Yea!!! I won something

Date: Sat, Jan 29, 2011 Internet Tournament

So far I've played 88 multi's this month and have had a bunch of final tables (10 total), only to have bad luck and finishes ((4)10th's, 8th, 7th, and (4)6th's) Last night I was cruising along in the $50 TURBO Rebuy which has had some big prize pools lately in excess of $100,000 and there was only a couple tables left and some guy shoves a big stack with A10 and I called with JJ. Statistically I should win this 2 out of 3 times, but hits his Ace and I out again getting only a couple hundred bucks....sigh. I left mumbling the standard poker player lines of "if I woulda won that hand I woulda been chip leader going into final table...blah,blah,blah"

Anyways, I collected myself once again and looked to finish out the night with my last tournament still running. I bought into the standard $50 rebuy 1+1 using Full Tilt's new multiple buyin feature. It was my last of 3 buyins and I had a decent stack. I plugged along eventually found my way to another final table with a decent stack. I was somewhat aggressive and I think I busted almost everybody out until my 2 opponents got allin and left me heads up. 1st place paid about $9500 and 2nd paid $5900. I had about a 3-2 chip lead on my opponent who was a pretty good/solid player and we battled a bit back and forth and eventually I decided to make a deal to take 1st for $7900 rather than risk a lucky heads-up match and losing a couple hands over $3600 difference. I usually wouldn't make a deal but it was about 2am, my opponent was decent, and there was too much of a drop from 1st to 2nd. My birthday was on the 26th so maybe it was a belated gift?

So 11 final tables (Or close with 4 10th's) out of 89 tournaments with 1 win makes me feel much better for the start to 2011. My wife is 6 months pregnant, so I might have things turned upside down soon, but crossing my fingers. Hopefully updates to come.

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A solid year of poker, and some goals for next year!

Date: Sat, Jan 8, 2011 Internet Tournament

Well considering the economy is still in the toilet and I only get to play poker about 2-4 hours a night, this year has been pretty solid for me. It can be a bit frustrating and maybe a bit of jealousy to see many of the top online poker pros racking up $100,000's+ each year in wins and I'm stuck grinding out smaller late night tourneys for a few thousand dollars at a time.

As of so far I have around $300,000 in total prize winnings (not counting costs) with an avg. finish of 30/100 for non-turbo mtt's, cashing roughly 20%, finishing in the top 2%: 4% of the time, and in the top 6%: 12% of the time, and last year (2010) had 37 final tables out of about 500 multi table tournaments. Most of these numbers would rival some of the best players out there except unfortunately I probably play about 3-10% of the tournaments of those guys who play full-time. My 30/100 avg finish has to beat almost anyone out there, however, my real goal is get better at being more aggressive at the right times and have more deeper finishes and final tables. Looking at the #1 online multi-table tournament player of the year "Moment_mori" who racked up $3 million in total winnings and about $730K as profit, avg finish 39/100, cashed on avg about 15%, however, he played over 14,000 tournament last year alone vs. my menial 500 last year in comparison. So if you were able to multiply my results by at least 10-20X, I would have something to hang my hat on. While I doubt I'll ever play 10,000 multi's a year, but even 5X more, 2500 would produce some pretty impressive numbers.

I also had a pretty solid year on most of my sng's and even a little bit of cash games. From looking at some of the huge money still being made in cash games, I think I will continue to dabble until I get screwed badly and lose my interest. Overall I really enjoy the big multi-table tournaments and feel I could really make a name for myself eventually if I can put in enough time. That also seems to be the only way most online players get recognized and sponsored unless you are famous for something else or score a couple huge live wins.

So far this year has been a tease, going in deep in the Live New Years Oceans11 tourney, then deep in many online tourneys only to get screwed right before the money or final table or as soon as I get to the final table. Literally, I just got KO'd 31/269 before the money on a suckout in the $20 rebuy. I then finished 8th place on the $75 Tilt KO tourney with AQs vs. AQs same hand allin preflop my opp hit a flush - out 8th/403 - $575, and now I'm also currently in with 15 left out of 210 in $30 rebuy. Let's see if this goes any better.......Well I made final table and got sucked into a min raise as BB with 56s as the remaining smaller stack on table and flopped Q86 with 1 club and decided to checkraise allin because I had enough to get a fold out of him if he didn't have a pair of Q's or better or a flush draw. Unfortunately he had both lol. Q10s and hit flush on river. Out 6th/210 - $680. Not bad considering I was grinding into the money as a shorter stack.

