2009: The Year of The Triple Up

Time to look back one final time...

The year of fear, they called it on the news.
I don't know. I wasn't really there.
The Year of Nowhere
(but here)

I cannot remember ever been away from home for longer than a day.
Been to Holland a few times
and I do remember one Summer day in Ghent.
That's about it.
I started out on my own.
Now the year is coming to a end
I'm on my own again.

Luckily,
all things poker are fine

2009 was a good year.
It sure didn't feel that way
 but it was.

I have more than 3 times the amount of money I started playing with on January 1.
A fine investment.
Tripled my bankroll in a year.
+$3K in profit
'Bing Blang Blaow'
I hoped and dreamed to make a lot more, offcourse
Nevertheless,
starting out with $ and ending with $$$+ equals happines.
It's been a good time, after all.

Nothing left to do but smile and counting down the days until I'll be away from here...

The PokerStars Adventure

Last May I took a rather impulsive decision.
Without any plans for the upcoming summer,
going trough a long, troublesome downswing on Full Tilt
I opened a PokerStars-account and deposited $500.
Unlocking their first-deposit-bonus looked very Ev+
It was.
After cashing the bonus I quickly forgot all about it.
Always busy with Full Tilt happy hours, the Iron Man Challenge, SNG Madness, etc.
No time left for PokerStars.
Until this afternoon, when counting the 2009 bankroll...
Turned out I made almost $200 on Stars...
Must have been a good run of cards!
A well-spend deposit.
Just bank-transfered the profit...
It's a whole new level of satisfaction to cash out poker dollars and turn them into real-life $$$...
This must be what it's all about!
Play poker + Cash out = Enjoy life

2009: The Year of RakeBack

Maybe it sounds like I'm on repeat. I probably am.

Rakeback can turn a small-time loser into a slightly winning player..

Think about it.

But most of all I just wanted to post this picture:

(Picture made by some Two Plus Two-dude)

December Reviewed

Another profitable poker month it was...
I played only Sit 'n Go's and Multi-Table Tournaments on Full Tilt.
No cash games, no other poker rooms.
Don't know why really.
It just turned out that way.
Anyway, I wasn't able to keep up the +$1K profit 'till the end.
Made just under half of that amount.
Still, not bad at all.
My fifth winning month in a row.
I'm happy.

2009: The Year of The Bonus

I never realized how much money there's to be made with poker bonuses.
Rakeback and bonuses had a huge impact on my total profit.
Maybe because my Return On Investment is just a single digit...
This year I got more than half of my poker income out of rakeback, the Full Tilt Iron Man Challenge and numerous other bonuses...
So putting in the extra hours to unlock a bonus can make a big difference.
I'll know what to do next year...
Cashing in on reward programs as a little cure for variance.

Don't Be A Fish (Get RakeBack)

When you play Sit 'n Go's or Multi-Table Tournaments online you always pay an entrance fee to the poker room. How much depends on the size of the buy-in and the speed of the game. In cash games the poker room takes a certain fee out of each pot.

But did you know you can get a refund on any rake you pay?

If you sign up for a new account on any online poker room trough RakeFreeze you'll get back a portion of the rake you pay each month... (Up to 40%!)

This can have a huge impact on your winnings (or losses) over any amount of time...

Start 2010 in style;
make sure to maximize your profit by getting rakeback at RakeFreeze.com!

A Rather Rich Fish (Time to Relax)

A year ago I played $12 Turbo Sit 'n Go's on Full Tilt.
That was the highest buy-in I was bankrolled for at the time.

Over this Christmas weekend I played sixty $60 Turbo Sit 'n Go's.
The idea was to get rich or loose it all in 1 weekend.
Nothing really happened.
No drama, no busted bankroll or excessive wins.
About break-even, not including rakeback.  But it was good fun.
Really, it's been a long time since I had this kind of fun playing online poker....

Now I'm confident and bankrolled to play a lot more $60 SNG's.
So, this it. I am where I want to be.
Struggling, swearing and sweating a whole year to make it to the $60 level. It's been the goal from the start of 2009. My bankroll-management-chart stops here.
A goal reached,
time to relax.
I don't feel the need to push it much further than this anytime soon.
All I want to be is a happy $60-level player (for now).
Maybe play less hours, cash out some of my winnings and spend more time enjoying this silly thing called life ...

Only three more weeks and I'll finally leave this dull city behind.
Craving the sunshine.
Longing for that little beach town far out in the East.
Got someone waiting for me in paradise...

The Christmas Blues

So this is Christmas

And what have we done?

