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I had an excellent run in last night’s bounty “Meet and Greet” freeroll at Bet24 knocking out 3 bounties and finishing in First Place to collect $150 prize money plus £79.78 for eliminating the Bet24 players (presumably converted from $ and added manually to to sports book a/c early this morning).

This tournament runs on the first Thursday of each month and will definitely be on my schedule from now on.

I am fairly new to Bet24 and don’t know much about them except that they sponsor Blackburn Rovers so presumably are a reputable company. I signed up to them last month to play in the Feb freeroll but went out early. 

There were 1392 players (most of whom didn’t show up) and prize money for the top three places.  About 10 bounty players are called Bet24-something each with between $30-$70 on their heads. So, you have to cross your fingers and hope you end up on a table with a bounty and then target them. Anyway, my first win of the year and third final table for 2008.

I found three good arbs on football matches yesterday and managed to bet a total of £1,900 with Ladbrokes on Morocco and Mali in the African Nations Cup as well as Liverpool in the Premiership. Mali were playing Benin (I must confess I had never even heard of either of these two countries). This produced a very satisfying £70 profit.

Ladbrokes reissued the Liverpool coupon after  cutting the price from 4/6 to 4/7, but as always I had taken several spare copies when the orginals first appeared. Their computer system will always accept them.

Also I got to the semifinals of the Monday Blackjack Tourny freeroll that I play in collecting £10 so I was pretty satisfied with my day’s results when I opened up Stan James Poker to play a few hands late in the evening.

Surprisingly, there were no tables of omaha high-low open at either the $20, $40 or $50 buyin levels. (Is this a sign that online poker has passed its peak? A year or two ago and I would have been able to choose the best game from half a dozen tables). So, I put down $100 for the bigger game that was running. I recognised several people from my normal game and have the bankroll to play here so although this is a bigger game than I normally play, I was happy.

Within a few hands I had got myself stacked after making a move on the flop on a guy I didn’t know. I then fired again on the turn and after a long think got called and lost $100. Really, really stupid play on my part and something I never would have done if I was playing in a smaller game. For the last couple of weeks I have been playing pretty tight whilst racking up the 100 raked hands to qualify for the SJ freerolls and have won $85 or so. Now it is gone, in one hand when I was completely dead with 0% chance of winning.

 If I am honest, I would have to say this is not the first time this has happened. I play well, maybe catch some good flops and the bank balance increases nicely. Then I say to myself, “Hey, you could win twice as much if you moved up a level or played twice as much”. Very often, the bad players I have good notes on can be found playing for bigger stakes so how hard can it be? But it seems that I play worse when there is more money in the middle of the table.

I find it more difficult to put hands down, so get quartered more often. Maybe if I played the $100 buyins more often I would get used to them? But how much would that cost me to learn? And what if it turns out that the $50 buyin is the right level for me?

Most people lose at poker so I guess this would be “a normal experience” for them. Although unpleasant, losing buy-ins in plo8 is going to happen. Its a drawing game and sometimes people will outdraw you. But if you are putting your money when you have positive ev you will be ok in the long run. What seems to happen to me is that I try too hard to win every pot, once I move to the bigger games something I am constantly aware I shouldn’t do at the lower levels.

So, I am trying to put down my thoughts on paper, to try and learn from what went wrong. If any of this helps you too that’s fine, but really, I am concerned about me.

Firstly, the matched betting is now the biggest source of profits for me. I am winning £200+/week from this. Trying to win a similar amount from the poker is probably over-optimistic. In the past although I have been a consistent winner in the cash games, £50-£100/week has been typical.

The matched betting is also much more consistent. A losing day from arbing is pretty unusual and I have never had a losing week whereas at poker sometimes you are going to lose, what is important is only to lose the minimum.

My experience with matched betting has made me more likely to tilt when playing poker now, compared to a couple of years ago.

Because I am just constantly accumulating profits with the arbing I expect subconciously to be able to do the same at all gambling. And of course that’s not going to happen.

Seconly, I enjoy poker (well, enjoy winning anyway) but £50 or $100 seems to be the level at which I am afraid to lose. I start to think more about the money ( and what I could have done with it) and less about making correct decisions. Even though I have over £7,000 in my gambling bankroll I am playing as if this was “scared money” once I move up to the $100 tables. I just don’t feel comfortable losing £50 in one hand. Or to put it another way the guilt I feel from losing outweighs the pleasure I feel on the occasions I end up winning the pot. The fact that some other players (who I know are losing players) are happy to lose at the $100 as well as the $50 tables is irrevelant.

The conclusion seems pretty obvious, just don’t play at the $100 tables any more. I have decided this before, on at least two occasions. I can’t explain why I am finding it difficult.

So, I have decided to take a break from poker for a week. Maybe spend the time writing some plo8 articles for my website and hopefully refocus my brain on what is necessary to play winning poker.

So +£20 for the day overall, but I felt terribly disappointed as I switched my compuer off.

I played the $50 plo8 games for a couple of hours today. Principally to get the 100 raked hands needed to qualify for the SJ freerolls (10 raked hands are needed for the Tues and Thurs ones, 100 raked hands for Sunday). You get credit for a raked hand if the rake hits 25c and you are dealt cards in that hand. No nonsense about having to actually contribute to the pot, so its pretty easy to rack them up.

Finished over 2 buy-ins up. I hit some cracking flops and got customers each time. Quartered one guy when I made a str flush A-5 clubs and made another $25 when my AJTT flopped QTT to make quads. I checked the flop and the turn only to find a guy betting at me on the river. He had QQxx so must have been pretty cheesed off to get stacked in that position.