At least the finishes are continuing to get better by the week, maybe a couple top 3 finishes by the end of the month.

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Hi I'm trying to post via my new Epic phone.

Date: Fri, Dec 24, 2010 Internet Tournament

Poker has been predictably up and down. I'm mostly grinding $100-200 9 handed sng's on Full Tilt and rebuy tourneys on Tilt and Pokerstars with some success. I'll detail later and see if this posts correctly. GL, hope nobody gets coal in their sack tonight ;-) Donkeyherder

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The Roller Coaster Ride Of Playing Poker For A Living?!

Date: Wed, Sep 1, 2010 Internet Tournament

I haven't posted for a while (since the end of June) because I was on the upswing of a heater. After pretty much abandoning multi table tournies for a few months, I decided to play a few more before the WSOP and realized how much I enjoyed the competition and thrill of competing for that BIG prize. The WSOP wasn't exactly huge for me, but I knew I had an edge against most my competition and rarely get to play multi's these days with the busy schedule I have and after some final tables I got all pumped up hoping I could finally take down a big score and stop grinding sit in goe's, which these days look more and more like a bunch of lo and hi limit pros battling each other and living on rakeback. So I ended up having one of my best months ever making multiple final tables and like every other good run I've ever gone on, I probably got a little over zealous in combination with a horrible run of cards, and followed it up with one of my worst months ever!! I decided to keep on trucking through August to see if my suckout ratios and premium card dealt to me improved and things just kept on sucking! I decided despite the bad luck (which I actually use trackable stats to determine) there comes a time when you just have to cut your losses and go back to your bread and butter and re-evaluate my game selection and fine tune things. So with about 10 days left in August I was already down over $4,500 and I went back to playing lower variance sng's and an occasional $20-30 rebuy multi. Surprisingly, my horrible run ended and I began to score some consistent cashes, capped off with a $1800 3rd place finish in a $20 multi/249 players (which I shoulda won dominating both opponents multiple times only to get sucked out on and rivered into 3rd place) finishing the month for me at even. Even might not sound great, but after the horrible run I was on, turning things around in 10 days was nice.

So September is a new start, and I'm coming in playing well. I just hope I can continue grinding well and eventually mix in a few more multi's here and there. So far, for the year, I've played 288 multi's and cashed 52, with 21 final tables. Normally, I actually cash even better, but I tried to mix in a lot of Turbo multi's which include much more luck. Right now I'm cashing at about 18% and in the TOP 2% - 4.5% of the time, but hope to bump cashes up to over 20% and TOP 2% to over 5%,by the end of the year if I avoid playing Turbos. Unfortunately, I don't get much of a selection for multi's at around 9-10pm during the weekdays. I think I could make a killing if I ever quit my real job and was able to have more free time to play during peak times. Oh well, gotta make do for now until I take that plunge. There is so much going on with the government and regulation, I think it is contributing to online poker, for the time being, to hit a peak. So I think I probably be waiting the rest of this year out unless I can make a huge score or a consistent monthly run of strong results.

Yesterday I also just bought the new Samsung 4G Galaxy Epic phone. I'm not a big phone guy, but the display is awesome and it has a slide out keyboard. More importantly for me you can pay an extra $30 a month and it puts out its own wireless hotspot for up to 8 devices, which I can use as a backup in case my home internet connection goes out!! It doesn't happen often, but the times it has crashed I've probably lost enough $$ to pay for itself every year, not to mention the added benefits of being to able login my laptop anywhere (esp. on vacation) without a fee.

I think my brain's tapped out like James Toney in a MMA fight. I'll be back.

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You would think Full Tilt Poker would be a little more customer friendly?

Date: Thu, Jun 24, 2010 Internet Tournament

For some reason the southern California area had a server crash with one of the internet providers causing me to get booted off of Full Tilt in the middle of a $50 rebuy tourney $200 invested and it only affected Full Tilt's website. I ended up not being able to log back into their site until about 1am. I checked on 2+2 poker forums and it was a statewide problem and asked Full Tilt if they would in any way give me some sort of credit and after 3 emails back and forth this was their final resolution (I'm Assed Out) Glad I just started and only had 1 game going at the time:

"Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Support

There were connection problem related to several different Internet Service Providers(ISP) located in California.

