Poker Academy Launches Poker Prospector

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Well our friends at Biotools (creators of Poker Academy) have just announced their new product: Prospector. It's a hand history analysis tool that goes well and above what Poker Tracker does. A better interface, more efficient, and better in quite a few ways. I've been beta testing the product for a little while, and Prospector really is quite impressive. A lot of the annoyances I've had with poker tracker just don't exist with Prospector. Efficiency is probably the biggest one. PT is really quite slow when it comes down to it. Prospector feels much faster when importing hands and moving around the interface. Not to mention that it's prettier! There is one component missing that I would really like to see ... and that's being able to show HUD stats on the tables. I'm hoping that this functionality will be available in prospector soon -- but in the meantime, you should check it out!

Heraldk

Man Machine Poker Match

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This has been in the works for a few months, but I'm happy to be able to finally share the news that the University of Alberta Computer Poker Research Group (CPRG) has organized a match pitting humans against the computer. The match will run on July 23rd and 24th in Vancouver at the AAAI 2007 Artificial Intelligence conference. Representing the humans are Phil "The Unabomber" Laak and Ali Eslami. Representing the machine is the latest and greatest computer poker AI being worked on at the University of Alberta going by the name of Polaris. This match is being run with scientific interest, so every effort has been made to make the match provide a statistically significant result. The reason both Phil and Ali will take part in this match is that it will be run in duplicate. This means that in one room Phil will play against Polaris, but in a separate room Ali will also be playing against Polaris. The cards dealt in both halves of this duplicate match will be exactly the same - with Phil and Ali playing different sides of the same hand. In this manner, a huge portion of the stochastic element of the game is removed leaving mostly the skill aspects of the game (for more information, take a look at my thesis on my Research Page).

We're really excited about this match. The poker group has been working hard on some new AI that is much stronger than previous iterations. As a poker player, I'm pretty excited to meet Phil Laak and be able to chat with him about poker and the research side of poker.

For more information about the match, visit the official match homepage (built in part by yours truly), at http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~games/poker/man-machine.

Heraldk

Card Dead

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Well this has been a busy weekend so I haven't had a chance to talk about my CPT experience yesterday. In a word ... frustrating. The level of play was definitely stronger than at the satellite, which was to be expected. That being said, I didn't feel all that uncomfortable. The trouble was, I just couldn't catch any cards. Fairly early in the tourney, I played KQo in early position, got a single caller from the player to my left. Flop is ten high and pretty dry. I continuation bet and get called. Turn is a queen giving me top pair. I make a pot sized bet and get called. River is a blank, but I'm not too happy with the call so I check intending to call a small bet. He checks behind and shows me ... KK?? Huh. He missed a value bet.

After winning a couple small pots (a raise collects the blinds and a walk in the big blind... weee!), I get dealt 85o in the big blind. There's a min-raise, followed by a couple callers so I call in the big blind getting 7 to 1 immediate pot odds. I flop 88Q. I check, to the aggressive player on my left who bets a small amount. The other players fold and I smooth call. I check the turn (a ten, if I remember correctly) intending to check raise (this was a mistake I think). He checks behind. The river is a deuce, finishing a 3-flush on the board. I make a pot size bet and get raised ... uhoh. I think for awhile, but call and he shows me ... 22. Hrm. I think I may have played that hand badly ...

The dinner break was almost upon us so I limped my way into dinner with 6600 in chips (after starting with 10K). The blinds after the break were going to be 150/300 with 25 antes. Not something to immediately be concerned about, but certainly getting significant for my stack. When I got back from dinner I just couldn't get any hands. The couple of times I picked up hands I didn't like the situation I was in - a raiser from early position seemed to be the rule when I looked at the couple decent hands I saw (and by decent, I mean KQo and QTo). Finally, with my chip stack dwindling to 5500 or so, I got moved from my initial table and got seated at another just in time to get the big blind again (now at 400 chips). A few hands later, I see an open limper, and folds around to me in the cutoff. I decided to push with A9s, hoping to just pick the pot up because I needed to try and reverse my downward trend. I didn't like being so tight as I'd been playing so far, but I didn't really want a lot of action with my shortstack. Anyways, I get called by the open limper who has JJ and I whiff on the flop. *sigh*.

