It's been a while...

 So we haven't spoken in a while. How are you doing? That's nice. Anyhooo...
The last time we spoke, I was on my way to Las Vegas and in the midst of some run bad (a.k.a. play bad, downswing, crap burgers). Right before I went to Vegas, my laptop decided to put a stop to my poker playing and overall Internet usage by having an aneurysm. I have been without Internet access (on my laptop) or over a month, 6 weeks to be precise and to be honest I haven't gone through the DTs. I think the time off from poker was good and gave me time to do other things, like reading, exercising, laundry...

  I will hold off from getting everyone caught up to date on my life.

  So a few days ago I received a new laptop and put Cake poker (juicy stakes) on so that I will be up and ready to roll in to the run good. My family and I had a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of food and alcohol. Today I was given a day off and decided to make a trek out to the local casino for some hot 1-2 live NLHE action. The first 2 hours were quite stale and pretty soon I was down $180. I didn't lose any huge pots, just constantly missing flops and having other players call my c-bets. Finally I was dealt AQ suited in LP and raised 3 limpers to $12. I flopped top 2 pair and had the UTG limper donk in to me for about 1/2 the pot. I min raised and he called only to donk the turn which was a low brick card. the pot had grown and I just raised all in. He thought for a moment and called with his worse 2 pair. The river was kind and I got back to even. That's why you don't limp call a raise preflop with A5o out of position. An orbit later I pick up JJ in MP and raise to open to $10. I get one CCer on the button and the SB, a bad LPP 3 bets to $30. I have the 2 villains covered (SB just by a little) and decide to call and see the flop. The button obliges and WHAMO- Jc 6c 3s. The SB C-bets $50 and I am in no mood to call with a flush draw out there. I raise to $100 and the SB calls with a confused look on his face. I am now putting him on pocket 10s, or Queens through Aces. There's a chance he could have AcKc here because he's a passive player without the present nuts, but that doesn't matter because I flopped a monster.
  The pot now has $290 in the middle and there's no way I am doing anything, but shoving just about any turn if given the chance. The turn is the 5c and SB checks. I go all-in and he is dumbfounded. I can only put him on an overpair and more likely than not, he has a big club in his hand which must be the only reason he's even considering this call. By the way I have played this hand, I have a set or a King high flush at least. How can he consider this call with a non-club overpair? Well, he takes 5 minutes and even asks if I will show after folding. I don't respond and he unhappily folds. I give him a little consolation by saying that I had him beat. He tells me that he had pocket Queens with no club.

Anyways, I end my 4 hour session soon after and leave up $170 which is nice.

Hopefully this will be signs of good poker things to come because October sucked some major donkey balls for my NLHE game. The good news is that I am still learning and have been getting much better at not tilting. Just let the game come to you, don't force it.
Have fun and I will talk to you soon.

Short, unimportant update: Nothing to see here!

  So, much of what I have said with regard to planned posts and goals can be compared to Axl Rose's, magnum opus, Chinese Democracy which only took him 10+ years to record. My knee started hurting again a few days ago after playing with my 3 sons, so I won't be attempting a restart of running any time soon. I have not been to a casino in quite a while and my last time out was a disaster. I have been playing online at Cake poker rather consistently, but only for shits N giggles. My bankroll is a little over $80 is an all-time high since post Black Friday. Speaking of online poker, I stalled in my magnum opus on the subject as I was getting a little burned out. In my defense a lot has been happening in the debate over online poker legislation, but there has been legislation going on. I am starting to feel a small spark on inspiration coming on, so I hope to finish up the first part and then move on to the second half which will discuss online poker.
 
  I've also considered blogging about some other subjects that I find interesting, but whenever I get close to the keyboard, I lose interest due to the fact that I don't feel that my thoughts in cyberspace make a whole helluva matter to anyone, not that I ever thought they would in the first place, but I need to kick myself in the ass and just do it. I have started singing again due to the fact that I have some more regular free time on my hands to practice. I hope that with my children all being in school come the fall, I will have even more time to devote to improving as well as other things like blogging my curmudgeonly opinions. For anyone out there, thanks for staying put, if that applies and I hope to talk to you very soon.