We would like to confirm that all our servers were up and running at the moment of the connectivity issue and that this issue was related to the Full Tilt Poker servers.

Before you connect to our software, your internet connection travels through 5 to 30 different third party servers, none of which are owned by Full Tilt Poker. If any of those servers are experiencing technical difficulties, your connection to our servers will be affected. When you sit at a table or tournament, you accept the potential risks playing in an online card room, and we are unable to assume responsibility for external connectivity issues.

This issue has since been resolved by the ISP's in question.

We appreciate your understanding, and if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us at any time."

I understand they can't just go around dishing out refunds for everything and I don't think this type of response is unlike one from any other online poker site, but it was obvious it wasn't an issue exclusively to me and considering I've played on their site at medium to high limits for many years, that they wouldn't at least split the loss to show their consideration.

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Catching up on some poker, WSOP, etc.

Date: Mon, Jun 21, 2010 Internet Tournament

It's been quite a while since I posted last. I've been so busy between work, home, and poker. The 1st 4-5 months have been pretty good in terms of consistent success. While Cake Poker had decent volume at the higher limits I was probably one of the most successful Double or Nothing SNG players in the world, but they have lost some traffic recently and I started grinding those Ultra Turbo 300-500 chip SNG's on Full Tilt and Stars. I had some great success for a while, but the amount of luck and variance is so high on those games it is really hard to plug leaks and study the game. Just to get an idea my normal amount of Double-up sng's I get knocked out with the best hand is around 20% and it is almost 40% for Ultra turbo 300-500 chip tourneys, which you can easily lose 10-15 in a row. I eventually jumped back into Multi-table tournaments in preparation for my trip to Vegas for the World Series and hit a few final tables.

I actually just returned from Vegas a couple days ago. It would be considered a successful trip by most amateurs after probably making $1500-2000, but subtract out travel, shows, hotel, etc. and I still finished a few hundred ahead, but that's not what I hoped for. I did play pretty well. I actually won a small 30 player tourney at Harrahs the 1st night, bubbled a 180 player tourney at Caesers, and took 7th in a 400 player tourney at the Rio for about $2400, but brutally got dealt 2nd best hands early the $1,500 event I played on wed. and was out within 1 hour, which somehow was the only tournament I didn't get reasonably deep. The 1st hand I got K9s in the SB and it was limped around and I flopped top pair, turned top 2 pair, and rivered a flush only to be sucked out by the Ace high flush. Then a couple hands later I was in the SB again with 108s and limped around and I flopped a flush. No other cards of my suit hit the turn or the river but my opponent also flopped an Ace high flush and I was busto!!

The trip overall was pretty exhausting. I almost never get sick and I was coughing up a storm. I actually had one hand which I rarely steal with complete junk and was greeted with an immediate bloody nose during the hand. Talk about a tell James Bond style?!!! My wife met me down there half way through and we had a good time doing couples stuff the rest of the trip during the evenings after playing.

It seems like the SNG scene is pretty competitive these days and I really enjoyed playing the multi's so I might keep playing them for the next month or so and see how it goes. I have already had some ridiculous call downs by bad players and suckouts ruin a few big final table runs, so we'll see how long I can deal with putting in so much time and getting screwed over.

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Poker - So far so good!!

Date: Mon, Mar 8, 2010 Internet Tournament

Idon't particularly like going that long in between posts, but time is money. At the current moment Ihope to avg. about $100 per hour. So you could say each post is costing me $100-200 depending on how much I put into each post. In the end, I hope posting can help me collect my thoughts and keep me focused on my goals, which should add up to something. Not to mention having a record of this exciting time in my life.

