Poker Goals for February '06

My goals for February:
1. At least $2800 combined winnings from cash games, SNGs, and MTTs. This averages $100 a day over the course of 28 days.
2. Finish off my initital deposit/reload bonuses at CelebPoker. This will not be very difficult, as there is only $150 left. This will not be counted in my monthly earnings.
3. Contribute $2500 of rake at CelebPoker and earn the $100 loyalty bonus. This goal will be very difficult to meet, because February only has 28 days and I will be in Vienna at the end of the month, making online poker playing a big challenge. If I do succeed I will receive $625 rakeback on the 1st of March, but I will not count rakeback or the loyalty bonus as part of my winnings for goal # 1. By far my most difficult goal.
4. A) Play concentrated, disciplined poker in Vienna at CCC. Whether it be cash games, premilinary tournaments, or the Main Event I want to make a good showing so that I can at least be proud of my play if I actually lose. I do not want to play horrible poker and get eliminated, that would be a nightmare.
B) Come back to Berlin from Vienna with more money than I left with. This includes compensating the money I used for flights, hotel, food, and of course poker.

As for today, I lost a total of $29.96. January was very good to me, though. I won a lot of money and I am hoping to continue that run into February!

Another Final Table

Tonight I played the $5K Guaranteed MTT at CelebPoker. The tournament has a buy-in of $30+3, and a total of 322 players signed up to play. That made the prize pool over $9K, hopefully BossMedia will raise the guarantee sometime soon. Anyways, the tournament started off horrible, and I found myself with only 895 chips of my 2000 starting chips left. The blinds were 100/200, so I needed to make a move fast. I did make a move (with AJ I believe) and I tripled up. From then on I started hitting a few hands, and before I knew it I was at the final table!

The tournament paid only $200 some dollars for 10th place and $2.6K for 1st place, so from the start I was in it to win! My stack went up, went down, went back up, back down, and finally when we were 4-handed I hit a rush of cards that helped me eliminate two other players and play heads up with a 3-2 chip advantage!

I started playing heads up extremely aggressive, raising my opponent all in 3 out of the 4 first hands. He folded every time, and I had double the amount of chips he had. Unfortunately my cards died at that point, and apparently his came alive. I lost a pretty big pot to him when I got caught bluffing, and then I went all-in with K6 in the SB. Unfortunately he had KQ and the board brought no 6 for me, leaving me in 2nd place for a total of $1690.50! I am still happy with the finish, although losing heads up with a chip advantage is a little depressing. Here is the end result:
I want to thank Benno for watching me early on, and TDMatze for following me all the way through the end of tourney.

Cash games did not run all that well today, but the 2nd place finish made up for the loss and ended my day with a win of $1578.55. Not bad for a Monday...

My Poker Weekend

Saturday:
Saturday afternoon I went to the Hertha - Hannover game, which was really cold and ended 1-1 after a last minute goal from Dick van Burik. After the game, I came home and played two hours of online poker, during which I lost $248.63. After that I went out with a couple of friends to the Spielbank Berlin, where I managed to lose €40 at the Roulette tables. We were there to celebrate someone's birthday, though, so the money did not mean much to me.

Sunday:
On Sunday I had plenty of time for online poker. I did not have one single thing planned for the day, so I started playing at around 1pm. It started off rough at the Celeb 2/4NL tables. At one point I was stuck over $700, and then two hands later I won $500 back. It was just one of those up and down days.

At 8pm I entered the Bodog $100k Guaranteed tourney. Only 800 some players signed up, so there was around $20k of overlay! Unfortunately I wasn't able to get my hands on any of it, after about an hour of play I was out.

