The Chronicles Of Zwemnaar

A belated May Review

2011-06-12T16:13:00.000+01:00

"Laziness dear, did I ever offend thee,
How many times have I left work to attend thee?!"

This somes up my laziness! I have had this blog written for a few days now and I just haven't got round to posting it...until now!
May is now well and truely done and dusted and it is officially my most successful month online. I banked $224 in profit and this figure was aided by €30 of the reload bonus that was cleared. I fell short of clearing the whole bonus by 240 fpp's but I did achieve my higest rate of fpp's earned in a 30 day period (1,000 fpp's). Still, I managed to somehow miss out on gaining SilverStar Status for the month of June, due to the bonus being cleared across two months!

Now for June I can finally start clearing the $50 pokercast bonus that I earned at the end of April. It has a very low clearance level (350 fpp's to clear the full $50) ,so hopefully I can clear this by the end of June. I have, once again, completed my latest bankroll challenge of reaching $810 which equated to tripling my original yearly bankroll. Who knows, by the end of June I might be a grand-ionaire. It is a cool thought that within 9 months of playing the ultra micros and starting off with zilch I would have $1,000 in my account!

I an close to clearing the 3,000 fpp VIP bonus which will add an extra $10 to the account. I am ahead of pace for my yearly goal of 5,000 fpp's and with that claiming the first 6 VIP Stellar Rewards. The next VIP Stellar reward bonus is at the 4,000 fpp step so it will take a little longer to get to this milestone. I have been meaning to add a progress bar to the blog to chart my progress,but laziness is a beautiful thing, so I will try to get that set up by the next post,promise!

Good luck to all that are heading over to the WSOP at the moment. Wish I was heading over, but then again it is hard to win satellites when you never play them! Hopefully there is an Irish bracelet this Summer, if the UK players can do it so can we! I will leave you with the stats for May:
May:
Bankroll = $844 (+ $224)
Vpps = 630
Yearly vpps = 2,909

Spanish Holiday & Cleaning Up The Chips!

2011-05-21T12:37:00.000+01:00

I am just back from a lovely weekend in Barcelona. I headed over with my brother, his friend, and my father. You can't beat a bit of 25 degrees heat! We got VIP tickets for Barcelona's last home game of the season versus Deportivo La Coruná. They were presented with the La Liga title and they was a real party atmosphere in the Camp Nou, they even had a fireworks display! We were in the enclosure with all the wives and girlfriends (unfortunately Piqué's girlfriend Shakira decided not to show up!), the president aka Sandro Rosell also rubbed shoulders with us for a while. The players carried out a weird celebration, after getting the trophy,they started throwing red peppers into the crowd. I managed to get my hands on one, and in total they handed out 16,000 peppers!

I have bought my first poker book since I started playing poker. My first book was "Poker for dummies"! Aptly titled as I didn't have a clue but looking back on it now I realise how directed at the novice it was! I decided to buy Miko Caro's physcology of Poker. I have read some good reviews about it and it seems to be an interesting book. Also my girlfriend does physcology in college, so it would be nice to read her mind for once and not vice versa!

Here comes a little bit of a plug! I bought the book off the book depository.com. It's a cool site as it has a very wide range of books and, most importantly, it supplies free delivery worldwide. I think it is slightly dearer than amazon but the free shipping makes up for it. I have used it before for some christmas shopping after I heard it being mentioned on a budget show on tv and I must say I have had no complaints. Also during the month of May,if you use the code "May11" you get 10% of your purchases. I paid €14.23 for the book and I have my eye on a few other books that might come in handy, like the bibles of poker, the super system series (the old testament) and the harrington on hold'em volumes(the new testament). I might add these to my collection over the coming months.

My prediction has come true with the micro tables on Stars. The fish have come out of the woodwork for the SCOOP and I have been hoovering up their chips at the 5NL tables. So far I have surpassed my previous month's best of $145 by quite a bit and this is without playing a really big pot. I am just pottering away, winning a buy-in here,a buy-in there. Long may this continue! I have also played a few feeder satellites into the SCOOP events and then just kept the tourney $'s. I will leave you with the stats so far for May,a new personal best!
May:
Bankroll = $804 (+ $184)
Vpps = 364
Yearly vpps = 2,643

SCOOP Begins & Bonuses Stack Up!

2011-05-08T21:33:00.000+01:00

I have had a good start to the month. I have cleared another €10 of the reload bonus and I now have another bonus to clear! I played in the 2+2 pokercast tournament on Sunday last. This is a $1.10 tournament run by the 2+2 forum and the password is given out on air. They supply an additional $500 to the prizepool and they also hand out a $50 bonus to whoever finishes in the top 18. They change the game type every week and this week it was the turn of pot limit omaha. Granted this game type is not my forté (indeed I have only ever played omaha a handful of times!), but I had nothing else to do on a bank holiday Sunday! I played nice and tight, or whatever I understood tight play to be in Omaha!

