Week 11 & 12 Report

Stats:

Poker Play: +$24.50
Poker Bonuses: +$95
Casino Bonuses: -$39

Total: +$80.50

As I mentioned in my last post, I forgot to do a report at teh end of week 11, so i'm including it in this week's report.

Its been a pretty good two weeks where I've continued make more money at 1/2 limit. I'm now up by a total of $130, which is a pretty big turn around from a couple of months ago when I was down by $220. I still have $270 to win to reach my target though, in order to move up the stakes to 2/4. I've also started playing some NL tournaments again. I played a bunch of $5+50c sit'n go's and 1 multi table tournament. I have yet to find my form again though. For some reason Poker Tracker doesn't/ wasn't keeping track of by tournament play, so I don't actually have the exact stats available. Here are my poker stats anyway:

Poker:

No Limit:
MTT: -$11
SNG: -$28
1 x 1st : +$17
1 x 3rd: +$4.50
9 x 4th-9th: -$49.50

Limit:
Poker Stars: +$35.50
Will Hill: +$28

Poker Bonuses:
Will Hill: +$95

I played at Will Hill for a while to clear the poker bonus there that was double this month, 10 pounds for every table hour up to 50 pounds... sweet. However earlier I dropped $39 at the Will Hill monthly bonus. Somehow I managed to jump my bets from 2/ hand to 5/ hand without realising, which compounded the loss, I detailed it in the casino bonuses thread. For some reason I haven't played many casino bonuses in ages, but I've going to have to get onto them this week becasue i've only got five more days to do the Intercasino, Littlewoods and UK betting monthly's.

Casino Bonuses:

Will Hill: -$39

I've been working one day a week for a while now, making around 150- 160 a week, and since I'm on holidays i'm working three days this week, including a whopping 9 hour day today. So I'm going to have over a grand in the bank at the end of the holidays which means I'll definately be financially capable of living how I want and not having to scrounge money from mum and dad when I want to go out or to get a bus ticket or something. It also means that theres no pressure on my poker play/ casino bonus business in order to get funds... so I can take it easy. However I'd still like to make my 8000 by the end of the year, my short term goal at the moment is to make it to 2/4 stakes, but that could take a little time. My even shorter term goal is to do this months monthly's then start hitting the semi stickies... finally. Hopefull then I'll see my bankroll increase in leaps and bounds.

Between the semi stickies, stickies, and monthlies, I should be able to put on another 1200 to get my bankroll up to 4000. Then if I make it to 3/6 stakes I would've had to have won about 1270, so my bankroll will be up to 5270.... then its just a matter of making up the last 1730 through play at 3/6 and further bonus swindling. All in all its a pretty ambitious goal, as I mentioned in the beggining, but even if I don't make it, at least it will provide me motivation to work at building my bankroll.

Video Poker Bonuses- The Final Punch

In a cruel twist of fate... not even a week after I'd finished with the Fortune Group of Video Poker Bonuses and booked a loss of 200 bucks, I received an email telling me that the Fortune Group of casino's are lowering the WR on all of their bonuses. The WR were pretty much all 20 x deposit and bonus, now they've been reduced to only 20 x bonus. If this had been enforce while I was doing the bonuses, it could have made many of the bonuses profitable... BUGGER!!!

In other news, for some reason I forgot to do the weekly report at the end of week 11, so I'm just doing to do a joint report at the end of this week (week 12). I'm also working at getting my affiliate program up and running... more on that soon.

Week 10 Report (Back in Black)

Stats:

Poker Play: +$163

Total: +$163

Its not the end of the week yet, however, I'm going on a four day bushwalk so I won't be playing any more poker or casino bonuses anyway.

All I've played this week is poker, and I've had a really good week at it. I seemed to be hitting every hand I played, and won some nice pots. It was a combination of getting good cards and playing well. It also led to me being back in the black... i.e. back in the positive overall which is wicked. I'm now up by $38 at 1/2 limit stakes. I'll be sure to post a graph as promised when I get back from my bushwalking trip. In order to move up in stakes, I just need to win another $362 and I'm there.