Almost parallel to the start of that tourney I also entered a $50+5 MTT at PartyPoker. 643 signed up, and after 4 hours and 45 minutes of play I finished in 8th place for a total of $643! That's right, 643 players and I made 643 dollars! The end was more than disappointing, though. First place paid $7k, and I had a good shot at the money. Here is a screenshot of my last hand, we were all in preflop by the way:
Adding insult to injury, the VERY NEXT HAND there was a 3-way all-in and two players were eliminated, making everyone's guaranteed payout $1.6k. Oh well, I was in it to win, and I tried my best. It definitely felt good to make a score, after a not-so-great weekend up until this point.

Because the CelebPoker $1000 Freeroll was cancelled, I also played a $20+2 Qualifier for the EWSOP Main Event in Vienna at PartyPoker. Some of you who have followed my blog for a while might remember that I played one of these a few weeks ago and qualified for the $270 Qualifier, but didn't make it to the Main Event. Well, I made it to the $270 Qualifier again today. The tournament is on the 2nd of February, and I'm hoping to make a better showing than last time. I got painfully close last time, and this time I want to go all the way!

So with those two scores my weekend turned out not so bad after all, here are my results wrapped up:
Sunday $623.50 - Saturday $248.63 = $374.87 winnings for the weekend

888.com Promotion Tour

Last night Henrik got a call from Bandit, saying that he was in town with the 888.com Promotion Tour. They were playing a few 'just for fun' tourneys at the Marriott Hotel, and he invited Henrik and me to stop by. I didn't win the tournament they held, but I did have a good time talking to Bandit, Todd (from 888.com), and Michael (DSF Poker Commentator). After that we changed locations and played a home game, in which I lost €100, which was not too good. I didn't play very well, and that's hat angers me more than the money loss. I did have a good time, though, and that's the whole point of it all anyways.

I only played poker yesterday for a little over an hour, and I lost $159.95. I plan on recouping that money today, though. I took advantage of the CelebPoker reload bonus, so now I'll be clearing the bonus at a $10 rate instead of a $5 rate. Add in some good cards to that and I have an amazing day ahead of me!

As for now, I'm off to to Hertha BSC- Hannover 96 game. Gonna be cold, but hopefully an extertaining game!

A bump in the road

Total playing time today: 3.8 hours
Total losses: $203.49

Now that the numbers are out of the way, I must say that I could have lost a lot more today. My playing time was divided up pretty evenly between 1/2NL and 2/4NL. Everything was just the same as yesterday with one exception: I wasn't hitting my flops. I could go on bitching and moaning about the details but I doubt anyone wants to read them.

Tomorrow's plan is to hopefully play in a home game, and we'll see if I can find some time for online poker as well. Who am I kidding, I can always find time for online poker!

What a great day

Take a look at that screenshot. That's pretty much what kind of day it was for me. Not like I sucked out a lot (this screenshot was one of the rare times today), but just generally things seemed to be going my way today. That pot in the screenshot was nice. Unfortunately about 2 minutes later I lost a $500 pot when my 777 was beaten by a gutshot straight draw which somehow managed to hit. I still made some decent money at UltimateBet, and then I headed over to CelebPoker, to earn some more bonus/rakeback.

I 4-tabled the 1/2NL tables (this is getting very familiar, isn't it?) and won a big pot when my JJ cracked someone's KK after a J 7 3 flop. Things were generally running well and then all of a sudden my CelebPoker program closed all my tables and took me out of the software. I logged back on only to find all 4 of my seats already occupied by new players. Rather than starting up again I just watched bla tear up a few SNGs, as well as watch Gerli and Benno each take down an SNG respectively. I played a $30 SNG with Gerli but I played my 99 like a complete donkey and was quickly sent to the rail in 9th place. That was honestly probably the worst play I have made in a long time but I'm not gonna let it ruin my day!

Results for 01/26: +888.47
Wooooooooo hoooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

Almost no poker

I only played for an hour today, but I somehow managed to lose $311.95. I am pretty sure I could have turned it into a winning day, but I had to go to the doctor about my foot. Apparently I have a shattered bone in my big toe, so that consumed a lot of my day.

