Cracked 10 G's on Sunday!

Though I am below that number right now though, this is a pretty big milestone for me. 10 G's!! I started playing online poker exactly one year ago by depositing $50 into a PokerStars account. I tooled around PokerStars from June through August playing limit (YUCK!) and small SNGs with my bankroll always between $25 and $100. The I started taking this little hobby a little more seriously and worked hard growing my bankroll. $5,280 of that 10 G's is from Bonuses. Considering that I was a pretty much a break even player up until March, that is pretty amazing.

So I got back from my little mini-vacation this weekend, and the kids were in bed on Sunday, so I decided to fire up the ole poker machine and put in a few hands at Pacific. In about an hour worth of time, I had my best poker day ever under my belt with a profit of $600! That was from just two 200NL tables and one 100NL table. The biggest pot was a set over set win for me for someone's full stack at 200NL. So when I logged off on Sunday, my bankroll was just a hair over 10 G's.

Since then, I've dropped a little bit, but I've learned a few things from the little downswing from the last two days. Having a calling station (especially one on your left) in a 6 max game leads to high variance. You can definitely win a lot off of them, but you need to catch some cards to do so. I wasn't catching cards Monday morning, and I made the mistake of being my normal aggressive self against this calling station and lost a bit. What pissed me off even more is that he would bleed the chips he won off of me to the other people at the table and eventually busted. I am going to have to work on being more patient with these types of players. I start to tilt a little bit when I am at a table with a few fishies, and everyone but me is taking their money.

And then there were two big hands that I lost where I tried to make some moves and they didn't work. On one of the hands, I was in the SB with QTo. It was folded to the solid player button who limped, and I raised it up, hoping to just steal. Flop came Ten high, and I lead out with a 3/4 pot bet and get min-raised by the solid player. I hate min-raisers with a passion, so I was going to take a stand. I called the flop raise, and when another blank came on the turn, I bet a decent amount again. I should have read the writing on the wall when HE MIN-RAISED ME AGAIN! But instead I pushed, and he showed me the other two tens for top set. Ugggg. I should just have folded. That was terrible. Bad PokerFool! Bad!

The other hand I called a small raise from the BB on what looked like a blind steal. On the 9 high rainbow flop, He bet under half pot, and I raised him triple with only middle pair, hoping to steal it. He thought a long time but finally called. Too bad he also only had middle pair, but he paired his other card on the turn. Just a little unlucky there for me, as his call of my raise on the flop was bad. If it wasn't for those two hands, I would still be above 10 G's

I read something over at www.92offsuit.com that really stuck with me, and I thought I would pass it on to you.

The thing I am realizing is if they are willing to bluff all their chips now they will be willing to do it later too when I have a stronger hand.

Awesome point. I should write this down on a post it note and put it on my computer. And this goes back to my statement above about being more patient. Stay patient, and the chips will eventually flop your way.

Cheers!