Get A Real Job!

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Mirage Poker Showdown

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

WPT

2004: Season 2

Grand Prix de Paris

2005: Season 3

Mirage Poker Showdown

Grand Prix de Paris

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Tournament of Champions

Final Table

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

WSOP

2006

Main Event
Tournament of Champions

2005

Main Event

WSOP 2006 Main Event

WPT: Bad Boys of Poker

WPT: Bad Boys of Poker 2

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Australian Poker

Aussie Millions

Aussie Millions 2007 Promo

Phil Ivey Knockout

Erick Lindgren Interview- 100K event winner

Joseph Hachem

2005 WSOP Main Event Final Table

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10

Monday, January 15, 2007

Tony G

Intercontinental Poker Championship- Tony G Eliminates Ralph Perry and releases a stream of insults and taunting

Intercontinental Poker Championships 2- More Great play by Tony G

Highlights Part 1

Highlights Part 2

Tony G Rips Apart Paris

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Tony G v Mike "The Mouth"

Tony G v Men Nguyen

Bad Boys of Poker 2

Poker Vids Directory

Lately I've been discovering the joys of youtube and watching many a poker vid. However, I find that its often hard to navigate through the crap and find the good stuff, so I've decided to create this directory to make life easier for myself and others. Feel free to bookmark this page if you want, as I will be updating it regularly. You can also browse the rest of the blog from the links below:

Helpful Site Links

Home

Building Poker Bankroll

Vids Directory

High Stakes Poker- Very interesting and a welcome change from watching tournaments. NL Hldm cash games with min buy in of 100K, featuring all the best players in the world.

Tony G- Lithuanian Born Australian Tony G, known as the biggest trash talker in poker is a fantastic player and one of my favourites to watch. Some people may thing that his table talk is 'not poker' and unsportsman like, but I think that it is a valuable weapon at the table and comedy gold. Enjoy!

Australian Poker- Since I'm an Australian, I like to see some Australian poker vids. Heres some of the Aussie Millions and famous Aussie Poker Players.

WSOP- A series of poker tournaments that poker players world wide look forward to as the biggest poker event of the year. Continuously setting records for the largest fields and biggest payouts year after year, and featuring the pinnacle of tournament poker, the NL Holdem WSOP Main Event.

WPT- The show that has revolutionised poker, a series of tournaments around america and the world. Featuring pro's and online qualifers alike, its anyone's game.

High Stakes Poker

Swingidy Swing

I thought I had got my anger and frustration and mental toughness to deal with swings under control, but now I realise that was totally wrong. Due to the fact that I'm now playing higher stakes, the swings are twice as big as they were previously and I think this is the problem. I have strived to think of my poker play in terms of units but I can't seem to ignore the dollar figures.

Usually it seems that when I go on a losing streak it doesn't really affect my play, but affects my anger and I started smashing my fist on the table or throwing things against the wall because I feel so frustrated... I can't seem to help it. However, last night, not only was I angry on the outside, but I also let it greatly affect my play. I managed to donk off about $40 (10 BB) from just making stupid plays like calling down with AK high. When I'm losing it always feels like everyone is trying to bluff me.

I think the best solution would be to set lower stop loss limits, as I generally play worse when I'm losing anyway so its probably a good move. Currenlty I have a stop loss limit of 30 BB, but I'm going to lower that to 20 BB. Also I'll try much harder to externally monitor myself, and if I feel myself tilting, I need to just walk away.

The Year That Was: 2006 Progress Report

Period: July 05- Dec 31

Its been about six months since I began this blog and began taking poker seriously. A lot has happened to further my poker knowledge during that time, and a lot hasn't happened that I thought would. All in all its been six months of very high ups, very low downs and lots of inbetweenies.

In the Beginning

I went back and read my first ever post today and it was funny to see what all my expectations were back then. For example, in my first post I beleived that I could play 10,000 hands in my first week, when in actual fact it took about 3 months to reach the 10,000 hand mark. In the beggining, I was to make poker and bonus swindling my "sole source of income" as it says in the blog description, but a month or so after the start of the blog I got a regular job which brings in about twice as much in a day than I make in a whole month from my gambling pursuits.

Ring Games

I finished the year up by $481.80 for ring games, which included 1/2 and 2/4 full table, and 50c/1 shorthanded. The biggest thing I learnt, or experienced in ring games was to do with variance. I wasn't prepared for the mental aspects of dealing with the swings that come with any form of poker. I'd like to think that I've improved my control of my feelings and emotions when I'm on a downswing, but I know I still have a long way to go here. To this point I've played 19,000 hands in ring games.

