Oops... forgot Titan

Had to add Titan to my list of cash on the left so that puts me at 4.5k at the end of March. Still a long way to go but feeling good playing NL100. Next month if I get off to a good start I think I will take a run at the NL200 tables for a bit.

Hoyazo got me all turned on to these Full Tilt $26 tokens so I think I will continue to invest some of my ring winnings into getting these. That way I can enter some good MTT's where I have an outside chance of hitting my goal in record time! Maybe sometime soon I can join the 50k challenge that cmitch is on right now. Been really slow and steady in building the bankroll... hopefully as I get closer I can get more into taking stabs at the higher levels.

Solid Night

Took about 3 hours to get my taxes done and finished off the night with 1.5 hours of poker. The players at Full Tilt NL$1 are much more aggressive. That being said it only took about 20 mins for me to get back to my usual TAG game. Ended the evening up $90 so I am finally back at the same total dollar level as the beginning of the month. That was mostly because of $500 free cash from myCitadel and $100 from Nine. I did give $300 to my brother but that still means I was on a $400 downswing from my peak.

So end of March and at 4.3k.... goal of 10k so going to continue to work in some MTT's but will also get back to the NL$1 games where people try to give you money!

Bounty Collected... Thanks Kat.

Kat was cool enough to work quickly to create this blog banner for me:

Since I haven't put one of these up on my site before I am still working on how to do that but I hope to figure it out soon.

Just so people know how I got my online name of Guin it goes back to 1993 during my first year at Dalhousie University. Studying for first year of my commerce degree was a little boring so I started to play a MUD called Gateway. So any MUDers out there I am your typical pker who uses poker as my new game of choice! Being a huge Mario Lemieux fan I followed the Pittsburgh Penguins. So Guin was short enough and the 36 being my number was related to being half the size of Mario but having all the talent! So Guin36 being my usual login name for email and such.

Well my daughter who is almost two started referring to her stuffed penguin as mungo. So on some recent poker sites I have started to use Mungo36 as my username.

Taxes are going to keep me from everything but a few blogger or freeroll events this weekend. Corporate taxes and personal taxes are going to drive me insane... hopefully I can make a good run at it tonight instead of going out.

Fishy Fishy!

Playing in the HUC was a blast but FishyMcDonk ran over me like a truck last night. He pulled some moves from the boxing arena like the champ he is... first off he made me wait in the ring shadow boxing for 30 mins waiting for him to show up! Sneaky sneaky! Then in round 1 I have him on the ropes and then my computer crashes. Coincidence? Now I know I got to keep my good eye on this Donk! Finally blinds got higher and lost round 1 with a crappy push with A4 into 88.

Round 2 was even worse for me. Fishy pulls move 3 and says GO! to signup for our 2nd round (shame that FT doesn't have a rematch option at the end of a HU match) and when I click register I see I am facing someone else. Ack! So I end up setting up our 2nd match and 2 tabling. That wouldn't be bad but I sort of suck at HU and my opponent is top notch so I am already playing out of my league. Two hands did me in .... BB and I see QQ. Fishy comes in with his min raise which doesn't say much to me so I pop it with a pot sized bet. He calls and flop is A 10 5 with two spades. I lead out for 1/2 pot and he pots it. I fold and he shows 105o.... nice hand and nicer flop! A few hands later I see Q6 and we limp in. Flop is KQ6. I am hoping he has TPGK and the only way to find out it to raise. He min raises and I pot it and he reraises. If he has KQ I am going to pay him off so I push. He shows K6 and I know that the poker gods aren't on my side.

Great match but I felt like the Maple Leafs vs. Senators... Ottawa has something over us Toronto guys this year.... at least until the playoffs (still hoping or dreaming)!

HUC Night again and Full Tilting

Played a couple MTT's on the weekend on Full Tilt. I sure enjoy those $26 tokens that you can win for $6. I went 2 for 2 and found that the opposition was quite tame. Improving in the blind stealing department and maintaining a tight image. Now I just have to figure out what MTT I want to play in with the tokens. I also stepped down a level on the ring games as I haven't played much this month. It was quite easy to build up my stack and make moves while still building a tough to beat image.

Just starting to feel good about my game again... oh I did clear a $100 bonus on Tiger Gaming so I ended up $90... that goes to show how I have been playing. The players might be a bit better than before but it is still weak compared to players at UB.

Tonight is HUC night for me and I am pumped up for the event. I was out last night way too late for a Monday and that is making me a little worried about my ability to be alert. Hoping that the thrill of the event keeps me going.

Round 1 done and still alive!

Well things went very well last night as I managed (somehow) to squeak into round 2 of the HUC3. When people put bounties on themselves that shows a little extra confidence in their abilities. My first match I look across at Katitude and realize that if I can win she will come up with a banner for my blog. Earlier in the day, I had posted about wanting that bounty but my confidence showed when I later asked Dugglebogey for one. If you check out his work you will see that he is inspired by Canada!