At times I was lost in the action, having to check back over hands to see who won and how they won! Suprisingly, I headed in to the final table 2nd in chips but the blinds were high and I eventually bowed out in 8th place, pocketing $19.22 for my troubles. The main positive was that I had won myself a $50 bonus that I now have 90 days to unlock it. On the downside I will effectively only have 60 days to clear it as I can't clear my two bonuses concurrently. In this time I have to accrue 350 fpp's which should be a piece of cake seeing as I normally earn that amount of fpp's in a month.

This is a timely boost to my bankroll challenge as I now have two bonuses to unlock and the Stellar rewards to earn. I feel like a supernova elite with all the rakeback I am earning!! I also had the pleasure of having JRmontano on my starting table. I can't remember the last time I sat with him in a tournament, probably a pokerspace event, but I was glad when he was knocked out as I knew he was a dangerous player on my table. Better luck next time Jr!

I have just busted out of the first NL $22 low event in the SCOOP. It was a non-event really. Built my stack up to double the starting one and then hit top two against a flopped straight. So, that's one of my SCOOP tickets used up. I played a hyper-turbo for the tournament and scored with it so I now have $22 tournament dollars in my account now too. I will leave you with the stats for May so far:
May:
Bankroll = $723 (+ $103)
Vpps = 171
Yearly vpps = 2,450

The SCOOP & April Stats

2011-05-07T11:49:00.000+01:00

So it's that time of year again! The Spring Championship Of Online Poker or The SCOOP as it is fondly known! I have never cashed in a SCOOP event before but then again I have only ever played in one tournament! I am currently in posession of one $22 ticket and two $11 tickets which I won during WBCOOP. Now it is time to parlay these free tickets into some serious revenue! I still haven't decided which tournaments to play yet. I might combine the two $11 tickets into another $22 ticket and then just play two events.

Pokerstars have released a revised schedule for the SCOOP in light of the recent revelations with regards to the American players. As expected, the guarantees are all reduced but there is a slight upside for the Europeans to be happy about. Pokerstars have changed the times of the events to a more European friendly schedule. The only problem for me is that the tournaments that I would be interested in playing (full ring NL $22 & $11 tournaments), run on Sundays at the same time as I would be travelling up to Dublin. I might have to play some mid-week tournaments but these are 6-max which have proven to be my achille's heel in the past.

I hope to make a bit more money off the tables as recreational fish come onto the site for the series. Hopefully I will be on the right side of these spew monkeys! I have so far cleared €10 of the €50 reload bonus which came from the SCOOP promotion. I have also collected my third VIP stellar reward and I am inching closer to the 5,000 yearly fpp goal. The completion of this goal would give me an extra $70 and this would in turn help me to achieve my "Triple the Bankroll" challenge. May was an interesting month for everyone in the poker world. I actually put in quite a lot of time at the tables and nearly achieved SilverStar status for May only for the fact that I didn't play a hand of poker the week after "Black Friday".

Excluding the bonuses earned during the month, I am only up a small amount on the tables. This is partly down to me playing poorly, poor table selection and the cards going against me. I have started to play more 5 NL dollar tables as they seem to be busier than the euro tables. Suprisingly my stats vary greatly between the two currency tables. I am down about $30 on the dollar tables compared to being up around €40 on the euro tables. For the month of May I might focus on this statistic and try to drag my winrate up on the $ tables. Once again I will leave you with the figures for the month of April:
April:
Bankroll = $620 (+ $78)
Vpps = 620
Yearly vpps = 2,279

The Aftermath!

2011-04-25T12:03:00.000+01:00

The dust is still settling from "Black Friday". The American players are no more on the major sites and there are signs on the horizon as to how the big three will handle this. The guarantees on all of the Sunday majors across all the sites have been slashed dramatically. In most cases the guarantees have been halved but for the FTOPS Event #1 on Full Tilt the guarantee crumbled from $3 million to $1 million. This doesn't bode well for the Pokerstars SCOOP series and I wonder how Pokerstars will cope with the reduced traffic flow during one of their flagship events.

On Friday night I put in a cashout request to get my entire bankroll off the site. I just wasn't comfortable with all the uncertainty surrounding payment procedures and waiting periods. Who knew whether the site would be around in a month's, week's or even a day's time! In the end it was relatively pain free and my $577 was soon resting in my moneybookers account. I put the €25.28 that was sitting in my moneybooker account before the cashout back onto the site, sure I couldn't just turn my back on on-line poker altogether (It has been a great friend in the past)!

