Update

There haven't been any posts in the last week because I didn't think there was anything interesting to post about. I thought I'd give a general update though.

Hit a 5th place finish in a Titan rebuy for $80 or so. Got lucky on 3 hands and didn't deserve this one. That win pushed me over $1k for the first time. I've been hovering there. Half of that is in PokerRoom right now. I'm half way through a PSO offer for a set of chips, and about a quarter way through their $200 bonus. It seems to be a nice site. Not as tight as Absolute. Also, some nice freerolls scattered about, if you bother to check your accounts and claim the tickets every day after playing.

PartyPoker is approaching their




They have a giveaway where the tables that play the 2,955,000,000 hand and on up by 5,000,000 increments get a prize. Also noteworthy is that each time one of these milestone hands hits, they are having a freeroll for $20k in the next hour. I think this is worthwhile to chase. Reading the notice, it appeared that this would count hands on play money tables also, but with a lesser pay out. My plan was to open 10 of those, and just raise or fold to see if I could hit the hand.
Last night, the first iteration was getting close. When I opened the play table, the hand count on that was in the 50 billions. I changed my plan. I had about $150 on Party, so I thought I'd open up 10 of the $.5/1 tables with $15 each, and raise or fold on those. I started them up at hand 2,954,800,000 and played them out. That was very hectic to say the least. I missed the hand, but not by much. The closest hand I had was 2,955,000,018. I logged off all those tables as the BB rolled around, and went to cashier to check the damage. Surprisingly, I had made $30! Something to think about, there. Maybe I should try this ten table nut peddle and see how that goes on a longer basis. There are worse things to cap out the dial up connection and cause seizures.

I stayed around for the freeroll with 3499 others. I made it past the first break, and was in better than average shape with 1500 left. I hit the wall there though.
I'm guessing the next big hand will hit this afternoon.

Also, Vegas Wednesday. We'll see what kind of trip report I can provide.

The semi-secret Poker Source Online

We've been bonus whoring different online sites for a few months now, and I thought we were pretty good at it. We hit up Paradise Poker, BoDog, Titan, Full Tilt, the Gaming Club, etc. There was something we missed out on. I had seen the term PSO mentioned on a few blogs in regards to loading up Titan for the last WPBT event, but couldn't find anything. Knowledge of this 'PSO' had been floating around the blogger community, but I either didn't notice it, or stayed out of its influence. I found a page that linked the term PSO to the source, and it happens to be PokerSourceOnline. I knew if I signed up on a new poker site, I could refer my sign up back to someone else and they would get a nice bonus in addition to the normal bonus I would get anyway. I would usually through those props back to ScurvyDog, since he was good at disseminating information on sign up and reload bonuses. He's also got an info site up, BonusBug. Anyway, what PokerSourceOnline does is refer players to certain sites. If you go through the link on their site, pick a poker gift, download the pokersite, and put their code in the referral field on sign up, and play through hands you would do to get your bonus anyway, they share part of their bonus back with you. What happens is you get the sign up bonus as normal through the site by playing the hands and you also get the rewards gift from PSO. Double dippin'! So I get the cash and Meek gets the poker swag.

We got into Absolute Poker through their site. Meek signed up for the plastic cards, chip racks, and dealer button package. Absolute was running a 200% up to $200 deal, and I got that bonus through them. With Absolute, you have to play 100 raked hands to clear $10 of the bonus. There are multipliers with that depending on the size of the rake. It's a smaller poker site. They are supported by PokerTracker, but I don't know if PokerACE HUD supports them. Meek wasn't able to get PT to bring in info from the hand histories, and he'll have to try again. I don't think he's too worried as he really hasn't learned how to use the data yet. There are enough tables at the limits I play, 1/2 HE. Not much going on in Omaha though. They run okay tournaments with plenty of freerolls and low buy ins. They advertise 40 freerolls (per day, I think), but I haven't tracked them down yet. Back to PSO, I've cleared $40 (20%) of the Absolute bonus, and at the same time, I've already cleared the PSO bonus. I had to log on to PSO's website and tell them I'm past the 400 raked hands. Meek will post when he receives the swag.

If you do decide to go with PokerSourceOnline, tell them PSOMeek sent you. Not POS (Piece Of Shit) Meek, but PSO (Poker Source Online) Meek. Either way, take advantage of their gifts, if you aren't already. I can see where this site hasn't been widely communicated, because they give part of the signup bonus back to the player. If a blogger was to refer you to a different sites, he'd get the bonus for each site you signed up, as opposed to the single bonus for referring players to PSO.

