Ben's Poker

Just want to say how much I've enjoyed discussing / posting hands with you guys and reading through some of the old threads on here.

It's weird how many of your usernames I recognize, also. I used to lurk the fuck out of this site and I can credit a ton of my early development as a player to reading blogs / trawling hand analysis threads.

Anyway, just happy -- even though it's mostly dead -- to see that there's still a few of us kickin' around

1 votes

Comments (2)

This blog has brought back some serious memories, man... It's insane to see the way I looked at life those many years ago.

Brief summary of the last several years... I've always played a bit of poker, but mostly just playing the 3-5 game at my local casino. I was profitable but not insanely so, and usually would spend the profits on travel. Last year I went to Thailand/Cambodia and it was 100% from live poker profits, so that was nice.

Mostly I have focused on my career, where I've got a very comfortable salary now (about 4x what I was making the last time I posted here), and on my poetry. I've been able to perform poetry in a variety of cool places over the last couple of years, including a gala at a Frank Lloyd Wright house, an opening of a bookstore bar, on stage in more than one local showcase, etc. I also won the State Championship "Haiku Deathmatch" last year, which was a blast.

I moved to a place right downtown and am quite active within the local community. Since my job is full-time remote, I tend to go out a lot and frequent the local bars/restaurants, even if it's just to have a salad and read my novel.

In July an old poker buddy of mine was telling me about Bovada & Bitcoin, and how nice the payouts were. He was getting cash within 24 hours, rivaling the golden age of Stars eChecks. I thought I'd give it a shot as I'd uninstalled all video games a few months ago and it might be fun to play online again.

I deposited $200 via bitcoin (circle > blockchain > bovada) and started playing 25NL Zone and a few MTTs. I wasn't really trying to make money or even that worried about bankroll, but I did enjoy the "back to basics" of it all. I realized that I was basically still playing the same poker for the last 5 years and I was behind the times. I hit the books, installed a PT4 trial, and decided I was going to really focus on improving my game. I was successful at 25NL but had to learn a lot of lessons. My positional game and preflop strategy was actually awful. I did a lot of reading and spent time on 2p2 as well as combing my database results. I was studying a couple of hours a day and could feel myself improving quickly.

I made a deep run in a tournament for about $250, and with a bankroll of about $650 I started playing 25NL Heads Up cash. I had some learning to do, but HU Cash has always been my favorite game, and I was able to beat that level quite handily at nearly 30bb/100 over ~5k hands. That, combined with some small wins from betting on League of Legends (the lines for some of the games are REALLY not good), gave me a BR of about $1.5k. I started taking shots at 100NLz, since the 50NLz never runs on Bovada. That went well and I was beating 100NLz at 10bb/100 over ~15k hands. I played some 50NL and 100NL HU, with more realistic winrates but still profiting about $900 over ~9k hands between the two limits. I need to do some more studying/improving to beat 100NL-400NL HU now, as the players there seem pretty solid overall. I can still hang, but I'm certainly not a favorite above 100NL.

I've been BR managing pretty darn aggressively, as this bankroll is entirely "fun money," and I'm still working my job / etc. At around $4k in my roll I began taking shots at 200NL 6max and again did pretty well. I'm beating that limit for ~15bb/100 over ~7k hands currently. With the HUD & more player dependent reads, as well as the general softness of these games on Bovada, I think a 15bb/100 winrate long term is not unrealistic. The games are really that soft. 4-table maximum allows me to pay great attention to the games.

Once at around $6k I started playing some 400NL and have run like Jesus there over my first 2,500 hands (I won a KK v AA aipf, and I've held in some very large 60-40 stituations, etc). I'm definitely far above expectation, but I also think that as long as I continue playing properly I can be a winner at these stakes. My All-In adjusted rate is 22bb/100 over this small sample, but most of that is luck I believe. I need to keep reading and improving if I'm going to win long term, but I think I can do it. Again, the games on Bovada are extremely soft. The swings can be pretty large, so I've got a strict stoploss where I will move back down to 200NL.

The biggest thing I have going for me this time around is discipline and emotional stability. I used to tilt pretty badly, but now I am much older and much more stable. I have not tilted, live or online, in a long time. I think being generally happy with my life and situation helps me view poker abstractly. I've also been playing off and on for about 11 years now, so I'm no longer as amazed at variance.

All in all, with Esports + Tourney profits, I've turned that $200 deposit into nearly $9k.

Giraffe:


So nostalgic to be posting in this community again. Hope everyone is doing well.

0 votes

Comments (7)

I'm looking to transfer ~5k$ from FTP to Stars.

I am willing to send first to reputable members.

Thanks!

1 votes

Comments (2)