Another year over

A new one not just yet begun...
Contrary to popular believe
there are some fine holiday tunes
(and liquor & dope, of course)
to fight off this x-mas blues
Smallish sample size...

Tom Waits - Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis


Jon Lajoie - Cold Blooded Christmas


Bob Dylan - Must Be Santa

Offline: The Final Frontier

My internet connection has been very unreliable for the last two weeks.
Luckily I never got disconnected while playing any serious poker.

But it still was a troublesome time.

Suddenly there's nothing more than this lonely place in the cold, dark winter night.
No poker.
No Skype, no e-mail, no Twitter.
No movies to download
Not even Google Maps to find my way to the repair shop.
Lost in the offline world.
Life's hard out there.
Seriously.

The thought of having to spend the whole Christmas weekend in that scary world almost drove me mad.
'The Horror! The Horror!'

But salvation came right in time.
After numerous stressful calls to my Internet Service Provider, they finally gave in and decided to send a technician. It worked out great. He was friendly and helpful. Not at all as expected. I have no idea what he did exactly. But he spend over an hour with wires and modems and stuff, doing tests and whatnot until he could guarantee internet would not let me down again.
Forget about Jesus.
This Christmas I dedicate to that internet-repair guy.
He helped me escape the darkness and brought me back into the shiny light of a high-speed internet connection. That's a hell of a lot more than I can give Jesus credit for...

So time to get back on schedule...
While the rest of the world is indulging in food and drinks, I'll be sharp and ready to take anyone's money who decides to play a few $60 Sit n' Go's on Full Tilt in between Christmas celebrations.

Thank you, technician dude!

Moving Up

Done playing the $30-level Sit 'n Go's at Full Tilt.
Good bankroll management dictates the time is now.
I don't care about the swings anymore.

The goals is to get rich
(or fail and be miserable).

There's no time for in-between anymore.
If I'm going to be an average poker-player, I might as well just be an average TV-viewer.
It's all the same, anyway.

So about moving up...
Playing the $50-level Sit 'n Go's.
At first I was bit nervous.
But it's the same game.
Nothing ever chances.
Still lots of fishy moves going on,
still in need of luck every now and then.
More money to be won or lost.
That's it.

Things didn't really go my way on this first day. No worries. Tomorrow's another day.

Losing is a lot less stressful

when turning back is not an option...

How Not To Run A Company

Rather early this morning my precious sleep got brutally interrupted by a phone call. It was my boss telling me (accusing me) I should be at work right now.

"No, I shouldn't. 
I have a day off and you signed the document to approve it yourself, 
you dumb cocksucker! 
I have it right here and will stick it in your face, with great satisfaction (tomorrow morning)!
Now shut up and let me sleep."

What I really say is, of course, a very sleepy and way more polite version of those specific thoughts...

The point being if you cannot even keep track of something like this, how can you possibly run a company in a successful way? This is just another example of the poor performance the management demonstrates time after time.
I try not to give a fuck,
just enjoying the ride to the monthly paycheck,
planning to leave one day.
But it's so depressing to see how dumb people take dumb decisions time after time, only to blame the economical crisis for the decline of their company...

Underachieving's a bitch.

My advice; if you have any holiday gifts to send this Christmas, send them by UPS.

Punch In The Face

Full Tilt Poker MiniFTOPS Event #8 No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t30/t60 Blinds - 6 players - View hand 423476

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: t4055 M = 45.06

Hero (SB): t4220 M = 46.89

BB: t3345 M = 37.17

UTG: t7530 M = 83.67

MP: t5160 M = 57.33

CO: t10690 M = 118.78

Pre Flop: (t90) Hero is SB with Q Q

2 folds, CO raises to t180, BTN calls t180, Hero calls t150, BB calls t120

Most of the time I will 3bet in this spot but the CO and the BTN have been rock tight over about 100 hands. Having them both in a raised pot smells like trouble. So I decide to see a flop, planning to probably check-fold most flops. The BB has been playing very loose so far. His call is as expected.

Flop: (t720) 4 8 8 (4 players)

Hero checks, BB bets t500, CO folds, BTN folds, Hero calls t500

A donk-bet by the BB and the two rocks folding is a beautiful recipe for taking down a big pot. We are too deep-stacked for me to raise. I don't want to get check-raised by a silly flush draw or something.

Turn: (t1720) J (2 players)

Hero checks, BB bets t2665 all in, Hero calls t2665

Another beautiful sequence for my hand. A safe card on the turn and the fish overbetting the pot. Here I'm very confident. Or he has a four and got scared of the Jack or he has hit his Jack (by surprise) and is going nuts. Either way I got him beat.

