f2f2s |

See, I told you I’d keep writing even after I finished the whole poker challenge thing. Anyway, the fun part about this post is that it’s the first, last, and only post I will ever make from the job I’ve had on campus for the past 2 years. It had fun, sitting at the Tennis Center desk, watching TV, eating the concessions for free (before they put them in a vending machine). Ahh, getting paid $7.50/hr to do nothing is a great way to go through college. It’s a shame that it has to end.

It was a good run though. From Chad somehow hooking me up with a job and teaching me how to string, to Victor running the place into the ground and then leaving, I made some good money, and meet some cool people. Now, though, I have to find some other way to keep me out of the red. I might try to be a math TA, but the real possibility of me putting a gun to my head halfway through the semester has me leaning away from that idea.

I’m living off campus starting in May, and I’ll have rent to pay, making this whole no job thing is really uncool. So, not only do I need to find a job soon, but this week is going to be full of apartment hunting. Since Mike’s a bitch who can’t set up leases well, it looks like I’ll be living with Matt, somewhere. Non one really knows where, but because neither of us paid for housing, so we’re SOL if we don’t. On the plus side, it’ll keep me updating this with reviews of every apartment complex I visit.

Now, I’m going to go kick people of the tennis courts one last time.

Well, I’m finally finished with this challenge, and it turned out to be a roaring success. The guitar is paid for, and should ship out Monday morning, and I can’t wait. I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to read this, or talk to me about it. I updated the look and options with a little help from www.blogger.com. You can respond to my posts now, e-mail them to people, all sorts of cool stuff. Also, every post older than 7 days is going to get automatically archived. Just look to the links on the right to find any old posts.

I really don’t have too much else to add. My rakeback came in, which was a paltry $5 because I haven’t been playing on that site a lot. Also, I put a mini-session tonight, just to get me over $1000. Below is a screenshot from my PokerTracker data, so you can see some more stats if you really care. I know the numbers don’t add up with what I have below, but it also isn’t counting the $17 I grossed from that tournament. As usual, click it for a full-sized image.

I’m going to do my best to keep updating this site. It probably won’t be as frequent as it has been, but I promise I’ll do my best to keep you entertained. I’ll probaly put up some party reports and whatnot, and maybe add a poker entry here and there.

Thanks again guys, and for one final time

Newest Data
Poker hands: 158
Poker Winnings: $26.75
Poker Bonus: $5.00

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 4,303
Poker Winnings: $166.58
Poker Bonus: $455
Casino Winnings: -$52.35
Casino Bonus: $450
Overall: $1019.23

I would like to quote something I wrote in the beginning of my Thursday night entry: “The thing to realize here, if you’re not having good results, bitching about it on the internet will make everything better.” That has never been more right. After busting out of the bonus yesterday I decided it can’t happen twice in a row, so I lined up the last of the iGM casinos, and went to work.

The session began with me off flat betting $5 a hand, with my “it’s time to change betting amounts” limit at $575 in the account (it was a deposit $500, get $150 bonus). I start off well, and actually get up to around $720. Now, I tell myself that if I can get to $800, I’ll start betting small, just to keep me up there hopefully in case I hit a downturn. Well, the downturn came a little sooner, and suddenly I was back down around $580. I finally went below $575, but spat in the gambling gods’ faces and refused to change my bet amount. If I lost with $5, I was going to ride the upswing with $5 bets too. And up it did swing. Before I knew it, I was back around $720. Of course, being the pussy I am, I switched betting amounts to $2 there, with a few $4 bets mixed in when I felt good.

I wish I had kept with the $5 bets, because my stack kept growing. I started throwing in $8 bets just because, and was lucky enough to win all of them. At the height of my adventure I had $870 in my stack. All I had to do was ride it out to the end of the wagering requirement and I would be home free. I kept betting $2 per hand, hit the inevitable downswing, but was able to stay way up thanks to the smaller betting amounts and some well timed blackjacks.

As of right now, there is $818 in the account, and all I need to do is wait for it to register all of my play, and cashout. I made $168 in play, added to the $150 in bonus. Now I’m a stone’s throw away from completing the challenge, and unless I have a less than average to mediocre day at the tables, I should hit the $1000 no problem.

Remember people, if something’s going wrong, ALWAYS complain about it. Just not to me.

Newest Data
Casino Winnings: $168.00
Casino Bonus: $150.00

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 4,145
Poker Winnings: $139.83
Poker Bonus: $450
Casino Winnings: -$52.35
Casino Bonus: $450
Overall: $987.48

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later I guess. Again, this is just a really bad time for it to happen. I busted on the casino bonus last night. $152.35 gone, down the drain, never to be seen or heard from again. It’s something that you have to take into account when you do this, that you are gonna bust, but in the end, you will end up ahead. Oh well, I won’t be making my goal now, just no time to make up that kind of a loss. It was fun though, and I’ll still be busting my ass to get as much as possible before midnight on Saturday.

