Anyone who’s been keeping up with this blog will know that I haven’t said boo about poker (with the exception of announcing the winner of the World Series) since I lost my bankroll back in April and May.

In case you’ve been wondering, I haven’t played a single ring game for a month. I did play a few freeroll tourneys on PokerStars, and actually came in second in the qualifier and the weekly, netting me $50. That went straight into my Neteller account. And while that was fine and all, it took about ten hours of play for me to get that $50, which really wasn’t worth my time.

The other day I got an email from EmpirePoker alerting me to the fact that I had $10 sitting in my account. All I had to do was play 300 raked hands to claim it. Given my experience in April, I wasn’t sure I was going to last an entire session. But free money is free money, so I played it. Now I’m up $20 after 102 minutes of play, 119 hands, at a rate of 16.81BB/100 hands. Got another 251 raked hands to go before I can cash out the whole thing.

This is nowhere near recovery of my bankroll. I’m hoping, however, that I’ll be able to cash out another $50 and then rebuy for $100 when they send me a 50% deposit bonus. $150 should be enough to give me a fighting chance.

Wow.

Raymer started as chip leader and when I “tuned in,” it was down to him and Williams. Raymer had many many times the number of chips Williams had.

Here’s the final hand:

Dealer: Starting new hand: #109
Administrator: Stand by for the next hand….
Dealer: Raymer posts the ante 10
Dealer: Williams posts the ante 10
Dealer: Williams posts small blind 40
Dealer: Raymer posts big blind 80
Dealer: Williams raises to 300
Dealer: Raymer calls 220
Dealer: Dealing Flop: [4d 2d 5s]
Dealer: Raymer checks
Dealer: Williams bets 500
Dealer: Raymer raises to 1600
Dealer: Williams calls 1100
Dealer: Dealing Turn: [2h]
Dealer: Raymer bets 2500
Administrator: David Williams calls immediately.
Dealer: Williams calls 2500
Dealer: Dealing River: [2c]
Dealer: Raymer bets 12615 and is all-in
Dealer: Williams calls 3790 and is all-in
Dealer: Raymer shows [8d 8s]
Dealer: Williams shows [Ah 4s]
Dealer: Williams mucks hand
Dealer: Raymer collected 16400 from main pot
Administrator: David Williams is eliminated in second place.
Dealer: Williams finished the tournament in 2nd place

Raymer wins $5 million. He was a PokerStars player: “Administrator: Greg won his way in through a $150 shootout right here at PokerStars!”

Expect a lot of fish to swamp PokerStars in the coming weeks.

Just finished reading Lee Jones’ excellent Winning Low Limit Hold’Em. In my opinion, the book doesn’t necessarily make any huge breakthroughs. What it does is it formalizes a lot of the internal rules you will develop while grinding at the low limit tables (if you’re even remotely a serious player) in a clear, concise way without going through the pain and agony of losing your bankroll. Even if you have gone through the pain and agony, it’s a good idea to read and reread this book so that you can use its lessons on conscious and unconscious levels.

You can get Lee Jones’ advice for free at CardPlayer.com.

Ended up +$$ for the first time in weeks. +13.75BB. Caught some decent cards from time to time and played them hard for some decent profits.

But the big winner last night was cavebutter (who will probably never blog again, so I won’t bother with the link). He ended up +21BB after about 3 hours of play. I don’t think I paid much attention to his play (we were hardly ever heads up, and when I bet, he usually folded), but I seem to recall he played a lot of hands. So he either got a good run of cards, or he tried to outplay the table with whatever marginal hands he got. Could have been either.

My bankroll reached a high somewhere around tax day. Two and a half weeks later, it was gone. Vanished. I don’t even know who to call.

There’s some consolation in the fact that this wasn’t even my money. I’d withdrawn my original deposit long ago. It was about half winnings, half bonuses.

But now that I’ve hit bottom, I should figure out what happened before I even think about spending another dollar of student loans on poker.

Losses:

$163.88 on 1/2, $50 on 1/2 (6 max), $101.17 on .50/1, $38 on $10 SNGs. 4128 hands of limit at a rate of -5.04BB/100 hands.

Yikes. I mean, that’s just terrible. Prior to the 15th I was making +3.07BB/100 hands.

So am I playing too many cards? I don’t think so.

Chasing too much? Not sure.

Not playing winners? I don’t know.

Okay, well… how about the cards I’m playing?

About 2% of my cards are Group 1 cards both before and after tax day. But as you can see, my rockets have been having severe problems holding up. They’re also not winning as much at the showdown when they do win.

Here’s another interesting sight:

Pre-tax day results:

Post-tax day results:

Lots of red on that post-tax day graphic.

Final conclusions

I really don’t know. I’m either a lousy player that had a good start, or I’m a good player that had a lousy end. I think I’ll hold off on playing any more poker until I read and digest some theory books and get a reload bonus offer.