And then Pokerstars tried a little gambit to keep the worldwide players interested! They announced a 50% reload bonus up to $200 for the SCOOP series. It worked on me anyway! I took €100 of the moneybookers account and bing, bang, boom, I now have a €50 bonus ready to unlock! I set my sights slightly high though. I need to earn 1,350 fpp's by the 31st of May which will give me some added motivation to step up the grind. If I can get this entire bonus cleared then It will mean I have another two VIP Stellar rewards earned and that would be a big step towards my 5,00 fpp yearly total.

I am just going to keep my running total for the end of the month the same as if I never withdrew! It's easier that way and also I don't want this "Black Friday" debacle to mess up my yearly goals (triple bankroll, 5,000 fpp's etc.). So here is the stats for April so far:
April:
Bankroll = $584 (+ $42)
Vpps = 366
Yearly vpps = 2,025

Online Poker's Armageddon?

2011-04-15T22:21:00.002+01:00

I have just been reading an article on PTR about the F.B.I moving in on the three main sites, Pokerstars, Full Tilt and Absolute poker. I have just been on the Pokerstars client and I see no US players sitting at cash tables or any MTT's. Is this online poker's armageddon? Either which way this action has massive ramifications. America, the land of the free, the land of opportunity? What a laugh! And knowing how reliant on America Ireland is, who knows, maybe the major sites could be banned from these shores.
This is a fairly sobering screenshot.

March Stats And Another Goal Complete!

2011-04-09T14:31:00.001+01:00

My "double the bankroll" challenge is complete! It happened a lot quicker than I expected and I didn't have to rely too heavily on the VIP Stellar rewards or reload bonuses (having earned a total of $32.50 from these sources). Not suprisingly the hand that sealed the deal was on the 25c/50c tables where I had followed a total fish. The hand is posted below.

https://www.pokertableratings.com/hand-history/stars/59822186475/13843194658

This now means I have a new biggest online pot to the total of €98.35. Other than this pot though I don't think I have been playing my best poker. I donated a chunk of it right back at the 2c/5c tables. Seeing as one goal is complete, Here comes the next one(as proposed by jrmontano). TRIPLE MY ORIGINAL BANKROLL. This would see my bankroll to the $810 mark and that is just around the corner from a grand!!

My fpp's have also creeped across the 2,500 mark so I could cash all these in for a $25 bonus. I still think there are better ways to turn fpp's into cash so I might have to do a bit of studying to find the best way. If anyone out there has any suggestions as to how to use them wisely just leave a comment on the blog. I need all the help I can get!I will leave you with the stats from my best ever month:
March:
Bankroll = $542 (+ $145)
vpps = 457

Student Masters Let-Down and On-line (Lack Of) Progress!

2011-03-26T12:29:00.000Z

Since my last post,the poker gods have been a bit tough!The student masters, which I was eagerly looking forward to, was on last Sunday. Now, I work quite close to the Jackpot casino where it was held and I tried to register for the tournament after work on both Tuesday and Friday. Both times there wasn't a sinner about and I had to give up my attempts. I thought I could just arrive early on the day and register...Big Mistake. When I headed over to it on the Saturday I was told that it was completely booked out and I was put on the list as 1st alternate.As it turned out I never got to play a hand of poker that day. Alas, always next year! It's a shame, seeing as the Jackpot put on a really good show and had the place looking very well. At least the Irsh English rugby game raised my spirits!

On-line has been rough since I posted last. It might seem from my stats that I have only fallen back $12 but if you take into account that this figure includes a $10 stellar reward bonus and a $12.50 reload bonus, then you will realise that I have given up a bit of the ground that I made in the first few weeks of the month. I have to admit it, I don't like losing money! I think for you to be a good poker player you have to strike a balance between the pain of losing money and the disassociation of the chips on the table as money that could be in your pocket. In the past I have not been able to strike a balance with these two facets and because of this by the time I build a half decent bankroll I get nervous about losing it and eventually decide to cash out. One big losing day on the tables usually has me clearing out my Pokerstars account and starting off from scratch again.

But this year I promised myself not to withdraw any money from my account and the fact that I have to mention this in the blog means that this weekend I came very close to doing that. I am finding it hard to adjust to the play at the 2c/5c tables. I seem to go on tilt alot easier than I used to and this is just not a good thing. I feel I need to step back from poker for a week or two and just let myself regain focus. I think another reason for my poor play in the fact That I was very close to reaching my target of doubling my bankroll and then it started to crumble away. At one point I was $25 away from reaching my goal and at the time i still had the $22.50 of bonuses to clear. I just feel that I have taken a step backwards and need to take a step back and realise how far I have come to be within touching distance of my goal.Anyway, stats for the month so far:

March:
Bankroll = $486 (+ $89)
vpps = 364

Pokerstars Home Game Reload Bonus and Running Hot!