So my day was pretty frustrating. The best hands I saw all day were: 44, ATs, and KQo (twice). Other than that, I certainly remember seeing Q2o, 93o, and 94o a lot more than I cared to. Sometimes, variance sucks.

Still, it was good to be back in the casino playing a big tournament. That was my 3rd big CPT event. Those of you who know me might recall that I finished 6th in the first $500 CPT event I played in. I entirely realize that that first time was a lot of luck combined with a little insight that Darse helped me with. But mostly the whole ride was a huge upswing in variance which is the only reason why I made it so far. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't put in a repeat performance this time. It would've been nice, the top prize at this tourney was $51K. Oh well - there'll be a next time I'm sure!

Heraldk

CPT Satellite

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My friend Curtis and I played in a $105+$10 satellite tournament at the Yellowhead casino last night. The satellite was for a $1000+$50 tournament that will run on Saturday, also at the Yellowhead. The tournament started at 4:00, and it didn't take long for the action to go wild. 2 people were knocked out at my table on the very first hand of the tournament when KK and A2s lost to QQ when a queen + flush draw landed on the flop. A few hands later, I managed to double up when my turned nut flush beat the second nut flush. w00t! I managed to get myself into a little trouble after the dinner break. The guy to my left was rather clueless, but got really lucky so he built himself a huge stack. He was willing to call down in pots with 2nd pair ... and I had little respect for him being a good player. However, because he had position on me for most of the time I didn't really feel very good making raises and having him call me. When the table got broken up, I breathed a sigh of relief.

I got to my new table shortstacked... so I needed to make some moves quick. Luckily, I hit a decent selection of face-card quality hands and was able to steal some blinds (the blind structure was super fast, as I kind of expected). I lost one hand against a shortstack who pushed on me with TT when I had AT. Nevertheless, I managed to steal some more blinds with a few all-in bets and then doubled up with AJ over TT when I spiked an ace on the flop.

At this point, everyone was shortstacked, but people continued their tight play style so I was able to make more from blind steals than I paid myself. The 2nd table I was at broke up in a little while and I got moved to a 3rd table. At this point there was less than 40 people left with the top 19 places being seats in the Saturday tourney. I felt rather comfortable at this point - my stack was above average and I continued being able to add to my stack slowly, but surely.

I got moved again, this time to table 1. I think, after thinking about this a bit, that this table was rather an unfair table for a number of reasons. This table never got broken up. The only time people left was when they got knocked out. So chips never left that table. *shrug* - maybe it isn't incredibly unfair, but I'm wondering whether it makes a difference or not.

Anyways, I get to that table as a mid-sized stack. A couple of my pf-raises get called and I'm starting to hurt a little. Then I get these hands: In 2nd position, I pick up AKo. Raise and pick up the sizable blinds. UTG I pick up TT - raise and pick up the blinds again. Then, I'm in the big blind. Guy in 2nd position min-raises and everyone folds to me. I look down at AA (sweet set of 3 hands in a row huh?). I re-raise about half my stack. They guy pushes and I call. Turns out I've got him covered and my AA holds up over his AQo.

At this point, I'm golden. I held almost 90K in chips with the blinds just entering 4K/8K. There was about 23-24 people left in the tournament which meant that a few knockouts at the other tables (where there was a lot of shortstacks) gave me a seat. So I played ultra-conservatively from that point on (I don't think I actually played another hand) and waited out the last few knockouts. So I get to play in the upcoming tourney on Saturday! Woohoo!

My friend Curtis also placed so we'll both be playing for a pretty decently sized pot on Saturday. Hopefully we can repeat our performance from last night and place somewhere deep in the money!

Heraldk

Tired

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This last week has taken a lot out of me. I've been quite busy working on this poker project -- the results are starting to look really promising, but I'm not gonna talk about that just yet. It looks like we're gonna have to get ready for an exciting event that should be happening in Vancouver in July. But you didn't hear that here first! I had a terrible downturn in poker so between that and the neteller trouble, I think I'm going to take an extended break from online gambling. (I didn't lose all my bankroll, but I might just cash out my money for awhile). I might use some of my PSO points to start a micro stakes bankroll from which to climb back up again ... we'll see if that's worth doing or not. In the meantime, I'm tossing around the idea of buying some lenses for my camera. The basic lens is pretty good, but it is starting to limit me in the stuff I'd like to try. So it is definitely time to purchase at least another lens. I'm kind of thinking a decent low-light/indoor lens with no zoom and a more general purpose zoom lens that borders on some telephoto capability ... If anyone has any helpful suggestions on good lenses or good place to buy such lenses, I'd really appreciate it! I haven't quite picked out the exact lenses I want yet. I'll be doing a bit more research over the next little while before I settle on something.