With this poker win and hopefully some profit from the monthly crypto's and maybe casino euro/ and cherry casino monthly's, my bankroll will hopefully get up to the $2800 mark which will be good for hitting the semi stickies.

The Uni Holidays are looming up again soon, so I'll be able to play a lot more poker and bonuses and also make some blog improvements and set up my affiliate program.

My job that I've been doing once a week for a day is also going great. I'm making 19.50 an hour, so about 150-160 a week, which is enough to keep me happy. It also means I won't need to transfer some poker winnings back to my bank account as soon as I had previously planned. Still got my eyes on the 8000 bankroll by the end of the year.

We'll see how i go.

Week 9 Report

Stats:

Poker Play: +$16
Casino Bonuses: -$94

Total: -$78

I played about 500 odd hands for the week at poker. I only made 16 bucks, which I was a bit dissapointed with because i was up by 80 at one point but then lost it all in one session on sunday, oh well, thats poker!

Read more about how my casino bonuses went this week by looking in the thread, the curse of the casino bonuses.

Casino Bonsues:

Seven Sultans Casino: +$42
Desert Dollar Casino: -$60
Vegas Towers Casino: -$50
Pltinum Play Casino: +$33
Begas Palms Casino: -$8.75
Fortune Room Casino: -$50

Total: -$93.75

So now obviously I'm not up to where I wanted to be to start the semi sticky bonuses (aournd 3000-35000), but It won't be too much of a problem, my bankroll it still big enoguh. I'm going to do the monthly crypto's for september and try to get my balance back up to 2800 odd before tackling the semi stickies.

I'm also got a new set of goals worked out. I no longer need to take out a thousand when i get to 5 grand, becuase I've got a job one day a week, making 150 a day, so i'm surviving from that. my gals no are:

1. win 400 at 1/2 poker stakes and more up to 2/4.
2. win 1000 at 2/4 stakes and have a total bankroll of at least 4000 and move up to 3/6 stakes
3. make 8000 total by the end of the year, so i can withdraw 3000 to by bank account, which will be 4000 AUS, and use that to play 4/8 at the casino, and keep the other 5g in my online account and continue to move up stakes from there

You may notice that i've included a time goal. Something I haven't done before. eight grand by the end of the year. It is a very ambitious and optimistic goal, but will hopefully give me some good motivation, and if I don't make it it won't be the end of the world.

The Curse of the Video Poker Bonuses

I played only Video Poker bonuses this week as far as bonus swindling goes. My hope was to bring my bankroll from around 2750 to 3500, or at least $3000, before I went on to hit the semi stickies. But I came up a little short.

All the video poker bonuses I played were of similar casino's that use microgaming software. The bonuses were mostly 100% on first deposit up to $50-$100 with some other more creative bonuses thrown in there. The WR were pretty much all 20 x bonus and deposit, of which 20% could be cleared at blackjack and the other 80% had to be cleared at some video poker games. The bonusbug forum guides suggested that Aces and Faces was the best allowable game for the clearing the bonuses. The good thing was that the microgaming software has autoplay so I didn't have to play any of the blackjack or vid poker myself, just set the number of hands to play and press start. The guide warned me to expect swings, and it was right.

I'm not sure of the exact casino edge for Aces and Faces on these bonuses because it wasn't listed in the guides or at wizard of odds.com. The thing with video poker is that most of the money is tied up in the bigger hands like straight and royal flushes. In the long run, you will hit enough of these hands, but in the short run you can expect some pretty big swings. The odds of hitting the royal, which would have payed out at $4000 if i'd hit it, were about 40 000 to 1.

I made a little bit of money on some of the bonuses, but lost on most and ultimately came out down about $300 for all video poker bonuses this week and last. I was betting 25c a spin and 5 coins a spin, so $1.25 per spin. I did this because there was a bonus amount for hitting the royal if you were playing maximum coins. Upon reflection, I probably should have played only one coin at 25c to get less fluctuations and hence make a better profit.

There are some more vid poker bonuses to hit up, but i'm gonna wait will i'm better bankrolled to it them. I'll detail all the bonus win/losses in the weekly report.