To try and offset my losses I played my first tournament of the challenge on PokerStars. My tournament game is seriously lacking, and, while I can always return a profit on my investment over the long haul in the low buy-in tournies, I need the deck to hit me in the face to do well in any of the big ones. Anyway, I bought into a 9-man $5+50¢ tounament, and was able to take first for a nice prize of $22.50. -$152.35, +$17.00, yup, sure looks even to me.

Ok, this is a short entry because I’m just taking time off from staining the deck, which sucks by the way. You have no idea how long it takes to do all those stupid slats on the handrail. I actually quit after doing the top portion. The stairs can wait until later.

Newest Data
Poker Winnings: $17.00
Casino Winnings: -$152.35
Casino Bonus: $0

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 4,145
Poker Winnings: $139.83
Poker Bonus: $450
Casino Winnings: -$220.35
Casino Bonus: $300
Overall: $669.48

Is AWESOME when you start from behind. What a nice way to finish up a bonus. In just under 400 hands, I was able to make back all of the money I lost earlier in the day, and book a nice little $30 profit on top of that. Add that to the $200 from clearing the bonus, and I had a pretty good session. The thing to realize here, if you’re not having good results, bitching about it on the internet will make everything better.

Also, I deposited at another casino that lets you do autoplay. This means I tell it how many hands to play, turn it on, and 7.1 hours later, come back to see what the results are. This casino is a deposit $80, get $100 in bonus, and then wager 36x that total amount. It gives an expected return of $76.67, but there’s also an 8.3% chance I’ll bust. Now, the best part about this bonus is that you can also do it in GBP(pounds). Now, all of my bets will be £1, instead of $1. This doesn’t change any of the probabilities, but because the GBP is so much stronger than the dollar, I’m actually depositing around $150 and have an expected return of $141.84. For all of these stats and more, check out www.buildingabankroll.com. This site is run by Homer from 2+2, he’s trustworthy, and only gives out the best information, which is why I’ve used him for all of my casino choices.

I bought the guitar also. Yeah, it’s a little early, but I didn’t want anyone else to get it before I could. It looks like it will be $518 with hard case shipped to my door. I’m pretty excited about that. I might be online playing a little cards later tonight, but I doubt it. I’ll probably just set the autoplay to do however many hands it has to so that I can clear the bonus. Even though I know it’s a bad idea, I’ll probably check on it occasionally just to see how my balance is doing. I’m sure that I’ll come in right when it’s down around £12 though, and I’ll start freaking out, thinking that I just wasted $152.35.

So, since I’m not going to be doing much else tonight, if you are one of those people also around PTC right now, give me a call, and let’s do something. My computer’s making money for me.

Newest Data
Poker hands: 393
Poker Winnings: $73.13
Poker Bonus: $200

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 4,145
Poker Winnings: $122.83
Poker Bonus: $450
Casino Winnings: -$68.00
Casino Bonus: $300
Overall: $804.83

Bad. That pretty much covers the results of my play over the course of this challenge. I’m now rocking a winrate of 0.60BB/100 adjusted for all levels. That sucks. Granted, it’s going to happen a lot because that’s how poker goes, but it’s just a bad time for it to be happening. Especially with such a short challenge, I knew coming in that any kind of downswing would hurt my chances. Actually, this isn’t even a downswing really. I’m still up money over the last 3700 hands, so I can’t complain too much. It’s just that basically breaking even doesn’t help me out much either.

I was able to reach such a monumental number by being at about -20BB/100 over my last session. I came in after pressure washing the deck to wait for it to dry before staining it. Well, I probably should’ve found something else to do instead of play cards. About the only positive was the 90 raked hands I knocked off my bonus requirement. All my overcards missed the flop. My pair turned into a set on the flop, only to lose to a straight. I flopped trips, only to have the guy get a full house on the turn with his overpair, and then really rub it in by hitting quads on the river. None of my flush draws hit, none of my straight draws hit. In the long run, I guess it’s really not that bad, just 200 awful hands.

Some people have been wondering how exactly I play this many hands, and what 4-tabling means. Well, allow me to show you what my monitor looks like when I’m playing poker:

That’s on a Dell 2001fp, which is their 20.1″ LCD monitor. It’s one of the few monitors out there that can do 1600×1200 resolution, which is what you need to fit 4 tables without overlap. If you want to see what it looks like, click on the picture, it’ll take you to a full sized version. Poker bought me this monitor, and it has paid for itself multiple times over already.