Updates about the pokerz

  It's been a while since I have posted an entry about poker, so here goes. I haven't had the chance to play much poker, although I have been thinking about it a great deal. As you may remember, I am in the process of writing a treatise on the hypocrisy of governmental policy towards online poker. What started out as a multiple blog entry has now morphed in to a blog paper on the subject. Since I am a stay at home father, I don't get much uninterrupted time to research and write, so I am far behind schedule which has been exacerbated by the fact that the more I research the more I need to research. I am about 45% complete and I hope that the 2nd half of the paper goes much faster as things come together. It's all part of the plan.


  To give everyone a little update on the poker challenge I started back in April, things have been moving at a snail's pace for the past 3 to 4 months. Real life has gotten so busy that I have little time for either online poker, or live poker. As yo may remember in a previous post back in October, I was focusing on my NLHE game online which fell off the proverbial cliff. I have slowly moved in a positive direction, thanks in large part to rakeback from Cake Poker. I am no where serious as to my development as I would like to be, but I just don't have the time to devote to my game in the way that I would like, so this is how it has to be until my 3 sons get a little older.


  The live poker has been a little bit better than my online results. I've only gotten 3 sessions in since the beginning of October, but am up $300 in 8 hours of play which was a nice recovery from the 3 buy in loss back in late August. I'm rather happy how I played in my last 3 sessions, not only because I am up, but I am taking more time to make decisions, consistently focused on the action, especially when I'm not in the hand, and applying that information when I am involved. I am still on the uber nitty side which helps my image and gives my bets a bit more respect, but I have time to learn the game and develop my gears. Right now I have 1st, 2nd, and reverse. All in all, I am +$634 for the year playing live NLHE over the course of about 44 hrs. This is obviously an incredibly small sample which doesn't mean much, but was important in giving me an idea of the concentration and patience I need to work on so that I can be on my "A" game whenever I play poker, especially if the time ever comes when I have the ability to put in 2-3 sessions per week. Anyways, thanks for reading, have fun, and I will hopefully start posting the fist 1/2 of my paper in the next 2-3 weeks.

Poker Update

It's been a while since I have given any strong update on how my poker playing is going. The reason for that is because I haven't been playing much poker lately which is disappointing to me and at the same time, fuel for my writing. I've taken to Twitter in order to voice small sound bite opinions or pass on articles and opinions of others that I'm following. (I hate using slang and meme)
 First off, my dual poker challenge has basically taken an indefinite leave of absence. In case you haven't read my earliest entries which began right after Black Friday (that's poker related Black Friday, not the one right after Thanksgiving). The first challenge was to get experience playing NLHE live at my local casino. It started off well and then saw some bumps in the road. It then got harder and harder to find time to drive all the way to the Casino, especially being a Stay at home Dad. I played very little poker in Las Vegas a few month back and have yet to play live poker since then.
 My online challenge hit some rough waters as I had a major downswing/runbad/playbad  October. Finding the time to devote to playing A-game poker online has also become much more difficult. I've been using free time to either run or research my epic multi-post blog entry relating to online poker and Wall Street. I hope to have it done before Christmas and more importantly, before legislation is passed which would make my writing a bit moot.
Well, I will let you all go and hope that some of you who visit stay a while and read some past blog entries. Have fun!

