Last Day of the Year.

Well, it's the last day of the year. I'm plus for poker which I'm proud of and glad I accomplished. So checking Poker Tracker, I made ~$64 in cash games over 21K hands and ~$740 over 163 tournaments and sit n go's. It's not a lot of money, but by playing mostly $2NL cash games and $1 and $2 buy-in tournaments, it's definitely a great ROI.

Plus those totals don't include non-hold'em or any bonuses I cleared. I know I've taken about $900 of that and put it into my bank account and I still have about $350 as a bankroll, so you do the math on the actual amount I've won.

For next year, I'm going to try to work my way up to $25NL. I'm finally playing $10NL comfortably right now. Plus as you can see, tournaments are good for me, so I definitely need to play more of those. It's just that the big cashes are so few and far between. I'm thinking of maybe working on the $4.40 180s at Stars. They are always running and first place does pay out pretty good.

Merry Christmas

...and a Happy New Year!

No Fucking Way!

This is just unreal. I went back to use up the $100 I had left in my Party account and yeah, I won another $280! Wow.

Holy Crap!

So, I just logged into Party to watch Rob play. I'm glad I did. When I logged in, they were offering me a $100 no deposit bonus for their casino. Unfortunately, you need to wager $2500 to withdraw the $100 they gave you. My first thought is with games like slots and blackjack, I'll be hard pressed to be able to wager that much before I've lost the whole amount. But it's free money so let's see what happens.

First, I try a little 3 card poker and quickly blow through $20. Next I try a little paigow and get bored. So I decide it time to lose the rest of the money quickly. It's time for the slot machines! So I'm play a few turns and suddenly up pops a "You win!". I figure it's only going to be a couple dollars, and probably less that what my initial bet was, but no I was in for a surpise. What I actually won was $250!! Holy Shit!

I immediately stop playing and check the rules to see if I can take out any of this money. There is no way I'm going to continue with the bonus if I am just going to lose back a significant win. And the good news is, as long as I don't try to take out the initial $100 they gave me, I can withdraw the rest. It's pending approval right now, so cross my fingers. This is definitely a nice Christmas present for me. I'm glad I logged into my Party account.

Wii Update

Ok, so it looks like I will have to wait to use my gift certificate from FutureShop. I have decided I want a Wii, but since it's Christmas, I don't really have a chance of getting one now. They just won't have them in stock unless you pre-order them. Sigh, I guess that's a good thing. I could see myself wanting to play with the games we get with the system rather than open presents on Christmas day.

Big Winner!

Ok, this is not poker related. So I didn't win the Sunday Million or anything as exciting at that. But I still won a great prize.

Our local radio station here is FM96 and they have what are called Freeloaders. Basically, you sign up and occasionally you can enter draws for prizes. Well, as you can guess, I'm a Freeloader and I had recently entered a couple of their draws.

And as you can further guess, they called this morning and I won!! I have won a $200 gift certificate to FutureShop! That is one kick ass prize. Now I have to decide what to buy. I'm thinking the hype has sucked me in and I might need to pick up a Wii. I will have to think about it first though.

Dream Poker Freeroll

Last night Dream Poker hosted a freeroll for the Talking Poker Forum. There was a great turnout, 58 people from the forum were registered. Unforunately, about 45 of them had just joined the forum that day and would never post again. But overall, we did keep the crashers to a minimum. And if we are lucky, one or two may even come back to the forum and become regular, useful members of the site. I was actually chasing a freeroll when I found the site for the first time. Although, I wasn't trying to crash. I went to TalkingPoker.com to see what I needed to do to get into the freeroll, learned I didn't qualify, so I didn't play in it, but stayed a member of the site because it looked interesting. I'm quite glad I did, it has definitely helped improve my game.

Anyway, even with all the crashers, the "real" TPFers made a great showing at the tournament. At the final table, there was myself, TP, redbank, Dodouble, and Tony Cheval. Hopefully, I didn't miss anyone. I was quite surprised to make it that far. Early in the tournament, I was almost crippled. I had raised PF and on the flop I hit TPTK. I was able to push another guy all in. He flips his cards and he's on a flush and a straight draw. The turn completes both, so he ends up scooping the pot with a King high straight flush. I'm down to a few hundred chips.

I just stayed patient and wait for my opponents to get into the pot against me with weaker holdings and slowly chip my way back up. By about the final two tables, I'm now chip leader. And by final table I'm holding a stack that's about average.

During the final table, I get into a pre flop pushing war with a guy named swami66. I have AK and he turns over KK. I luck out and spike an A and end up nearly crippling him. He then proceeds to go through the roof. Asking "Why I would get all in preflop against KK with AK?", "The math says AK is a bad against KK". I don't say anything other than "KOD" or Kiss of Death. But I'm thinking "Ummm...dumbass, I have no idea what cards you have in your hand until you flip them over, sure I was worried you could have AA or KK, but you could also have any other pocket pair, or Ax--or as in the case with most freerolls worse! And against all those other hands, AK is a great hand to get all in preflop with."

But, and this was the best part of the entire tournament, TP (rogue23) starts making fun of swami66. TP even challenges him to a HU match and to name the stakes. At first swami66 accepts and TP starts asking if he'd play at a different site, as he doesn't have money on Dreampoker. Funny enough, swami66 starts backing down. Either ignoring TP or saying, I'm a tourney player, I'll only play you HU if we make it to final two. TP never did get the details hashed out for a HU match, but it's not like we expected it to happen. I checked the pokerdb and he has absolutely no stats--obviously, seeing as he's just a freeroll crasher and this cash at DreamPoker is likely the most he's ever had in his account. I doubt he's even 18 years old yet.

So the final table plays out. I end up in 3rd for a decent $31 payout. Tony takes 2nd and a crasher :( takes first. Although, he didn't seem like a bad guy. Let's hope he's one of the ones that stays at the site.