Italian Vegas

Also… Anyone looking for good bonuses could do worse than checking out the Poker Share, Poker4Ever, Hollywood Poker and Eurolinx bonii available on Bonus Whores. They were all on my shortlist before I found UB. Also if you complete the big Doyles Room bonus you get leather bound copies of Super System 1 and 2. Nice!

• 30% dealt rakeback,
• $650 signup bonus,
• approx $200 monthly reloads,
• FPP program with cashback,
• bonus point incentives for starting up tables,
• monthly affiliate freeroll ($7.5k ~300 players).

• great traffic,
• good virtual online games quality (apparently a little easier than Stars),
• good software,
• accept UK debit cards.

Sounds great to me.

I’ve done a lot of research over the last few days on site selection for NL cash virtual games. I’m looking for good software, online game availability, bonuses, rakeback and other incentives. I’m hoping to stick to one site in future to earn a VIP status and to prevent hopping around as it’s wasting too much of my playing time. Soooo…. Teh winnar isssss…

UB! I’ve already got an account at UB but they’re allowing me to cancel it and set up a new one through my affiliate. KINGS AMONGST MEN. Here’s why to play there…

Online – Cash

I really wasn’t happy with my cash online game play last year. I think this was down to a few things… playing for bonus money, poor tilt management, not playing under optimal conditions (tired, etc) and playing too many tables (usually 4-8 at once). This year I’m going to take it back to basics focussing on concentration, patience and discipline. I’ll start off 2-tabling $50NL and work my way up, I’ll need a $1k bankroll for this. I’d hope to be comfortably bankrolled for $200NL by the end of the year.

This year I’m going to seek out the best rakeback or affiliate freeroll offers at websites to make sure that I’m getting the maximum back for my money, not just playing for shitty player points. Party seem to have great freerolls and Absolute have rakeback/bonus/freerolls so I’ll base my cash play at these sites rather than floating around doing bonus offers.

Online – Tourney

Although I’ve achieved good results at the $60-80 level, I jumped up really fast and don’t think I really spent enough time at the $30-50s. I’m going to drop down a bit and 2-table $30 freeze-out or $5 rebuy tourneys on Stars, along with $35 Turbo SNGs. I’ll bankroll myself $2k for this, moving up the buy-ins as my bankroll grows.

Online – Play

I’m gonna create a “play money” account at a site for learning to play Razz, Omaha, Stud, etc. This is really damage control so that I’ve got something to do when I feel like playing, but know I won’t be on my A game online… sometimes you just feel like having a few beers and going all-in hand after hand. I’ll set aside a $100 bankroll for this.

Live & Satellites

Originally I was hoping to qualify for a WSOP or WPT event this year, but I don’t really like the idea of playing in an event that I’m probably not +EV in. WSOP/EPT/WPT will be my targets for next year, for this year I’m going to aim to satellite into a few of the GUKPT or GBPT events which are $1k-2k buyins.

As for other live play I’m going to continue playing the fantastic £30-50 OfficePoker tourneys and hopefully make it through to a few £75 freezeouts at CinCins. I WILL stay the fuck away from the Maybury and Berkley, casino poker is tempting when there’s nothing else on, but it’s horrible! 10BB stacks anyone? Homefree online game-wise I’ll try to invite folk round if work permits!

For sats and live tourneys I’m going to need another $2k bankrolled.

$$$$$$

From the numbers above, I’ll bankroll myself $5k for 2007. This is cool as it allows me to withdraw about half of my profits from last year. Work is going to take up a huge amount of my time up until October this year, and money is pretty comfortable at the moment, so I’m not going to set any profit targets.

Reading List

There are a couple of other books coming out this year that I’ll want to pick up too, particularly Daniel Negreanu’s, due out later in the year.

• Harrington on Hold’em 1 & 2 (re-read),
• Super System 2 (re-read),
• Theory of Poker (Sklansky),
• No Limit Hold’em Poker for Advanced Players (Sklansky),
• Championship NL & PL Hold’em (McEvoy),
• Little Green Book (Gordon),
• Mathematics of Poker (Chen),
• Psychology of Poker (Schoonmaker),
• Read ‘em and Reap (Navarro),
• Caro’s Book of Tells (Caro),
• Zen and the Art of Poker (Phillips),
• Ace on the River (Greenstien),
• Positively Fifth Street (McManus),
• Stu Ungar Story.

… and that’s about it. Easy! I’ll try to update this blog regularly. Bring it on 2007!

$$$$$$

I started out in January with a $100 bankroll and a copy of Poker for Dummies, and headed straight for the freerolls and micro-limits. I set myself the ambitious target of $10k profit for the year. By around July things begun to click, and I moved away from bonuses and concentrated on my virtual game. This paid off big time and I finished the year with a bankroll of $12.5k. $100 to $12,500 in a year! For this I definately credit internet poker forums, poker books, and hard work!

Highlights

Moving up through the Turbo SNGs at Stars, going from a $50 bankroll playing $1.50s, to a $2.75k bankroll playing $60s in just 250 SNGs.

Cashing for $1022 & $1750 in affiliate freerolls at Party.

Proffiting over $3k in October, my biggest month so far.

Finishing 2nd in my first ever live tourney at the Cincinnati Club in Glasgow. 50 runners, good for $400.

Lessons to learn

I need to be able to step away from the computer when I’m not playing my A virtual game. There could be a few reasons for this… being tired, long day at work, playing ‘recreationally’, no motivation to win, not taking enough breaks, etc. These probably cost me a few grand this year, I need to crack down on these next year.

The other problem I suffered from this year was not playing my A fre online game at the end of MTTs. I tend to get pretty excited when I get deep in a tourney, and my lack of concentration often ends up with me busting due to misplaying key hands. I definitely need to work on focus and shutting out emotion when in the final stages of big tourneys.

Books

I managed to read quite a few poker books this year, I highly recommend:

• Getting Started in Hold’em (Miller),
• Small Stakes Hold’em (Sklansky),
• Pot-Limit & No-Limit Poker (Ciafonne),
• Super System 2 (Brunson),
• Big Deal (Holden),
• Harrington on Hold’em 1, 2 and 3.

First post! \o/ Some brief info on myself. I completed a degree in Computer Science in 2005 and now work as a Games Developer living in Edinburgh, Scotland. I started playing poker in January 2006, after a brief spell pissing around on Yahoo! Poker room.

2006 was a fantastic first year of poker for me, but now it’s finished I need a new challenge. I find it interesting looking at other peoples results, in a poker-geek kind of way, so I hope it might be interesting for other folk to check mine out. I’m looking forward to having somewhere to post how I’ve done each month, articles, tips, bad beats, live virtual game reports, etc. Gonna start off by reviewing my goals and achievements for 2006, then look at what I want to achieve in 2007…