Adams Rants

So one week has passed since I started my challenge of making zero money into one thousand and so far I’m exceeding my expectations, but unfortunately it isn’t my poker that’s being the shining light, instead it’s moreso my cunning use of bonuses which see’s me up €115.

My initial €8 ($10) bonus on VCPoker was quickly chewed up as I foolishly played where I am most comfortable, at the $20NL Ring tables. I could only play on one table at a time and had to sit each time with my entire bankroll in play. At this point I didn’t have Poker Tracker or Gametime+ running but I found that I didn’t need either to help me read my opponents and make moves which were working and after solid play for two hours I had more than doubled my money to €23 and could now afford to sit at two tables, once again without PT or GT+ running. Once I switched to multi-tabling however, my fortunes started to turn as I could no longer focus solely on the one table and couldn’t gain any insights into my opponents through observation.

I lost half my bankroll in a hand where I was trying to play the player, not the cards. A few hands prior to it, I looked down at AJs in mid position and made it $1 to play, all folded except for the button who made it $2.40. I thought about it and folded and then I told him what I folded and this is the key reason why I did what I did the next orbit when I looked down at KTo and raised once again to $1. Once again, all folded except for the button who once again made it $2.40, I realised that this was the exact same play as before and remembered that I had told him that I folded AJs so any reraise I put in would be indicative of me having a hand greater than that. I also considered that he was making a move, as he knew that he had previously knocked me off AJs with the same raise. I shoved and he called. The board came down Q84 J 4 which didn’t help me in the slightest and he turned over AKo to rake in a pretty substantially sized pot which included half my entire bankroll! He must have been bricking it when he saw the Queens and Jacks as he could have only made that call if he had put me on AJ or AQ. I felt hard done by, but in retrospect it was a very optimistic play that deserved to have me bust out!

With only a tiny amount of money to play with, I decided to look for other “no deposit needed” offers on other sites and accidentally came across the casino site, CasinoClassic which proudly advertised that it offers €500 to new members to play with for one hour and you get to keep anything that you win above that amount. It seemed too good to be true and in hindsight it was as I was required to deposit €20 to access the bonus that I had won after the hour trial (which was the maximum of €200), when I deposited the money I learned that I had to wager my bonus 30 times before I was able to withdraw anything and my favoured game, Blackjack, only counted for 10%, so I would have had to wager 300 times €200 (€60,000!) before any of my bonus money was unlocked! I decided instead to play European Roulette and wager 50% of my bankroll on Red and 50% on black. I was risking 100% of my money for a 87.5% chance of merely breaking even but by breaking even I would be unlocking a bonus ten times my initial deposit! After every few spins I’d check the banking window to see if I could withdraw and finally I saw that I was able to withdraw €120 of my bonus into the safety of my Neteller account. What I learned from my brief encounter with an online casino was that they are to kept away from. They lure you in with a big promotion and use the small print as an excuse to have you keep playing for your money. They also don’t have an option to let you know how much you’ve wagered which can only spell trouble for those who are immersed in their games!

So after a bit of luck, my bankroll was back up to €100 (I’m subtracting the €20 of my own money that I had to deposit to unlock the bonus). I then set about joining as many other poker sites that I could in order to avail of bonuses and exclusive freerolls and started playing in $5 “6 Max” Sit N Go’s on iPoker with a great deal of success. I was looking set to cash in on my third consecutive game when I pushed all-in on the bubble with JJ and the villain (who I had covered slightly) called with J5o. I was a 95% favourite to win the hand, he needed twin fives to win and of course he hit them both on the flop, leaving me drawing to a one outer which never hit. I was left with 350 chips with the blinds at 150/300, so in the next hand, I pushed from the SB with my remaining 200 with K7o and was called by the Button who turned over K8o to knock me out in third spot and out of the money.

After one week then, my bankroll is now at €115.93 with an additional $7 to be unlocked on Titan Poker if I start earning points. Overall it’s all looking pretty rosy, not bad for a shoddy weeks work :).