Stars cash update

OK since i set my challenge to win at stars cash, I've played 5600 hands of 3/6nl on stars and am up $7595. I have only just got to $20k in my account because i played several tournaments last weekend and the 100r yesterday. Ive seen some really bad play in the 3/6nl games and is comforting to know that I can still make money very easily at this level if I were to fall on hard times in the future. I just about stuck to what i said about not playing cash anywhere else, but if my session is less than 1hr, I have been playing at my normal stakes, trying to find HU or 3 handed games to play. I have played about 1000 hands of 5/10 on UB and won around $4k so that was cool. Found some money in my blue square account and had a nice HU game at 10/20, taking almost 2 buy ins off my opponent.

I am $6k up from cash for the month, not bad considering the part time hours I'm playing, and the fact i was in a pretty big hole earlier in the month. Overall after playing some tournaments including the $2.5k event on full tilt my profit is probably closer to $3k. Will start playing 5/10 on stars now, and hope to keep moving forward, hit 30k and start some 10/20. If i drop down to 15k, ill go back to 3/6 and build back to 20k. If I'm only on for short sessions though, ill probably find a short handed higher stakes game somewhere.

Am considering buying a macbook pro atm and using some software called parallels in order to run Windows for my poker software. I have heard good reviews about macs, a few of my non poker playing friends have them and are well impressed. I have a sony viao atm with a 15" screen and the piece of shit is always freezing and just generally being crap. I would like a dell, but as I'm in Thailand that's a no go, needs to be store bought. Should be putting in quite a few hours on the cash tables but nothing excessive, but will die off mid September as I'm meeting up with friends in Australia to travel the coast.

Peace

Tournaments tonight

Stars mission going ok so far, about 3.5k up on 3/6nl over the past few days, gonna be playing a few tournaments tonight though, so likely to take a hit. The main reason im on playing tournaments tonight though is the $2.5k buy in on full tilt with an insane structure. This is a 2 day event, which is pretty crazy for online, and ive managed to swap 10% with moorman so hopeful of a decent score even if its just chris pulling a nice result out of the bag, :-)

update, bombed out of everythin, hope to wake up and see moorman won me $40k from my % in the tilt comp

Exercise Pokerstars demons (or bust trying)

So, ever since I can remember, I have been a loser in stars cash games. Im talking about every level as well, from $0.5/1 right the way through to 10/20 I never seem to win on pokerstars. Since i started playing the higher stakes, i come across a lot of the same players on stars and full tilt, win big on full tilt and lose big on stars, I just dont get it.

Stars is probably the bigest site, has great curtomer service, good games and the list goes on. So I have $15k in my stars account at the moment, I will start playing 3/6nl, if i get to $20k, ill move up to 5/10, $30k up to 10/20nl try and reach $50k. Until I have gone bust on stars or reached my target I wont be playing casg anywhere else. Just in case anyone wants to take a pop at my BR management, this is not my entire bankroll, just to be clear, lol.

I have no idea how long this will take, especially since I not playing a whole lot at the moment. Does anyone else have a mental block with pokerstars cash games?

I decided to do this after another losing session at 5/10 and 10/20 on stars, putting me down again for the month, great timing after the slight euphoria of my last post. If i go bust on stars ill never play their cash games again, and write it off as a mystery and hopefully keep winning elsewhere, :-)

August gets going (eventually)

Up until this morning, I was still 3.5k down for the month, not a lot when primarily playing 10/20, but couldn't seem to move more than like $300 in either direction at the end of each session, which was very odd. I was having regular swings during the sessions, $4-6k, but always seemed to return to this point by the end, lol.

My timing/luck was pretty bad during some of these sessions as well, sometimes inducing tilt, but I'm only human. I was playing a few tables of 10/20nl on F.tilt and witnessed this player play the following hands in a short space of time.