2011-03-12T13:33:00.000Z

It has been awhile since Pokerstars have done a reload bonus (WCOOP I think), but that time has come again. It is in conjunction with their Home Games interface with which they are trying hard to promote. The Home Games seems like a great idea, too bad I have no mates with a Pokerstars account! Pokerstars are offering a 25% reload bonus up to $150. You have to earn 20 fpp's to release each $1 of bonus and the bonus is released in $10 increments.

So I emptied my moneybookers account ($49) and I now have a $12.50 bonus to clear and I need to earn 245 fpp's to clear it. After the two day waiting period I just placed the $49 back into the moneybookers account, so in essence it's money for nothing and your kicks for free! It is a nice time to have this reload offered as I have about 250 fpp's to go until the next stellar reward and this means I will have a nice $22.50 added (hopefully!) to my account in the not so distant future! I also got credited with a $5.50 Home Games ticket but I don't know when/if I am going to use it.

Online has been going swimmingly. Just looking at the figures now I have realised that his month, so far, has been my best month with regards cash games. I have got rid of the 1c/2c cash games and now play solely 2c/5c and higher. If I see some good spots on the 5c/10c tables and 10c/25c tables I take a shot, but not too often. The extra fpp's earned at this level will help clear the bonus. I am also inching closer to my new years resolution of doubling my bankroll. Anyway I will fill in the details on the student masters, which happens St. Patricks weekend, in the next blog. Laters.

March:
Bankroll = $498 (+ $101)
vpps = 182

My Biggest Online Pot And February Review

2011-03-05T10:36:00.000Z

So this month has been a relatively quiet month for me. I have lost my SilverStar Status (I'm going to miss them two little stars!) Don't think I made the most out of the status,to be honest. I only played in one of the weekly 100fpp $30,000 freerolls for a min cash and I didn't have enough fpp's to go and try to qualify for a live event through the VIP satellites. Now that I have achieved this yearly goal I might as well be ambitious and target GoldStar Status for a future month this year. Very unlikely that I will be able to reach this goal but I might as well write it down and hope for the best!

I am over half way through clearing my second stellar reward and I should hopefully clear this in March. I am going to introduce more 2c/5c games to my grind as I feel I am getting to comfortable making pennies at the micro micro stakes.

In other news, this month I played my biggest online pot! It definately wont make Isildur1 quake in his boots but it had my heart racing when the final card was being dealt.The hand occured on a 10c/25c table. I was playing against this maniac at the 1c/2c tables and when he busted I decided to follow him onto a 2c/5c and so on, taking a few $'s off him along the way. It was quite funny, at one stage he played for about 10 minutes on a play money table, lost his stack, and then jumped into a 50c/$1 cash game! I didn't join him here because I thought the risk was too high of the other players at the table taking advantage of me whilst I was trying to take advantage of him! I bided my time and waited for him to sit at a 10c/25c table (after losing his stack on the other table). Instead of describing the hand I will just post the link here to pokertableratings hand history.

http://www.pokertableratings.com/hand-history/stars/57181915681/12876982038

I know it's never good to get our stack in with bottem pair holding 6-3 for a $63 pot but I had strong reads that he was weak. Alas the river didn't go down the way I hoped and I ended up losing my biggest pot played online. At east I bounced back from this hand and made my way back into the black for the month and then some. Overall I was very happy with the (limited amount of) poker I played in February.

My first turbo takedown is over. For some reason the tourney froze for a good 30 minute period just after the start. It is quite a large field you have to work your way through and I bowed out around 12,000 place well away from the money. It seems like the private tab is swelling with affiliates offering freerolls into the turbo takedown so hopefully I can secure my ticket for this month as I see major value in the tournament and the freerolls as a whole.

The Irish Student masters is coming up on March the 20th in the Jackpot Casino in Dublin. I unfortunately was unable to satellite in as I was training on the Tuesdays that the freerolls were on PPP so I will have to pony up the €110. Small change when I win it and take the IPO seat all the way to the bank! I haven't played live this year to date so I am sure to be a bit rusty, but it's worth playing for the experience(and the glory!). Finally here are the stats for February:

February:
Bankroll = $397 (+ $48)
vpps = 378

Turbo Takedown and Pokerstars Moderators

2011-02-20T00:03:00.000Z

I will try and keep this post short because in all honesty I haven't played much poker recently! This is because, as part of my college course, I go out on work placement for 8 months. Aviva are the lucky company to have my services! This coupled with the start of the gaelic football season, has made me a very busy boy during the week. I train with a gaelic club (Clann na Gael) in Dublin on Tuesdays and Thursdays, my home club (Sean McDermotts) in Louth on Friday and Sunday, and gymming on Monday and Wednesday. Hopefully all this effort pays off this season, but there is only one way to find out! This just means I am too tired to play poker after work and Saturday is the only day I really play anymore.

