April recap+first week of May

Once again, it's taken me awhile to throw up an update. I guess I just kinda go in streaks where I feel like posting and streaks where I don't feel like posting. I know a lot of poker bloggers tend to not post as much when they are on a bad run, but I'm just as unlikely to post on a good run as a bad run I think. And for whatever reason I have not felt like posting the last 3 weeks. I think it's time though, so here goes!!

After being up 10k at the halfway point of April, I had a decent finish to the month. Nothing spectacular, but definitely nothing worth complaining about. Towards the end of the month I went on a week long breakeven stretch, which started to test my patience a bit.

189-160 in the $230

131-104 in the $345

17-9 in the $570

After everything I ended up finishing up right around 14k. The 26 games I played in the $570 was the most I've ever played in a month, and the 17-9 record was pretty solid. It helped pad my profit a little bit for sure. I seem to be getting more comfortable playing at that level, but I'm still not really anticipating trying to play many more games than that a month at the $500's. I'm a week into May now and haven't played a single one, so it's just kinda one of those things I gotta be in the right mindset for. I'm just so comfortable playing at the $200 and $300 level, and making money so consistently there, that it's pretty hard to push myself to deal with even worse variance than I deal with now.

I had been semi planning on playing some the HU SCOOP events but ended up saying fuck it. Those things just stretch out too damn long for me. I hate potentially having to sit at my computer for 12 straight hrs. It would obviously be worth it to win one of the events, but to play for like 10 hours to get a deep but disappointing finish where I only double or triple my buyin is far too tilting for me. Maybe one of these times I'll suck it up and do it.

As for May thus far....it's going pretty good. I'm actually off to pretty hot start this first week, and am quickly up over $5,500. We'll see how it goes the last 3 weeks. I'll take another 14k month. I won't complain a bit.

That's all I have right now. Further updates to come folks.

bartchalker

Halfway through April

April has been going really well so far. I've been pretty much playing every day, getting in between 15-25 games daily. I'm really happy with how I've played this month and have really just felt in complete control of most of my matches. I'm actually really happy with how I've played this whole year, and my results are showing it. I'm on pace to make my 150k goal. If I keep going along the way I am now I should have no problem achieving that goal.

I really feel I've improved as a player since this time in 2009, just like in 2009 I improved from 2008, and in 2008 improving from 2007. The main reason is just putting in the games, day after day, week after week, month after month. Just grinding is what improves my game so much. And for the most part it doesn't even feel like a grind, just because I enjoy playing this game so much. The downswings can be a bitch, but they just make the upswings that much more sweet. I've played about 20,000 heads up sng's in my lifetime now. After that kind of volume not only do I feel confident against almost anyone I play, but I've been though the inevitable downswings so many times that I think I'm getting way better at controlling tilt then I ever have before. I think the one stat that really shows how much I've controlled my tilt in 2010 is 0. 0 as in 0 broken mouses this year. It might not seem like that big of a deal, but in 2008 & 2009 I prob wrecked a total of close to 20 goddamn mouses. I mean that's almost a mouse a fucking month I go through. It prob sounds crazy to anyone who doesn't play a lot of poker, but I think anyone who plays poker on a regular basis can understand how totally frustrating it can be. But here I am midway through April, still using the same mouse I was on Jan 1. Overall I just feel so much more calm after taking a bad beat/cooler, or after getting owned in 6 straight games by some dipshit. I mean, I still cuss up a storm like it's nobody's business sometimes, just no mouse slamming.

Ok, enough of that BOLOGNA. Like I said earlier in this post, April is going quite well. Not quite as well as March, but good nonetheless. I've played 325 HU games booking about $29/game. My April profit is right around 10k. The last 2 months have just been too much fun. I'm really not looking forward to that next downswing when it comes creeping on me.

Twins are off to a hot 8-3 start. Best record in the AL baby!!! I got $300 on them to finish over 83 1/2 wins. They look like a really solid team this year. I'm hoping for 90+ wins.

I think that's all I got!

bartchalker

First week of April

I've had a decent first week of the month. There just doesn't seem to be a whole lot to report other than having a +3k day today. The rest of the week has been real back and forth. I've been treading water a bit as far as my results go. Today wasn't the best day I've ever had, but in terms of profit to volume it was pretty good. I just put in 18 games and smashed out a 14-4 record. Also got wild in a 18 handed sng and took it down which kind of padded the HU profit.

Early in the month I played a couple of $570's. I don't play them that often so I'm not quite used to those kinda swings. And I have to admit taking bad beats in those stings just a little bit more. Just a little precursor to the hands I'm about to post. The first two are just bad beats that happened in a pair of $570's I played. A little boring maybe, but share in my pain if you like. The last is quite possibly the strangest fucking play I've ever seen in my life. Just mind boggling, lol.