Anyway, I'll probably mainly be active in AbsolutePoker for the rest of the month, barring any sweet Party reload offers for which I qualify.

Titan Tourneys Anything But Tight

Meek and I got a $100 reload bonus (It feels good: James Brown) from Party and he decided to play a bit of the $2/4 bad beat jackpot that creates buzz every once in a while. $2/4 is higher than we normally play, but we've got this $100 cushion to play around with, why not see what happens. After a few hours of that (down then part way back up) we finish down $20. Meek is ready to log off, but a Fragger With Attitude is on the Instant Messenger. SirF is registered for a $10/1 freeze-out (no rebuy) on Titan in 10 minutes. We check it out. It's going to go over the guarantee of $750, so no overlay. With SirF being in it, and it paying the top 10 places, it looks attractive enough. In we go, with 91 others. SirF gets off to an early start, moving up, but we languish around 600 chips for the first session. We make an all in bluff, and don't get called. Later, we double up just before t! he break to get back to comfortable, but below average. SirF is cruising, 25% over average, waiting for hands. Players have been dropping fast, even though the blinds are still low. Much overaggressive play.

We cruise along nicely through the next half hour, both staying afloat. It gets down to 20 players on 2 tables. SirF and I each have our own tables. We get AA, raise 5x after two limpers. Two callers to the raise. I believe the flop was J high, and a pot size bet takes it down. That adds about 30% to our stack. About 4 hands later, we are rebalanced to SirFs table. SirF is to my right, so we don't have to worry about him messing with me. We get AA again first hand. Keep em coming! One caller to our raise, and a Queen high flop with two diamonds. We raise about 2/3rds of the callers stack and he folds. Here, we didn't want to overbet the pot and make it look like a steal. I wanted to take it down there and not get called by the flush draw. We get down to 12, and SirF is getting to be one of the small stacks. It's been a push fest for a while now, but we'! ve been able to stay out of it. An interesting hand comes up. We get AK in middle/late position. I'll let Meek tell this part:

"The blinds are 300/600. SirF min raises to 1200. I've got a hand here. I'm not going to take it easy on him and fold this. However, we do lighten up and just call (ack, we just cold called! crap. At least PokerTracker didn't see it, as we are on Titan). It is folded around and it is just the two of us. The flop is 2 3 4 rainbow. SirF checks, and I min bet. My second mistake. If I am playing this out, I should push, or raise pot. Here, I give him a chance to come back over, to give me a dilemma. He calls. The turn is a 5, giving me a straight. He checks, I bet bigger to let him know it is mine. He folds. I ended up taking 3 BB from him. If I had re raised, maybe I only take 2 and he isn't as desperate. Anyway, I made the decision to play the hand and not take it easy on him, I should have not backed off at all on him when everyon! e dropped out. But I did, just a little."

SirF is definitely in push or fold mode now. He gets a K and goes in. It's folded around to a big stack who happens to have two face cards. Unluckily, one of them is a K, dominating SirF. SirF doesn't hit his card, and bubbles out at 11. I feel bad, but his bankroll is bigger than me, so not so much.

See this through SirFs viewpoint

We are at the final table. The payout structure starts at 10, then goes up by 10 for each spot to the top 5, then it goes up by 20 until 3rd. 2nd is $184, and 1st is $276. I'd like for Meek to get at least 5th ($73) so this pays off more than a ten person SnG. Here is where the over aggression becomes apparent. There are 5 big stacks, and 5 small/medium stacks. We are medium sized, so we are shooting for 5th, unless we get some cards. We don't get many cards, steal a the blinds a few times, and by the time the next break hits, there are three of us left: 1 giant stack of 75k, me at 12k and a third at 8k. We stayed about the same and all 5 of the big stacks went to total war, knocking each other off. We were able to wade through that. The monster takes out third place and we are in big money. Now, we are an 8 to 1 underdog, but that's great news considering we were aiming for 5th. 1st hand, I get TJ, and it goes raise, reraise, push. Up against TT and I'm out in 2nd.





To recap, these Titan players are just too aggressive. You can move up hugely through patience. They tend to play the whole tournament like they can rebuy, even though you couldn't even rebuy in the 1st hour in this one. I strongly recommend these. Just don't sit at my table, or one of us is getting hurt.