Tournies

For some reason, Poker Tracker doesn't track my tourny stats properly, so I no doubt missed some results from tournies played pre 20/09. After realising the problem I've started keeping track of all my tourny stats in excel. I started off playing mainly large MTT's and 180 person SNG's on Poker stars and full tilt at the $10 buy in level, but I quickly lost 10 in a row and was down $110. I decided to drop down to games at the $5 buy in level and played tournies with less ppl on full tilt, ie. 9 and 90 plyr sng's and smaller MTT's and I've seen my results greatly improve. Recently I managed to completely wipe out my negative balance and make into the black.

Strategy

My original poker strategy was to only play "Nines or better wired, Jacks or better split, three high cards to the flush,"- Rounders. The 'True-grinder' strategy where I would play very tight but about 4 tables at once. I'm not sure whether this strategy is wrong, or if I didn't implement it correctly, or if I was just on a downswing, but I quickly fell down to -$200 and decided to change my strategy. I purchased a book on small stakes holdem and applied their strategies to my game, and from this point saw my results improve and playing also became more fun. Since then I've purchased many more poker books on limit, no-limit, both and some others, but none were as informing as the first.

Stats

Early on I decided to fork out and buy Poker Tracker and download Poker Patterns to track and analyse my stats. These two peices of software are well worth the money and I strongly recomend that every new poker player has them. I had intended to learn how to use them to their maximum potential but didn't really get into it... yet. More recently I've been playing poker on my mac laptop which isn't supported by pokertracker so I haven't been able to use it. Instead I've been tracking my basic result stats in excel, which is good because results never go missing as hand histories often seem to.

Targets

I set myself many targets and goals over the course of the past 6 months but was dissapointed that many of them weren't acheived or weren't acheived as quickly as I'd hoped. The main target that I did reach was that I got to the point of being up by $400 (double the my results low point of -200), and was able to move up in limits from 1/2 to 2/4. I had hoped to have my bankroll up at the 8000 mark by the end of the year, this soon dropped to 7000 then 5000 but I was unable to even make it to that. Many unforceen difficulties contributed to my not reaching the target, so I'm not particularly disspointed, and I'm not going to give up or anything.

My key targets for the months to come are to move up from 2/4 to 3/6 by winning $1000 at 2/4, as well as get my entire bankroll up to $7000 so I can withdraw $3000 which will become my live bankroll.

Casino Bonuses

I'm very happy that I started doing Casino bonuses all those months ago because that is one of the major reasons that I'm where I am today. Over two thirds of my total bankroll are profits from Casino Bonus Swindling and doing bonuses taught me valuable lessons about variance and patience. Unfortunately, as already mentioned, I have been unable to finish of the last of the casino bonuses lately, but I should get back onto them soon.

Affiliate Program

The other reason that I'm glad that I did the casino bonuses is because it has allowed me to develope my affiliate program which I have almost finished now and will hopefully be very successful.

Above and Beyond

I've already discussed my targets for the next few months, but I have some ideas of where I'd like to be by this time next year. I would like to be playing full ring game stakes of at least 5/10 and short handed stakes of 2/4. I would like to have progressed up to the 10-25 buyin tounry level as well as started playing NL holdem cash games. In terms of live play, I hope to build my AU$4000 bankroll up to $13000 then use $1000 to do a course for blackjack-masters and start playing blackjack in the casino for money.

If I can acheie all of the above... I'm considering taking a year after I finish my uni course, which will be in 2 yrs time and become a profesional gambler for a year...

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Monthly Report: Dec 06

Stats:

Tournies: +$103
MTT: (1): +$75.60
SNG: (21): +$27.40
90 plyr: (4): -$22
9 plyr: (17): +$49.40

Ring Games: +$15.50
$1/$2 Full: +$100
$2/$4 Full: -$46
50c/$1 Short: -$38.50

All Poker: +$118.50

FTP Bonus Unlocked: +$80

Overall the month wasn't too bad. As mentioned in my previous post, I reached my first target of being up by $400 at $1/$2 Full Ring, and as a result moved up to $2/$4 Full Ring. I had a number of good winning sessions at 2/4 before hitting my first down swing and having to deal with session losses double the size of any I'd seen before.

I've been playing more and more tournies and sng's of late and starting to see some promising results, however It should be noted that to get a true picture in terms of tournaments you need a sample size of around the 800- 1000 games at least, so it will be some time before I know my true winrate. The highlate for the month would have to be coming 3rd in a $5.50 MTT with 128 ppl in it and making a profit of $75.

I'm still unable to do Casino Bonuses due to the lack of internet on the PC, however that shouldn't be the case for too much longer as I know how to fix it.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Target Reached

Today I managed to reach my first target, reaching the point of being up by $400 in $1/$2 limit full ring games. Next time i sit down to play limit I'll be playing $2/$4 which will be very exciting stuff. Unfortunately we haven't got the internet connected on the desktop computer yet so I haven't been able to do any casino bonuses, so my target of finishing all the sticky bonuses before the end of the year looks all but impossible to acheive. It also means that I can't transfer my hand histories from my laptop to the desktop in order to analyse my play in pokertracker. However, I have started recording each of my session's results in a little book and also on excel, so I do have a solid record of my basic win/loss stats.