Well back to discussing my first match.... Kat is about the most patient person I have played against. I think in the first level that we folded most hands back and forth or a quick fold after seeing a cheap flop. Eventually blinds forced us to start playing some hands and I take a lead with my gutshot straight filling in vs. Kat's 2 pair. I managed to hold onto the lead and force Kat to be more aggressive (again blinds were working with me on this). Still it took a while before I was able to get all in with my AJ vs. KJ for Kat on a J high flop. Bounty captured!

You would think they would give you one min in between matches to gather your thoughts, but no such luck. WWonka folded the first hand before I knew I was playing! This match was the total opposite as he loves to steal blinds and show. The big thing for me was to not get upset by these steals and to focus on playing well. One hand I hit top pair of Q's and check hoping to check raise. No luck as WWonka checks behind and a second 9 hits the board. Here is where I acted like a donkey by betting now and then calling his large value bet on the river. Got lucky by pushing with a short stack with AKs on a J high flop. He has a J and calls and I river an A to get back close to even. Late in this tournament I finally fight back a bit to defend my blinds with a push and he folds. Then the big hand was me raising with A4o and getting called and flop is 4 9 10. I bet 3/4 pot and expect to take it down but he pushes. Ack! If he had a set he wouldn't push, and he would raise with 99 or 1010 or any overpair preflop. So I called with bottom pair thinking it was either the best or worst read of the night! Turn was an A and a blank river gave me a huge chiplead. Next hand he pushed and my pocket 10's held up.

Looking forward to the next round against FishMcDonk. Going to be at Full Tilt at 9 pm on Tuesday March 28th at 9 pm. Hopefully we can figure out how to setup a private room for the match.

HUC Night

Well the live charity event was sort of a push fest. By the time the blinds got to me the first time (started in CO) the blinds had gone up 2x. Guys are building pots so I stick around in my bb with 10 7 off and flop is 679 so mid pair and inside straight draw. I check and it gets raised to 200 (we started with 1k of chips) and I call and hope for the best and the turn brings a 5. Fold! A couple hands later on the button I look down and see AK. Two limpers (one was Bob Probert) and a lady who has played every hand and paid $250 to rebuy once already. So I have 520 in chips and figure that a pot sized bet is 280 so I push. Lady is my only caller and I am hoping she has Ax or Kx but she has QJo. She hits a Q on the turn and my night is over.

Lots of free beer which was mostly warm until they found some ice later in the evening. Good chance to chat with a few players like Rob Pearson and Gary Leeman while laughing at our friends crazy plays holding up in the pushfest poker event.

Tonight is a heads-up challenge and I really have to get home and try to practice a bit before I go in there and lose quickly... would be nice to make it to at least round 2 and get to know a few more bloggers.

Big Live Event for me tonight

Going to play in a charity poker tournament tonight where seats were $250 each to enter. Each table will have a NHL alumni playing and it should be a good event. I got started up last night deciding to play nothing but tournaments... finished 8th in a $3 rebuy tournament on UB and also did well in a Full Tilt event. Some of the guys I work with will also be playing so hopefully I don't end up out on the first hand!

I don't mind when you get knocked out of large events with bad beats because you played well. So when I am all in with AA on flop vs. JJ and KQs and lose to the flush I can understand how that happens. When you win a couple of those hands instead of losing them you end up at the final table with a good chipstack. At one point it was regular for me to last long into tournaments but never with enough chips to be effective. Now I am getting to be one of the larger stacks but find it difficult to turn that into winning at the final table.

Sometimes I think it would be better to use the large stack as a guarantee to a good finish and go watch some TV for 15-20 mins. Come back and play shortstacked and try to move up a couple more places. Really the problem is with the extra intensity at a final table and being mentally drained after a day of work that makes it tough to keep up the focus.

More stuff for me to work on but at least when I keep focused I like how my results turn out.

Nine.com free money

I got a call from a rep at Nine.com and he offered me $100 free if I made a $100 deposit. Not a bonus to work off but cash in my available account. I put in $250 and he gave me 25% cash on the extra $150 deposited.

This is the first time a site has done that but I will see what happens when I go to put the cash into Neteller after working off a small bonus that I have at Nine. The Action Network has always been good to me and the players have only recently improved. Starting to see more europeans on the site which means they must be advertising more overseas. It used to be a goldmine to play against other Canadians who only watch WPT or WSOP on TV to learn how to play.

MyCitadel is also working with me to come up with a better ewallet than Neteller. Hopefully someone out there has a pet peeve with Neteller and can let me know.