There is no chance I will keep up SilverStar status for March but I did parlay 100 fpp's into a min cash in the $30,000 VIP weekly freeroll which was good for $6. Today I played a 25 fpp freeroll for the turbo takedown organised by rakeback uk with 25 added seats. 488 registered and luckily I scrapped a seat. It is the first time I have earned a seat for the turbo takedown and I look forward to driving off with the first prize next sunday!

Now onto Pokerstars moderators and in this case moderator267. During the turbo takedown freeroll I got berated by a player for one of my (many!) unorthodoxed plays. Now normally I take this all in jest and never call the moderators into it but on this occasion the player decided to continually call me "negro" and I felt this was unacceptable. But when I did call the mods I got the same response they give every complaint:
"Hello players"
"Please be reminded to keep chat clean nlah blah blah"
Now the mod in question said they had checked the chat log but it is easy to see that they hadn't. I f they had, there response would not be the automated tripe they always spout out. It looks really bad on Pokerstars for this behaviour to be entertained on their tables and they just arn't enforcing their rules on the players. Anyway here are the stats so far for February:

February:
Bankroll = $381 (+ $32)
vpps = 293

January Review

2011-02-05T15:21:00.000Z

January was one of my best months on-line. I have ditched the 1c/2c dollar tables for the 1c/2c euro tables and the results have been great. A big difference between the two tables is that you can buy in for up to 250 BB's on the dollar tables but only buy in for a maximum of 100 BB's on the euro tables. I don't know if this is all changing with the Pokerstars cash games revamp, but I hope not! It makes for a much looser player base on the euro tables and a good place to accumulate vpp's. I also threw in a few 2c-5c tables and 5c-10c(short stack) tables just to say goodbye to the old format!

I have already achieved one of my goals for the new year. I attained SilverStar status for january and I am enjoying the extra fpp's it brings in. Also the two shiny stars on the avatar is a nice change! I might play in the 100 fpp $30,000 freeroll for VIP players this week if I have time. The WBCOOP was also on during January and I secured myself two $11 and a $22 ticket for the SCOOP series. I earned my ME ticket in the first pot limit omaha tournament, which was nice as I only ever played it twice before. I also cashed in a NLHE tournament later on in the series and then finished 107th on the ME. At least it was better than bubbling the same tournament last year!!

I gained my first stellar reward for reaching the 750 vpp level, so thats an extra $10 for the bankroll. I have no real plans for February and I definately wont be able to play as much as I did in January. I guess I will just keep tipping on trying to double the bankroll but the January play really helped this goal! Laters.

January:
Bankroll = $349 (+ $79)
vpps = 795

Some (belated) New Year's Resolutions

2011-01-28T01:21:00.000Z

Finally my exams are over. They weren't the easiest but I think I got at least three of the four actuarial CT exemptions, so not all bad. But let's get back to the matter at hand! I have been thinking up of a few modest goals for this year, both live and online. So here it goes, in no particular order:

1. Earn 5,000 vpp's on Pokerstars, and with that, earn the first five VIP Stellar rewards totalling $100.
I know a few people who read this will think that this total is quite low. I read a good few supernova elites' blogs and realise that this goal is achievable in a few hours for them,but to put this into perspective I earned a total of 1,354 vpp's and one VIP Stellar reward last year. I feel this is a good stepping stone to increasing my playing time online.

2. Earn SilverStar VIP status for at least one month this year.
This goal is already in progress and I have earned 577/750 vpp's needed for SilverStar status this month. So hopefully this is the first goal to be hit. I have been looking into the Pokerstars VIP rewards system and don't really see much difference in the BronzeStar and SilverStar status except the rate of fpp's increasing from 1 to 1.5 per vpp. There might be a few money added freerolls in there too.

3.Double my bankroll from $270 to $540.
Self explanatory, might have to move up levels to achieve this.but I will keep you posted on this. I aim to keep a running total on my blog at the end of each post with my bankroll and fpp count.

4. Qualify for a live event through Pokerstars.
Easier said then done. I have never really played in satellites on Pokerstars as I have never had the bankroll or the run good! But sure if people like SlowDoke can win 15 packages for the same event, maybe the poker gods will let me spike just one! The tournament I will be targeting is the UKIPT Dublin seeing as I wouldn't have to travel too far, but if I win a WSOP M.E package I won't complain!

