My name is Eddie, and I play poker. Mostly recreationally, but I did use it to supplement my income for a brief time while I was between jobs. From that time, it's clear that this will never be my sole source of income, but it's nice to make a little cash on the side doing something challenging and fun.
I've been playing since around 2004. I'd like to say that I'm a 2nd degree "Moneymaker Effect" player. I didn't start playing because of his 2003 WSOP victory, but really starting playing because I begin watching the WPT, which I think made the air thanks in part to his victory.
I started playing live games with friends, and playing online at Ultimate Bet. Back then, the structure was different and you would earn Ultimate Points(UPs), which are UB's player reward points, just for time at the tables, including free tables. Even better was that you could play tournaments with your UPs, both sit-n-gos(SNGs) and multi-table tournaments (MTTs). My big break came when I won 500o UPs for finishing first in a no-limit hold'em (NLHE) MTT, which gave me enough points to enter cash tournaments using my UPs. I would buy into $5 and $10 tourneys with my points and I eventually won $30.
I started trying out the NLHE cash game tables, but wasn't very successful. I felt that I was behind my opponents, so I looked for something different. That's when I found pot-limit Omaha 8 or better (PLO8). I started at the .01/.02 tables (SB=Small Blind=$0.01, BB=Big Blind=$0.02) and worked my way up. One day, I ran into a player (tek) at the 0.05/0.10 level who normally plays higher levels, but came down to try and take my money before going back. I gave him a good run for his money. Enough so that gave me an offer: Let him refer me to Party Poker, and he'll split the referral bonus with me. At first I was hesitant. I had made my money without having to deposit anything, but this sign up was going to require a deposit. In the end, I made the deposit, and played enough to credit tek, and he did pay me. At the same time, I made more through the deposit bonus than I did at the 0.10/0.25 PLO8 tables. As so officially began my "bonus whore" days.
A "bonus whore" is a player who's sole purpose is to exploit the various bonus that the sites offer. Back in 2004, Party offered the easiest bonuses to clear. Deposit $X, make $X after playing 5*X rakes hands. Which meant if I deposited $100, I would make $100 after I played 500 raked hands. A raked hand is simply a hand in which there was a flop, and the table took a portion of the pot, called the rake. The key to this bonus was that it didn't matter how much rake was taken, so playing the lowest stakes which had a good % of the hands raked was the key. 0.10/0.25 PLO8 was perfect because there was almost always a flop, and always enough players seeing the flop to create a raked hand. All I had to do is way for high quality hands, play them meekly, and make sure I didn't lose a lot of money. Add to that multi-tables of up to 7 at a time, and I would clear the bonus in a couple of days. I built my bankroll through Party, Empire, Noble, BoDog, Hollywood and Superior Poker bonuses and PLO8. Going from nothing in 2004 to just over 4k in 2006. That sounds great, but by mid-way through 2006 I was at 5k, and then when on a 6 month losing streak where I lost 1k.
That was my first sustained losing streak. Not surpisingly it coincided with a lot of changes in my life: 2nd kid, new job, cross-country move. Clearly, I was not focused. I ended up taking a good 3-4 month break from playing, cause it was no longer fun. When I returned, I went back to my roots: Freerolls. Hollywood was offering a set of multi-stage freerolls (which still run today). The first level is a classic freeroll. Top 20 win tickets to a .25 tourney. Top 20 in the .25 tourney win a ticket to a .50 tourney. Top 20 in the .50 tourney win a ticket to the $1 tourney. In the $1 tourney, the top 25 are paid, and also get a ticket to a monthly $1000 added freeroll. While this seems like a lot of work, it actually wasn't. If 21 people entered a tourney, 20 people would still get tickets. Therefore, a lot of the time, it just paid to register, but not even play. Even the $1 tourney, I could sit out and occasionally end up in the top 10 earning a couple bucks. The hardest part was winning the first couple of .25 tickets, since there were usually about 200 people registered in the first level Freeroll. After I had made a few bucks, I simply paid .25 to enter the .25 tourney, and would sit out. I could register ahead of time, and the tourneys would be played while I was at work. I would make anywhere from $0.50 to $2.00 a day just by registering for these tourneys. So even though I had 4k, it was these little positive gains which started to rebuild my game, and give me more confidence.
The latter half of 2007 picked up and I started playing a lot more. I finished up 2.6k for a total of 7k. The beginning of 2008 was great. I started playing some feeder tournaments. My ultimate goal had been to qualify for OnGame's $1000 month-end tournament, but that never quite happened, but I did end up playing a variety of lower entry tournaments, including a $50 buy-in tourney. I played it 3 times, and won the 3rd one, besting 180 players, for a $2.2k win. My biggest single day win ever. That win got my roll close to 9k. I managed to work my bankroll up to $10.9k by August, not counting 2k I won while unemployed from May-June. Since then, well...
Oh lordy.... it's been bad. I think the largest contributor has been the changes in bonus available from the sites. They've become more difficult to clear, and so I had to move up in levels. As I moved up in levels, the PLO8 games where not availble as much, so I started to shift to PLO. Clearly I was not ready. I had some really great sessions, and some really putrid sessions. For every up week, I ended up having 2 down weeks. Then, I'd try and force long sessions to clear the bonuses, and my play would deteriorate and I'd lose more than the bonus was worth. Many times, TILTED would describe my play to a tee! So now I find myself back to where I was at the beginning of 2008: 7k.
Which brings us to the purpose of this blog. My goal is to make 10k in the next 12 months. Seems quite ambitious for someone who has just lost 4k in the 11 months, but I've got a plan. I've been playing Poker Stars (PS) since the end of February. I hadn't played there for the longest time because the bonuses were some of the worst in the industry. Since the quality of the bonuses in the rest of the industry has deteriorated, I figured it was worth the leap. Boy, was I a moron for wasting my time elsewhere! PS has the perfect set of games for me. They offer 9 player single table PLO8 SNGs. I have been playing the $35+3 tourney (9*$35=$315 prize pool, 1st-157.5, 2nd-94.5, 3rd-63, with 9*$3 going to PS's pockets) and have been placing at an incredible clip. I'm 7/2/3/10 for an average win of $29 per tourney played. If I can maintain that, or even $20 per tourney played, then I need to play 350-500 of these over the next year to acheive my goal. Add to that the occasional bonus, which I should be able to clear through tourney play, I think it is reasonable. The tourney's take only 40 minutes to play, and I have been playing them overlapping. Playing 2-3 per night will only take an hour to an hour and a half.
Staying focused and not playing any HU SNGs or cash games is going to be the toughest part. I like to multi-task, but if I am to stay true to my goal, I can't play anything other than the single table SNGs.
My July goal is 2-3 tourney's per night, 5 nights per week. Check back on Sunday night's to see my progress summary.
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