My hourly rate playing poker online sucks

It's not exactly a huge surprise that my hourly rate playing poker online sucks, but at least I can measure it and try and improve it as I work through my next two challenges, and that's a start I guess.

In this post I'll start delving into some of the statistics relating to my 1st Bankroll Boosting challenge on Party Poker, watch out for a few more postings on stats coming in the next few days too.

The eagle eyed among you may spot some slight discrepancies in my stats, this is due to a difference of 5 games between my two information sources, poker tracker and my Excel bankroll spreadsheet. This has been caused by playing the odd game on my laptop and not capturing the hand historys results for poker traker. The difference equates to 5 games and a profit variation of just $10, so the stats are close enough for me not to worry about trying to correct them.

I've been using an excel spreadsheet to track my results more or less since I started playing poker online and I continue to use it even though I now use Poker Tracker to record everything and am reasonably comfortable finding my way around it. I log every game in my spreadsheet and it gives me a really nice snapshot of where I am at. I start a new page in the spreadsheet each month, or with each new challenge and have a summary page at the front that errr... summarises everything. If you don't alreaqdy use a spreadsheet or Poker Tracker to track your game, you should. Feel free to download a copy of my poker spreadsheet and use it yourself. I'll post a video tutorial on Poker Tracker sometime soon as it is a bit daunting at first, but the data it can give you is just awesome.

The challenge took approximately 2.6 months, during which I played for 163 hours. That equates to approximately 1 month's work in a 9-5 job. After all that effort my hourly rate equates to $2.48. To put that in perspective the national minimum wage in the UK, expressed in dollars is $11.38. To feel comfortable enough to become a professional poker player I would want to be earning £75,000 a year which would equate to an hourly rate of approximately $75. For my next two challenges I need to be looking to increase my hourly rate rather dramatically, lets set a target of say $4.00 per hour on my Full Tilt Challenge and $7.50 on phase 2 of my Party challenge. In short I need to play more hours, with more simultaneous tables, at higher levels and achieve better results. Should be easy then!!!!!

That's it for this quick post but I'll post some more statistics on phase 1 of my challenge soon, so we can drill into the profitability of different game types and start looking at hand ranges, positional play etc..

Till next time..

Poker Bankroll Building - New Challenge Commences

Now that I have completed stage 1 of my bankroll building challenge and boosted my bankroll on Part Poker from $200 to $600 I am ready to progress to my next challenge. However for the next stage I am going to run two seperate challenges.

My initial challenge was inspired by Alex Martin's excellent "Bankroll Boosters" article in the September 2007 edition of Inside Poker magazine. The first half of my new challenges is to move onto the second phase of this and boost my Party Poker bankroll from $600 to $1,200. The second half of my challenge is to repeat phase one on another poker site.

The rules are as follows...

Full Tilt Challenge 1
I have deposited $200 on Full Tilt Poker and am going to work it up to $600 playing $5 and $10, 9 man Sit and Go tables. There are various reasons why I've decided to do this on Full Tilt including.

• Great 100% deposit bonus (could be worth $200 to me as that's what I initially deposited)
• Site is always busy
• The software is really nice
• The games I've tried so far seem reasonably good, the players are more preictable and passive than the loonies I keep encountering on Party
• The blind structure is a bit slower than Party which will favour skillfull play more then luck

I have already started playing a few $5 games on Full Tilt and my bankroll is already up to about $240 with an ROI of around 40%, when I get it to $250 I'll start testing out the $10 tables.

My goal is to maintain a better ROI than my initial Party Challenge and reach my profit target in significantly fewer games than the 316 it took me on Party.

Party Challenge 2
My target on Party Poker is to boost my $600 bankroll there up to $1200 by playing $20, 10 man Sit and Go tables. The target timescale is 2 months and 300 games with an ROI of 10% (which will be tough if I'm running two challenges concurrently)

I will provide a little more detail on both challeges as I start posting about my progress in them. I will also be posting a review of Full Tilt and some detailed stats, analysis and strategy articles over the coming days and weeks.

In the meantime if you have any questions, suggestions, comments or abuse... just leave a comment below. If anyone wants to join me in my challenge and try it too I would be delighted to accept the challenge, although I won't be going for a Tank vs Dale mental endurance marathon. If you haven't tried Full Tilt or want to Join me click the Full Tilt banner at the top right of my Blog and claim your 100% deposit bonus.