5. Play a proper live event.
I have never played in a proper live event before. Yeah, I have played in poker societies but they are different. I need to get my feet wet! I will probably play the PaddyPower Irish Student Masters in March and will have to buy in directly because the satellites never fill up on PPP.

So there's my goals. I am sure to add more during the year when different events like the SCOOP and WCOOP pop up. I am currently playing the WBCOOP qualifiers and I will fill you in on that in the next blogpost. Laters.

One Final Cheer For The Year!

2010-12-30T23:38:00.000Z

Pokerstars were running a Festive Bounty Takedown for the last two weeks of the year, with a £2,000 prizepool and a £250 bounty on the Pokerstars Pro Julian Thew. In order to qualify for the Festive Bounty Takedown you had to earn a ticket in freerolls or £1 rebuy tournaments with the top 36 players earning a seat. I was drawn to the £1 rebuy tournaments because Pokerstars were adding £500 to the prizepool. With an average of 300 runners each night,that £500 adds a little extra juice!

The night I played there were 244 runners and I had to rebuy twice within the fist ten minutes,both times getting it in good. I then went on a really good run of cards that easily brought me into the money. From then on I only had eyes for the £226 first place. With 16 left I got extremely lucky with me holding 6 7 on a board of 2 2 6 all in versus kk and k2. I spiked the 6 on the turn and this then made me chipleader going into the final table. In the end I took third place for £123.58. A hefty increase to my bankroll indeed! Here is the screenshot to prove it!

I finished up 64th in the final for £6.40 but unfortunately no bounty win off Mr.Thew. The cash tables have been ticking along nicely for me at the moment. Obviously I have been cutting back with exams but when I do play I seem to be winning the maximum amount. I have also started to dip my toe into the 2c/5c cash games. So far so good, but it is very early days. Still haven't had time to think of some goals for 2011. I'll save that for a post after the exams. Until then, good luck at the tables and good luck in the new year!

End Of Year And Exams

2010-12-20T22:28:00.000Z

The final part of the PSO bonus has now been cleared and I have just been plodding along on the cash tables. No real big gains/losses to report at the micro tables but I have cashed in all three of the exclusive Irish €1,000 freerolls on Pokerstars for a combined total of €23. There is really good value in these freerolls, as the fields are relatively low and the play is quite poor. There is two more weeks of the promotion so hopefully there's a final table in it for me! It's only when you start converting from euro to dollar in the Pokerstars cashier do you realise how weak the euro has actually gotten. Too bad Pokerstars prohibits currency speculation!

I had the pleasure of playing with the mighty Pokerstars Online Pro (lol), chiren80. For some reason he is multi-tabling the 2c 6max cash games at the moment. He must really be pushing hard for supernova elite this December ! I have important exams coming up after Christmas, so it's time to knuckle down a bit. I must achieve a 65% grade in each of my four exams to get the actuarial exemptions that are available to me. This means I have to bury myself in the books for a while.

I will be back with a vengeance in the new year, hopefully with a few goals written down! Until then,happy Christmas and a happy new year!

Finally I Am A Break-Even Player!

2010-12-09T01:11:00.002Z

So I am finally break even! It wasn't too difficult, just had to keep up the form that I had been keeping on the 2c tables. The $45 balance had disappeared in no time! Here is the interesting graph to prove it! Just look at that horrible crash! What was I thinking? That downswing was purely due to poor play and playing the wrong stakes. I now feel I have a spring board to give a good go at moving up the stakes. I have always had my losses hanging over me and now this feels like turning over a brand new leaf.

I noticed Pokerstars are running an exclusive Irish €1,000 freeroll every Sunday for the month of December. I registered late for it on Sunday and had to get a bit aggressive...... and lucky! I also had to get a lift up to Dublin so I was purely building a stack that would hopefully carry me into the money when I was sitting out! I was chip leader with 100 left and the top 63 being paid. Then I had to get my lift. When I plugged in the internet up in college I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had finished 18th for €8. I was slightly disappointed that I couldn't play the whole tournament because the money was very good for a freeroll and the field was small, but I am content with my payday. Every little counts!

I also played in an Irish Student Masters freeroll on Paddy Power Poker this week. It was offering two seats to the €110 tournament. I got close to winning my very first live tournament satellite but no cigar. I finished 6th. This is a tournament I would like to qualify for but satellites run so seldom on PPP and it would kill me to pony up the full buy-in!

I am going to have to set myself some new goals so I can keep focused on improving. I still have $10 of the PSO bonus to clear but I only have like 56 fpp's to earn. After that I will have to put together some attainable short to medium term goals. Until then!

Search To Get Out Of The Red!!