So that's where I'm at so far. This coming weekend Diane and I will be joining my family for a big reunion. So I won't be in town for most of the weekend. Should be fun, though it might be awkward since many people will be there that I should know/remember. Oh wells. Perhaps I will take my camera down and practice some photography! Hmm - maybe I should buy that 50mm lens I've been looking at *before* this weekend ...

Heraldk

Poker Bankroll Info

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I've created a new page (accessible from the top right menu, or here) that summarizes how my poker and online casino bonuses have gone over the last couple of years of playing. It is starting to look like a fairly impressive set of numbers, if I do say so myself! The particularly cool thing about these numbers is that my win rate at poker has skyrocketed in the last couple of months since I started playing no limit. No limit has totally been good to me - and I'm very happy to have made the switch (and so is my bottom line!).

Heraldk

Back to UB

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I returned to ultimate bet this weekend to play there a bit last night and this morning. Last night went terribly - I didn't get any action on my big hands, but kept getting played back at when I didn't get a hand. So I dropped two stacks at $100NL before calling it a night. This morning, on the other hand, was beautiful. I got myself back up to even from last night's losses and then proceeded to stack another couple players for a net session profit of $425. So in two days, I'm up $225-ish. Sweet. In a little while, my grandparents are coming over. My Grandma is going to teach me how to bake her bun recipe. Let me tell you: these buns are awesome. I can't wait to have a batch tomorrow morning -- hot and steaming straight from the oven. Mmmmmm. I'll try and get some pictures part way through and of the end product.

Heraldk

Poker-filled Weekend

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My friend got a reload bonus at Party Poker late last week, and I did not. So I sent them an email (at his suggestion) asking why and lo and behold they gave me a couple of bonuses! So I spent almost 12 hours this weekend playing 4-table $100NL. Saturday was very profitable ... I finished up $370 for the day, though at one point I was actually up over $500. I finished off my $100 bonus yesterday while making maybe $25 or so. So a pretty successful weekend on the poker front. What I don't really understand is where some of these players are coming from and why they throw away their money! It almost makes me feel guilty ... except that I know that if I don't take their money then someone else will. Some of the players are so bad that they are asking me to take their money. *shrug* - I guess I won't ever know the answer to this.

In other news, it was my grandparent's 54th wedding anniversary yesterday, so we went out for dinner to celebrate. It was pretty good - though I'm not sure I would go back to the restaurant we went to. It was good ... but pricier than I like to pay on a normal basis. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy a nice expensive meal once in a while, but I need to be real impressed with the food to get me to return. Both Diane and I felt that there were better options available for spending that kind of money.

But. It was fun and we enjoyed spending time together. I really don't spend enough time with my grandparents, and I really should spend more time with them. More stuff to feel guilty about I guess.

Heraldk

Work and Poker

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Yup, that's what I do. Diane was away for a few days last week so I spent a lot of time finishing up my interpoker bonus for this month. Unfortunately I tanked, and ended up only up $190 for the month in poker plus all the associated bonuses ($300) and rakeback (probably around $150). So, while I made some money, I certainly wasn't up near as much as I'd like to be.

The good news is that I sat down for a session at UB, and I think I'm gonna stick around there for a bit longer this time around. The players were noticeably worse than at interpoker. Where it was a struggle to win chips against some of the grinders at interpoker, UB was almost immediately profitable. Sure, it helped that I hit some hands, but some of those players were playing brutally. I made $180 in one two-tabling session tonight! Sweeet. A lot of that came on a hand where I rivered a full house against a maniac player who had actually flopped a straight. I couldn't put him on a straight and had to call his all in with a set of queens. Another notable fact from tonight is I made TWO straight flushes. Its been weeks/months since my last straight flush and then I make two tonight ... and both of them I stacked a guy (less than full stacks though). I did suffer a couple bad beats, including one where I flopped a set of deuces and lost to a guy who rivered a jack for a bigger set. Oh well, those things happen.