So $100 up and qualification for the next three SJ freerolls.

A cracking start to 2008 when I came 2nd out of 158 in the SJ Tuesday freeroll. This had prize money of $300.

PP gave me a £25 Blackjack friendly bonus last Sunday and I also deposited £75 for the Dec Platinum Club reload whilst I was there.

Unfortunately, this didn’t go well. I did about half the WR on Texas Bonus Holdem Players Suite, (a game I have always done well at in the past). Was down about £20 after £1,000 and decided to try “Jacks or Better” video poker.

I have always been put off this game in the past because of its high variance. But its return of 99.5% should mean that it is a better bet in the long run. However, I do have the bankroll to cope with this, so thought it was time for something new.

I used the intermediate strategy from “The Wizaed of Odds” as a guide and opened up the “Lucky Draw Jacks or Better” game. This plays 4 lines at once. They have a single line version but it isn’t Full Pay.

I actually quite enjoyed playing this and could picture myself in Vegas getting free drinks and hitting a massive Royal Flush jackpot.

At 20 coins of 5p you are playing for £1/spin so you get the the WR quite quickly.

Although I was new to the game I made too many mistakes. Twice I hit the “DRAW” button when I meant to hit “HOLD”. Both times I had three of a kind so ended up holding a small pair instead. This was very expensive because I missed out on the chance of quads or a full house which pays backs a significant pot.

For some reason I also found myself not playing correctly when I should have held QJs or JTs. I don’t know why, I just wasn’t thinking. Probably smaller sessions is the answer here, to keep my concentration going.

The intermediate strategy has a yield of 99.42% rather than 99.52% of the advanced one, not a significant difference but I finished down overall -£19. So a bit disappointing but I didn’t hit any Royals  or Straight Flushes.

In fact towards the end I was down an alarming amount when I had a nice spell including this for £25:

Looking at this image makes me realise just how bad my misclicks on those “Three of a Kind”s were. I lost as a minimum 8 sets of trips. Some of those would have boated up and some may even have turned into quads. If I had played these hands properly I may have escaped level.

So, an expensive lesson but I will try again next month. If you are disciplined this is a good weapon in any bonus hunters armoury.

One other feature to note is that PP’s casino has just undergone a major software upgrade. I am used to PP instantly crediting my a/c when I have finished the WR. That is the account balance in the game window goes up when the WR is finished. So I sometimes don’t bother to track my play here. This time my bonus got added to my casino a/c, not the “in play” balance. So I played more than necessary without realising.

I will leave it a couple of days before clearing the outstanding BJ bonus.

Monday night’s affiliate freeroll started off really well when I trebled up on the first hand. I ended up winning it after just over three and a half hours later.

This is the third MTT I have won this year and a very welcome $560. It should pay my hosting fees for four or five years!

I played pretty tightly until we got down to the last fifteen people. Lost one big hand when my aces full of tens lost to quads tens. I mostly play high-low omaha rather than PLO high but I have learnt you are nearly always going to have to turn over a pretty good hand to win a pot.

What I am looking for is a nut hand with a redraw to an even bigger hand. So nut straight and a flush draw, or a straight together with top set.

Everest’s software knocked out all the no-shows after about five minutes. This is a really good idea and makes the tourny much fairer. I wish all the sites would follow suit

Everest are throwing a $2,000 Omaha freeroll for their affiliates tonight. There are 260 people entered so far. I won the last pot limit omaha freeroll event I was in although it only had a $75 first prize so I am looking forward to this one.

Mansion send me an email offering $10 to open an account with them: 

Dear xxxxx,

MANSION.com offers more than just the chance to play Poker.
How about the chance to play for nothing?Register as a player with MANSION.com’s award winning software entering the referral code: Freemoney and you will receive $10 credit* to try out our brand new games and you don’t even have to risk anything more than your own time!That’s not all. We also have an offer our regular players can’t refuse.Generate 200 MANSION Poker Points (MPPs) or over from 00:01 GMT on Wednesday 31 October, 2007 to 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 7 November, 2007 and we’ll give you an entry ticket into our $110,000 Guaranteed prize pool tournament. **And don’t forget that we are offering a massive 100% first time bonus up to $500.How’s that for a winning combination?

I am too lazy to follow this up and a week later and get a follow-up:

Dear Xxxxx,Register as a player with MANSION’s award winning software and you will receive FREE $15 credit to try out our brand new games and great tournaments – you don’t even have to risk any thing more than your own time!Why not use it to enter the $150,000 Guaranteed Tournament every Sunday at 20:00 (GMT) with qualifier buy-ins from as little as $5+$0.50?Simply follow these three easy steps for your free cash:

• Download MANSION Poker’s easy to use software
• Enter Referral code: Free15 on the Registration page
• Send an e-mail to freecash@mansion.com with your Username in the subject line

And don’t forget that your free $15 is on top of your 100% first time deposit bonus of up to $500.

That message too goes into the bin.

Yesterday , they try again:

Dear Xxxx,Register as a player with MANSION’s award winning software and you will receive FREE $25 credit to try out our brand new games and great tournaments – you don’t even have to risk any thing more than your own time!Simply follow these three easy steps for your free cash:

• Download MANSION to use software
• Enter Referral code: freepromo on the registration page
• Send an e-mail to freepromo@mansion.com with your username

Don’t forget that we are offering a massive 100% first time bonus up to $500.How’s that for a winning combination?

I am wondering how high they will go.