My poker history 2009--Part 3

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After a bout with shingles, being a new parent of twin boys and being utterly exhausted, I decided to take the rest of July off. In fact, I hadn't really known whether or not I would return to playing online poker with the same interest or focus as I had before. As August rolled around, I started to feel the itch to get back into playing some poker. My wife and I had a night nurse 3 to 4 days a week so that we could have some sleep which was crucial now that we had 3 children all under the age of 3 years old.
Most of my sessions were around 11 PM after everyone had gone to sleep and I had an hour to myself. I moved back down to .50-1 so that I could feel a bit more comfortable and 3.27 BB/100 winner over the course of 5,100 hands which gave me a nice ego boost.
 September wouldn't fair as well although I still ended up a winner with a disappointing .78BB/100 after playing 7,500 hands. I had attempted to stay on the LAGier side of TAG, but not to go crazy postflop. I was also trying to use seat selection much more carefully than before. I started off October doing fairly well and by mid month, saw some opportunities to move up and play a few 1-2 FR tables with some immediate rungood. I limited the amount of tables I played when at 1-2 to no more than 3 at a time and usually only playing 2. I finished that month at 2.58BB/100 over 4,900 hands. It was obviously a more successful strategy at the time than playing nearly 10,000 hands like the previous month. Even though that plan seems to be rather obvious in hindsight, I was still expecting a lot more out of myself which was one way for disaster.
November began much like October in that I was mostly playing .50-1 with a little dabbling in 1-2. That quickly changed as once again I saw myself as shark ready to feed. Much like June and July, I was terribly wrong. Near the end of the month I saw a lot of losing sessions without many winning ones. I finished the month down money wise, but technically up as far as BB/100 goes with my .50-1 sessions helping to stave off the big losses at 1-2. You can probably see where this road is headed can't you?
December was basically my first all 1-2 month, which was most definitely a mistake given the circumstances. Surprisingly enough I had a very good month with the exception of one day in the middle when  had a 60 BB downer which hurt my BB/100. All in all I ended up at 1.02BB/100 which is ok, especially taking into consideration that I was not playing A game poker.
Much like the beginning of the year I had some other high notes in poker during this time that were not attributed to cash games. In August I finished 2nd in a 180-man SNG which brought in $144 and then in late December I netted my first 180-man SNG win in NLHE which brought in $108. I finished the year with $522 in tournament winnings and $1,433 in cash game winnings, which includes all of the holdem variants. It was a roller coaster ride at times, but I learned quite a bit. Not that I would apply all that I learned right away, but at least it was stored up for the next go around.
All in all I knew that I had a strong love for poker and wanted to learn a lot more. I learned that when I stayed in my game that I could reduce my risk and pick up the skills that were needed in order to move up. I was beginning to learn that moving out one's comfort zone didn't mean becoming a crazy aggressive player overnight, but that's another story for another post.
Thanks.

So, how is the poker game going?

I haven't given an update on much of my poker playing for a good reason...

My poker challenge of zero to hero was going well up until the month of September when I focused primarily on NLHE. The easiest way to describe it would be...

...which was followed by  an uptick to breakeven over the course of another 3,000 hands followed by..

Much like the offensive line of the Chicago Bears this season, my poker game basically...

So this should give you somewhat of an idea of how my poker playing has been going for the past 45 days. There aren't many games online for the bankroll that I have and my NLHE attempt hasn't been an epic failure, but it is headed in that direction. I stopped playing NL4 on Cake poker just to let the wounds heal and get an idea if I have reverted to a complete fish. Some of it has been terrible run bad results, some has been calling down too much, some has been crazy cold deck, and some has been me just not being as serious as I should be when it comes to playing my A game. I haven't had much time to play live either, even though I went to Las Vegas (see prior posts). I was going to play more poker out there, but decided that I would just hang out with friends, which was a bit of a wash in terms of overall enjoyment. I should have just gone to the hotel pool each day and gotten girl drink drunk on Pina Coladas.
I am still technically a winner in both my online poker challenge (see first posts) as well as my transition to playing NLHE live. I was $78 in my one NLHE session at the Bellagio that lasted perhaps 3 hours.
I had one hand in which I picked up AhKh in EP and raised to $10 and got 2 callers, one OTB and the other in the BB.
The flop came--Kd Ks 9d. check, I bet $28, one fold, SB calls.
Turn brings--6s
Check, I bet $80, SB calls.
River is a low brick card and SB checks, I had a little over the pot left and bet 3/4 in the middle. The SB hemmed and hawed about me having a missed flush draw vs his mid pocket pair, but he folded. That was my poker highlight for the weekend.
Well, we'll see what the rest of 2011 brings. I don't expect alot in the way of action, but there's always hope...
I plan on finishing the 3rd installment of my poker history-2009 within the next week. Thank you for tuning in.