Wish me luck, Here goes....

Poker Bankroll Building - Phase 1 Completed

Woohoo...

I've just got time for a really quick posting before I head off to bed. As you can see from the title I've just completed phase 1 of my bankroll building challenge. I haven't had a chance to play online much over the last week but tonight I managed to squeeze in 6 x $6 SNG's and finished in the money in 4 of them with 2 x 1st and 2 x 2nd.

Running Total: Played 316 / ITM 41% / ROI 15% / Profit $415.40

That concludes phase 1 of my challenge, tomorrow I will start two new challenges.

Check back over the next few days for a flurry of postings containing statistics, analysis, strategy, advice and the low down on my next two poker challenges. If there is anything you particularly want me to post about leave me a comment.

Holla

High Stakes Poker - Sammy Farha vs Jamie Gold

Oh my god, this show is just so awesome, each new episode sets a new standard in TV poker. This episode should be re-named the Sammy Farha show as we see lots of action between Sammy and 2006 World Series of Poker winner, Jamie Gold.

Both these players love to gamble and like to talk a lot during the hand to get reads on their opponents, well you'll see a mastercalass in this episode. Raisy Daisy...

If the video panel below doesn't show up properly use the links below to watch the videos on PokerTube.



High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 1/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 2/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 3/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 13 - Part 4/4

High Stakes Poker - Jamie Gold gets it All in

The latest episode of High Stakes Poker certainly lives up to its name with an all in confrontation between WSOP (World Series of Poker) 2006 winner Jamie Gold and regular Big Game player Patrick Antonius.

The buy in for this series of High Stakes is $500,000 per player so these guys are playing with seriously life changing sums of money, yet Patrick looks as cool as cucumber as he casually calls Jamie's All In creating the largest pot in televised poker history.

This episode also sees the tensions rise as Sammy Farha starts to needle the other players a bit. One thing is for sure, this show is just going from strength to strength. I can't wait to see next week's episode. The sparks are surely going to fly...




High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 1/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 2/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 3/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 12 - Part 4/4

Pub Poker League - Weblomaniac takes it down

No online poker yesterday as it was local pub tournament night. I was sitting in second place in the Bishopton Poker League, just one point behind the leader so I went into last night's game determined to play well and try as hard as I could to win the game and move up to the top spot in the leaderboard. I would have to play a good game against the current leader though as he's a good player.
We had 11 players last night, so both our beautiful home made tables were in use and the standard of play was great. It's been getting stronger every week to be honest and you can see changes in individual players games as they introduce new moves into their repetoir.

Early on I played tight and tried not to get into too many dangerous pots. I picked up pocket kings quite early on and upgraded them to a set when a third one came down on the flop so that boosted my stack a bit.

Gradually the players got whittled down and we merged onto one table. With a couple of players quite short stacked I was sitting slightly below average with 4,500 chips when the average stack was 5,500. I luckily picked up pocket kings again, raised it pre-flop, hit another king on the flop to make a set and bet it. I checked the turn hoping my opponent would read that as wekenss and bet in to me on the river, which he obligingly did, only for me to re-raise him. Bingo, I sent a player to the rail, took down a nice big pot and nearly doubled my stack. With a bit of monetum and some chips behind me I took down the next two pots with marginal hands that came good and was now sitting on a perfectly respectable stack, enough to take me deep into the final table.

The field thinned and I took out the bubble player and went into the heads up battle with a significant chip lead against a strong player with lots of casino and poker club experience. I was reasonably confident because my heads up play isn't usually too shabby and I had a great chip advantage. But my opponent played really well he seemed to always manage to get out of the way of my genuine raises or significantly re-raise my opportunistic raises. He made a great comeback, took the chip lead and had me starting to wonder if I had a tell that he had spotted. I then lucked out on him re-raising all in on a flop that he had bet at. I was pretty sure his bet no the flop was a bluff so it was sickening when he flipped over middle pair to my unpaired A-x. But like the donkey that I am, I rivered an Ace and inflicted a rather sickening bad beat on him.