I have to say the start to this year was pretty dramatic. My friend convinced me to go down to a local casino in San Diego and play in their annual New Year's Day tournament. Usually tournaments there are fast structured crap shoots against pretty weak opposition. This time it seemed we had more room to play and I was slapped in the face with the deck pretty early, flopping sets a couple times and then used my big stack to beat up on everyone for a while until I lost half my stack making a huge laydown with a pair of QQ on a smaller flop to another big stack, who then showed a flopped 3 of a kind. It actually pumped me up and I was able to come back and build another big stack and re-continue my relentless attack until the bubble. I eventually made it to final table with such a big chip lead the entire table was tired and opted to basically give me 1st place (about 5K) so they could chop the rest of the prize pool!! To win a tourney, 1st day of the year, can't get any better than that!!

After that, I continued my "Double-up" SNG grind online for the rest of the month, but had a renewed passion for mixing in some more multi's! Some time towards the end of January I started to get a little bit too confident and really started bumping up the number of table I play at 1 time from 3-4 to 6-8 and I started to slowly develop some nasty leaks (bad habits) in my game. Typically for me when I start to experience bad runs it's due to a lack of focus and recklessness and if you're playing 8 tables at a time even the smallest leak (let alone trying to play optimal strategy) can quickly cause an ugly dent to your bankroll!! Luckily, I was able to cut my losses after dropping $3,000-$4,000!!

In February I jumped a little heavier into the Multi tourneys and did score a few final tables, but got bent over a barrel a few times and finished 4th, 5th, and 9th for some moderate scores. I eventually lost my golden touch in multi's and began doing much better back in the sit in go's (SNG's) and grinded out the rest of February with solid results. One interesting side note for the month, my real job has semi annual meetings to discuss various business and last month we got bussed out to Las Vegas! I can't say I'll ever turn that down, despite some slightly torturous lectures and meetings. We did get put up at "The Palms" which was very nice, and In the evening we did get to roam free. The 1st night I grinded out some 1/3 no limit cash games, which proved to be at least some good practice considering I hardly ever play live games except on special occasions.

The 2nd night, however, I was determined to play something bigger, preferably a tournament, but there wasn't much going on except the Wynn had some things going on and a $200 nightly tourney. I didn't really want to pay for a cab ride there, but couldn't stand the thought of grinding out another night of 1/3 at the Rio. Ifound a free shuttle but it was stuck waiting on some NASCAR parade. I finally saw a cab and it was only $11 so I made the move hoping I could still make the tourney. I made it there and if you've never been to the Wynn, it is the epitome of fancy pancy wealth, but still a bit overwhelming. I still raced through and found the poker room just in time for the tourney. It only had about 40+ players and quite some odd opposition. Some guy next to me, nice guy, but looked like a coked out 45 year old surfer, but was wearing a T-shirt and shorts and about 150k in bling-bling jewelery? Anyways, I got KO'd 10th before final table after some guy limped 1st in with AQ with high blinds and antes and I shoved from the BB about 10X over him and the SB with KQs and AQ called and I missed.

Oh well, I was a bit dejected, but didn't want to end my run down about $300-400 and I seemed to always do very well actually playing live figuring everyone out, so I saddled up to the only open table (5/10 No Limit )at a decent limit with only $600. I say only because most of the players there started with or had about $1,000 and I didn't notice any donks right off the bat. To my delight they called me out for a 2/5 NL table immediately where $600 was a solid start. The table was pretty loose and I was able to hit a couple solid hands early building up to about $1,000 when I unexpectedly got involved in the hand of my night!:

Most of the hands had a bunch of $5 limpers or a raiser to $25 with a bunch of callers. This time everyone limped $5 around and I raised $30 from the button with A5 (both spades), which isn't a great hand, but with such deep stacks I took a shot at the weak limps and a few called. The flop came something like 853 (all diff. suits) and they checked to me and I bet about $80 and was called my 2 players. The turn was a 9 of spades giving me a flush draw to go with my pair of 5's and I was checked to and the pot was now about $300 and I think I bet about $200 and was check raised by the BB but only to $400. Given the pot odds I could have as many as 13 outs to win and effectively paying $200 more to win the $1000+ the $500+ he had in his stack, so almost 7 to 1. Fortunately or unfortunately, the river drew a blank with a King of clubs and all I had was a pair of 5's. Then my opponent checked to me after check raising me on the turn, which is usually a strong play trying to get more money out of me, but I could tell the king legitimately bothered him and the pot had now grown to over $1,000 and he wasn't committed to following through with the rest of his stack. I basically couldn't beat anything but like a tiger in the wild I knew knew what I had to do and almost immediately shoved all of the $700 I had left in my stack with absolutely nothing! He was so pissed off I had to try not to laugh while there was also about $1,600 on the line. I was pretty sure he had 1010-QQ and the King on the river made him freeze up worried I had AK, KK, AA or 3 of a kind. He kept asking if I had 3 of a kind and finally after 5-10 minutes folded and threw his hand in the muck and I neatly stacked up my $1,600!! Myself and one other solid opponent basically cleaned out the entire table and I eventually finished off the night around 2am. up over $2,400! My best cash game night ever!! Maybe I should play cash games more, huh?