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1368832
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1368833
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1368836

Shortly after I picked up the following 2 hands against the same player and In my opinion had to go broke both times, considering what I had already witnessed. Its marginal/horrible in the vast majority of circumstances but these were extra-ordinary. See what you think;

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1368847
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1368853

This was one of the many sessions I was up 3-4 buy ins before finishing roughly even, just bad timing IMO.

This morning I set my alarm for the ungodly hour of 6am to play a few online tournaments, the showcase being the 1k 6 max event on full tilt. Getting up wasn't as hard as usual since i cant drink at the moment, on anti-biotics at the moment, after falling over drunk and cutting up my face pretty bad, see facebook for a picture. Played 6 tournaments in all, Stars - 100r, 100 f/o, 162 f/o, Tilt, 69 f/o, 150 f/o and 1k 6 max.

The 1k 6 max was going well in the early levels, i was chipping up nicely with no showdowns, winning small and medium pots, then once the blinds started getting up I found no reasonable hands or situations and ended up in push fold mode as soon as the antes kicked in, not ideal. I button push with with 89 suited, called by AT was the end of me, pretty standard stuff. Got a stack going in the stars 100r, but eventually busted with TT vs A9 in preflop out of the money. Early exits in the 100f/o and the 150 on tilt, left just the smallest buy in comp as my only chance for a cash, sods law. Made the money, last 54, with average stacked, and stayed that way until about 2 tables out. Picked up some nice hands, applied pressure at the right times, and found myself 1 of 12 with $9k for the win. 2.5k/5k blinds, i open for 15k with JJ when we are 5 handed, other big stack with about 200k, makes it 45k. I have about 245k at start of hand and elect to flat call OOP, and check fold on a K high flop, weak play by me. JJ is too strong 5 handed and coupled with the fact we are on the final table bubble, I think I have to jam this hand preflop. following up this mistake, I re shove on a medium stack with A8 to see him flip AK and I enter the final in about 6th place, ugh.

Survived for a while, then got a priceless double up with AK vs A7 and was back in contention. I finally exited in around 5th place i think with the following hand. I oped for 32k with KT spades, (6k/12k) and the button flat calls. The flop is 8 high with 2 spades, pot is around 85k, and i have about 150k behind. Thought about check raising but wasn't sure enough that my opponent would bet, and ensure the money went in on the flop. I bet 70k and he shoved on me fairly quickly, and easy call and I'm up against 99, i lose the race for 430k pot and chip lead 4 handed and that's all she wrote, picked up about $2.3k for my efforts. A small profit for the donkaments.

Returned back to cash this evening, and things finally clicked into place. Played 4 tables of 10/20 for just under 1 hour and won about $8k total, most of it on full tilt, and took augusts figures to almost +$5k for cash. This post seems a little long now so will wrap it up, may make another couple of early morning appearances in the full tilt tournaments I like, but majority of my play will be cash games, hope to build on this last session.

Not a lot going on

I suppose blogs are more intersting when talking about tournaments, or nose bleed stakes cash games, but as im playing neither of those I dont have a great deal to write about. I dont want to get out of the habit of blogging though as I am sure that some time in the future ill be playing tournaments again, probably when im in a more accomodating time zone.

Been playing a fair amount online, 5/10 and 10/20nl cash, but cant seem to put a consistent run together. Win a few buy ins one day, lose them the next time i play etc... played a little 25/50 the other day, as i spotted a weak table on DTD (crypto) Managed to win just over $4k without playing any real big pots so that was cool. But as far as august goes, only 5 days in i know, but im $3.5k down.

A good poker friend of mine, chris moorman, plays on all sites as moorman1, has just started what should materialise into a very into a very intersting blog. He is taking part in a prop bet, organised on pocketfives, for mtt's in august. Its a pretty big prop bet, and has a lot of teams with some of the top tournament players around competing. The bet is explained in more depth at the start of his blog. Its crazy the amount of volume some of these guys play, and can only take my hat off to what they do.

Check out chris' blog at : http://moorman1.blogspot.com/

This week sees the start of the full tilt online festival so i may set my alarm clock for some ungodly hours and play a few tournaments.