This first one was a setup in my favor that went all wrong on the river. I still actually had plenty of chips and was only at a slight chip disadvantage after the hand. I made a hero call down with 4th pair to lose it a few hands later though. Possibly a questionable call. That hand will not be posted because I don't like to post hands where I get OWNED.



This following one was against some fish who was a real cocky motherfucker who had taken a few buy ins off me at $230/$345 earlier in the day. Took a shot vs him in a $570. This one tickled a bit.



Like I said earlier, this one is just weird. I guess a few hands earlier i fired a cbet with A high on flop then bet again on turn after he check/called and spiked an Ace on the river to win the pot. So he maybe thought I was really bluffy? I guess he could have put me on 35 or something. Or maybe he just likes the rush of playing with his eyes closed? Whichever it was it prob wins the award for strangest call down I've ever seen.




I guess I'm just gonna keep this post short. Not a whole lot to report and nothing is really coming to my mind to type about.

Good Luck!

bartchalker

Sooner or later, gotta cut you down

March was such an awesome month for me. I ended up breaking my record month which was 21.3k in Dec 2009. Here's a quick little rundown of the month.

$115 HU...11-8...+$235
$230 HU...186-114...+$12,840
$315 HU...170-132...+$8,010
$570 HU...7-2...$+2,570

I lost about $600 in random sng's/tourney's and made about 2.5k in rakeback/bonuses. All in all my overall profit for March comes to $25,458. As you can see I really wrecked the $230 this month for a 62% winrate and $43/game.

I kept saying I wanted to hit 700 games this month, but I got kinda lazy towards the end and really slacked off on my volume. I ended up with 630 games played and had an avg profit of about $37.50/game.

It really feels great to dominate so hard in March after having sub par months in Jan and Feb. In Jan and Feb(Feb particularly) I got kinda worked up when things weren't going my way, like I tend to always do when the shit piles on. However this just proves to me once again how hard I can kill these games when I go on a hot run myself and the cards are all falling my way. There is just no need to get pissed off during bad stretches, because I can more than make up for it during my good stretches. In the end, after all the games have been played and variance has had time to even itself out, the stats show the true skill. There is no luck.

Ok, that puts an end to my bragging. I have to put this month behind me and obviously will not expect a repeat performance in April. I played good this month, but man, I ran hot. The first couple weeks especially, everything seemed to go my way. It's not too often you get positive variance for a stretch like that, so this kind of shit just doesn't happen often. It sure is fun when it does though. To me, winning at poker is like what crack is to a junkie. I can't get enough and I just want more. Actually that's prob not the best comparison......close enough though, fuck it.

I guess for April I'll just try to hit 600 games, maybe a little more. I just want to keep playing good.

Here's my graphs for March, Pokerstars followed by Full Tilt





I actually played more games on FT then Stars this month. I'm kinda shocked at how much more too. I didn't really realize it until just now looking at them. Probably the first time I've ever done that. I'm going to try to up my volume on stars a bit to make sure I can at least get the 200k VPP bonus by year's end.

I don't think I have much more to say. Bring on April and the 2nd Quarter of 2010!!!

bartchalker

Watch these fuckers jump when I get loose

Not a whole lot to report since my last update. I've had one good day of +2k and the other days have been smallish losses offsetting that one day. Breaking even basically. No complaints though, it was still a very successful first half of March, in both profit and volume. I've already put in 360 games which is a lot for me. I'm still on pace for 700 games and will try to get there. I'm not feeling burnt out or anything, but it's hard to feel burnt out when the DOLLAZ are rolling in at a steady clip. BALLA DOLLAZ.

Now I'd like to take a little time to talk about the acronyms people use in the chat. I've never been a person to use these too much. I remember when I first started playing online poker I had to go type stuff like "gl", "gg" into google to find out what the hell people were saying to me. I only knew the basic ones, like "lol" and shit. At first I thought they were retarded but of course eventually started using them. The first time somebody typed "mbn" I didn't know what the fuck was going on. I didn't know if I was being insulted or complimented and it took a while to find out it was "must be nice". I've never been a fan of this one myself but I've noticed some players are quite fond of that little gem whenever the slightest thing goes wrong. They run AQ into my AK and there it is. "MBN". I'm just like, yeah man it's real nice. Like, what the fuck? Of course it's nice. It's fucking great. I want more more more. MORE.

Then there are the other classics like "rofl" "lmao" and the very awesome "lmfao" I've personally become a fan of the "rofl" over the years. Roll on floor laughing. I mean, boom. You're play is so fucking horrendous that I am literally rolling around all the fucking floor, laughing at your stupid ass. LSHIJPAPMFP. That's gonna be my new one. It's "laughing so hard I just pissed and pooped my fucking pants." Watch for it.

However my all time favorite is the "wp" when used sarcastically. I open JJ from button, villain shoves 40 bb's back with A3 and spikes A on flop. It's a perfect time to bust out the "wp". I mean, I guess "mbn" could be used here as well, or maybe even a combo of the two. However i think "wp" gets the point across well. Sometimes villain responds the ole "ty" and I'm never quite sure if they are needling me, or are really that dumb and think I'm sincerely telling them they played the hand well. You never know with these people, I"m telling you.

