"ANOTHER STEADY WEEK"

Party: Start $91; Current $123
CD: Start $94; Last week; $116; Current $174 (+58)

Total Start $185; Last week $239; Current $297 (+58)

Another very tidy week on CD. What pleased me was that I haven't actually had a lot of high cards. The high profit hands have indeed been from those few I've had (KK has been a good payer this week - 5 times for $20+) but I've been keeping on an even keel while waiting for those hands with good aggressive blind steals in late position. I feel really comfortable at .5/1 on this site. I should start clearing some of the bonus soon too.

To move that job along a bit quicker, I think I might start 2 tabling, which would be more interesting too.

Poker Office has been very useful in helping me understand what has been happening with my play. For the week, I have made a profit of 4.4 Big Blinds per 100 hands (which is above normal expectation for good play - around 3) so I shouldn't expect to be able to keep that up given the variance you can expect. I have a "seen flop" stat of 19% and it would have been lower than that if I hadn't played a bit of "head's up" getting a table started one evening. Office rates me "tight passive" before the flop and "aggressive" after it currently.

The fact that I have been able to significantly improve my game through playing much tighter (I couldn't have survived on Party without doing so) got me wondering about how I managed to be reasonably successful previously, when my hand selection was much more loose. I think that this must have been due to my post flop game, where I get out if I haven't hit the flop.

Even if I have two overcards, potentially giving me 6 outs, I don't hang about after a bet, unless I sense serious weakness or have position on everyone. This seems to be serving me well.

Be lucky.

"VARYING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION"

Party: Start $91; Current $123; + 32
CD: Start $94; Current $116; + 22

Total Start $185; Current $239; +54

A good week for my poker. I started with several good sessions on Party, which bumped me up nicely. I finally managed to find some looser tables (around 30% seeing the flop) and was able to pick them off effectively. I'm having a particularly good run with AA on Party. I've now had the rockets 8 times and won with them every time with an average of around $6 a pop - long may this continue.

I then opened a Neteller account and used it to open an account with CD Poker. Incidentally I opened both accounts with 50 quid, but the depreciation of the dollar meant that I got 94 for the CD account as opposed to 91 for the Party one. So far CD seems to be my sort of spot. It reminds me a lot of Ladbrokes when I was playing there. Not a lot of traffic (two or three ring games at .5/1 in the evening) but up to 40% seeing the flop, so plenty of action when you get a decent hand. I had a particularly good night on Friday when I could do no wrong - this happens occasionally :-) If I tried a blind steal, they called and then folded to my raise on the flop. If I got a high pair, I got takers and they held up - the whole bit.

That was great, but I knew it couldn't last and it didn't. Yesterday I had grim cards throughout the 2½ hours I played (saw flop 11% tells it's own story) and couldn't hit a flop with a big stick. Bad beat story warning. I had identified one particularly loose player called "99outs" when I finally got a hand - AA. I raise and get 3 callers including 99outs in the big blind. The flop comes 22K. Not bad. The two deuces are a minor worry but if someone has one, good luck to them. 99outs bets and I raise him (taking him for a King) and the other two drop out. The turn produces a 3. 99outs bets and I raise him. The turn comes as a K. Damn. He only has 2 outs and one of them turns up! I make the "crying call" and so it proves - he had K7 off. It was that sort of session.

Still overall, I am certainly not complaining. If I could keep up a win rate of $54 per week I'd be a very happy poker player.

"FINDING THE RIGHT GAME."

Party: $94 (-$7)
Bank: $200
Total $294

Well, I've had an interesting week's poker. I've played just over 800 hands on Party and, as you can see from the stats, got precisely nowhere. The reason is easy to find as I now have the stats from Poker Office to check things out. Party, even at .50/1.00, is as tight as a drum. Most of the tables I played had "flops seen" percentages of below 30%. My own percentage was 22.42, so I wasn't exactly Mr Free and Easy. It is actually quite hard to find loose tables on Party as they don't tell you the saw flop percentage in the lobby.

Now I managed to hold my own in these games, but there were just too many players playing the same sort of game as me. To make any money (and beat the rake) I need to play against a significant number of folk who are worse than me. (I did find one really worthy character called "gr8peace5111". He managed to lose $58 in an hour, which takes some doing at this level!).

So I am going to venture off to pastures new in seach of some fish and the bonuses associated with signing up at a new site. Favourite looks to be Royal Vegas as they have a good bonus offer via PokerListings.com and I can use Office on the site.

The stats on my play were quite revealing too. I made the expected profit on the premium hands ($25.74 on 5 hands with AA for example) except with AK off where I was -1.25 from the 9 occurances of this hand. I have been playing this too aggressively and getting chopped off by folk with small pairs when it doesn't hit. One to correct there.

Office rates me as "tight aggressive" pre flop and passive post flop. I'll be working on that too.

"...ON THE ROAD AGAIN"

Party: 101 dollars (+11)
Bank: 200 dollars
Total 301 dollars

I've started playing again after my month's break. To avoid the problems that set in previously I have set myself some parameters. I am only going to play for a maximum of two hours at a time each day and twelve hours per week.

I've also had a bit of a review of my game and actually purchased "Poker Office" to help me keep a close eye on what I am doing. I have decided that I wasn't being aggressive enough in trying to steal the blinds in late position in particular and I'm going to work on that aspect of my game. I like the "tracker" bit of the program too, as it gives me the pot odds and tells me the stats, particularly number of flops seen for each player. This is very useful particularly early in a session when you don't have a lot of information on the opposition.

So far I played 80 hands on Party yesterday and made a profit of 10 dollars. I managed a couple of successful blind steals which pleased me. I'm relaunching on Party because they offered me a 20 dollar reload bonus. I never did particularly well there previously so it will be interesting to see how I get on.

The other 200 dollars in my starting bank I am going to invest in a new site with a decent, achievable bonus offer.

Some objectives: An "aim to win" of 25 dollars per week (2bb per hour). A total of 600 dollars, which will give me the bank roll to look at playing at the 1/2 dollar level.