My poker history 2009 Part 2

If I was playing like a lion in March, then I was definitely being showered in April as my rungood continued. I started off the month playing .50-1 and dabbled a little bit in NL10. How hard could NLHE be? After a few days of breakeven no-limit, I pushed the idea to the side and finally started to add some
1-2 FR LHE tables in to the mix with some nice success. My plan was to play my regular preflop game, but to be ultra aggressive postflop so the LAG/TAG and MMTers knew not to push me around. Since I was knew to the stakes, many of the regular players respected my raises and the fish did what they normally do, regardless of how much the bet is. I didn't play many SNGs as I wanted to give most all of my attention to moving up and playing cash games. My wife was entering the last trimester of her pregnancy and I knew that there would be little time for poker when the twins were born.
 I started to get a bit cocky with the quick success at 1-2 and tried some HU LHE as well (there is a side note story to this which I plan on devoting one entire blog entry to as it is an interesting memory for me.), with a tough introduction as I lost a little over 60 BBs in 20 minutes. Nevertheless in, my graph was steadily climbing as I won over $400 running at a touch below 3BB/100. I had visions of 2/4 and possible 3/6 tables dancing in my head for May as poker was an EZ game.

May was a little bit of a different story and a sign of times to come. My poker graph looked like a mountain range that fortunately contained one extra peak than valley to keep me in the black $110 with a winrate of a disappointing .58BB/100 over the course of 9,000ish hands. The players at 1-2 were catching on to me. June was basically the same as May except that my poker playing basically stopped after the first calendar week. My wife was scheduled for a C-section and there was a lot to do to make sure that everything was ready.
 We had a night nurse hired to help 3-4 nights a week for the first month which was going to cost a pretty penny and the little time I would have when all of the kids were sleeping could not be for poker. I wish that I had decided to completely take time off from poker even when things calmed a little because I came back to early in July. I only played a little over 2,500ish hands and lost over $200 at a clip of  -5.61BB/100/.
Another unfortunate experience away from poker was that I had shingles. I was obviously stressed with the expectations of twins, while being with my then 2 year old son and getting the house ready for the change. My wife was working up to the week before her delivery and if you put that all together with a sprinkle of insane family members, you get a rundown immune system which opens you up to shingles. I took some time off and moved back down in stakes just until I felt my head was more clear and I knew that I could be focused.

My poker history 2009 Part 1

2009 was the first year that I felt more confident in my poker game, especially when it came to LHE. I had been playing .50-1 online and knew that I was a winning player over a long enough sample size. I had built my online bankroll up to the point where I had a good amount of cushion for the next level up at 1-2 if I felt confident in the jump. Normally you want between 250-500 BBs at the stake you're normally at, depending on your winrate, your standard deviation, as well as your playing styles (and how it may effect the first 2 factors). I knew that moving up in limits would be obligatory as I had been playing .50-1 for 6 months with some success. My plan was to see how the first few months of 2009 went at .50-1 and then re access in March. That quickly went out the window as basically had a winrate of about 1 BB/100 over the course of 17,000 hands. I had opened up my preflop game a little, but wasn't totally confident in the adjustment to a hyper aggressive stake like 1-2 was in 2009. I had gotten to know quite a few of the regular .50-1 FR grinders on Pokerstars over the last 6 months and many of them were MMTers (a.k.a Mass Multi tables). When I would normally be playing 3-5 tables at once, they were playing anywhere from 16 all the way up to 30 tables. In addition to using Poker Tracker 3 (PT3) or HEM (Holdem Manager) poker software, they also had programs like Table Ninja(tm) and Hot keys so that they could play each table and not time out during a hand. There were alot of MMTers playing 1-2 FR LHE on Pokerstars at this time. The main reason was a thing called Supernova status. It has changed since 2009, but MMTers were basically looking to make a small profit if possible playing LHE, but accruing VPPs to use for cash back bonuses. If they hit their goals and maintained their Supernova status, they could make over $100,000 dollars, unless of course they lost a ton actually playing. One player that I had a lot of experience with posted a thread for this in the uLHE forums on 2+2.
Do you know Tyler Durden?

