Back on the grind???

I guess I’m back grinding?

it’s been a while since I updated this thing. After numerous requests (a whopping two people)  to bring it back from the dead, I’ve finally caved in. Last time I left off, I was a struggling 50nl grinder trying to break through into 100nl.

For those not in the know, 50nl= 50$ no limit holdem. The number refers to the buy in for the game, so 2nl= 2$. 4nl= 4$. 50nl = 50$, etc.

Anyways, I’m now currently grinding 200nl on Bovada. The site is all anonymous + 4 table max, so volume is lolbad but the soft play makes up for it. I’m talking like, Pre 2007 bad play. No rakeback or VIP system blows, but again, it’s the tradeoff for not really even needing to table select because everyone is so awful. Also, they have some solid MTT’s that run, especially the 10$, 10k GTD + the 60$, 25k GTD.

Okay,

now that the boring stuff is out of the way quick update on my….

Bankroll:

I’m using pretty aggro BRM, moving up with 20 bis and moving back down at 20 for the previous limit. For example, 2,000$ is 20 buy ins for 100nl, so when I get up to 4,000$, I moved up to 200nl and played 200nl until my roll either eclipsed 8,000$ (400nl) or if I fail, back to 2,000. Also, I’ve been mixing in a ton of MTT’s on the side trying to get a big score. I’m hovering around 3.5k currently, so I’m mixing 100 and 200nl. Every Sunday I’m playing the big 162$ trying to get that 30k+ score as well.

Goals:

A. 5-7 hours of online play per week

Yeah, I know that’s pretty pathetic, but law school sucks. My hourly is somewhere around 20-30$ per hour, so that’s a solid 150-200$ a week in grinding.

B. Play the 162$ 100k GTD 10/15 Sundays

Don’t want to put a profit goal on this since lolMTT’s and all, but if I can commit to play 10 over this semester, it should give me a decent chance to pull in a score. Obviously, 10 entries is like zero volume, but it’s the best I can really commit too.

C. Build a 20k roll for Vegas next summer

The most important goal. Without getting too in depth/specific numbers, I’m making good progress. If I can get 20k together, i’m going to play the 10k Main Event + some smaller WSOP 1k events + grind live cash.

Graph: 

The giraffe above is my last 30 days or so of grinding. It’s a mixture of 50/100/200nl. I was beating 50 pretty decent, crushing 100 and I’m b/e at 200nl. I didn’t notice a difference from 50 to 100, but I definitely felt it at 200. Theres still a ton of fish around, but the regs are highly exploitative. Feels like every single mistake I make gets crushed by the 200nl regs. At times it just feels like there are guys infinitely better than me grinding the same limits. I guess that’s the perils of moving up since everyone is just getting that much better.

Hand analysis:

Probably pretty standard, but for some reason it’s sticking out in my mind. We have 100bb on the river, so what possible lines can we take? I think b/f is probably right? but it’s also so transparent that it seems so exploitable to just bet/bet flush then bet/fold when board pairs that a reg could pretty easily take advantage?
No reads on MP, but seems competent. UTG is a pretty big fish calling station, hence why I call pre. UTG just stacked off A8 on AQ1042 board for stacks. c/c the entire way*

 
[B]PokerStars – $2 NL (6 max) – Holdem – 6 players[/B]
[I][URL=”http://www.pokertracker.com”%5DHand converted by PokerTracker 4[/URL][/I]
UTG: 84.63 BB
[B]MP: 213.4 BB[/B]
CO: 100 BB
BTN: 101.25 BB
[B]Hero (SB): 151.19 BB[/B]
BB: 60.31 BB
[B]Hero[/B] posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Hero has 23dd
[B]Pre Flop:[/B] [I](pot: 1.5 BB)[/I] [B]Hero[/B] has 3:diamond: 2:diamond:

UTG calls 1 BB, MP raises to 4 BB, fold, fold, Hero calls 3.5 BB, UTG calls 3 BB.

Flop: (13 BB, 3 players) AT9 ddd

Hero bets 8.5 BB, UTG calls, MP calls.

Turn: Kh (38.5 BB, 3 players)

Hero bets 25.5 BB, UTG calls, MP calls.

River: 10c

(Board A109K10  dddhc) (115 BB)

Hero???

 

**Apologize, my PT4 hand converter is acting up so I had to improvise the HH 🙂

What’s volume again?

So, 

 

I started the month off with a big post about how I was going to hit 20k hands, donate 20%, grind hard, etc. etc.

 

Ya, that didn’t happen. 

 

In my defense though, law school’s been sick work so I’ve barely had any free time. I’ve managed like 2k hands this month?, something around there. I’m obv going to lose my volume prop + I’m not really going to have any serious money to donate, so I’m just going to give a standard 200$ and try for some real volume next month. 