Since then I finished up February pretty strong and my game has been pretty solid ever since. I have kept my # of tables down to around 3-4 and have some time doing poker homework, breaking down some hands and I think it really helped me. This month I have gotten more into 6 handed ultra turbos with good results so far. Wish me luck. I hope some of this success will carry over to WSOP.

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An End to 2009 and a Fresh Start to 2010!!

Date: Thu, Dec 31, 2009 Internet Tournament

Well, as every year, there have many unexpected up's and downs. This year also continued my track record, each year, of accomplishing something big or making another big step in my life. This year was moving into a big, new, house. The year before was my son being born and renting out the condo we bought a few years back, and before that was celebrating a World Series of Poker, Main Event cash, and buying a new Corvette. The list seems to go back each year since graduating High School.

2010 feels like the 1st year I expect to have all my endeavors in order and our home is mostly set. This is the first time Ifeel excited to start the year looking to get in better physical shape and have already been consistently doing mild daily exercises. I have also just started working again on doing homework on the hands I play. (BTW. If anyone knows a good hand replayer for Cake poker that plays out an entire session instead of 1 hand at a time, I would be happy to hear) I have been waiting for another break-out poker year and with all my ducks seemingly in a row, I hope to maximize my performance.

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Poker, poker, and more poker....

Date: Mon, Dec 7, 2009 Internet Tournament

You can email me at Donkeyherder2000@yahoo.com
Please see instructions below on signing up for our 33% rakeback deal on Cake Poker. Please make sure to use our SIGNUP code "FRAZ" (All Caps)

Looking to do some online shopping and want to save some money? This site has great deals on many major retailers like Target, Starbucks, Costco, etc.. You can even make some money if your friends sign on and buy stuff. Here is the link to check it out. Like I said it costs you nothing to signup and check out the deals and hopefully signup: my.blastoffnetwork.com/Donkeyherder/

I haven't been able to post much lately ever since Cake Poker started offering 6 handed "Double-Up" tournaments, which fill much better than the standard 10 handed and have been filling up to $300+12 on the regular especially in the evenings, which is perfect for me. Needless to say I stopped playing big tournaments last month and have been playing these like crazy, 5-7 games at a time, putting up my biggest month in total $ gambled and raked (I think around $60,000 in tournaments)!! I started off destroying them and have since had to make some adjustments, but the Cake Poker has such a good rakeback deal at 33% back, regardless of profit I can make over $1,000 a month only playing 2-3 hours per day. That being said, I've pretty much obsessed myself with these "Sit-and-go's" and haven't updated my blog or anything else in a while.

Today is the coldest it has been in a long time here in southern California. Are you ready......49 degrees!!! That's practically freezing here and all sorts of idiots are driving like morons in the rain, crashing all over the place. I practically never get sick and a couple weeks ago my wife, who gets sick all of the time (elementary school teacher) gave me something nasty and I'm still trying to shake it. I haven't taken off any work, as I never do, but I might make arrangements before the next big holiday push at my work.

A couple weeks ago I used up most of my Cake Poker "Gold Chips" to buy a stationary bike in their rewards store. I've had a personal goal to keep my weight from exceeding 200lbs. At 6 ft.+ I'm not much out of shape, and I do alot of walking at my job, but far from the athlete I was while in school. The consequence to playing alot of poker and having a kid now, I rarely take the time anymore to go surfing, golf, or play basketball like I used to. So I have very slowly been changing my routine. Like most people, I hope the equipment will help, however, I was never big into bike or treadmills so I'm not holding my breath.