A little while later I limped into a pot from the big blind with 7-4 off suit only for a 7 to come down on the flop, which I bet, then another 7 on the turn. I get some more chips in and am reluctantly called. I now have a massive chip lead and I know my opponent is going to be shoving at every opportunity so I need to be careful not to double him up, but the blinds are big enough that I can't let him steal the blinds with impunity either.

The final hand was a toughy, I can't remember the exact hands but the flop was something like 4-5-J. I had paired my 5 and was last to act. My opponent shoved and I went into the tank. I knew he could be shoving with pretty much anything but he had actually had the goods on some of the earlier shoves that I had stood up to. I finally decided there was a chance my 5 might be good, I had a King as well so I had a strong kicker and an overcard. If I win the hand I take down the game, If I lose the hand I double him up but still have the chip advantage. I call and he reveals his cards, he's paired the 4 and doesn't improve his hand on the turn or river.

I took first place in the game, moved up to first position in the league table and took home a few quid into the bargain, Happy Days...

I need to be careful next week though, only two more league games to play and my main opponent, The Silver Fox is within easy striking distance.

Party Poker - Bankroll Building Update

It seems that everytime I post an update on my Party Poker bankroll building challenge the poker gods decide to pull the rug from under me. Last time I posted I had just worked my way back up from a bit of a bad run and no sooner had I posted than it happened again!

To be fair, it wasn't all luck or variance, I don't think I was playing my "A" game. So a bit of adjustment to my agression levels and a bit more grinding and I'm nearly back to where I was last time.

It feels like the challenge is taking forever, but I keep telling myself I'm nearly there. I can't wait to hit the $400 profit as I want to move onto stage 2 of the challenge and I also have a new challenge that I want to get started on. I'll reveal more about the new challenge once I get this one cracked.

Stay on target....nearly there.

Running Total: Played 300 / ITM 40% / ROI 12% / Profit $331.40

$500,000 Buy In on High Stakes Poker

The stakes have risen to a staggering $500,000 buy in on my favourite Poker TV show, High Stakes Poker. This show has always been entertaining and exciting to watch because of the high stakes and the atmosphere at the table. The atmosphere and chat at the table is usually pretty friendly, often amusing and always insightful, some of the moments I enjoy the most are when Phil Hellmuth or MIke Matasou lose it at the table.

In this particular episode the buy in has been increased to $500,000 so we are promised pots in excess of $1 Million dollars getting contested by the familiar faces including Doyle Brunson, Barry Greenstein, Sammy Farha, Jamie Gold, Patrick Antonius, David Benyamine, Antonio Esfandiari and Guy La Lauberte founder of Cirque de Soliel.

Fascinating viewing, watch episode 11 from series 4 of High Stakes poker below. I'll post links to the next episode the minute it comes online as it alledgedly contains an all-in confrontation between Jamie Gold and an insta call from Patrick Antonius.



High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 1/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 2/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 3/4
High Stakes Poker Season 4 - Episode 11 - Part 4/4

Getting Closer

It's about 3 weeks since I last posted and despite my silence I've still been grinding away at the $10 Sit & Go tables on Party Poker, it's just that I haven't really had anything terribly exciting to blog about.

When I last posted I was quite upbeat because I felt I had finally broken free of the $200 profit plateaux that I seemed to be stuck at. Well it turns out that my optimism was to be short lived as I slid back down to the $200 barrier and then went slightly through it in the games that followed my last post.

Since then it's been up and down a couple of times so I decided to just keep my head down. 75 games further on and I feel I better update the blog or it will look like I've given up!

The profits are now up to $356 so I think I've finally shaken off the curse of the $200 barrier and I'm getting tantalisingly close to my $400 profit target. If my next session or two go well I will hopefully be able to cruise up to and through the $400 mark and then I can start dipping my toe into the $20 SNGs

Most of my play over the last few weeks has been on two tables simultaneously and I now feel pretty cmofortable playing two at once. I've even tried running 4 x $5.00 tables at once to get a feel for that.

I have also opened up an account on Full Tilt and deposited $200 in there. I'll post a bit more info on my decision to open a Full Tilt account and a little review and comparisson with Party Poker in the coming days. Suffice to say though, my main reason for opening an account there was so I could start enjoying the benefits of a bit of rakeback. More on that next time though.

Running Total: Played 254 / ITM 41% / ROI 15% / Profit $356.90