As far as the grinding goes though, I’m currently in flux about where to play. I have a roll on Intertops still, but the traffic is so low lately that I’m thinking of switching. Bovada now has “zone poker”, which would let me get some nice volume in since you can grind tons more hands/hr. Also, i’ve heard it’s soft…..like very soft.  Only negative is they don’t have 100nl zone traffic, but I’m thinking if I just move back to 50 and grind out a nice profit every month, that’s probably more suitable for me. 

 

Finally, I’m going to vegas for 2-3 weeks next summer to play some WSOP events in the beginning (nothing too big, probably just a few 1k and 2.5k or something), but if anyone knows any good deals, hotels, airfare etc. hit me up please!

 

-d

If your interested in donating….

I’ve had a few people ask me where they could make their own donations to Xan this month.

 

http://www.gofundme.com/team-moses-home

 

Hit up the link above ^^^ and it will take you to his gofundme page. This is a great cause and I can promise that any funds you donate will be used and appreciated greatly by this family. 

 

Sorry for the no poker update, but it’s coming….in all it’s glory by the end of the weekend, I promise.

 

-D

Giving back again this month

Hey guys,

So I did this style of promo before in March, but since I found a cause that I really connected with, I decided I’m going to do it again. For the month of September, I’m going to give 20% of any profits I make through poker to “Xans Fans”.

What is “Xan’s Fans” you ask? Well, go check out the link for yourself. https://www.facebook.com/Xansfans

(from the page) ” Xan is a seven year old boy who has a rare neurodegenerative disease that is progressively taking over his body and now his mind.”

Xan is currently receiving treatments in a variety of places, but he has been based in Pittsburgh for much of the time. With him being in my hometown, I instantly got attached to the story.

Xan’s goal is to get 1 million fans on Facebook and so far he has over 350,000. His family is currently taking donations to help pay his medical expenses and travel, so after seeing this story, I decided that I wanted to do something to help out. My minimum donation will be 20$, that meaning I either have a negative month or don’t manage to get much volume in. (Not going to lie, it’s a possibility since law school is currently crushing me)

But, if I go over 200$ in profit this month (send rungood plz), I will be donating 20% of whatever that amount is. If my current pace for previous months keeps up, I could be somewhere around 120-160$, maybe over 200$ if I’m able to put in some decent volume.

I really hope anyone else out there could make a donation as well, if it’s at all possible. I put the link to Xan’s Facebook page above, but on that page, you can find the link for “Xan’s Fans bands”, where the family is selling wrist bands to help raise $ for Xan. Also, since not everyone is in a position to make financial donations, even doing something as small as writing Xan a letter or even just liking his Facebook page could make a difference.

I feel like I’ve been blessed with opportunities and poker has opened some doors to me in the past, so I just felt like it was time to share some blessings with someone else.

-D

Just a quick little brag

Had some spare $ lying around in my BCP account and jumped into the 55$ 5kGTD …

Got

 

Got 2nd for 882 🙂   Lost 22<AJo AIPF  for the knockout hand.  Flop: Q103   T: 4   R:  K

 

I came into final table as short stack, so i’m super happy with this result. Got a nice little roll to grind 50nl on Black chip with now, so the suddenly busto degen (me)  is back in the game now 

 

Final Summer Wrap Up (Did I hit my profit goals?)

Well, summer is officially over so let’s wrap it up

 

Profits:

Live cash: 8,654$ /312 hours played = 27$ / hour

Live Tournaments: –650$ 

Live Poker: 8,004$ profit

 

 

Online

Cash:

1,900 (Merge)  

550 $ (Lock) , still awaiting 1k w/d (knowing lock, who knows if this will come in)

200$ (Itops)

100$ (BCP) 

 

An Online Total of : …..2,750$ profit.  This could be 3,750$ if my withdraw comes in from Lock….which is a huge if at this point haha. 

 

Now, drum roll please…….

 

Grand total: 10,754$ profit

Potentially, this could be 11,754 , but for now i’m happy to settle with 10k 🙂

 

Thanks to everyone who followed along. I know the updates weren’t always frequent, but I hope I kept the poker interesting and not just boring updates all the time. Again, as I posted in previous updates, I’ll be taking a few steps back and working on affiliate/staking side of things and hopefully that will yield some profit as well.

 

As always,

just keep grinding

 

-D

Pittsburgh Poker Open Event #2 tonight!

Playing the 125$, 5k GTD tonight!

 

The tourny kicks off at 7 p.m. tonight. 15k starting stacks and 30 min blind levels. Not as deep as I had hoped, but it’s a pretty decent structure. 