In other news, work continues at a good pace. I'm getting stuff done and that feels really nice. I have a pretty productive office environment which is helping me stay more focused than I was before. I'm pretty happy with where my life is at the moment. It is pretty exciting!

Heraldk

Downs and Ups

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Tonight was a wild night for poker. I played a quick 45 minute session before dinner and raked in $70-ish dollars in short order. After dinner I played for several hours ... but the first couple hours was pretty rough. One guy stacked my twice while playing $100NL. The first hand, I raised 24s from the button first in. I hit a 4, but not much else. However, I get to see the turn and river cheaply and hit running 2s for a full house. Unfortunately for me, the guy in the big blind had trip 3s which also filled up. There goes one stack! A few hands later, I get AKs. Make a standard raise from late position and get called by the same guy who stacked me the first time. Hit top pair aces, so I continuation bet. I play this hand the same way as the last big hand ... and hit an ace for trips on the river. Fully expecting to win, I get it all in on the river and ... lose to another boat. Holy. Crap.

So, I was $200 in the hole at that point. However, those beats I didn't feel too bad about. I wasn't going to get away from those all that easily, so I felt like I played them alright. So I continued playing. I won back two stacks over the next half hour and crawled back to take a slight loss overall today (including the session before dinner). Oh well, it sure beats being down more than that. In good news, I'm still up a few hundred dollars this month at Interpoker and need to clear just 430 points or so to complete my remaining $200 bonus (so I'm more than 2/3 done the total $200 bonus). That plus rakeback should leave me in a pretty profitable position ... assuming I can avoid being stacked too many times!

Heraldk

Setting Up

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So a common question I've been asked is what I'm going to do now that I've graduated from my MSc degree. I've been hired on by my now former MSc supervisor to do some poker related work. Many of you will know that I have been counting on this for stability until I can find a job I like. Of course, my first place to look is BioTools - but they aren't hiring at the moment. So I'll wait it out for a few months before I expand my search to other local companies. Until then, I'm happily employed at the University on a pretty exciting project. If anyone is interested in reading my MSc thesis, take a look here: Morgan Kan MSc thesis.

In recent poker action, I've started work on a second go around at Interpoker's monthly reload bonus. I did really well on the first one - raking in ~$200 in poker winnings, $300 in bonus money, and another $160 in rakeback. Through two nights of play, I'm up almost $400 playing .5/1 $100NL. I'm now 1/4 of the way to the first $100 of the $300 bonus and 8% done the full bonus. If this streak continues, I'm looking at a very profitable month!

Hope everyone is doing well! Heraldk

More Poker Stories

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Once I finished my four party poker bonuses, I moved over to Ultimate Bet where I played a week there and made a couple hundred dollars plus bonus money and rakeback. Then, intrigued by the tales of good poker tournaments at Booya poker, I decided to deposit there and get started on their deposit bonus. I had some early success, but recently I've seen a negative turn in variance. So I'm going to take a day break from it and re-evaluate my play. I know I've started to make some mistakes so it'll be good for me to do some reading and re-watching some of the training videos I have. The good news is that I am about 60% complete the $300 deposit bonus, so it shouldn't take too long to get there. Once I'm done the bonus, I'm thinking about moving on to Interpoker where I can get rakeback + regular monthly bonuses. Lots of poker to be played!

Heraldk

Poker, Poker, Poker.

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I know, it seems like all I talk about is poker. However, it has once again captured my attention now that I've gotten into no limit. Here's how I did after the quad party poker bonuses: $800 in bonus money. $231 from an above average run at 2/4 shorthanded. $68 from a grind of 1/2 shorthanded. $818 from 50NL! Throw in a couple of bonus prizes and about $50 from a surprise party casino bonus, and I made almost $2000 over the past week and a half or so. Sweeeet. So my cashout hit neteller late Friday night and I had one thing on my mind. You see, I've gotten a little annoyed that my current 19" LCD monitors can't display multiple poker windows without overlap. So, in part because one of my friends was talking to me about buying an LCD, I looked around and saw that dell was selling their 24" monitors at a really good price. Having just made a large profit playing poker, I decided to splurge and buy myself a pair of those beauties. They'll be shipped in the next week or so and I'll have them in my hot little hands really soon! I'm really excited, can you tell?

