For a couple years now, I have browsed and occasionally posted on 2+2 and I have watched kids who are my age making tens of thousands of dollars per month. I have read their takes on certain hands and I know that I am as good as most of these players. So why in the hell have I toiled away for so long?
One of the reasons why I haven't played online is that none of the main sites that cater to US customers will let me play with rake-back. The reason for this is that I joined all the sites during their inception when there was no rake-back. All poker sites have a rule that you cannot receive rake-back unless you joined the site through a rake-backing site. Like I said, I joined Full-Tilt, Poker Stars, and Absolute when they were in their infant stages. I joined Ultimate Bet a couple years ago and was able to sign up through a rake-back site but the rake-back never kicked in and I didn't like UB anyway.
As I have browsed through the various 2+2 posts I have noticed that new poker sites that cater to US customers have sprung up. I decided to do a little research and too my delight I found that a new up and coming site known as cake poker is accepting US players and will allow rakeback. I signed up through a rakeback site and followed all the directions. It was now a matter of getting money onto the site that was going to be my problem. Neteller is still no longer allowed and Epassporte takes 2 weeks to process a transaction and I don't want to have to wait that long. I looked around for a good while and tried 3 different credit cards that I have and all 3 were rejected.
I found my bank debit card which was yet to be activated and decided to take one last shot before having to settle with Epassporte. Alas, I got lucky and my deposit went right through after activating my credit card. I had just gotten paid that day from work and took $300 and put it on cake poker. I was so amped to play.
I was browsing through the NL ring games that they spread and I wanted to practice good bankroll management along with playing a game that I would have the patience to beat since I have never played micro-stakes before. I also forgot to mention that along with my rake-back I also get a $300 bonus that takes a bajillion hands to clear so I now have incentive to play a lot.
I found a game that looked suitable and it was a full ring 10 handed .10/.20 $20 max buy-in. I opened up two tables and too my displeasure the tables were not re-sizable like they are on stars and full-tilt so if I wanted to multi-table I would have to deal with an overlapping table situation.
Immediately I hated playing the full ring game as the action sucked. Not only that but I read that the bonus takes longer to clear at full ring and you receive less rake-back.
This is going to sound somewhat ironic but I decided to take the big step and try my hand at 6-max. I have never played 6 max ring before and was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle it. I would also like to mention that it is the game of choice for most of these 2+2ers that I was referring too. The irony lies in that if you asked me what my best poker form is I would tell you the following. Short-handed deep-stacked tournaments with 5 players or less. This is from playing over 2000 sit n goes.
I had recently watched a training video from a top online player who was showing how to beat the game I was about to play in. Aside from playing maniacally aggressive which I love doing I noticed something that needed to be changed in my game if I ever wanted to be a winning player. I watched him play about 500 hands or so and he never limped in a single pot once. Since I have started playing I have raised every pot I have entered and it has worked extremely well. The game is so passive that they fold probably 8 times out of 10.
Day 1:
My first day of play was on Friday and I had no desire to go out as I wanted to play all night and see what I could do with my new bankroll.
I ran decently well and played about 9 hours of poker playing 3 tables at once. At my high point I was up to $350 on my account and as low as $180. I got down to $180 because in the middle of my session I decided to open up a $50 NL table and ran really bad and dropped $100. I finished the night with $250 in my bankroll and had played about 2500 hands or so.
What I learned.
1. 6 max $.10/$.20 is a super easy game.
2. Rake-back is the greatest thing ever.
3. Bonuses are the greatest thing ever.
4. I love cake poker.
5. I learned more about variance in those 2500 hands then I have during the last 6 months of Commerce. It was one of the most surreal things ever. I basically sped up something dramatically that I have been watching move so slowly for such a long time.
I would randomly run hot and then randomly take bad beats and coolers. A few hundred hands would pass and before I knew it I was hitting every flush and straight and having my big hands hold up.
Day 2: Starting bankroll: $250
What a great day this was. This day proved what an animal I can be when it comes to grinding. I played all day and put in a session that lasted 14 hours. I ran exceptionally well for the most part and came up 13 buy-ins for the day. Two of the tables that I played on lasted over 9 hours a piece. On both tables I was dealt over 700 hands and on BOTH tables my initial $20 stack eclipsed $200.
It was awesome. I absolutely dominated and could tell that everyone was terrified of me. I ended up cashing out one stack at $130 after taking two bad beats and cashed the other out at about $180.
Day 3: Sunday Starting bankroll $514.
I played all day again but probably only put in about 10 hours or so. Unfortunately Sunday didn't go so well and in a 30 minute period I had A A cracked twice, K K cracked once, and had Q Q cracked simultaneously on two different tables. The thing that saved my session was that I had built a stack of $170 on one of my tables.
My high for the session was $550 and my low was $420 which is where I cashed out.
Before my session today I had played about 7800 hands and had cleared about $41 in rake-back which has yet to hit my account. I have also cleared $60 of my bonus which has hit my account already.
Day 4: I put in about 1200 hands or so and ran exceptionally well. I had a big stack of $120 on one of my tables and have made back yesterdays losses and a little bit more.
I am currently sitting on about $530 and am about to start up another 2 hour session before I call it a night.
I have come up with a couple of goals for the next month.
By the middle of next month I want to achieve the following:
1. Have a bankroll of $1500 including rake-back and including my bonus which should be fully cleared by the middle of May. This is a very modest number which should be attained very easily however I would like to complete this first goal so I have set the standard rather low.
2. By the time my roll hits $750-$850 I want to take another shot at $50NL
3. I want to clear 30K hands
4. I want to clear $700 in rake-back.
Hopefully I continue to run well at the tables.
Edit: Just finished second session and came up 2.5 buy-ins. Ran considerably well but took a couple of horrendous beats. The one thing that I have been real lucky about is the fact that a lot of my bad beats have come at the hands of short-stacks and I am generally holding up in my bigger pots.
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