Then at night I went to the premiere of the new Peter Thorwarth film Goldene Zeiten. It was a pretty decent movie, but it got a little boring towards the end. The after-party wasn't too exciting either so here I am back at home at 1:30am.

I'm hoping to get more poker-playing in tomorrow, we'll see what happens!

Gettin' Paid!

What a great day! Today was my most successful day since starting this blog, here's how it broke down:

First off, my day definitely started on the wrong foot, literally. I have a fracture in my right foot, which actually caused me no problems over the last few months. Until last night. I tried going to bed at 1:00am, and I lied in bed tossing and turning until 5:30am, when I finally fell asleep. The pain in my foot was just unbearable, but the doc gave me some drugs to tone the pain down.

Because I didn't go to work, I had plenty of time to play poker, and it seemed like I couldn't do anything wrong. I 4-tabled the 1/2NL tables at Celeb and I came out ahead on all 4 tables. I played another session a couple hours later and came out ahead of 3 of the 4 tables. Definitely a good time, considering I also cleared some bonus money and earned rakeback as well.

Tonight I decided to head over to UltimateBet again to clear off some of my reload bonus there. My past two sessions there did not go so well, which made it all so sweet tonight, because the UltimateBet dealer hooked me up tonight! I 3-tabled the 1/2NL tables and my first mentionable hand was 55. Flop comes down 9 5 2. Someone bets, I call. Turn comes T. Same player bets, I raise, he goes all-in with just over $60, and I beat his JJ with my 555 after the river comes down a blank. Two hands later, same table, pocket cards 88. I flop another set and get it paid off as well! About 20 minutes later I get dealt 22 in LP. One player in EP raises to $7, I call. Flop comes 7 5 2. He bets pot sized ($16), I mini-raise to $32. He calls. Turn comes T. He checks, I bet $50, he goes all-in. I call instantly. River comes 4. At this point the $400 pot comes flying down towards me and his AA has officially been cracked.

I probably should have kept playing, but the lack of sleep last night has me tired. Final results for 01/23/05: +820.91

My Poker Sunday

I played a lot of poker today, and I would have made a lot of money if I had avoided a few MTTs. I started the day with cash games at Celeb, which went well. I also played a $50+5 SNG with bla. Unfortunately I kicked him out of the tournament at the bubble (he forced it though by going all-in when I had 99), but I did go on to win the tournament, netting me $250.

I spent my afternoon playing at UltimateBet, which did not run so well. Then I remembered that the Bodog $100K Guaranteed was tonight. I signed up for the tournament (100+9) parallel to a 50+5 MTT at PartyPoker. After 2 hours of play I lost both tournaments, making no money, and bringing down my daily earnings to $112.30.

2 for 1

Friday:
A pretty standard day of ups and downs. At the end of the day I was a $59.35 winner. Not much, but not a loss. Unfortunately I lost €120 in a home game later that night, so that was not too cool.

Saturday:
I set it as my goal to make a final table of a Multi Table Tournament. Unfortunately it didn't work out. I cashed in two tourneys, but nothing significant. I made most of the money playing the good old 1/2NL games at CelebPoker, as well as winning a $50+5 SNG for $250. Later in the day I decided to take advantage of the UltimateBet reload bonus. That didn't go too well, but it didn't stop me from making $467.73 spread out over the whole day.

Now I plan on getting a good night's sleep, and there's just one thing on my schedule for tomorrow: POKER.

Bad call

Today had its ups and downs and unfortunately it ended on a down. I played the $100+9 MTT at CelebPoker at 22:00. 39 players, top 5 get paid. With only 6 players I left I had the smallest stack at the table, but I was nowhere near out. I was dealt 77 in my BB and made a horrible all-in call from the button player. He had JJ and I was kicked out of the tournament. Thinking about it now I believe I made a horrible play. I knew that with 77 I was coinflip at best, and I could have waited for a better situation to get my money in the pot. Easy to say now...

