$10K !

Well, last night I finally passed the $10,000 earned mark. Amazing. I'd write a bit more about it, but have a few more bonus $$$ to clear, so I'll post a few graphs:

Graph of last night - the night that put me over $10K:


The first 60-ish hands were against a 100/100 maniac at 2/4 6-max. The rest were 2/4 and 3/6 full-ring. Don't know if my heart can take too many more nights that start out like that....

Graph of this last 3-month bonus:


Graph of all Cake hands I've played:



Scary thing? I've still have earned more at blackjack in the few months I played it than I have through in-game Poker play (excluding bonuses). Bankroll update with gory detail in the sidebar.

Back to the tables!

Punch to the Stomach

Quick mind-clearing blog post. I have run horribly, horribly bad over the past 4 days:


Losing 68 cents per hand played = sustainable? Admittedly, this is "only" a 100 BB downswing, but for some reason it stings quite a quite more than the other recent 100 BB downswings.

So, in looking for the positive I looked at how I've done overall at Cake; I am a winner at 11 of the 13 levels I've played. The only exceptions:

$1/$2 6-max: down less than 2 BB overall in 4800 hands.
$5/$10 FR: down less than 11 BB in 249 hands.

Every other level is positive, although my $2/$4 FR graph is a bit sickening:


Now I wish I wouldn't have looked at that....let's find a good one to get the confidence back up: $3/$6 6-max where I table-select like crazy:

Small sample size, LDO, but I'll take whatever shot of confidence I can get at this point.

Brief Bonus Clearing Update

Long time, no write - it occurs to me that I've only written one post in the last month. Shame on me, but I can't honestly say much of note has gone on at the tables. I haven't gotten a lot of hands in, none of them have been horribly interesting (except maybe one that I'll attach for the hell of it at the end), and haven't had any big swings one way or the other. Every night is +/- $100, no biggie, although it is still amazing to me that I can shrug off swings of that magnitude.

Due to not getting many hands in, I am quite far behind in clearing my latest bonus: as of last night I am 35% though the bonus time period, but only 20% ($100) cleared. I just haven't been getting many hands in for a variety of reasons (been busy, bad table conditions, etc.) Clearing the last $400 shouldn't be an issue if I put my mind to it - hell, I cleared a bonus at a rate of almost $275 / month earlier this year - but don't know if I'll have the time or motivation. We'll see.

And now on to the hand.

Limit Holdem Ring, $2/$4 (6-max)


Pre-flop: (6 players) CO posts a dead blind
Hero is BB with 5♣ 3♣

2 folds, CO checks, Button raises, SB calls, Hero calls, CO calls.

Flop: 9♣ 6♦ 2♣ (8.0 SB, 4 players)

SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks, Button bets, SB calls, Hero calls, CO calls.

Turn: K♦ (6 BB, 4 players)

SB checks, Hero checks, CO checks, Button bets, SB calls, Hero calls, CO folds.

River: 4♠ (9 BB, 3 players)

SB checks, Hero checks, Button bets, SB folds, Hero raises, Button 3-bets, Hero caps!, Button calls.

Final pot: 17 BB ($68)

Results: Button showed K♣ K♠

Preflop was probably a tad marginal, but figured I was going to be getting 7:1 on my call by the time it got around (assuming nobody LRR-ed).

Flop you could argue should have been a raise for me with my "monster" 13-out draw (flush draw + gutshot)

Turn standard, and I decided to c/r river on the (apparent) blankiest-of-blanks. I can't imagine what must have been going through his head on the river when c/r-ed on a K9642 non-flush board. Luckily (for me) he had the second nuts, and I showed down the nuts for a nice pot due to the Cake boomswitch being in the correct position.

Actually the best part of this hand (for me) was getting to show down 53s - not something a TAG like me gets to do like, ever. I'd love to see the notes people tok after that hand, though....

A Few $5/$10 Hands

OK, so it appears that I lied - I enjoyed my time off so much, I not only haven't played much (maybe 200 hands in 2 weeks, where I'd normally get 10 times that number of hands in), but haven't taken the time to write any blog posts. Now that two separate people have mocked me about this (surely a significant fraction of my "readers"), I figured I may as well churn one out - my two most memorable $5/$10 hands from my last stint.

Limit Holdem Ring game, $5/$10
10 players

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is BB with A♣ A♠

Yay - an AA hand. You just know that this is going to be a trainwreck, right?