 This strong competition was a big concern to me with regard to moving up in limits. Many veteran 2+2 posters like playing against MMTers because they had flaws in their game due to the fact that they were playing so many tables at once and you could see a pattern of play over and over again. I actually had some success against Mr. Durden when I played against him in 2009 because his strategy became so apparent and once could sit on his immediate left and exploit him. Anyways...
 I had was playing alot of hands early in the year which was a luxury given to me for 2 main reasons. My son who was 1 1/2 years old at the time, was taking long afternoon naps which would give me 2-3 hours of free time which I used primarily to play poker. 2 hours of 4 tables at 60 hands an hour would be 450-500 hands a day which was twice as much per day as a live poker grinder in the casinos. The other big reason, or I should say reasons was the fact that my wife was pregnant with twin boys. Once they were born, I knew that my time would evaporate for at least 2 months if not longer. It would take a while for all 3 kids to be in a sleeping pattern that may allow me some time to play poker once again and even then it may not be my A game. Possibly not even my C game.
 As I said before, the first 2 months of 2009 didn't go exactly as I had hoped, results wise. That was until March rolled in like a lion, but in my case, a good roaring lion. Perhaps, I was the lion, roaring and marching into March...oh never mind, it went fucking good ok?
 I one $337 in that month and had a winrate of 3.10 BB/100 over the course of 11,000ish hands. I was stoked to say the least. Another moneymaker in that month was some 180 man SNG (sit N gos) that I played. I won another $310 playing those with a 3rd place finish and a 2nd which was quite profitable.
March '09 had been the most profitable tournament month for me in my online poker playing up to that time. At the end of 2008  I had discovered these multi table SNGs which didn't have a 3,000+ player pool and could be much easier to make money while not risking anything due to the fact that Pokerstars allowed you to earn Tournament dollars that you could use instead of your bankroll. There was really no downside.
After having such a huge month, dollar wise, I decided that April would be the time to take the plunge into the waters of 1-2 FR LHE on Stars. It's funny when something like "run good" follows along with you as things become more difficult, but leaves your side in the times when it seems most simple. I crushed the 1-2 tables (when I played them) in April '09 running over 3.0BB/100, but was almost breakeven at .50-1 at the same time. I took in over $500 in cash game play and added another $50 in the one SNG that I placed in that month. In March, my profits were enough to have 300 BBs at 1-2 and added to my April profits I was rolled for 2/4 if I wanted to take a shot. Of course I didn't as I am a curmedgeon at heart and would not want to risk losing what I had worked so hard for...

Coming to you live in God's Country.