2010-12-02T23:34:00.000Z

Since I had hit my last goal of getting the stellar award I had to set myself a new one. I have been slowly climbing out of the losses I made before I went to the US. So my new goal is to be break even by New Years. I have been closely dissecting my stats on pokertableratings and I now realise where my big leak is when it comes to online poker. 6-MAX CASH GAMES!! I have lost a lot of money playing these games and I can't see myself playing these games again until I do a bit of study on the strategies for short handed games.

On the other hand I am very pleased with my full ring game stats. I am a profitable player at all the full ring games I play. I aim just to keep up the grind at the 1c/2c tables and this will hopefully get me out of the red by the end of the year. I was -$135 in cash games when I came back from America and now I am -$45. I have stopped playing the 5c/10c tables for the moment as I now realise (with a little help from my friends at pokerspace!) that my bankroll can't take the variance and swings at that level for a little while.

I am happy to drop down stakes. It would be different if I was playing poorly at the 5c/10c tables but I wasn't. It will put me in good stead when I have a larger bankroll. So here I go trying to get into the black!

Two Bonuses Now Cleared

2010-11-20T12:50:00.000Z

I have finally done it! I have cleared my first bonus on a pokersite. These bonuses are just like buses, so when I cleared my first bonus I also cleared the second one! I have half of the PSO $20 bonus cleared and I have the first stellar award cleared on Pokerstars. These were good enough to clear $20 into my account and I now have 340 fpp's. I don't really know what to do with the fpp's yet, if anyone has any ideas as to what is the best way to turn these into cash please let me know.

I also played in a first depositors freeroll open only to UK & Ireland players with £10,000 added. I finished 217th for £9.50 but I was disappointed seeing as the field was soft and the payout was so good. Unfortunately I went card dead for the whole tournament and I had to survive on scraps. That equated to another $14.50 for the bankroll.

The 5c/10c cash games have been up and down to say the least! One day I would be up $10 the next I am down the same amount. Overall since I started at this new limit I am up a good bit but I just really want to continue this pace. If you want to check my stats I have found this great site for looking up players stats at cash tables for free:

http://www.poker-edge.com/poker-player-stats/zwemnaar

My progress since I came home from the US is from 9,000 hands onwards. This site is my main motivation to improve as I really want to get out of the red and into the black. At the moment I have $168.02 so hopefully I can improve on this.

Big Boost To The Bankroll

2010-11-15T12:50:00.000Z

Since I am trying to get this stellar reward before the end of the year, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and get a 100% reload bonus off PSO (pokerschool online). PSO are linked up with Pokerstars and If you complete the core quiz and sit'n'go quiz you are eligible for a 100% reload bonus up to $20. So I breezed through the quizzes (93% in both!) and then withdrew $20 from my account so I could re-deposit and get the bonus. I need to earn 250 fpp's for each $10 so this will run nicely with my earning of the stellar reward as I have around 250 fpp's left to earn this.

Also with all these fpp's flying in I decided to use some of them to earn a few tournament $'s on Pokerstars. I registered for a 70 fpp 10 man tournament with 1st place getting an $11 ticket to the Sunday 1/4 million. I ran well in this and took it down after a yo-yo heads up battle. Seeing as I already have a ticket for the Sunday 1/4 million I now had $11 tournament $'s. I proceeded to play two $2.20 HU S&G's and won both to put an extra $8 in my real money account.

So on Sunday with nothing else to do I decided to use my Sunday 1/4 million ticket. I registered 30mins late so I had to get busy. A few hands in, I bluffed big time in a battle of the blinds, it just felt that he was posturing. this nearly doubled my starting stack. Then I got very lucky with K-10 vs AK to double up again. I was now 1,000th out of 33,000 players. I went card dead for an eternity and just survived by picking off the blinds every once and a while. I made the cash ok and then I went into survival mode. I was extremely short stacked for the rest of the tourney but won a few crucial coin flips to end up finishing 616th for $93.10. Not a bad return on a free ticket! Thanks very much Pokerstars!

This has left my account looking very rosy and now there is no real chance of me going broke at the 5c/10c tables. It gives me a bit of breathing space and hopefully more chance to play mtt's and S&G's. Until next time, lectures call!

Ups and Downs at a new Cash Game Limit!

2010-11-12T20:41:00.000Z

A bit has happened since my last post. I had a big test coming up in college so I decided to withdraw all my funds from Pokerstars. That was a grand total of $51.05 with $10 of this going back into my moneybookers account,the rest back into my bank account. After the test (in which i did quite well in I hope!) I put the moneybookers money back on the site and continued the grind at the 1c/2c tables. Worked this up to $16 and then this is where the fun began!!

