Rhino's Blog

Its been awhile since I've posted in this blog. I spent most of February studying for the bar exam, so I didnt get a chance to really do much. Despite that I did get a fair amount of hands in. Played about 6k hands, think I was an overall loser for the month, but due to Cake not allowing PT I dont know for sure.

Anyway, recently transferred some of my roll to Stars so I can get PT, PAHud and whatever else and actually start keeping track of my play and fixing some leaks. Thus far my biggest leak seems to be running horridly. In the 800 or so hands since I've been using PT, I've lost with AA 3/5 times, KK 3/4 times and QQ 4/4 times. Where the hell is my two week welcome back heater? I thought this was standard on stars. So, here I am, playing 2NL on stars and sucking ass. I can beat 20NL on cake, but not 2NL on stars, which is retarded. I'm quickly getting annoyed, as I seem to do every time I try to go back to Stars for any amount of time. I think I will stick it out this time though as I want to grind my way up on Stars just to prove to myself that I can. Eventually the running bad has to stop right?

On another note, I cashed out most of my roll from cake to pay some bills and what not as this has been a very, very expensive month for me. In addition to bar exam costs (almost 2 grand altogether), I've also had both parents, one sister and my girlfriend's birthdays this month and valentines day. And a couple of friend's birthdays too where we've gone out and spent money. I have pretty expensive habits and sometimes they catch up to me and put me in the hole for the month. This month with all the added expenses, I just felt like I needed a little financial boost so I cashed out almost everything I had on cake leaving me with a roll for 10NL but nothing more. So I guess that means time to really grind and build my roll back up so I can get to 25NL by the end of the month again.

My goals for March are to rebuild my roll and be at least close to 25NL. I have a lot of days where I wont be able to play this month, so not sure how many hands I will get in. However, I am learning that Stars is MUCH faster than Cake, so I should be able to get in a decent amount. I'll set my goal at 7k hands. We'll see what happens.

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My goal for 10k hands per month is not going very well as I have been busy and generally unmotivated for a week or so. I did play live twice in the past week, I won a total of $1 friday night playing 1/3, and then won a pretty good chunk last night. Anyway...only logged about 1100 hands so far this month, its early, but 10k is going to be tough I think. Doing well though as I seem to be running pretty hot on Cake still.

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Hi everyone, this is my first blog post. I've been reading and lurking on LP for probably a year or so now after seeing someone with an LP avatar on stars. I have been playing online poker for going on 4 years now, I first began playing my first year of lawschool on the playmoney tables at stars. Before long I deposited $50 bucks and got started. I ended up losing all that, and more, I think around like $200 in the next year or so. I basically just donked around at low NL games and SNGs with a few MTTs mixed in. I read some books, played quite a bit in small homegames, but basically sucked at poker, although, like most poker players, thought I was real good.

After a couple of years of being a donkey, I began to realize that I was one, and decided to really focus on my game. I deposited another $50 onto stars and began the grind. I basically played break even for over a year, getting my $50 up to $300 or so before losing most of it back and just had a big rollercoaster for a long time. Eventually, about 4 months ago, I went completely busto for the first time in two years online. I lost all my money on stars, full tilt and cake poker, which was all like $300 combined. I decided then that I was done with online poker as I was on a horrible run of cards that just felt like I could never win even when I got it in 90% to win. So I gave it up for a couple of months.

Eventually, I got bored and re-downloaded and began with some play money and freerolls on stars. I then realized that maybe I had some rakeback money on Cake that I didnt get before going busto, so I downloaded it and checked it out, and sure enough, $3.30 from rakeback like 3 months before. So, I took my $3.30 and hit the .04/.08 fix limit tables. I ground it up to like $5 and decided to try a $1 30 person SNG. I ended up winning that for like 12 bucks or something and went to a 4NL table. I caught a great run of cards there and ended up building up to around $50 again. I then started playing 4 tables of 4NL and mixing in a few MTTs as well. One night I registered for the $2K guaranteed tournament, even though it was $5 to play and I only had about $40 in my account. I ended up running super hot, and took 2nd in that for like $300! Now I was really back in the game, and really began grinding.

I moved up to 10NL playing 4 tables at all times, and also kept with some MTTs on the side too. I was winning at 10NL, and then satellited into the $50k guaranteed through a $5 satellite. I played the 50k and cashed in that for another $165. I was now on a roll and had over $500, probably the most I've ever had playing online poker. I then moved to 20NL and was still running good and playing some of the best poker I've ever played. I felt like everything just sort of clicked. I began posting some hands on 2+2 and some other forums and getting advice and felt that my game was really starting to take shape. That basically brings us to now. I'm still playing 20NL on cake and throwing in some MTTs also. Most recently, last week I again satted into the 50k guarantee (two tickets in two trys!) and again cashed in that for 50th place for $235. Another big bankroll booster! However, I got screwed cause I had AA when the site went down and they ended up cancelling the hand after I got someone all in with KQ. Cake did end up doing the right thing and refunding my entry fee as well for a nice score of almost $350 total since I had satted in.

I've also setup an epassporte account and transferred some of my roll from cake to stars, although they have still been hating me, and on my first day back I lost with AA 9 times! So I am sticking to cake for the time being, but still playing some MTTs on stars just looking for a big score. Eventually, I plan to move the majority of my roll to a site where I can use Pokertracker and all that good stuff as I realize tracking my results is very important for continuing to improve and move up, but for now, the games on Cake are just too good to pass up!

So, I guess I started this blog just to keep up with my own progress, keep myself focused and try to keep myself off tilt. I do tend to post a lot of bad beat hands and what not on some forums I frequent, so I will try and keep from doing that too much in this blog, although I feel posting them and getting them out there keeps me from tilting over them, so there may be some posted here as well.

Anyway...thats my poker story. I still continue to play in some home games now and again, and also hit up the casinos some as well. I have been running really badly live though, so havent been playing much lately, but you can expect some live updates as well. So that's that for my poker career. Hopefully I will keep this updated so everyone can following along as I continue to move up the ladder.

My goals for 2008 are pretty much as follows:
-Continue to grind and move up stakes. I hope to be at 50NL within the next 3-4 months.
-Play at least 10k hands per month. This probably doesnt seem like much to most people, but with a full time job that keeps me busy enough, it's quite a few for me. Hopefully I can do more, but this is the minimum I'd like to play.
-Continue to post hand histories and get advice so that I can plug the leaks in my game. I know I have several, and the guys on 2+2 really gave me good advice and helped me to plug a lot so far. I haven't been very good about continuing to post on there the past couple months though, so I want to get back to that.
-Get a large enough bankroll to spread it around to several sites without feeling like I am spreading it too thin, so that I can get pokertracker and really analyze my play and my progress.
-Win an MTT...I have never actually taken one down, in spite of several deep runs, so I want to do that sometime in the next few months as well. I know it will happen if I keep going deep like I have been lately.

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