on the turn when I check or even reraise my second barrel. I'm down US$17 very fast and not liking it. I decide to just up and leave and find a new table.
Table 5 -$18
The new table proves event worse. Another floater who calls almost every raise. I hit a bunch of playable cards. After 70 hands I've raised over 30% of hands. None of them are hitting though and once again I'm getting it taken away on the turn. I start to take my own advice of yesterday on dealing with floaters with some success but I just don't hit enough hands to profit. I never recover and end up US$18 down.
Table 6 +$25
Only one table is going well. I'm up a buy-in which I've let dwindle down a bit but then catch a hand against a shortish stack. I raise pocket 99's which connect on a 983 flop. He checks and I check behind. flop comes a second 8 and he goes all-in with a big overbet. I don't believe he has an 8 anyway and the fact I'm beating him even if does helps too! I call and he has 53. I'm back above a buy-in up.
Table 7 +$3
I have one big hand where AQ hits top pair and I c-bet which I'll dig out and post later as I think I misplayed it. End up having to let top pair top kicker go in that big pot. Looking like another losing table and I'm heading for a bad night when I strike the pot of gold.
Raise Pocket 8's and get called. Flop J85 with two diamonds on the board. I bet out and get called. With straight and flush draws showing I have to keep betting. I do and he calls making a juicy pot. River is a J which completes the flush but also gives me a full house. I bet out and face a re-raise. I'm obviously facing a big hand. There are actually quite a few potential holdings that beat me here but I'm hoping nut flush and put him all-in. He calls and shows 5 5 to give me a big pot and turn a losing table into a small winning one. Phew.
I bring myself within two dollars of level for the night and have collected my US$50 bonus so call it a night.
I'll need to have a good look at some of the losing hands as I think I leaked a lot. Three tabling also made it a bit more difficult to keep track.
The plan now is to spend a bit of time doing the following;
1) watch some Cardrunnner vids
2) Set up PA Hud with some more detailed statistics including cold-calling.
3) Have a look through old hands on poker-tracker stats to see if need to plug leaks . I checked last night and I make money from every position except the small blind which I was pleased with - I'm also a winner with all types of made hands from pair to quads so they seem okay. I do need to try and improve my anti-floating tactics though.
4) Get the bankroll up to $1,050 by the end of May.
The bad news is I failed to keep above 10PTBB/100 for my spell at Stars as it dipped from 16 to 8 in the past two nights. Bah.
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4 comments:
Sounds like a lengthy session...you have to remember that Stars still has USA players on it and is potentially tougher (especially at the times you are playing) than some of the smaller sites. I read that over the weekend they had over 100,000 players most of the time!
I managed to win a HU game last night on Cardoza - $50+ inbetween turning the aircon on and off and moving fans due to the heat / "cold" felt by my family.
Nice work, sir. A record breaking Sunday they had indeed. The double points thing has brought in a few players that have old stacked bonus that wasn't worthwhile completing until now. I used 'Find player' on my opponents and half of them were multi-tabling -that may have been trying to finish bonus along in addition to regulars. Table selection is very important at Stars. I've noticed a few players that I thought of initially as fish but are doing very well and I think them playing a particular loose style that is maybe taking advantage of predictable players (like myself). That's why I want to take a look at what they do to try and counteract it (and see if I can replicate it). Counter-strategy may involve pushing all-in on the turn with a range that includes bluffs but not enough to justify them calling. That's scary though!
The sites that still allow US players, such as Bodog, FT, Stars and UB are all quite tough. You will find a variety of skilled players, both rock solids at low limit and Hyper LAG....if you consider that a lot of them will be playing a.m. their time whilst night time here then they are probably spending a lot of hours on-line (students, semi-pros etc) - I'm wondering if from a strictly gaming POV, and not including bonus offers, it might be more profitable to focus on the Party, Empire, Ladbrokes, William Hill type of sites - ? Whaddya reckon? That said most of my roll is on UB, Bodog and Stars!! Perhaps I should move it...
Agreed. Avoiding US sites is probably very wise. Bonuswhores gives a rating for each level of play which I usually take into account although I think there is a lot of truth in the standard increasing if you play daytime players and I don't think this is facotred in the rating. I do remember a few Piraya Saturday/Sunday morning giveaways a few months ago. Drunken scandiwegians aplenty. I'm still plenty of bonus $$ to clear at Paradise which I should clear before they shift to the boss network. Poker tracker doesn't work and its very difficult to multi-table. Possibly as a result of this its very soft. I was hoping for a Party and Ladbrokes bonus this month which are very easy to clear and worth US$150 but neither came to fruition (offered Party bonus wasn't worth doing).
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