The Corner of Broadway and Spades, Hammer Trips & Hammer Bluff

Saturday night/Sunday morning at 1am. Meek's four tabling the party $0.5/1 limit HE, working on a reload bonus. We get QA of spades under the gun. Strong hand, so we raise it up. We get reraised by another player, and call. The flop comes Ts 7c Js. Very promising. Let's count some outs here. A spade (9) give us the nut flush, a King (3) gives us the nut straight, an Ace (3) or a Queen (3) gives us TPTK, but may give someone else a straight. That's 12 outs to the nuts, and 6 outs to a solid hand. Let's call it 16 outs, 16/(52-5) = 34%. Meek's Small Stakes Hold Em reading has been paying off. Actually, I'm sure he just thought, look at all the pretty spades. Anyway, we might be behind here, but with all the draws and this being limit, let's go. We raise to try to hide the flush draw and get called.

and the turn is another spade. Cool, nut flush. Oh wait, That's a K. That is THE NUT FLUSH. Spades Royal. The rare, once in a couple of years, unbeatable, untie-able (in HE) hand.





What to do now? In SS:HE, on page 44, it says you could fold this hand everytime and still be a profitable player. Miller, Sklansky, & Malmuth are making the point that a lot of little mistakes hurt you more than one big mistake, but we don't want the fold word anywhere near this hand. We just got to make sure we don't accidentally hit fold, or PeoplePC doesn't log me off of dial up. What else, oh, we got to get a screen shot, save it, and get some more screen shots. Okay, we bet, hit print screen, jump over to Powerpoint and drop the picture off. What's happening at the table? enough screen shots, lets get back there. (If you notice, the betting action caused the name 'PartyMeek' to be covered up, but you see "Good Luck PartyMeek" at the top of the screen)

Actually, we want this hand to go to showdown. We want others to share in the joy that is the Spades Royal. Screw a few BB. This is poker, and I have the holy grail of poker. Ranked right below a tilt inducing hammer bluff-show, from what I hear. However there is betting from here on out.

Done. Not disconnected, Spades Royal shown down. There's no pop up window from Party telling me congrats, or I've won a new car. Lets see how this sinks in at the table. Will it be lost on these donkeys? Who is at the table . . . donk, donk, calling station, donk, He1ixx, donk, rigged poker donk, donk, Wait . . . was that Helixx? He's elite. Even better, we get the Spades Royal on a random party table, and there is an elite, old school blogger there to witness it. Oh wait, I took his money with that hand. Hmmm.

How to bring this up in chat without rubbing it in or outing him as a masterblogger to the rest of the table . . . Lets see, don't use the blog or website terminology, how about using the word "post" . . . nevermind, it's not important to tip toe around this table, they didn't even acknowledge the Spades Royal.

"He1ixx, you going to post about this hand?"

"uhm . . . blogs are gay"

"Yeah, girly journals, I totally agree."

It's confirmed, that's Helixx. I think he was just surprised that we knew of him.

Next hand, we lose the Royal Flush money playing JJ when an overcard hits.

A few hands later, we get 72o (Hammer!) and know I have to play this, in Helixx's presence. We uncheck the automuck, so it doesn't go for naught. We raise, get re-raised and call. flop gets a 7, we raise. turn is another 7. We bet out and the player calls out, we take down a nice pot. Helixx acknowledges this with a "Hammer!" cry.

Another orbit or so, we get the hammer again. Flop is AQA. hammer bet gets two folders, and we show. "Winner!" says Helixx. This leads to the 'rigged poker donk' lecturing everyone on how the party game is rigged. Helixx plays along, saying he hasn't hit a flush draw since he cashed out. We attribute my royal to a recent deposit. She plays right along, arguing down someone who doesn't believe her. We threw out there how it was easier for Party to cheat since they were getting a rebate by paying employees in India to rig the flop, and she ran with it. She went as far as to say she saw the suck outs coming and altered her play accordingly. Fish in sites - - - tagged. We weren't going to throw out the obvious - 'Why do you play here if it is rigged' argument, that would ruin the fun.

What a run of cards. First, the Spades Royal, then the Hammer Trips, then the Hammer Bluff, and then the tilting fish show. And to top it all off, we got to meet Helixx. Just another night of cards? I think not.

Revelations & Vegas

If you noticed in the comments from the 11th, Meek now reads this blog. He and I sat down at a table alone on Titan poker last night and talked it out. I imagine it was an odd site. A lone player sitting down with his entire bankroll, but sitting out. He's fine with me blogging, that's no longer a problem. I'm kind of like a hole card camera into his play. He's decided to accept it, much like the TV players have.

We also talked about Vegas. I'm in! I am going to Vegas with Meek.

