2 Black Belt Poker Grading, Day 1

Sadly, I had the most horrific start to the grading scheme. Everything, poker and non-poker related went wrong.

All my blog posts for the grading will be on the Black Belt Poker website, you can read about my day one misfortune by clicking here.

5 Gearing up for Black Belt Poker grading and a trip to DTD...

Have been playing a little FLH with my roll on Poker Heaven to make it at least feel like I'm winning some money while I'm fannying around preparing for Black Belt Poker grading. I've spent a lot of time tweaking my Heads Up Display, am getting used to my ipoker modding software which seems to allow me to 6-table reasonably comfortably. I've also renewed my Cardrunners subscription and am doing my best to view a few videos on Six Max play to aid my game.

Having missed out on the £300 deepstack this month due to Wrestlemania 25, I had an urge for some live poker so went to Dusk 'Til Dawn for the £75 freezeout on Friday Night, just on a whim. Absolutely no hands of interest to write about. I was very card-dead, never got above starting stack, but managed to stay alive mostly by pushing rags in opportune spots once my stack hit the 10-15 big blind mark. The best hand (by a village mile) I saw all night was the hand I bust with, shoving AJ for 12 big blinds, only to be called by AQ. 

Having not got my entertainment value in the tourney I played a live cash game for the first time in aaaages. I was literally forced to play a £1/2 game as my debit card has apparently had a £250 withdrawal restriction on it that certainly didn't use to be there. That reminds me I must phone HSBC tomorrow. Joy(!). Anyway... Early doors I got all my money in for about a £500 pot on a 982 board with 2 diamonds. I was holding the nuticious 99. It was an action flop as 88 and AJdd were the two hands it turned out I was up against, but of course the diamond hit the turn leaving me drawing pretty thin, and the flush ended up winning. I managed to grind my way back throughout the night though and was an impressive £2 in profit when I left at 3.30am (which I duly tipped the dealer with). So not the most profitable trip, but at least I got the urge to play some live poker out of my system!

0 Easter break & Multi-Tabling experiments

I have actually played very little poker over the last week. Defintely the most time I've had off so far this year. Largely due to family commitments over the Easter period. I was probably also burnt out a little from the week-long SNG thing. A lot of the time I have spent on the internet has been researching multi-tabling software for iPoker so I can take full advantage of the 50% deal that I've been going on about that I have there, and in preperation for the Black Belt Poker grading.

The software definitely makes iPoker more bearable, and I can play 6 tables fairly comfortably it seems. Have played a couple of thousand hands of $0.25/0.50 NL 6-max to try it out. It's been a long time since I played NL cash so I'm still getting into the groove.  Was sad to find out I didn't crush the games and was only break-even over those, but my "All-in expectation" is a couple of hundred dollars down, so I was probably just running bad and it is obviously a mega-small sample.

Hopefully Sharkscope will start tracking Boss Media again soon, and hopefully more fish will drop in on the LHE games there which I always have my eye on. Have had my 1st session this afternoon on that for a long time and it's gone v.nicely (so far anyway!)...

0 Finally, a few days off!

After a very grindy week, I did manage to take 2nd spot for €500 in that Sit&Go Leaderboard, it was nice to add that chunk to my bankroll in one go. Final standings below... (It was 2 points for a Sit & Go or Double or Nothing win, 3.5 points/1.5 points for a 1st/2nd in a 5-man SNG)

1	€1000	Andreas M	823.5
2	€500	James A	654.5
3	€200	Teemu H	592.5

Unbeliveably the top two this week are already on 600/450 points respectively less than half way through, so I'm pleased I didn't give it a second crack this week (I could only ever do these things as a one off, they are quite painful really!).

I had the last 3 days off, which represents the first time in 2009 where I have had more than one day off in a row. Not that I've done anything majorly exciting, other than clear the house up a bit for once, and do a bunch of DIY with flat pack furniture from IKEA with my dad.

Having got my first "VIP bonus" from the iPoker site I have been talking about that I can hook you up with the same deal on. Very impressed with how they sort it all out. I will be looking to play on iPoker a fair amount this month as practice for the Black Belt Poker grading which starts at the end of April. Increaing my play on iPoker isn't something I'm thrilled about as I despise the software, but that VIP bonus should help soften the blow!

On another note, the Boss Media software recently got updated and I have to say it's very +ev for me (resizeable tables and table filters have been added), but sadly the update has interfered with Sharkscope.com's logging of data. I use Sharkscope a lot to scout my Heads Up SNG opponents, so am hoping this gets fixed soon!

0 End of Blonde Staking period and a week of SNGs

Finished up the Blonde Staking thing I was doing as it was for the duration of March. This was where I put up half the bankroll, some other backers matched this and I gave away 25% of my profits). I ran the €1200 bankroll up to €4100, which with €350 rakeback meant a profit of +€3250. Not too shabby. 

This week I have been slogging hard on 5-man turbo STTs with some Heads Ups and 'Double or Nothings' sprinkled on top for a leaderboard challenge. Was looking good for top spot most of the week until some mentalist who can keep track of twice as many tables as me came bursting through. Am currently in second spot, will have to see where I end up tommorow.

Current table:

1	€1000	Andreas M	715.5
2	€500	James A	579.0
3	€200	Teemu H	543.5

With 2pts for each Heads Up/Double or Nothing win, 3.5 points for a 5-man STT win and 1.5 points for a 5-man 2nd place you can see I've put a fair amount of volume in. TBH it probably hasn't been worth it to only come second (it has been a grind!), but I've made a decent profit for the week so I'm not complaining too much...

A few people have contacted me about my last post and I have helped set up GreekStein, Yorkshire Pud and Paul Houk with VIP deals that they are very pleased with. Again just hook up up with an email (atkinjames@gmail.com) if you're interested in the details. 50% VIP deal on iPoker and 55% on Microgaming amongst many others are available!

I'm still intending to do the BlackBeltPoker grading come the end of the month, so will be looking to play some 6-max cash and do some reading up and making use of my CardRunners subscription this month.

Will keep you posted on how the SNG leaderboard goes...