So I decided to learn how to play Backgammon a few days ago. I saw a Hoyle's rules book in the beach house where I am staying and took a break from kid duty to read the rules. There was a backgammon set, but I didn't have anyone to play with, so I downloaded a droid application and went on to play over 200 games at different skill levels. This may be the next thing I become hooked on, unless I try Baccarat, which I could possibly try out in Vegas next month. I have a pretty basic idea of Backgammon strategy and I am torn between going online and looking up advanced strategies or just taking this game as a chance to learn something without any external help, beyond the basic things I have read.
I haven't had much time for live poker for the past 3 weeks which is a bit dis concerning given that my last 2 sessions were terrible as far as results go. I am itching to have another live session before I go to Vegas next month, partially so I don't get too rusty with respect to live play as well as the fact that I don't plan on playing poker 24/7 for the few days I am there. This trip to Vegas is going to be with 5 other guys and will pretty much be a "bachelor party" of sorts in their minds, while I will be hopefully relaxing a majority of the time whilst always with drink hand. I'd like to play some NLHE as I have only played LHE in Vegas the 5 times I've been there. My friends are looking forward to "Sin City", if you get my meaning, and I have a different mind set at the moment. Being a stay at home dad, I want to time to myself to wake up whenever I like and do whatever it is I want while on vacation. I am not looking to get a happy ending or put $1 bills in G-strings so when the group goes off to those activities, that will be my best chance to go and play poker. I am also looking forward to having a nice cigar and some scotch at Casa Fuente.

The online poker front has been going rather well in August. I have mostly been playing NLHE .02-.04, albeit at the shallow tables, which means a maximum buy-in of 50 BBs. I plan on playing the 100 BB max tables as soon as my online BR gets to $80 which will be 20 buyins. my current online BR is at a little over $71, which $32 of that has been winnings in August, not including rake back. I haven't been posting much strategy in the 2+2 forums, but I have a goal of starting to frequent the micro full ring forums as of September 1st if my BR is at $80. I know, I know. This is all very exciting. Perhaps that is why I have so many followers so far. It is rather interesting to think that I started my online bankroll, post Black Friday, with only .39 that I got on Cake Poker from trading in Gold cards from 2008. I've won a total of $55 since BF and the rake back helped me early on.

It strange to think of how much money I put into online poker, or should I say lost, back in 2005 before I ran good. It's also strange to think how I have built a uber-nano stakes BR with nothing in the past 4 months. When I get back home, my first blog goal is to begin the 2nd part of my poker journey which starts up in 2008. Regardless of what happened before, I look at that year as when I truly began to learn about playing LHE. I like to glorify the pre-UIGEA online poker times of 2004-2006, but I really enjoyed 2008-2010 when it comes to my own development and results. I am no where near being a finished product when it comes to poker and probably never will, but it seemed like the golden years to me. Kind of like Baseball in the 50's and 60's while the pre UIGEA days were like Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb.
Well, I will leave you with that for now and hope to hear from someone soon, especially with any suggestions on any of the subjects in my posts. Have fun, the summer is almost coming to an end.

Some more updates

I hope all is well with everyone. Things are going alright with my online challenge. Things were pretty tough for the first 3/4 of July as I got cold decked and dominated rather often, but then saw a some run good the last week which put me in the black. My bankroll is now up to $30 and hopefully I will be able to make it $50 by September 1st.
I mentioned before that I had my 2nd straight losing session at NLHE live poker a little over a week ago. I had been playing for close to 4 hours and knew that I would be leaving soon. I was down close to $150 at the time as I had seen a couple of big hands not improve or face alot of aggression which forced me to fold when I picked up Ace of spades and Queen of spades in early position. A poor player under the gun (UTG) limped for $2 and I raised to $15. all folded to the button who cold called, the small blind cold called, and then the first player who limped called the raise.
Now, AQ suited is a good preflop hand, but it's not that great against 3 other players. The flop comes down Q clubs, Q diamonds, 6 clubs. I have trip queens on a flush draw board. 2 players check to me and I bet $35 in to a $62 pot, which was a mistake at the time. I misread the board at first and didn't see the flush draw and bet 1/2 the pot which was too small. The button calls, the SB calls, and the player UTG reraises to $100, I quickly reraise all-in and the button goes into the tank which means that he has the nut flush draw most likely. The button finally folds, the SB folds and the UTG player sighs and calls. He has me covered by $20 and he flips over Q8s which puts him far behind me. He needs to hit a 6 for a split pot or an 8 to win. I am an 80% favorite to win the entire pot. This in my opinion, was a horribly played hand by the under the gun player. He limps with a weak Queen high suited gapper. Once I raise from early position and have 2 other callers, he should fold. He is easily dominated, even if he does hit top pair and will most likely be getting his money in behind if he does flop a flush draw and even then, there may be another better flush draw out there.
This villain had just sat down about 20 minutes earlier and had been stacked his first hand. to give you an idea of how poor this player was, he limped in late position with 56s and flopped top pair on a 6 4 4 flush draw flop. He bet out and I called with an overpair to the board. The SB check raised and this player reraised all-in with only top pair and a weak kicker. He ended up losing $100 on his first hand.
Back to the Q Q 6 hand. The turn card was a 6 which made it a split pot with one card left and of course I wouldn't be telling you this if it weren't for the river being an 8. That's poker.