Since cashing out of party, I've returned to UB to play some poker. It has been a long time since I last played there, but I figured that given my new interest in playing 50NL, and the fact that I still had more than $300 of bonus money sitting there AND that I have rakeback there through PSO, I figured it was high time to try out their NL games.

So far I'm up almost $150. Hope that trend continues!

Herald

No Limit

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While I worked through the first of the party poker bonuses, my friend was doing the same except he was playing no limit. It seemed like every five minutes or so he was telling me that he had picked up another stack. So when I started my second party poker reload bonus (one of FOUR), I decided to give this no limit thing a shot. I jumped right in to the 6 max $50 NL. In my first couple hours I won $300! It turns out that a lot of these players really don't know what they are doing. Now that I've finished two more bonuses, my NL profit sits at about $600 + $400 in bonus money. It has been a good poker week!

The last day or so has been a lot slower profit-wise. Part of that is because I'm trying to grind these crazy bonuses, and so I'm playing 4 tables of $50NL which is taxing my still young understanding of the game. Still, after 3000 hands yesterday, I was only down $50. Considering that I was four-tabling and knew I made some pretty bad blunders, I'd call that a pretty good day.

So I have one last party reload bonus to clear before the 2nd of January. I should be able to make it at a bit of a slower pace, so we'll see if I can bring the win rate back up to something much nicer!

Heraldmk

More Variance

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Thanks to CasinoOwnage, I learned about a Party poker reload bonus that I decided to try. So I made my deposit for the $200 bonus for which I need to play 2400 raked hands. Last night I played some 3-table 2/4 shorthanded and took away $230. I realized though that the 2/4 limit was going to take a long time to clear the raked hand requirement. Since I only have a week to clear it, I needed to make sure that I can clear it. So today I dropped down to 1/2 shorthanded where raked hands happen much more often. It didn't go nearly as well. After losing $140, I decided to stop and take a break. I did succeed at one thing ... I cleared a lot of hands. I'm over half way to clearing my $200 bonus. We'll see how the bonus clearing goes tomorrow I guess! I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable playing shorthanded. There are times that I really feel comfortable. Even when I'm losing, a lot of the time I feel like I know what's going on and when I make mistakes I can quickly identify them. So the shorthanded learning process continues ...

Heraldk

Poker Variance

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At the moment my poker game is in a swing. I'm trying to make the switch to shorthanded limit play at limits of 2/4 ... but I think I'm making a few too many mistakes and its costing me in variance. At times I feel pretty comfortable and then I start having problems and lose my comfort level. The problem I think I'm having is shorthanded involves far more close decisions. Stuff like what do you do with bottom pair facing a bet on the turn ... it can't be correct to throw that away every time. But I'm having trouble figuring out the right conditions to call there. The variance is causing my bankroll to fluctuate by a hundred dollars up/down ... and I know poker is high variance so I should expect this. I can't stop having the feeling that I'm making mistakes though ...

Heraldk

Poker Bankroll Building - Casinos!

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So for the final catchup post in my poker bankroll building line of posts, this post will summarize my winnings for all my non-poker related bonuses. These numbers are going to look fairly impressive ... and they are, but remember that you can only do deposit bonuses at site once and then that promo is over. Very few of these have reload bonuses as good as their deposit bonuses. I started my casino bonuses at starluck casino, and busted the $100 deposit. That turned me away from online casinos for a while even though I knew they were +EV. Finally, I did the golden palace promo and made a decent amount there. Here's the list of the sites and my various profits:

Starluck casino: deposit $100, withdraw $0 Golden Palace casino: deposit $100, withdraw $290 Planetluck casino: deposit $100, withdraw $200 Intercasino (deposit bonus): deposit $100, withdraw $250 Bet 365 casino: deposit $100, withdraw $306 Victor Chandler casino: deposit $100, withdraw $0 Red Lounge: deposit $94.80, withdraw $274.48 Littlewoods casino: deposit $47.55, withdraw $0 SIA casino: deposit $100, withdraw $0 32 Vegas: deposit $200, withdraw $207 Casino on net: deposit $200, withdraw $655 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $425 21.com: deposit $200, withdraw $200 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $150 Party Gammon bonus: deposit $500, withdraw $600 Best poker casino: deposit $130.38, withdraw $127.57 Mansion sportsbook free bet: deposit $1100, withdraw $2100 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $0 Intercasino (monthly reload): deposit $100, withdraw $275

All told, my profits are: $2387.42 USD

So if I add that to my current poker profits, I'm looking at over $8500 USD worth of profits and prizes plus a couple tournament buyins, one of which I won $3490 CDN!