Including that tournament I lost $159.10 today. Not too bad for the stakes I played, but a loss is a loss.

Not only was my play bad, I know my writing in this post is bad as well. I don't really care, though. It's late and I'm tired. Good night.

Comeback Attack

I knew I needed a break from the ring games at Celeb. I played them in the early afternoon and once again I flopped a set of 8's only to discover that my opponent flopped a set of K's. I discovered this as the $400 pot was being shoved into his stack and not mine.

Many months I ago I exclusively played SNGs at Pokerstars. I played the $10+1 SNGs and eventually the $20+2 SNGs as well. I made very consistant money and the only reason I stopped was that I wanted to improve my cash game. Well, today I decided to try my luck at the Celeb SNGs. I played 6 $50+5 SNGs and 2 $100+9 SNGs. At the end of the day I am up $420.69. I really enjoyed getting back into the flow of these single table tournaments and I will definitely add them to my daily routine at Celeb. The only problem is that it takes a while for them to fill up, especially at the $100 level. There's not much I can do about that, though.

Anyways, wrapped up into one sentence: Today was a good day and I look forward to tomorrow.

Looks like I've hit a rough patch

I had hoped the losing session would be a one-day thing. I was wrong. Completely. I did drop back down to 1/2NL yesterday and I still managed to drop $685.60 at the tables. There are two big hands that I played yesterday that I'd like to discuss:

Hand 1: QQ

Someone raised in early position and I called with queens. Flop comes as the most beautiful flop I have ever seen: Q 4 6. My opponent bets and I call.

Turn comes: T. Not a bad card. At this point I am praying he is holding pocket T's. He bets pot size (over 40 bucks I believe) and once again I call. This was my mistake.

River falls: A. He bets big, I raise all-in, he insta-calls and I know I'm screwed. He shows me KJs for the runner-runner straight. I don't blame him, though, because this all came from my horrible play. Had I re-raised that turn heavily there would have been no way he would have called for his OESD. I messed up and I paid the $200 price.

Hand 2: TT

Once again an early player raises and I call from late position. Flop comes Q T 6. I can live with that flop anyday. My opponent bets, I raise, and he calls.

Turn: K. He bets, I go all-in, he calls.

River: unimportant, because he had KK and I lost another $400 pot.

These flopped sets are killing me. I will not give up, though. This is just giving me more determination to dominate those 1/2NL tables today. If you plan on playing them, watch out! Because I'm feeling goooood today!!!!!

In over my head?

Maybe I jumped into 2/4NL a little too early. Today I 3-tabled 2/4NL for around 2 hours and lost a total of $512. One hand was flopped set over flopped set, another was two-pair vs. trips, but nothing too extreme. It was a lot of small pots that added up to a decent amount of money lost. I am still ahead at 2/4NL, although that number shrunk immensely today. Tomorrow I will crawl back down to the 1/2NL tables, where I have made killer profit at CelebPoker so far.

Speaking of CelebPoker, Poker-Tester.com has some good news about CelebPoker. Be sure to tune into the Poker-Tester main page tomorrow.

And speaking of Poker-Tester, tonight was the monthly "Deutsche Pokerrunde" at Pokerstars. This time 25 people came together (a new record) and after over 2 hours of play, Fugazi67 took down the tournament and a year subscription to Card Player Europe Magazine. I came in 6th place (no money), but I had a good time anyway. We spent a long time discussing our future trip to Vienna. A decent amount of people are coming together and committing themselves to the trip, it looks like Poker-Tester will be well-represented in Vienna! More as it comes...

January 16th: CelebPoker -$512 Pokerstars -$11 = -$523 total. Good night!

When nothing goes right

I did not have a single winning game today. I played 3 ring game tables, two MTTs and an SNG and I did not make profit in any of them. My bill at the end of the night was -$226.90. Towards the end of the night I was feeling too sick to play so I decided to watch selecti play in the Paradise $1000 Masters event. I watched him for about 3 hours and he cashed for over $3000.