Veneno- "Vegas is just full of Big Boobs..you wouldn't be into that would you?" - comments - Oct 10th post

Big plastic chips do get along with big plastic boobs very well. Vegas won't be a risk to my livelihood either. Meek is going to play from his entertainment fund. I will be able to go through a Neteller transaction to buy a card protector that is a poker chip. I'll go to Vegas embodied in the card protector, since I funded it. Vegas countdown - 3 weeks!

PokerStars Blogger Freeroll

Here's an interesting question. Should Meek be allowed to play in the PokerStars freeroll? Technically, Meek is not a blogger. I am a blogger. He is a reader, (I wonder if he reads this blog . . . if not, that will be interesting the day he discovers it.) This is, of course, assuming that Meek notices that he is registered for a tournament on PokerStars, and is around to play.

This may all be a moot point. Even though I've been on blogger.com for more than 2 months, this blog is less than 2 months old. I'm hearing that other bloggers are being turned away because of the two month rule, even though they post pretty regularly.

Aside from those, there is a bigger reason for me to keep Meek out of this tournament, regardless of if I can get him in or not. I've been reading the poker blogs now for a year. I've read the archives of 20 blogs, going back up to 3 years. These bloggers have put a lot of work into building this community. I've already benefited from all of their writings through Meek's increased skill, knowledge of bonuses, and acquaintances. I'll leave this free roll prize pool to those that deserve it. At last look, the player pool for this was over 1000 players. Are there that many deserving poker bloggers? If so, wow, what a movement. I've got a lot more to read. Anyway, I am not going to register Meek for this tournament. . . . or maybe I could register and dump the chips to Mean Gene ala Tilt the series . . . ah, I wouldn't be able to talk Meek into it seeing how Mean Gene feels about Ohio State. Have fun poker bloggers!

Other Uses for a PBR

Meek recently cut a piece of me to get PokerTracker. Seems to be a neat application, especially with Poker Ace HUD add on to show real time aggression numbers on the screen. Meek is getting ready to charge back into Party waters, where he can use the software. I'm about half in Neteller right now, getting ready for the charge.

Also, I noticed on Meek's email that he has bought some tickets to Vegas for the first weekend in November. There is poker in Vegas. I'm a poker bank roll. Yet he hasn't done anything to cash part of me out yet. I bet you that prick is going to start a 2nd poker bank roll from his entertainment funds and leave me here alone on-line. What if he hits a big tournament win, and that bank roll takes over? On the other hand, what if he cashes me out, and busts me in Vegas. That is a possibility, seeing how the differences between live and internet poker might trip him up. But it would be nice to go to Vegas. Prick. Wonder if I can cash myself out . . .

Let's get this blog going.

Now that we have the history out of the way, let's get to blogging. I suppose we need to get some ground rules established. I'm going to write what I know, and since my existence currently consists of sitting on various poker sites or in Neteller, it is a bit limited in scope. How I wish Meek would get into sports betting so I can at least watch some football when he isn't playing. Maybe he will follow ScurvyDog into that realm. I do get to visit the poker blogs, since Meek has those up in an other windows while we are playing poker, so you may see some odd comments out there. I noticed a lot of hits on Tuesday of this week, and found they mostly came from LasVegasVegas.

April- "Last, but certaintly not least, check out Meek's Poker Bank Roll - a great new blog just getting started, and unlike anything you've seen before."

Thanks April!

YoSoyVeneno has linked this up and sent a few others here. Also, SirFWALGMan was playing at Meek's table last night and mentioned linking this up. SirF drained all the fishes before Meek could get a hand and ended up with some cash. Hopefully Meek learned something, cause I want to get BIG. However, I hear from his blog that SirF likes to bust his bankroll every so often. You don't see his bank roll being nice and starting a blog, do ya? Gotta slow your roll, SirF. Meek, you gotta grow your roll. Maybe some day I could start my own poker site, and collect all that rake . . . sigh . . . Back on topic, since people are checking this out, I'll put up some more content and see if people care to hear from a highly liquidated poker bank roll.

So, ground rules so far:
-I'll post about
1) Meek's poker sessions
2) Any uses Meek has for me
3) Other blogs
-My goal is to grow, but I think Meek wants to get better and move up in levels. He's hit 1/2 for a bit, and dropped back down to 0.5/1. He's a limit grinder now, after reading SSHE. Hopefully our goals get along. If not, I hope he loses me to a more interesting blogger, who could cash me out and we can see the world together.

Fw: Registration

Lets see if I can get Meek to play this tournament.

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 2626927