I recently celebrated my buddy "Dawgonu"'s birthday which was alot of fun. We all bought wigs and went to a small concert venue in San Juan Cap. to see "Dread Zepplin" which was pretty good. The lead singer is dressed up like an old school chunky Elvis impersonator and sings Led Zepplin (and other songs) belting it out pretty solid as the king himself. Good time had by all. Happy B-Day buddy!!

If anyone follows MMA or UFC fighting, it's been a pretty good couple months. I love watching boxing, but MMA is so action packed and you can watch so many good fights in so little time, I find that's all I watch now. Fedor finally had a good fight on primetime TV in which he looked in trouble but calm and cool as ever, came back against Brett Rogers and knocked him out. The TUF heavyweight (featuring Kimbo Slice) finale was this week and much of the show was a bit boring and played up, but I have actually always liked Kimbo, who was totally over hyped not by his own doing, by Strikeforce before getting outted by a much lighter subpar fighter. I was worried once I heard he was fighting Houston Alexander, because that guy is a brutal attacker. Once in the ring, however, Kimbo looked way bigger than I thought, and Houston just ran around the ring trying to kick Kimbo in the knees and Kimbo actually looked pretty solid, including one of the best slams I have ever seen, slamming Houston on his head! In the end I think Kimbo got a little lucky after getting his legs kicked out, he looked pretty vulnerable, but ended up winning in a decision against a solid UFC fighter, which should silience some of his critics that he is more than just a backyard brawler and has no skills. I like humble underdogs, Go Kimbo!

Unfortunately it looks like most the top MMA fighters are hurt or have just fought, so it looks like it's gonna be a bit bland for a few months. On the boxing front, however, it has been pretty exciting watching Manny and the return of Mayweather leaving a wake of opponents leading to their superfight which should happen by mid-2010. I was also enjoying the "super-six" middleweight tourney, which looks to have an exciting finish if they can get all the fighters in the ring. My pick has been Arthur Abarham. I really looked forward to the Areola-Klitchko fight. It was too bad Areola got so beat up. He was the most exciting Heavyweight I've seen in a while and I hope it doesn't discourage him from coming back strong. Areola was a local kid (Riverside, CA) and I saw him in his up and coming fights at Pechanga Casino with my dad a couple years ago.

Again, anyone looking to get a great rakeback deal saving at least 33% on all the fees and rake you pay to play. Please give Cake Poker a shot if you haven't already. You must use our signup code to get a rakeback account though! Please contact us if you have any questions or interest in signing up. Cake poker is a great site with active table at all limits and alot of loose players.

To join our fast growing Cake Poker Crew!!

1. Download cakepoker.com - Click on the advertisement above or below, then download the Cake Poker Software.
2. Open a new "REAL MONEY ACCOUNT"(you don't have to deposit to do this at this time) using FRAZ (all caps) in the SIGN UP CODE box...you don't put anything in the promotional code box

For new players, you will get up to 110% of what you deposit, up to $600 on your first deposit as well...thats free money !!

I can also help you if you have any problems making any deposits if you send me an email and you wish to transfer money from another site.If you choose to join...shoot me an email to let me know you did and what your screen name is, so I can invite you to the free roll. For new players, I am always here to answer questions about the site or poker in general, so please ask.

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Recapping my poker last month and how you can make some easy money by signing up on "Blastoff"!!

Date: Mon, Nov 2, 2009 Internet Tournament

You can email me at Donkeyherder2000@yahoo.com
Please see instructions below on signing up for our 33% rakeback deal on Cake Poker. Please make sure to use our SIGNUP code "FRAZ" (All Caps)

My buddy recently turned me onto an easy opportunity to make some money for virtually doing nothing but referring a website to your friends, family, or anyone else who enjoys the advantages of buying stuff on the internet. It's basically a collection of big name retailer's who offer deals on all sorts of products called the "Blastoff Network" and you can buy things off their site at a discount and if you refer anyone else and they buy anything you get a % commission on anything they buy and of their referrals as well. I looked into it fairly closely and it isn't any kind of pyramid scheme. There is absolutely no obligation to buy or pay any money for anything!!In a nutshell Blastoff finds these major companies customers and say on a single transaction that company hypethetically makes $100 profit and they give "blastoff" say $30 for finding them this customer and "Blastoff" in turnsplits this profit withyou $15. Now, I believe all the numbers and percentages are different per transaction, but bottomline is alot of people are out of jobs or just looking for some extra cash and you can make money with nothing out of your pocket if you find sign up some people and they buy some stuff online from any of these major companies or they signup other people themselves.