River: (t7050) K (2 players - 1 is all in)

Final Pot: t7050

Hero shows Q Q (two pair, Queens and Eights)

BB shows 8 9 (three of a kind, Eights)

Bye bye, dreams...

BB wins t7050

A Night To Forget

Not even two hours into my big Full Tilt Poker multi-table tournament session... That's all the time it took to shatter my hope and dreams for tonight.

Busted out of MiniFTOPS #8 just before the first break,
busted out of the daily $11 Heads-Up Tournament in Round 2...

Now I'm only 1-tabling the $11 Super Stack $10K Guarantee but the earlier losses and the super slowwwww structure of this tournament make it very hard to stay focused (or even to stay awake)...

So another day without victory...
Quiet and uneventful.
No alarms or surprises.
Winning big will be for another day
once again...

A Night To Remember?

Today was a beautiful, cold winter day.
Slept 'till noon, played some sit 'n go's and did a bit of cleaning up.
Around dusk I went for a long, good run.
After a hot shower and a hot cup of tea it's time for a night of multi-table tournaments at Full Tilt Poker. The MiniFTOPS are running. So I'll start with Event #8, a $200K Guarantee 6-max Knockout tournament. Playing numerous other tournaments while the night unfolds... Hopefully finishing off in style somewhere in the early morning hours...
Let's hope it's a good one!

11 Days. 11 Hundred.

So 2 Months. 2 Million. was a cool show...
But they didn't reach their goal, did they?
Plenty of hot women, pool side party's, Las Vegas nightlife and goofy stunts. But nowhere near $2 million profit....

Here at Filthy Rich Fish things are different.
No women, no party's, not much going on in general...
No goofiness except my own reflection in the mirror (early in the morning).

Here it's all about...

Eternal traffic jams (driving me crazy),
dark days and lonely nights.
Pitch black coffee and lots of cigarettes.
Staring at shadows on the wall.
Listening to Dylan singing christmas songs
(over and over again)
Wondering about the point of it all...
and over 20 hours of
grinding $36 Sit 'n Go's at Full Tilt.

But this morning,
just before dawn I reached a personal milestone:

11 Days into December, a little over $1K in Sit 'n Go winnings!

(Damn proud about it)

On The Edge

Playing on the edge is going great.

Running high above expectation.
My ROI is well above 30% for the month.
Life is very easy with a double digit Return On Investment...

Staying sharp and focused doesn't take much effort when in the flow.
Cashing almost most of the time.
Cashing a lot...
($$$!)

My time all alone in the big, cold city is certainly paying of for now.
I'm sure the Sit 'n Go Video Series by Derek Williams on PokerVT also helps me a lot. With very little distractions, the $36 Sit 'n Go games on Full Tilt are very soft. Avoiding the bad side of variance is all it really takes.

But, I know, the real challenge is further down the path.
Every single fish runs hot every now and then.
The trick is to stay focused and dedicated when the deck turns cold.
Until then,
I'm going to push this sweet, sweet upswing as far as possible...

A Simple Plan

The goal for December is simple and short:

'Play as much poker as possible!!!'


2009 was an uneventful and boring year.
In life and in poker:
didn't go anywhere,
didn't even really try to get somewhere.
Maybe something was going on
but I didn't know what or where...

I've been playing poker poorly for the last 10 months or so.
Like a scared, little middlle-class office clerk:
proudly writing down every small winning session
but being oh-so afraid and upset after loosing...

Things are different now.
This time I feel completely committed.

It's impossible to win big on a regular basis
if you can't handle equally big losses.
Handling big money swings is a crucial skill in poker.

But if winning or losing a few hundred dollar a month makes me feel good or bad... Well, I might as well try fantasy football, start playing 'Monopoly' or hang out with colleagues in a crappy bar after work.
Whatever.
Hobby's are for losers.

I'm in it for the money.

Better to crash and burn (or rise and get rich) then to fade away.
This winter I'll put my money where my mouth is...

November Reviewed

Too much wondering
Way too much waiting
Almost no poker

Only 915 hands in cash games and
146 games of tournament play
(heads up, sit 'n go and multi-table combined)

Those numbers almost suggest I have a life away from the computer.

Don't let them fool you.

It was just a rough start
than I got seriously sidetracked by
life, love & whatnot

Now I am back.
Up about +$30 for the month.

Fully committed for more.
Next month I'll go all the way...
(upriver & beyond)