PSO tourney 5

Well the results were better from this PSO tournament vs. the first one. Finished 40+ in the event but went out with QJo and got two players all in with Q 10 4 with flush draw on the board. Rivered the flush J and lost the hand against AKo so not bad that I had him drawing to a 3 outer with one of them putting a flush on the board.

That being said I find that I rarely get any good hands on Absolute... cards just seem so cold for me on that site which is troubling if I am playing there for rakeback!

Going to work on MTTs until Wednesday since I have a large buyin live event where top 10 get paid.

Hung over = BIG night out

The goal last night was to do 32 tequila shots... don't think I made it that far but gave it one hell of a run. You know you have had too many when you pound back 5 shots and it tastes like water. Even with all the beers, wine and shots I actually feel pretty good today.

So who knows I might have to find a green beer to drink this evening.

This weekend the goal is to finish off a Tiger Gaming bonus where I am doing my best to not lose my entire deposit. That will be another $100 from Tiger to play against the worst players in the world!

32 today

Damn I am getting old... hopefully when I look at back this when I am 40 I will chuckle thinking about the good 'ole days! So I think I will need to set up a few goals for this year to grow this bankroll from 3.5k to hopefully over 10k. About 1.5 months ago I thought that was going to be too easy but my play over the last couple days hasn't been so positive. Just playing sloppy and costing me a few buyins. That being said I know I can play winning poker as long as I stay on the correct side of the not too aggressive line. Also I figure that I do have to move down a couple levels and put in 20k hands of short handed play to improve in that area. In addition working on my live game so that I can dominate the local 1/2 play is the goal. Want to build a live bankroll for that purpose so I will probably put aside 2k to start out.

Tried to play good last night but only managed to play well for 15 mins before I resorted to being reckless. When I am running well I don't try to force things and I get to sit back and pick people off in MTT's. Last night I pushed with an OESD and lost to TPTK. Too early to make that type of move but felt if I won I could push around the passive table I was sitting at. Ring wasn't kind either with guys catching outs against me or me bluffing in bad spots. Thing is that I didn't lose much cash last night as two big hands held up. Players at Absolute Poker seem much better than players elsewhere. That being said I can't even beat the guys at Tiger as I must be underestimating their abilities. Time to swallow the pride go down a level and put in the hours playing good poker.

Still sick but bday tomorrow

So tonight I will put forth a good effort and try to do well in my first PSO league outing. Tried playing a bit at Tiger today and got torn apart. Good starting hands like KK with a 523 flop and flush draw so I get all in against a set of 2's. Then my straight with flush draw on board sees the river pair and I do a crying call against the full house.

But tonight it is time to get out of this funk and start to play the way I know how to play! Been a while since I felt strong at a poker table. I have a charity poker event that is a $250 buy in next Wednesday so I better start to play some SNG's and MTT's to get ready for that event. NHL alumni will be playing and should be easy to make some simple moves against the beginners.

Tomorrow I am 32. These years are starting to fly by!

Tough month

So far it has been a tough month for me. My family has been ill and so have my co-workers which is fine but I finally succumbed to a few of the deadly viruses around me this last week. That has resulted in nothing happening on my poker account other than a little bit of reading. Hopefully this weekend I will get in a few hours of tax time and then a few hours of poker in the evening.

On a good note I made it to the Leaf's game last night and had awesome tickets to watch the Hab's lose. Right now the future of the Leaf's doesn't look good but at least last night was a step in the right direction.

So assuming that I am able to sit in front of a computer then I will participate in the next couple PSO league tournaments. The only bonus that I am currently working on is a 50% reload bonus for $100 at Tiger (love the bad players on that site). Then I have to get ramped up on Full Tilt and go find my big fishy friend who owes me a few buyins!

Not playing much

Been taking some time this week to relax and read a bit more about the game. Found myself inbetween bonuses and looking to setup a couple rakeback programs. The first being at Absolute Poker so I can play in the PSO league. I have missed the first two events so I have to attempt to do well in the next batch to get an alright ranking.

Started reading volume II of Harrington on Holdem and love the idea of inflection points. These are concepts that are you sort of have a feel for but once they are described you take more time to focus on that area of play. Being a tight player I used to get to the final table too shortstacked to make a run at winning the tournament. Now I have improved on the earlier portions and it is time to learn how to take down a tournament.

For those people who do use Neteller it is time to setup a MyCitadel wallet. It will work on most poker sites and in the near future they are coming out with some cool features. You can get a debit credit card so you can purchase stuff from Amazon using that card like a regular credit card. In addition they also charge zero fees to put cash into your account unlike Neteller which charges 9%. I will be talking to them about adding such features as multiple currencies in an account at the same time and also allowing people to pass cash between each other. I found that to setup the account it was much quicker and easier than Neteller (no phone calls). Hopefully they will also allow some sort of referral bonus so all of us bloggers can get paid to promote them a bit. Even without getting paid I think from what I have seen that it is a good alternative to Neteller.