If you’re wondering why it looks so different, well, I hate normal Party Poker look, and you can edit all of the picture files. I was able to use my amazing skills to ask someone else to give this picture a black background, and edit all the pictures accordingly. Also, I use a 4 color deck. This means hearts are red, spades are black, clubs are green, and diamonds are blue. This makes it a lot easier to tell the difference when you’re looking between so many cards. Plus, a blue flush is really cool looking. As for the numbers on the screen, that’s PlayerView. Check out www.pokertracker.com for the software it reads from, and www.playerview.net for the software that puts that overlay on it. It’s basically just a collection of stats on the players from old hands that I’ve played against them.

Another fun note, I’ve found the guitar I want here. It’s $399 without a case it looks like, so I’m gonna talk to the guy, and see how much for him to add a case to the order. I’m pretty stoked about that. Anyway, now to the beating:

Newest Data
Poker hands: 184
Poker Winnings: -$44.26

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 3,752
Poker Winnings: $49.70
Poker Bonus: $250
Casino Winnings: -$68.00
Casino Bonus: $300
Overall: $531.70

See everything I wrote an hour and a half ago? All that stuff I said about playing? Forget about it. Tables suck. Also, to add insult to injury, despite having around $3100 spread across various gambling ventures, I only have $217.00 accessible in my NETeller account, so I can’t even deposit for another casino bonus. I have almost $1900 in cashouts waiting to hit my account. This sucks, I really want my money. Oh well, the plan now is to hopefully have that money in by tomorrow morning, and do some of the auto-play casino bonuses while I’m working on the deck. If the money doesn’t come in by then, I’ll have to come up with something else.

Newest Data
Poker hands: 214
Poker Winnings: $7.25

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 3,568
Poker Winnings: $93.96
Poker Bonus: $250
Casino Winnings: -$68.00
Casino Bonus: $300
Overall: $575.96

I don’t know why, but I’ve had more trouble depositing and withdrawing money from my computer than I though possible. At first I figured maybe it was because Firefox is my primary browser, and everything is programmed to run on Explorer. But that can’t be it, because everyone on 2+2 uses Firefox, and they never have these kind of problems. I’ve yet to come up with another reasonable hypothesis, so I’ll just stick with my computer sucks. Because of this, I had to find a way to make a deposit for my second casino. I tried to e-mail support, but that didn’t do anything. Here’s a little disclaimer for everybody: If you’re going to do business with online gambling companies, just don’t bother with their support teams. Every poker site and casino I’ve ever used has had horrible support. That’s just the nature of the beast. Finally I end up downloading all of the software onto my mom’s computer and getting everything deposited through there.

So, now I have $400 ($200 of mine, and $200 bonus) in my casino account, and it’s time for some blackjack. I need to wager a total of $2000 to release my bonus, and allow me to cash it out. I’m going to do this by making 400 $5 blackjack bets, which gives me a 0.1% chance of losing all $400, and a 95.3% chance of turning a profit on my $200 invested. I start off hella strong, and get up to about $440 after 60 or so hands. I stay between $390 and $420 the majority of the time, and then I get to the last 40 hands. It’s awful. Every 20 I’m dealt, sees the dealer hit for 21. I double down on my 10′s and 11′s and get 2′s and 3′s in return. It’s ugly, and I get as low as $315. I refuse to bust on a bonus like this, so $300 is my limit. This means that at $300 I’m going to lower my bets to $2 or $3 and play hands that way. Luckily, this doesn’t happen, and I end up hitting a little hot streak at the end to finish up with $352.50. It’s impossible to cashout odd cents, so I spend my 50¢ on two spins of the slots, hoping to hit it big, or go broke trying. Broke. Oh well, $352 will have to do.

I played a little more poker earlier in the session, before the whole deposit mess. Nothing spectacular to speak of. I played some more .50/1 full ring, and finished up a couple bucks. I really wish I could play more 2/4, because the amount I would be making per hand would be a LOT higher, but I know that I’m not good enough to 4-table the 2/4 games, and right now clearing the bonus is more important to me. By the time I’m done with this challenge though, I’ll be playing a lot more 2/4. The games there are just too good for me to hold out any longer.

The next couple days are going to be rough as far as play goes, so I’m going to try really hard tonight to clear the last ~450 hands of the Party Poker bonus so that I can get as far ahead as possible. Tomorrow (well, I guess today since it’s past midnight) I have to do actual work during the day, pressure washing and staining the deck. That means I’m only going to be able to play in the evening and at night, which will be less than usual. Then, I’m probably going up to my dad’s Friday to play some golf and hang out with the rest of the family since I didn’t go the baseball game with him. Friday night, there’s a big party in Atlanta. Aaron’s house, 511 North Avenue, be there. Saturday at noon, my brother has a lacrosse game in Buckhead, so I’ll be staying up there. And not long after that the challenge is officially over!