Oh man, I know I'm missing some of the other nice ones. Anyways reason I got on this acronym thing is because I've begun to see people start typing "y" for yes. That's ridiculous. Just stop. The first time somebody typed "y" after I asked them a question I thought it was short for "why" and some confusion ensued. I mean, seriously fellas , that's just fucking lazy. Just type the -es at the end. It takes another half a second. I can understand the "u2" or "b4" to a certain degree, you are saving a few extra keystrokes there, but just typing "y"? Knock it off!

Ok, enough of that. I figured I'd go off on a tangent being that my last few poker days seemed to be kinda uneventful and I didn't have much to type. I'll update again in a few days and maybe try to put some interesting hands up or something. Later.

March Profit-$14,127

bartchalker

Huge month thus far

March is going really well so far. I'm off to what I'm pretty sure is my best start ever to a month. Today was my first losing day of the month, and it was only for a grand or so which is pretty easy to take after how hot I've been the 10 days prior. I've been winning at a 61% clip and have been averaging over $50/game. I wish I could run this hot all the time, it's so fun to just slaughter the games every day for 10 days straight. Plus it seems I've been playing a lot of the dumbest, spazzy, retards than I've seen in a while. Bless the dumb, spazzy, retards. They make the poker world go round.

I've also already put in around 250 games which is pretty decent volume. Usually I only put this kind of volume in when I'm having a shitty month. Bad habit, but kicking that in the ass this month. Gonna try to get in 700-750 games and hopefully hit 20k profit. Record month is 21.3k so let's fuck shit up!! Time to be a BALLER.

I'll throw another update up at the midway point of the month.

Later

March Profit - $13,715

bartchalker

Feb wrap up+early March heater

I said I wasn't gonna go so long without entering on my blog a few entries back. I lied I guess. Feb was a tough month for me, but I ended up doing OK in the end. First off here are my Feb #'s....

Heads Up - $1,435
Other SNG - $1,332
Rakeback/Bonuses - $2,072

Total Profit - $4,839

$1,435 is definitely the lowest monthly profit I've ever had for heads up pre rakeback profit. It really helped to run good in the small amount of random sng's I played to boost me up a little bit, plus the 2k in rakeback.

I'm not really sure what happened in February. I started off running just fucking awful though. Almost unbelievably so. I went on a 3 day downswing from the 7th-9th losing about $5,000 during those 72 hrs. That was kinda painful. I think I lost confidence for a week or two stretch which is just a complete fucking killer in HU poker. There is just so much edge lost when you're not feeling confident and you're not reading situations correctly. I got over it though and am back to feeling that confidence in every game I play. Towards the end of Feb I had a 19 match winning streak on Pokerstars. Kinda amazing looking at it in sharkscope and seeing all those consecutive wins.

I did take off a week of playing for a Las Vegas trip which was fun. Probably kinda cleared my mind up a bit. I stayed away from poker for the most part while I was there. I played one session of $1/$2 NL for maybe 3 hrs or so and won $120 or something like that. I did make a $200 bet on the roulette wheel which I'm pretty sure is the biggest non poker bet I've ever made. I had bet $100 on black the previous spin and won, so I let the $200 ride on black and won again :). Boom. Fun times. Las Vegas is always a great time.

Despite taking the week off, I still managed to play 535 games in Feb. Just like Jan I did good in the $230 and bad in the $345 again. This month I went 128-97 in the $230, good for $20/game. I went 138-140 in the $345 which accounted for a loss of $17/game. I hate when you can so clearly see the effects of rake. Just 2 games under .500 in the $345, yet down 4.8k. Sick.

Ok, time to put Feb behind me.

Onto better things.

Like March.

March has been great so far. I'm on a super heater and am up 7.7k after 4 days. That puts me on pace for a 60k month!!!!!!!! That won't happen, but would love to bank a 20k month like I did in Dec.

Since I made more $$$$ in 2009 than I originally estimated I have big tax bill coming on April 15th, so it would be nice to have a super solid month to pad the blow a bit. Only part of the bill is taxes I still owe on 2009 income. The other part is my 1st quarter 2010 payment. It sucks so hard to pay such a large lump sum of money at once. It's just so much more depressing than spreading it out.

Which also brings me to another point. If you are a professional poker player who lives in the U.S. and you file as a professional, which means you use the Schedule C for business income and you pay self employment taxes, you should really think about opening up a retirement account. A SEP-IRA is great. I think it is very foolish to not do this if you are filing as a professional. You are allowed to contribute up to 20% of your net income up to a max contribution of 49k/yr. Very solid investment. Very +ev. Just my 2 cents.

That's all I have for right now. Will update again soon.

March Profit $7,733

bartchalker