One piece of good news did come out of yesterday. Sutti and I booked our flights down to Vienna in late February. We'll be flying Air Berlin down there on the 23rd. Now I just gotta find a hotel. Next step is finding a hotel, and then the trip will be ready to go!

Sick

I woke up this morning sick to my stomach. I'll spare you the disgusting details and get to the poker. Because I was off/on being sick today I decided that my only hope of playing poker was to play for an hour at the most. Once I got going, though, the pieces just started falling into the right places and I ended up calling it a day with $521.88 profit after 2 hours of play.

Biggest hand of the day was JJ, which rivered a third jack to beat my opponent's flopped 999. That was about a $800 pot (2/4NL) which pretty much made my day by itself. I would have liked to play more today, but the circumstances just didn't allow it.

I'm hoping for a good night's sleep and then continuing my streak tomorrow.

Friday the 13th

Today I played exclusively at CelebPoker for a total of just under 4 hours. It was on course to be another phenomenal day but then tonight I managed to throw away a good portion of the day's winnings. I was playing 1/2NL and was dealt KK. One player had raised before me to 8 bucks, I reraised to 20. He thought for a while and went all in. He still had about $150 so it was a pretty big decision. I guess I tried forcing myself to put him on QQ, deep down though I need he had the goods. Sure enough, low cards on the board and he has black aces. I reload on that table and am dealt KK again about an hour later. Once again another player raises to $8, I reraise this time to $26, he calls. Flop A Q J. He bets, I make a horrible call. Turn comes 4. He bets, and I top my previous call by making an even worse call this time. River 7, he checks, I check. He shows ATs and I watch my chips slide over into his stack. I lost a total of $292 at that table alone. Luckily my previous wins from the day still keep me well up for the day. Total profit = $259.79. My bankroll is growing at CelebPoker at a quite fast rate, so I'm pretty happy about that.

On a side note, I stopped by the Spielbank Berlin tonight after watching a movie and saw that they now offer Pot Limit Hold'em €5/€10 Blinds on Sunday evenings. Buy-in is €150. I did not see if it said 'Minimum Buy-In', but €150 seems awfully small to be playing 5/10 Pot Limit. That's only 15 big blinds. I may go and have a look on Sunday. Who knows, I may even grab some chips and try my luck at the table?

Empty-handed once again

Once again I have nothing to show for my efforts in a qualifier for a land-based tourney. There were 167 players in the $270 Qualifier for the EWSOP on PartyPoker tonight. Top 8 finalists got a seat for Vienna. I played for 1 hour 47 minutes and came in 46th place. My final hand was AK vs. 33 all-in preflop. Board came low cards and I was out. That wasn't the hand that killed me, though. Just a few hands earlier I had a good-sized stack and was dealt A4 offsuit in my BB. It folded around to the SB, who mini-raised. I called and the flop came A J 4. In a nutshell, he had AJ and doubled up through me, crippling my stack immensely. When I think about it now it might have been smarter to fold the A4 to a mini-raise, but I did not want to give the table the image that I was a pushover. Oh well. From the looks of it I will be going down to Vienna anyways, but probably not for the Main Event anymore.

Luckily I had another killer day at Celebpoker playing cash games. I won a total of $754.72 playing 3 tables of 1/2NL and 1 table of 2/4NL over a total period of 3 hours.

Result for today: $754.72 - $270 = $484.72 profit

Or did I?

I thought this comic was pretty hilarious when I saw it. It doesn't necessarily apply to anything I am going through, but I thought it was funny anyway. I don't know the guy who made it, but he has other poker comics located at his blog.