I have always had a fixation with the Pokerstars fpp's and my new goal is to gain the first stellar reward which mean I have to collect 750 fpp's over the year. If I get the fpp's I will the get a $10 reward. So,what better way to earn fpp's than to move up stakes!! I moved up to 5c/10c full ring games putting $8 at stake first. This quickly disappeared!! I just didn't realise the difference in playing at this level. The bluffing and calling off was crazy! Massive shoves pre flop with A-8 and 22. So I had to re-adjust and I did!! I put my whole bankroll on the line but it paid off as I came out of red and into black ending the day with $22 in the account and more importantly some fpp's in it as well!

It was then onwards and upwards from there. My account is now at $50 again and I now feel comfortable at the 5c/10c tables. Also I have earned 220 fpp's this month and 456 fpp's for the year. So I need 294 fpp's to gain my stellar award. I could also gain silverstar vip status but don't think I'll be able to keep up the pace I have already set. Anyway back to the grind!!

Free sit'n'go tickets come good!

2010-11-02T00:17:00.000Z

All has been flying online. I have worked my bankroll up to $50 through grinding the 1c/2c tables and using some sit'n'go tickets I acquired to good use. I have been playing the £2,000 Daily Giveaway for UK & Irish players on Pokerstars. They reward you for the more tourneys you play:

Tiered Rewards
Level	Freeroll tourneys completed	Reward*
1	3	$1.20 S&G ticket
2	6	$2.20 cash credit
3	9	$3.40 S&G ticket
4	12	$5.50 cash credit
5	15	Sunday $1/4 Million ticket

So far I have played 13 tourneys and I have availed of the bonuses. I failed to cash with the $1.20 S&G ticket but I made amends for that by winning the 9 man $3.40 S&G for $13.50. It was a great return on a free ticket!

I also played in a few Sunday competitions that had some nice prizes going in them. I played in a RFU freeroll where there were some rugby tickets up for grabs, $1.20 S&G tickets and Pokerstars baseball caps. I finished 11th out of 399 players for a S&G ticket. I then went on to win the S&G for a further $4.50. I also played in the WBCOOP $5,000 Halloween freeroll but got nowhere in that. The reason why I have the Pokerstars banner across this page was to gain entry to the competition.

I haven't played live since my 2nd place finish in the D.C.U game but I might this week. There is a scalps tourney which is always good for a few euro! The poker society arn't doing their freeroll for some reason,which is a big loss as many players turn out for this and continue to go throughout the year. Anyway better get back to the grind. Laters.

Dcu Poker Society and Online Progress

2010-10-12T17:29:00.000+01:00

I have been playing a good bit on-line since I have last posted. I was suprised to find I still had $7 in my Pokerstars account when I logged in. So I started playing on the 1c/2c tables. I would buy in to full ring games for $1.60. The standard at this level is extremely poor and I have been able to build my bankroll up to $24.70. I threw in a few 25c 90 man sit'n'goes, $2 heads up games and $1 double or nothing games to mix it up a bit too.

I joined D.C.U Poker Society this week and played the Monday night €10 freezeout. My god the play was atrocious! My starting table had two good players and the rest were fish. There were alot of Spanish and French and they were just so poor. My plan just just to sit back and wait for the goods. I got KK twice and by the first break I had doubled my starting stack to 6,000.

table then broke and we were at the final two tables. I had a massive dead stack to my immediate right which was like paradise! I got a few walks because of it! Cruised onto the final table where I once again had the privilege of having the dead stack sit beside me. Blinds were high now and I lost a big hand when i Had A3 clubs vs K5 clubs all in pre flop. That would have made me chip leader.

But I recovered to make it to heads up,albeit with a severe chip disadvantage. I lost out a couple of hands later. I made €110 on the night plus a €10 bounty on a birthday boy (Conor O'Regan)! The society are having a freeroll on tomorrow with a prizepool of €700,so thats well worth playing! I'll keep you posted.

The First Of Many Posts

2010-09-16T23:37:00.000+01:00

Hi,I might as well give a short introduction. I'm Conor a 20 yr old student. I am studying actuarial mathematics in DCU and I am going into my 3rd year. Now on to what this blog is going to be about.

My big passion is poker. As I do a mathematics based course I enjoy the maths behind it and the money is nice too! I have played poker for two years and I'm a member of the DCU poker society. I play online on Pokerstars and,as of yesterday,Walker poker. In nearly everything internet based I do zwemnaar is my username,so with poker this is no different. This blog will be about my trials and tribulations with regards to poker,both online and live.

Now my reason for doing this blog. I have done blogs before but they were on poker communitys. I was away all summer in America and played no poker at all,so now I see this as a fresh start. I want to document my progress as I once again try to grind out a bankroll from nothing. So hop on and join The Chronicles Of Zwemnaar.