Here is the link to check it out. Like I said it costs you nothing to signup andcheck out the dealsand hopefully signup: my.blastoffnetwork.com/Donkeyherder/

With the holidays coming up alot of people are going to buying stuff online anyways, you might as well get some free money for signing them up!! On the "Blastoff" website they explain all the details and answer alot of questions. They also offer personalized websites for you when you sign up (Similar to setting up a "Facebook" account or blog site). I'm goin to try and add some signup links to my blogs and facebook, etc. Some people are getting crazy about this, making, and passing out flyers. Others are just signing up a few friends and family. I'll see how it plays out. Please pass along any ideas.


As far as my poker playing, I had a great run for a few months, but like I said before, if you ever have a great result be prepared for an immediate falloff. I'm sure there's some logic to it, but it seems like everything hits the fan fast after having a great run. For me, I had a great July and it followed with my 1st down month all year. I then had a couple more subpar months, I feel mostly due to distraction and vacations. Ihad a great time in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico last month and finally feel settled and re-energized to work on my game. I've noticed I've really fallen off the self assessment train and have been coasting on autopilot for many months. I have a tendency to coast if things are running well and lose focus on important details until it kicks me in the ass, but November's a new month and I've already started going to doing my homework and trying to plug some the holes in my game. My main falloff seems to be playing doubleups sng's (10 players, 5 get paid double on Cake Poker) I was killilng these games for months, cashing over 60% at the highest limits available, but I started adding more big multi table tourneys and got out of routine with the vacation and got a bit sloppy. I really enjoy playing the multi's and statistically had my best year ever with an averaging finish of 29/100, cashing 24% (with a profit), am in the top 20% - 43% of the time and in the top 6% - 14% of the time!! Despite all this would you believe I am still in the red for multi's on the year. Seems impossible, but I missed cashes on some big live and online $500-$2500 buyin tourneys which ate up all my profits. I've also managed to make15 final tablesout of155 tourneys and have had numerous bad beats on final table and knocked out 2nd, 3rd,or 4th.Ihave yet to take a big 1st place cash in over a year. I cut back on playing these big tournaments since my son was born, but I feel I will win a big tournament very soon considering I'm getting deep in so many tournaments now.

There are still a few books I'm reading. I'm almost done with"Poker Wizards", by Warrick Dunnett. Very interesting andsimilar to the popular stock market series of "Market Wizard's" books on some the great stock traders and their strategies. I'm most of the way through Negreanu's big "Power Holdem Strategy" book, which I have some reservations with his strategies applied to online play, which is 95% of what I play, but still interesting, and I have Rizen, Apestyles, and Pearljammer's book (Can't remember title something likeOne hand ata timepoker?) which is in my car.


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1. Download cakepoker.com - Click on the advertisement above or below, then download the Cake Poker Software.
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For new players, you will get up to 110% of what you deposit, up to $600 on your first deposit as well...thats free money !!

I can also help you if you have any problems making any deposits if you send me an email and you wish to transfer money from another site.If you choose to join...shoot me an email to let me know you did and what your screen name is, so I can invite you to the free roll. For new players, I am always here to answer questions about the site or poker in general, so please ask.

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Handy Hand Replayer

Date: Mon, Oct 19, 2009 Internet Tournament

I spent alot of time looking for a way to replay hands on CakePoker and finally found something free and not posted for everyone else to see on some forum. You can just cut and paste hand histories from most sites. So far I have only been able to paste one hand at a time. Supposedly entire sessions can be posted, but I haven't figured it out. If anyone does please let me know how.

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Roller coaster WCOOP poker month

Date: Mon, Sep 21, 2009 Internet Tournament

I will admit I had one great tournament last week. I dominated a $50 rebuy tournament as a huge chip leader down to heads up I had about a 2 to 1 lead and lost an allin pot both having top pair but my kicker was weak, then eventually I went card dead and fought back and forth for about 30-40 minutes until my opp limped with an A7 and I had 86 and the flopcameA87 and I put him on a draw and came overtop his bet. Obv. he called and I didn't hit my outs, out 2nd place, $2,500. I was pretty bummed out after having such a huge lead the entiretournament and having itcompletely dissapear heads up because the blinds get so big that whoever catches a couple lucky hands can win. Either wayI was pumped because I played pretty awesome 99% of thetournament and had some big tournaments coming up.