The best part is I still enjoy doing it, though at the moment my play time has been cut due to playing WoW. Still, its fun and that's where I mean to leave it - in the fun section of my day.

Heraldk

Poker Bankroll Building Part 3

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This post is going to be quite a bit more choppy than the previous ones since this is when I stopped getting physical documents and really started utilizing Neteller for maximum bonus clearing power. This is going to be a complete rundown of my bankroll building up to the present day, so it might be a little long. After this, I plan on giving an update every couple of months so that I don't fall behind like this again! So this update will be a little different than the last. I will be talking about just my poker bankroll building leaving the casino bonuses to the next post. I'm going to separate each session based on poker room rather than by dates because otherwise this will be supremely confusing to follow!

Noble Poker

PSO launched an exciting new room with a gigantic bonus (at the time) of 100% match of $500. This room was called Noble poker, and I just happened to have close to that amount in my neteller account so I deposited in April 2005. I would play there over the course of several months. I did very well very early and was able to cash out my initial desposit on June 14, and continue playing there until I had cleared my entire bonus. In the end, I made $897 plus my $60 in PSO points.

Net: $897 + $60 PSO points

Paradise Poker

During my time at Noble I also started the paradise poker promo through PSO. From my $200 deposit, I made another $80 cashing out only a week later. In addition, PSO paid me $60 in PSO points. I rather liked my experience at Paradise, so much later I would attempt a reload bonus there in November 2005. This time, however I would lose $195 ... perhaps because I had grown accustomed to having poker tracker stats of players!

Net: -$115 + $60 PSO points

Party Poker

Party Poker figures into a lot of short play segments partially because they had one of the fastest cashouts available. As a result, I would deposit there for a bonus and then withdraw via cheque to actually aquire my funds. Since then, I have been using neteller cheque withdraws since they are fast and only cost $2. This way, all my cashouts happen from the same place and are logged. The early times caused some confusion in recreating my play history!

Anyways, I played several sessions at party poker having mixed results: June 23/05: $87 profit Oct 6/05: $4 profit Apr 12/06: $150 profit (Party gave free money and I went on a nice run) Jul 13/06: $8 profit (Received a gc for a casino bonus, this was the poker play part)

Net: $249 profit

Poker Rewards

Another PSO promo with a healthy deposit bonus, I deposited $400 in Jun 2005, and cashed out $654 just a couple weeks later with yet another $60 in PSO points. Much later, I would deposit for another deposit bonus in April 2006 to qualify for a PSO freeroll. I didn't do too well on that deposit losing my bonus and $21.72 on top of that. Thankfully, the freeroll was both underpopulated and I finished in the top 20 which paid my $200.

Net: $832.28 + $60 PSO points

Ultimate Bet

This is my rakeback room, so I would play here many times, but not for very long segments since I jumped around to do new PSO promotions as they popped up. This is a very confusing thing to track as well because I deposited several times in order to rack up deposit bonuses that don't expire. I still have a lot of bonus money to clear there! I made deposits in Jun/05, Dec/05, Feb/06, and Apr/06, and to this day still have money in that account. I did not play well there though, and frustratingly saw net losses at several points. Thankfully, that seems to have turned around the last time I was there plus all the rakeback I've received.

June/05: -$32.90 losses Dec/05-Feb/06: -$67.76 losses Apr/06-present: $130 profit PSO Rakeback: $147 in PSO points

Net: $29.34 + $147 in PSO points + 1 poker book from player points

Aztec Poker

This is another rakeback room that I started because I was I wanted some variety for my rakeback rooms. I didn't play there much because I ended up not liking the room very much, and ended with slight losses Net: -$16.05 losses + neglible PSO points

Full Tilt Poker

Probably one of my favourite online poker rooms so far, I have played for many months at Full Tilt enjoying fairly decent success. It is the room where I moved up to 2/4 limit eventually and started winning regularly there. I probably still make many errors, but between the deposit bonuses and my small winning rate I turned a neat profit. I'm disappointed that I don't have rakeback there, or I would play there more often. Even now, I still like to go back there. I played there enough that I saved enough player points for a very snazzy micro-suede full tilt jacket.

