4 Months of Cricket Sounds

Wow - I wanted to write a quick update and looked at the date of my last post. I knew it had been a while, but 4 months since my last post and 6 months since the post before that? How time flies.....

Neteller announced our ability to get our money back on July 30, and I submitted my withdrawal request early that morning. Amazingly enough, the money had arrived in my bank account less than 24 hours later. Quite surprising, given how many people must have been trying to pull their money out at the same time, and how much trouble everyone had gone through getting their money out before.

I had already withdrawn most of my money off individual poker sites, leaving only a "seed" amount of $300-ish at Stars and Full Tilt. I haven't played at either site in quite some time, primarily due to.....

The Cake Poker Network. Otherwise known as The Home of the Softest Games on the Internet.

During the Neteller fiasco and my hiatus from playing due to my 300+ BB downswing I got separate emails for $20 no-deposit free money at each of two Cake Poker skins. On the first skin I have built that $20 up to $160, as described in my last post. On the second skin, I had barely built the $20 to $30 when they had an incredible deposit bonus: 200% deposit bonus + 10% instant bonus. The 200% bonus clears slowly, but it is hard to pass up that kind of money especially given the softness of the games. The only issue is the traffic on the site is rather slow - often there are only a few games going on at the limits I want to play even during 'prime time.' But I decided to take the plunge - my plan was to take $500 of my Neteller money, deposit, and start out at $1/$2 and see where I wound up.

I deposited my $500 on August 15, and am currently sitting on $1,150 - consisting of my original $20 original bonus, $50 instant bonus, $80 in cleared bonus, and $500 of profit. My current game selection lies across the $1/$2 games (both full-ring and short-handed) and $2/$4 full-ring, although there is often not a single $2/$4 full-ring table going. Yes, the site is that deserted at times. I have taken select shots at $2/$4 short-handed when the tables look particularly juicy, but don't want to add $2/$4 SH into my regular mix until the bankroll hits $1,500 or so.

Believe it or not, I actually haven't played that much to get to this point - likely somewhere between 2500 and 3000 hands. This is an estimate since the site is not PokerTracker compatible, but I'm pretty sure this is a correct range. That works out to an (estimated) 6-7 BB/100 - a combination of running hot and the site being that soft. I have 2 months to clear the rest of the bonus, and given that I've only cleared $80 in the first month I think clearing the rest of the $920 is right out. But if I can make $2/$4 my main game next month and (if I continue well) $3/$6 my game the following month I could clear an additional $400 or so.

No, I have not yet updated my bankroll status since February. Maybe that will be the topic of the next blog post.

Lastly, the 4th season of High Stakes Poker has started on GSN. Still the best poker show on TV, by far.

Now we'll see if it will be another 4 months before my next update......