I’m going back to school today and decided to switch to weekly updates. As a result I will be reporting my progress evey Sunday.

I’ve been running kinda shitty at .5/1. I’m still up but only about $30 (not including the $150 loss at 6max). I working to clear a $100 bonus at Full Tilt (I have $20 of it so far). Between that, rakeback (which I won’t receive until mid April, but expecting around $60), and the refer a friend bonus, I am actually up quite a bit since venturing to .5/1.

BR currently stands at 284.75.

I’m back home and had a chance to play a little here. The wireless kinda sucks so I haven’t been able to put as many hands in as I would like, but I’m up $45 total at .5/1. I’m leaving for Austin tomorrow to look at apartments and won’t get a chance to play again until Wednesday.

One more test tomorrow morning and then I’m basically in the clear. I’ve been study for my test and not playing too much, but I’m up about $30 total at .5/1 FR. I was talking to a friend about going to Austin next week and as he pointed out, South by Southwest starts on Sunday (I think). Should be fun looking at apartments during the day and rocking out at night. Anyways I plan to get a bunch of hands in the weekend so stay tuned.

So I cleared my Refer-A-Friend Bonus on Full Tilt and they shipped me $100. I had a deal with my friend who got $25 from FT that we would split it 60/40 (since I had to clear more points to unlock my bonus) so I shipped him another $25. I played a little on FT today, but it went down for a few hours so I switched back to PS.

Before FT went down however, I did manage to hit -$150 at .5/1 6max. So, uh, fuck 6max… I’m back to full ring. Played about 600 hands, didnt see much in the way of cards, wound up $2. Still, its much better than down (I averaged -4.7BB/100 at .5/1 6max). An interesting note, I was up from everyone position and losing less than 1.5 big blinds each round in the blinds, but I couldn’t make up for that fact that blinds hit so much more often. Oh well.

BR is at $235

I’m not sure that my 6max play up to this point is actually winning play. I changed alot of my PF requirements as per some suggestions, but its puts me troublesome spots. I wind up in lots of marginal situtations and with my opponents being so sporatic at these levels, its hard to put them on a hand.

So I’m going back to my FR PF starting requirements. I just tried it for about 500 hands with good results. However, I am just going to pretend its folded to MP2 everyhand. I’m not sure that I can keep up with the blinds at this point, but I’ll try it until my BR drops to about $150 (I’m at ~$190 right now).

I will have adapted to players at my table. An example from todays session, The guy to directly to my right is about 80/60 (plays 80% of his hands, raises about 60% of his hands preflop). Twice I’m sitting with AQo (oncee on the button, once in the SB) and he raises. Normally this is a fold for me. However, both times its only me and him in the pot at this point, so I 3-bet it. Both times we show down and I win 2 decent pots. (Once he had Q3o, the other time he had 72o).

In other news, I’m almost done clearing a bonus and while I didnt generate enough rake in February alone to get rakeback, I have generated enough through today to get paid at the end of March.

My test went well today and my work is done for the week so I fired up FT for a little while. Had a bit of a streaky day… earnings graph looked like a sin graph flipped upside down. But I did end up about $12 so its a start. My BR is sitting at around $205.

I was taking a break from studying today and decided to watch last nights episode of High Stakes Poker. Barry Greenstein stated that all the kids on the internet watch HSP and some told him they would pay him 10k if he said a certain phrase when someone made a bad play. Brian Townsend (aba20/sbrugby) was still at the table and cracks a smile know what Barry is talking about. About 15 mins later Barry re-raises Erick Lindgren allin on the flop and Erick folds. Barry exclaims “LOLdonkaments” and most of the table laughs pretty hard. Meanwhile, Gabe Kaplan and AJ Benza are left very confused in the commentators booth (or are they just leveling us?) Anyways, GG Barry… GG.

So… its been a crazy week and I haven’t really had time to play poker. But don’t worry I’ll get back to it soon enough.

I planned to play on Saturday, but my idiocy thwarted my plans. In taking a break I started to work out again. Thursday was an upper body day, and I decided to switch around my lifting scheduling. However, I over exerted myself and my arms were killing me from Friday to Sunday. I kinda couldn’t bend my elbows anywhere except from the 70-110 degree range without lots of pain. This made using a mouse hard. However, I was easily able to use a PS2 controller. As of last night I fought my way from the beginning of Final Fantasy X to the last boss (still haven’t beaten him, though). Luckily, my arms feel much, much better today.

Looking forward, I have a test I just started studying for on Thursday, a problem set I haven’t started due on Friday and another test next week. Luckily the week after next is Spring Break. Over the beginning of break I am going to Austin to look at apartments as I am moving there after this academic year to start work full time (Yay graduation!). However, I will be home for later portion of break and will have plenty of time to play poker. If I play before then I will post about it, but I don’t see that happening.

I am going to take a break from poker for a few days. My BR is down $190 and I am kinda angry about the bad beats I have been taking. I just need some breathing room or something like that. There are only so many suckouts I can take in a short period of time. I should probably start up again on Saturday.

Well, I tried my hand at .5/1 tonight. That didn’t go so well. In about 220 I drop almost $70. That sucked, but after the heater I was on I am not surpised. I sure I donked some of it off but I saw about a dozen 2-5 outers on the river. Whee!

Well, I’ll try again in the morning.