Jul/05-Nov/05: $607 profit + $60 in PSO points Jan/06-Feb/06: $201 profit Apr/06-Jun/06: $250.35 profit Jun/06-Aug/06: $425.45 profit

Net: $1483.80 profit + $60 PSO points + 1 micro-suede jacket

Titan Poker

After my success with Noble Poker, I was enthused about having another shot at it when it was rebranded Titan poker and re-available as a PSO promotion in Sep/05. This time, however, I did not enjoy the same success and ended up losing $72 on the deal. Fortunately, the PSO bonus was $90 in PSO points, so I barely gained on the promo.

Net: -$72 losses + $90 PSO points

Sun Poker

Another PSO promo I attempted in Oct/05, this one I eeked out a profit on even though I didn't like the site due to the lack of tables to play at. It did however get me my very first and so far only royal flush!

Net: $24 + $60 PSO points

Absolute Poker

I returned to Absolute to play in the PSO league that happened earlier this year. I did well in the first league event, but after that played rather poorly and stopped playing after it became clear I wasn't going to be able to compete for the big prizes. In ring game play I also did rather poorly, so I cashed out with a $70 loss.

Net: -$70 losses

Pokerroom

Pokerroom was the very first room I got a start with way back when, but I never deposited any money there. I learned from PSO that if I had them close my account, I could open a new one through PSO 6 months later and take advantage of the PSO bonus. In Apr/06 this period had passed so I deposited and made a decent $198 profit plus my PSO bonus

Net: $198 + $90 PSO points

Pokershare

Pokershare was the newest PSO promo in Jun/06 and it is by far the worst I've done on any promo. Unfortunately, there was almost no limit action there so I was either forced to play 2/4 shorthanded or no limit both of which were not comfortable games for me at the time (and still at the moment). I managed to get through the promo losing $138 which was countered with the $90 PSO bonus.

Net: -$138 losses + $90 PSO bonus

Dream Poker

Dream poker is currently the newest PSO bonus room, and I finally took advantage of this promo in Aug/06. I deposited for the full deposit bonus, but today I cashed out having only received 1/4 of it. Being a prima poker room, I didn't like the lack of games in the evenings (since the majority of the players who play there are european). However, I made a decent profit playing 1/2 shorthanded and cashed out $124 profit plus my PSO bonus.

Net: $124 + $60 PSO bonus

PSO Referrals and Other points

My referrals kept rolling in at a regular but slow pace and I made a startling $250 in referrals since the last post. In addition, there was a forum contest that netted me another $25 in PSO points.

Net: $275 in PSO points

Totals!

Net this post: $3496.37 profit + $1052 PSO points + 1 small poker book + 1 microsueded jacket

Net Poker Winnings to date: $4582.37 USD + $3490 CAD + $1442.50 PSO points + 1000 chips + 1 poker book + 1 microsuede jacket

It isn't enough to make a living off of, but I think I've proven that I can make money at poker online. I've had some rocky patches, but that's how it goes! Thanks to WoW, I haven't been playing much online poker lately, but I intend on returning to it and learning how to play no limit well.

There will be one more post in this series that summarizes my online casino bonus gathering. I've been pretty successful at that too, so I look forward to showing how profitable that can be!

Heraldk

The End of Online Poker

in

... as we know it? PartyGaming has just announced that due to the internet gambling law that passed through in the US Senate, they are banning US players from real money play. Shares so far today have slid 62%, and I can totally see them dropping even more.

What does this mean for online poker? Well, a huge chunk of online poker players come from the states meaning that the amount of players to play during hours that I play will be dramatically cut. In order to get any sort of competition, I'd have to logon in the morning and play when players in europe are playing late at night there.

I really wonder where the industry goes from here. The US government is being incredibly stupid about the whole thing ... but be that as it may, there's not a lot that we in Canada can do about this. It just sucks to see the entire industry take such a beating because certain people in the US government think that they should "protect" people from the evils of gambling. To be honest, I don't know that much about why they are actually banning it in the first place but whatever the reason, I can't see it being a better argument than this superfluous one. I'm aware that there is political motivation behind this, but I honestly can't understand how one gains political prestige by bringing in ways to stifle people's freedoms (in supposedly a free country).

Anyways, we'll see where this goes I guess. I don't think there's much I can do about is so I'll just watch!

Heraldk