4 folds, MP2 raises, 2 folds, Button calls, SB folds, Hero 3-bets, MP2 calls, Button calls.

Flop: 5♥ 3♦ 3♥ (9.5SB, 3 players)

Hero bets, MP2 calls, Button folds.

Turn: T♣ (5.75BB, 2 players)

Hero bets, MP2 raises, Hero 3-bets, MP2 calls.

The only hands I am behind are specifically TT and 55 - there is no way he has a 3 in his hand at all. When he only calls my 3-bet, I know I am ahead.

River: 4♥ (11.75BB, 2 players)

Hero bets, MP2 raises, Hero calls.

Final pot: 15.75 BB ($157.50)

Results: MP2 showed A♥ T♥

Like I said......

Actually, the positiveness I take from this hand is the turn 3-bet. It shows that I am not playing weak-tight while playing above my normal level - that I can still read hands and act on those reads regardless of the higher stakes. The negativeness (if there is any) is that I couldn't bet/fold the river, but I simply can't fold an overpair getting over 14:1 vs. an unknown. But still, $70 of my own money down the toilet in one hand.

The next hand below is from the same table, about 30 minutes later.

Limit Holdem Ring game, $5/$10
10 players

Pre-flop: (10 players) Hero is MP2 with J♠ J♦

UTG folds, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 raises, MP1 folds, Hero 3-bets, 5 folds, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 calls.

Flop: T♠ 4♠ J♥ (10.5SB, 3 players)

[mental dialogue]
Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap - I've got top set at $5/$10, but man is that a drawy board.
[/mental dialogue]

UTG+1 checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 calls, UTG+2 calls.

Turn: J♣ (6.75BB, 3 players)

[mental dialogue]
Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap - I've just turned quads at $5/$10, please please someone be slowplaying TT.
[/mental dialogue]

UTG+1 checks, UTG+2 checks, Hero bets, UTG+1 raises, ...

[mental dialogue]
OMFG$$$$$ - I've just been checkraised on turn the while holding the mortal nuts at $5/$10. This is going to totally make up for the AA fiasco. I briefly think about slowplaying, but realize that if he's got a hand he's willing to give action on that board with, any bet that misses going in is a bet I can't get back later on the river.
[/mental dialogue]

... UTG+2 folds, Hero 3-bets, UTG+1 folds.

[mental dialogue]
OMFGWTFBBQ - nice check-raise-fold line, sir.
[/mental dialogue]

Results: Final pot: 10.75 BB ($107.50)

Bonus Cleared

Well, I finally got done clearing my 3-month bonus on Sportsbook last night. Or, rather, as much of the bonus as I could possibly get cleared; turns out I played nearly 18,000 hands in three months to clear $820 of the possible $1,000 bonus. That is a lot of hands for me, and it is time to take a little break from playing and chill.

The overall breakdown of the hands / levels I've played during the bonus was:

• 43% of the hands were at $3/$6 full-ring
• 40% of the hands were $2/$4 full-ring
• 10% of the hands were $1/$2 6-max

The remaining 7% of the hands were scattered amongst levels as diverse as $0.04/$0.08 6-max through $5/$10 full-ring.

So, what about results? Well, I've already had a few blog posts about the swings I've had, so this graph should be no surprise:


I'm thankful I at least I ended the bonus to the positive, including the nice +20BB quick session to end the bonus last night.

But hidden within this graph are some massive differences between my performances at different levels. In particular:

$2/$4 full-ring:


No, your eyes do not deceive you - that is an over 170BB downswing buried in there for a final result of -$588 and a winrate of -2.07 BB/100 over the span of my bonus.

$3/$6 full ring:


Yup, always nice to run better at the higher level; $1,247 and 2.72 BB/100 over slightly more hands than I played at $2/$4. Note to self: play only $3/$6 during my next bonus......

From a pure monetary standpoint, I made a total of about $1,400 in the three months; $820 from bonus clearing and about $580 from play. If I could manage to not suck so bad at $2/$4 (at the same time keeping up the winrate at $3/$6), the number through play would have obviously been a lot higher, but.....

I've also reached a few milestones recently - more than 100K hands played since I started online and over $9K earned overall from my online adventures. A paltry sum when compared to poker1eh's Stars Step 6 win for $12K the other night, but I'll take it.

Next post: some overall stats from all my Cake hands, and maybe some specific hands from $5/$10.