I’m definitely not going to have time to set up an iGMpay account for some other possible bonuses, so getting the last $200 or so is definitely going to be an adventure. Maybe I will be playing some more 2/4 after all.

Newest Data
Poker hands: 351
Poker Winnings: $13.35
Casino Winnings: -$48.00
Casino Bonus: $200

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 3,354
Poker Winnings: $86.71
Poker Bonus: $250
Casino Winnings: -$68.00
Casino Bonus: $300
Overall: $568.71

I ran into my first certifiable maniac today at the 6max tables. And then I ran into another. At the same table. These guys make me money, but they also lead to HUGE variance. They bet, and raise with any hand, on any board, into any player(s). Obviously, in the long run, this is great as long as you play strong hands against them. However, today was one of those days that I just got destroyed by them. My TT vs. maniacs K6. K6 wins. My A♠Q♠ vs. maniacs K3. K3 wins. It was just that kind of day.

Of course, I can’t leave the table. He’s horrible, he’s going to lose all of his money, and I want it to be to me. I usually buy into these tables for $80, and so far I had already had to reload another $50 on this table. This was the nature of the beast though. That’s why I have a bankroll, so that I can keep reloading at the limits I play when a guy like this shows up. Anyway, I had fought my way back up to about $93 from calling him down with trash like K5 that never paired the board, or going 3 bets on the river with A♦9♦ on a Q6759 board, when he left. That little fucker took $40 from me, gave away $80+ at the table, and then left before I could get my money back. What are you gonna do?

I’m somewhere around halfway through with this bonus, but I’m not sure if I’m gonna clear it tonight. I might head up to Tech and go see the Auburn/GT baseball game with my dad and step mom and their kids. We’ll see how it all turns out.

No real random aside for this entry, but I want to remind everybody about the Pink Party at the Pink House coming up April 9th. Javier, Kennen, Billy, and someone else will be spinning at the party, so you know it’s gonna be awesome. Plus, yours truly will be sponsoring a keg. I don’t know what it will be yet, but hopefully I can do something worthwhile for all of you. Dress in pink, or don’t bother coming. Check it out here for more information.

Newest Data
Poker hands: 332
Poker Winnings: -$44.75

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 3,003
Poker Winnings: $73.36
Poker Bonus: $250
Casino Winnings: -$20.00
Casino Bonus: $100
Overall: $403.36

The last 75 or so hours have seen me play more poker than I ever have before. Not that this is some sort of accomplishment, there are people who play more than this every day, but I was expecting to feel some sort of burnout around this point. Luckily, the switching between limits, and game types seems to have kept me pretty happy. When I’m sick of playing, or the games get bad, I quit, and I’m still finding the will in me to come back to the tables in the next couple of hours.

This latest session was actually 2 mini-sessions I guess you could say. I played for about 40 minutes from 10:50 to about 11:45. About that time I just didn’t feel like playing and the games were too tight for my liking, so I got up, watched some Leno and Room Raiders, ate a sandwich (something I think I’m doing too much of during this challenge), and came back around 1:30 for a 75 minute session.

I really don’t have much else to say poker-wise, so I’m going to digress to Ben Allen’s playlist for the Strip Club Mix, which is as follows:

1. The Cult – “Fire Woman”
2. GNR – “Sweet Child O’ Mine”
3. Motley Crue – “Girls, Girls, Girls”
4. Warrant – “Cherry Pie”
5. Bob Seger – “Her Strut”
6. AC/DC – “You Shook Me All Night Long”
7. ZZ Top – “Tush”
8. Van Halen – “Drop Dead Legs”
9. Black Crowes – “Hard to Handle”
10. Def Leppard – “Pour Some Sugar on Me”
11. Hall and Oates – “Man Eater”

Now, this isn’t a bad list, but come on, it’s all rock, and almost all of it 80′s hair metal. Look, there’s nothing wrong with some trashy girl with fake boobs getting naked to a cheesy song with too many guitar solos that last too long, but there has to be some variety. You have to mix it up. Here’s a few songs that I think would make great additions (I didn’t think up all of these, but I agree with them):

Prince – Pussy Control
LL Cool J – Doing It
Joe Cocker – Leave Your Hat On (must be danced to correctly, or will backfire)
Prince – 319
Tone Loc – Funky Cold Medina
2 Live Crew – Be My Private Dancer
Notorious BIG – Big Poppa

So, there you go. Now you’ll have a variety of music for your strip club mix, and as long as you include the Prince songs, everyone will be happy.

Newest Data
Poker hands: 500 exactly, I’m that good
Poker Winnings: $18.25

Total Challenge
Poker hands: 2,671
Poker Winnings: $118.11
Poker Bonus: $250
Casino Winnings: -$20.00
Casino Bonus: $100
Overall: $448.11