 

For those of you who follow me on twitter (@aking684) ,and you should since I do giveaways and free stuff sometimes… you know that I have to announce the winner of the 5% freeroll in my action tonight. I’ll post the winner on there at 5 pm, so don’t worry I haven’t forgotten. 

 

 

Hopefully I come back here updating with a win tonight!

 

-deuces

 

Back in the saddle again

Well, it’s been a good shot at 50nl so far 🙂

 

As you can see in the giraffe above, I’ve been rolling 50nl in my first 20k hands. 

Profit = 927$ (winnings) + 306.72$ (rakeback) + 122$ (bonus’s) = 1,355$ 

 

I know it’s like early August, but I just feel like monthly updates are kind of pointless since my volume fluctuates so much. Anyways, despite having to turn over my live roll, OLP has been going just fine. I’m going to w/d this roll soon most likely, so that would allow me to have a live roll once again. (BTW, online roll sitting around 2.5k atm) 

 

I have to admit though, having 36% rb + bonus’s is super sick. I’m officially a bonus whore and I don’t care who knows anymore 🙂  100nl, here I come!!!

 

Summer Wrap-Up, aka me crying about giving up my bankroll

Well,

the title says it all.

I knew coming into this summer that this would happen eventually. My original goal was to make 5,000$ so that I would not have to take any loans for my first year of law school. Fortunately, I accomplished this goal. I actually crossed the 8k mark, so I smashed my goal by about 3k. That being said, it’s still painful to work so hard for something and then just give it away.

Disclaimer: If your ever in a situation such as this, don’t do what I did. I made the mistake of going to the bank, pulling it out in cash and handing it over. Seeing 5,000$ in cash is different then just, say a bank wire. It’s that much more incredibly painful 🙂

I got to grind about 300 hours this summer live. Below is my live graph for the summer.

There it is, in all it’s glory ^^  Talk about a heater eh? That graph is a mix of 1/3 nl & some 2/5 nl as well.

I was about break even after 50 sessions, but then the poker gods saw fit to allow me to begin winning and there you have it!  It was a tough grind tbh, since for the overwhelming part I was like slight winner/ break even. I felt like I was running awful for the beginning, but I also didn’t want to blame it on the runbad. I started doubling down on my studying about halfway through the summer, so I think I was able to re-focus and combining my better game + running good = 8k 🙂

I don’t want to count any of my online winnings yet, as I have yet to receive the withdraws yet. I have 2k withdraw waiting from merge, so once I have that money in my hands, I’ll count it as well. By far, this has been my best few months of poker. I have been taking my game very seriously lately and not just treating it as a small side income. I don’t have any grand plans of being a poker pro or anything, but it would be nice to bring in 40k a year from poker on the side.

As far as my plans continuing with the game, I’m kind of undecided at the moment. I’m not sure what my workload will be at school, so I’m afraid to commit to much time to a certain number of hands or set time limit. Next summer, I plan on making another challenge to grind out 5k to hold off loans, so I will obviously not be totally quitting the game. I’m still going to be grinding 50nl online right now + if I can find a live game at my new school, I’m sure i’ll degen it up in that game too.

Thanks to everyone for following and showing me love on the forums/twitter/facebook etc. I appreciate the support and will keep writing blogs, despite the fact that my live poker days may be coming to an end somewhat abruptly.

Just keep grinding people,

-deuces

Been a long time coming, but update to challenge thread!

Alright alright alright,

 

I’m finally back from galavanting through Euroland, so got to play some pokerz again. First, a quick history update:

I recently put in for a withdraw from Merge before this challenge started and I have yet to receive it. I continued the challenge on Merge for a few weeks, grinding from 4 nl back to 10nl quickly. I was back to around a 500$ bankroll for 25 and an opportunity arose to allow me to play on Intertops. Since this is the best US facing skin at the moment, fastest withdraws + best bonus’s including 36% rakeback, I jumped at it. I am in the process of pulling off the rest of my merge bankroll and was able to get 200$ onto ITOPS to start grinding with. Since I’ve played higher and knowing I could beat 10nl on a 10 bi roll, I immediately jumped into 20nl on Itops. Results below : 

 

 

So ya, it’s been going pretty well.  That’s 226$ of profit, so I’m up about 11 bi’s in my first 9k hands. Obviously, it’s probably not sustainable, but nonetheless I’m happy with my results so far. 

Bankroll now =  200 + 226 + 25$ (depo bonus) + 71.40 (rakeback) = 522$ 

Hopefully my first withdraw from merge will come in sooner rather then later, meaning I could have potentially another 500$ to put onto Itops and just get back to grinding 50nl where I’m comfortable. Either way, i’m sure I’ll get back to 50, just a matter of when at this point. I’d rather not have to grind my way all the way up through 20, but if that’s what it will take, then I guess i’m in for the grind. 

 

As always, 

justkeepgrinding