Anyways, I'm not sure what it is, but my run seems to be "unjinxed" once again. Because I was sick and took the day off work, I had plenty of time to play some poker. I played a total of 4.5 hours spread throughout the day and booked a nice win of $463.55. Most of the play was at Celeb, although I did play two $50+2.50 Heads Up SNGs at Pokerstars, winning them both. Having such a relaxed day (mainly in bed playing poker on my laptop) helped me reload some energy so hopefully I will be able to go to work tomorrow. In other news, my $270 EWSOP Qualifier on PartyPoker is tomorrow night. I have a good feeling going in to the tournament, but I've had feeling go unanswered too often in the past to get my hopes up. We'll just have to see how the cards fall.

I jinxed it

Well, I shoulda just kept quiet about my upswing. As soon as I make a post about it, it's taken away from me instantly. I logged about 4 hours at the tables today I gave away $311.94 to my fellow poker players. If you were one of the lucky few who received part of my stack, please enjoy it. On top of that, I am starting to get sick.

One thing is for sure, though. I have absolutely no right to complain. One of my good friend's mom is currently in the hospital being treated for cancer (for the second time) and she'll be in the hospital for at least a month undergoing chemotherapy. My grandfather in California is currently dying of colon cancer at the age of 86. Henrik's dog also has cancer in the mouth and will need to be laid to rest within the next few days. How dare I complain about a bad poker day? Man, bullshit like cancer really puts things into perspective...

Upswings feel good

Over these past few weeks I have been winning pretty consistently, which feels great. Today I was only able to squeeze in a 1.5 hour session of poker. In order to get my daily dosage I decided to 4-table the 1/2NL tables at Celeb. I ended up winning a total of $375.86 and things are looking very positive for me on that site.

It's days like these that you never want to end. Luckily I am pretty realistic about it and I realize I will not crush these games so easily forever. I hope that I will be able to use my positive energy in EWSOP Qualifier on the 12th of January. That is definitely my next dream...

A day of mixed games

It is still my goal to qualify for a live event. Yesterday I took the first step towards qualifying for the EWSOP in Vienna by winning the $20+2 qualifier on PartyPoker. I won a ticket worth $270, which puts me now in the direct qualifier for the EWSOP on January 12th. 1 in 20 players qualify, I'm gonna give it my all and hopefully earn a seat.

If I include that $270 into my daily winnings I ended the day up $221.51. The biggest mistake of the day came when I let my pride get the best of me and got involved in a $100+5 Heads up SNG on Pokerstars. I don't know what the hell I was thinking, HU is not necessarily my specialty and I was trying too hard to get the best of my opponent. Obviously with so many things running against me it didn't take me too long (24 minutes to be precise) to lose that SNG and say Adios to that $105. We'll see in the future if I learned my lesson or not.

My gameplan today firstly involves work (yes, I do have a job, which I enjoy) and then as the day progresses I will hopefully be able to get in some hours at the Celeb 1/2NL tables. I have a very good feeling going in to today, let's just hope my feeling does not let me down.

EPT Qualifier

Copenhagen, Denmark. On January 19th, the European Poker Tour will be making a stop there. Many players qualified for the tournament via Pokerstars. I am not one of them.

Why am I not going? Don't ask me, ask the Pokerstars virtual dealer who decided to put an 8 on the turn. A two-outer. A rub-it-in-your-face you're-not-going-to-Denmark 8 of diamonds.


PokerStars Game #3563474795
thecortster [Qc Qh]
wolli [8s 8h]
ALL IN PREFLOP
Community Cards come [3h 3d Jh 8d] [As]

I could never recover from this hand. I played for 4 hours and 54 minutes, came in 23rd place (out of 214) and won a measly $260. Considering that the tournament cost $380 to enter, $260 equals up to a $120 loss. I could already taste Denmark in my mouth, and then this.

Luckily I was able to make $195.44 at CelebPoker, so I'm going to bed a $75.44 winner for the day. One of these days I am going to qualify for an EPT event. It's going to be ever so sweet.

A decent Friday

I got home pretty late last night, that's why I'm writing this blog today instead. Basically yesterday went relatively well, at the end of the day I had cleared $10 bonus and won an additional $212.55 playing at CelebPoker. Most of it was earned playing $1/$2NL, but I did try a little $5/$10 Limit Hold'em, where I won $111 after 1.2 hours of play.