My next goal is to try and make it to $3/$6 by the end of the year, which is only about 2 weeks away. It looks to be a difficult task as I need to win $1000 at $2/$4 in order to move up. In light of the internet problems and my inability to do casino bonuses, my bankroll target of at least $5000 by the end of the year is looking more and more unlikely, let alone my optimistic target of $8000. My short handed game is going very swingily at the moment, but that was to be expected as its the nature of the beast.

I've been thinking more and more about playing live poker at the casino on a regular basis and longing for the time when I will be able to do it. This is still a long way off however, because I need to reach a bankroll target of $7000, so I can withdraw US$3000 to form my offline bankroll of AU$4000. If I can keep at it, then hopefully I'll get there before the end of the holidays, which gives my about 10 weeks.

Lately, and during my exam period, I have been finding what a good resourse youtube is for poker videos. I have spent many hours watching poker clips on youtube, mostly High Stakes Poker which was created by GSN. Its different, and in my opinion, much more interesting than televised tournaments, because of the range of hands that are played and how they are played, along with the fact that its REAL MONEY and all the table talk and antics that go on in a cash game but not so much in a tournament. I'm going to put together a youtube poker movies directory soon, because one thing I found was navigating all the movies to find the right ones I was looking for.

In other news, I've finally started to sign up to the rest of the affiliate accounts that I need to for my affiliate program. Its a big job, because theres something like 50 different accounts I have to sign up for, but at least the ball is rolling now. Once all the affiliate links are in place I'll start promoting the guides etc on various forums to get some traffic. I think I'll try and focus mainly on the Australian market, because its a relativly young and untapped market and its one that I know more about than any other because I am an Australian.

In non poker/ website circles, I got my Uni results the other day and although I got my first two distinctions so far for my course, I also got my first fail, which I was expecting but was still quite dissapointing. I did well with that particular subject throughout the semester without trying particularly hard and missing a lot of tutorials and most lectures which meant that I was way behind when it came to the exam. I just simply didn't put in the required time for my revision and with the exam paper being quite hard this semester, I had almost no hope. Hopefully I'll learn something from this and it will ensure that I don't slack off and fail any more subjects. On the good side of things, Christmas is right around the corner. I've just about finished all my x-mas shopping and I think everyone will like the gifts I have got this year, probably becasue I was able to splash around a bit more this year than other years as I now have an ongoing job. I get good satisfaction from seeing my family enjoy seeing what I've given them, its great.

Just in case you're wondering, I'm aware that the description of this blog says "marking poker and casino bonus swindling my SOLE source of income" and quite soon after I've openly told how I got a real job and I'm making far more from it than I am from poker, however having no where near as much fun.

Friday, December 15, 2006

Monthly Report: November

Stats:

Limit Poker: +$35

Short: -$62
Full: +$97

Tourny's: +$39.25

MTT: -$16.50
SNG: +$55.75

90 Player DS: +$51
9 Player: +$4.75

All Poker Total: +$74
FTP Bonus: +$80

Grand Total: +$154

November was a hectic month because I had uni exams PLUS we were moving house. My exam period was from the 12th to the 22nd, and for a week or so before that I was in SWOT VAC studying so it left much less time for poker, but I managed to squeeze some in here and there when I needed a break from study. As can be seen from the stats summary above, the most rewarding aspect of poker for Nov was my tournament sucess. I've just started getting back into tournaments and I played a lot of 90 player Deep Stack SNG's, which seem to be my prefered structure and size, throughout November. I managed to make it to the money a number of times including a 2nd, 5th and 8th. Ironically, of those three final table finishes, I thought I'd played my best poker in the one where I came in 8th, I just couldn't catch any cards at the final table there.

As can also be seen, I lost a fair bit playing short handed which I'm not too fazed about because thats simple that nature of short handed play, high variance. The fact that I made back the money and more in full ring games also blunted the impact of my short handed loss.

These stats are really only from the first half of Nov because from the 15th to the 22nd, it was getting into the meat of my exams so I had less time to play as I was studying so much. Also, from the 22nd till the end of the month, I had planned to cram lots of poker in and try and get my targets into range, however, we moved house on the 23rd and the internet wasn't connected until Dec 2nd so I ended up missing the whole 2nd half of November.

Due to the loss of the Internet and exams etc, I didn't play ANY casino bonuses for the whole of Nov, infact, if you remember, I only played one bonus, Intercasino, in October, so hopefully I'll be able to get onto them soon. In terms of my goals, the next one in my sights is to reach the mark of being up by $400 at $1/$2 full ring games so I can move up in stakes to $2/$4. I've only got to win about $70 more to do this.