I am looking forward to having another shot at the fish in my local casino and I only hope that things go my way if I get in to a situation as the one above. Have fun and I will talk to you soon.

From the bottom up.

Since I have decided to run this blog concurrently on Blogger as well as Deuces cracked for the time being, I thought that it would be a good idea to re-post my background entries as well. Thanks for reading and please feel welcome to make any and all comments.

I am starting this blog as a result of the Black Friday shutdown of the Big 3 poker sites. Like all US players, I am not able to transfer funds or withdrawl my BR from online, so I basically have 2 major options.
1) Drive to a Brick & Mortar Casino on a regular basis
or...
2) Try to deposit $$ online on another US friendly site.
Neither one of these options seem all that good to me as I am a stay at home father of 3 boys all under the age of 4 and I no longer want to jump through hoops to get $$ online which I may not be able to get back if the DOJ keeps pushing the issue of online poker being illegal (which it's not). So therefore, I plan on doing 2 things, which are...
1) Drive to a Brick & Mortar Casino that has poker whenever I get the chance
and...
2) Sell some tickets on Cake poker and begin my own BR challenge similar to the famous 0 to $10,000 by Chris "Jesus" Ferguson. The only difference, is that I do not plan on having specific rules to play by, other than sticking to LHE at the moment so as to limit the degree of variance, or what I should say, losing a large % of my online BR in one hand. Bellatrix would rightfully argue the difference in variance between LHE and NLHE and how LHE, depending on what you're looking at, has more variance than NLHE. Anyways...I sold my 16 cake golden cards for .59 and then started playing FR LHE (under rolled, not only from the reccommended BBs to play at that stake, but for the table as well). In about 30 min I more than doubled my BR to $1.24. I plan on continuing to build up on FR LHE and may venture into some 6-max when and if I hit 300 BBs or close to that at my current stake of .02-.04.
Now going back to my B&M plan. A few days before "Black Friday", I planned on entering the Sunday Million tourney online for the sake of having the experience of playing in it. Most of the tourneys that I have played online, even deepstack ones, have been low/micro-stakes buy-ins and have not had the seriousness that I assumed would be in the Sunday Million (I could be way off on that as the nosebleed players who enter this look at $200 the way I look at a $2 180-man multi table SNG. Obviously by Friday, I was no longer able to enter the Sunday Million, so I went to my local casino and entered a $210 tournament. Each player received 6,000 chips with blinds @ 25-50 with 30 min levels. I was holding steady at 6,000ish chips, give or take for about 4 hours and began to fall closer to 4,000. Needless to say, I tripled up when I needed to and was able to finish in 4th place for a $1,500 profit. I plan on using that along with my frozen online BR (when and if I get back) to focus on 1-2 NLHE cash games at the casino whenever I get the chance. I am one session in for 3 hrs and I am up $75, or 37.5 BBs.
We'll see where I go from here, but I hope it's an interesting ride.