Gerlihard wrote me yesterday asking if Sutti and I had interest in coming down to Vienna for the EWSOP in February. It's being held at the Concord Card Casino, and it really got me thinking seriously about it. There are two tournaments I'd really like to play in, the €150+20 Pot Limit Hold'em on the 25th of February, and the €500+40 on the 26th. I'd also try to satellite my way into the main event, which is a €2000+100 Tournament on the 2nd of March. A lot of things point in the right direction as far as making it down there for a trip, I just need to start seriously planning it out and booking flights/hotels.

Speaking of trips, I have a $380 Satellite for EPT Copenhagen today at Pokerstars. I can win direct entry for the event and I'm really hoping I can get some good cards to get me going. I have played in two of these tourneys before (qualifiers for EPT France and EPT Barcelona) with no success, we'll see how today goes. Wish me luck!

Ups and Downs

I just wasn't feeling it today. I just finished off the day with a $50+5 SNG at CelebPoker. Came in 3rd place, which made up for a little of my cash game loss. At the end of the day I am a $2.88 loser. I think I'll be able to deal with that, although it might take a while :)

There are days when I am totally in the zone, those are the days I make my money. Today I never really got into it, I was unconcentrated, and so it is no surprise my results will suffer. I'm hoping for a good night of sleep and we'll see what the new day brings in the morning.

Scratch Lottery is rigged

So as I was leaving Kansas I still had some spare dollars on me. I decided to invest them into the Kansas Scratch Lottery :)

The game is Texas Hold'em. The player gets two cards and you have to beat the dealer's two cards using the five community cards. Each ticket has five different hands, and you can win up to $25,000. I'm sure these bad beats will amaze you as well (just click on the image to the left to see a larger version). My personal favorite is on the second ticket, my quad 7's get beat by a straight flush! Take a look for yourself. I gotta admit, I'll probably end up playing the game again some time, just because I like the action.

As far as real poker goes, today went really well. I was able to win $570.63 over 2 hours of playing two tables of $1/$2NL at CelebPoker. I played a $30+3 tournament as well but I lost when my AA got cracked by KQ all-in preflop. Q on the flop, Q on the river. At that point I didn't really care, though, because the cash games were running so well. It will take me a while to clear the whole Celeb bonus of $300, it seems to be taking a long time to clear. But it gives me something to work on, which should make for a great January of poker-playing.

Everyone else is doing it...

Alright, well I've been thinking about starting a blog for quite some time now. Finally I just decided I'd just start it off, and what better day than Tuesday the 3rd of January? Truth is, I just got back to Germany this morning after being in America for two weeks. Now I'll be able to get back in the flow of every day work and hopefully every day poker playing. I'll be doing this blog in English because it comes naturally to me, whereas in German I need to really concentrate on what I am writing and my posts are often filled with errors.

I set a goal for myself to build my bankroll to atleast $20K by the end of 2006. This won't be a blog that becomes a diary of my goal or anything like that, the $20K goal will just be something I have in the back of my mind as I track my results throughout the year.

So far the year has been running pretty well for me. I deposited $600 onto PartyPoker a little over a week ago in order to get a 30% bonus up to $150. Since then I was able to make a $1375 score at a $30+3 MTT as well as have a nice little run in the 200NL cash games. After 10.5 hours of gameplay playing a total of 1500 hands, I was able to make an additional $803.72 as well as clear a $150 bonus, which will make for a nice little cashout.

I am now going to shift my focus to CelebPoker. I still have a little bonus to clear there, and I will be getting 25% rakeback from http://www.poker-tester.com, man those guys are good :) I'll be playing $1/$2NL but I also plan on throwing in some nightly tournaments.

Sorry for making this first post so long, I'll try and update the blog once a day. Stay tuned!