I can't wait till this month is over. I've been mixing in alot more multi table tournaments which can drive even the most seasoned pro, CRAZY!! I unfortunately have continued to be very successful winning satelites to big tournaments (ie WCOOP events on Pokerstars) and then getting deep in the big event only to be busted out with no money usually on some bad luck. This time I won a $500 entry into the $500 rebuy 1+1, which cost me an extra $1,000 in rebuys. My table was pretty mixed, but I had Pro Victor Ramdin on my left and Orel Hershiser across from me, along with a few other strong online players. I startedoff the event by doubling up with trips vs. AA and continued to pound away at my table and inthe top25 out of 1000+ players for a few hours. I eventually went card dead and sat backand waited for better hands when we got down to about 300 players,171 paid, and an early position player limps along with 2 or 3 more and I had J10 suited, so I call. The flop come 5 10 10, and I was now a bit less than avg. stack. I can't remember how the hand played out, but and 8 hit the turn and the 1st ep limper raised me and I didn't feel like I could lay down trips. I uncomfortably called and he turns over 55, a flopped boat vs my flopped trips...sigh. I now wonder if I could have gotten away, but it would have been hard. I couldn't put him on 1010 or a higher kicker with a 10 from ep, so unless he had 55 or 88, I had everything else covered. Anyways, I also won a satelite to the 6 handed $1,000 limit tournament which played at the same time and had Humberto Brenes on my left and a few solid online players. Somehow I never got any traction and lost half my stack early, but managed to keep myself alive longer than the rebuy tourney. I eventually crippled Humberto before he was knocked out, but found myself on the virtual rail less than an hour later before the money I think about 120 out of 410. Net loss for the day of about $1,500 wiping out any gains for the whole month. Tis the life of a poker player.

I think I'll have a couple poker book reviews coming out soon. I've been reading Daniel Negreanu's big book on "small ball" stlye poker "Power Holdem Strategy".



It's been pretty interesting, but I'm not sure how much applicable to Online poker. I've noticed when I pull up alot of stats on most of the big name live tournament pros, their online tournament results haven't been all that good. There is also a fairly obvious difference in the way people play online vs. in a live tournament. I also started reading Mike Matusow's "Check-Raising The Devil", which isan autobiography of one of poker's most notorious stars (In case you didn't already know) and is a bit rough around the edges,but despite Daniel's interesting angle on how plays poker, suprise, I've found myself more interested in Matusow's crazy life.

Aside from poker, I'm still dealing with a condo thats value has tanked and have been renting it out this year and it has been a pain since the only renters we could find in this crappy market had big pitbull dogs which pissed off all the neighbors and now I've gotten a couple tickets from animal control and it looks like we're going to be losing money while looking for new renters again. If I could just sell it off and break even, I could probably quit my job and play as a full-time pro. Oh well, I'm very blessed otherwise and maybe we'll get some awesome tenants, so I hardly have reason to complain. I'm going to Cabo next month!! I still have 10 more days to get things together, we shall see what I can do.

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So far, a pain in the ass month for playing poker!!

Date: Sat, Sep 12, 2009 Internet Tournament

I've been completely out of groove all month. Cake Poker opted to shut down all tournaments for a few days to fix some software issue, which is the first time since I started playing therefor2 years. Everything's fine now, but it forced me to go play on other sites which pay less rakeback and ended up playinga variety ofgames and tournaments leading to very inconsistent results. I also tried to take advantage of some free time to keep playing multi's and continued to get deep and busted before big money, which took some chunks out of my bankroll. Now it looks like I'm going to have to dig myself out of another hole again and grind out a bunch of sit n go's.

On a good note, I got everything booked to go to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico!! It looks like a pretty fab resort. I'll try and include some pics. It's still pretty warm, so hopefully the weather will hold up and we can dodge any other hurricanes or crazy religeous wackos who last week hijacked a plane in cancun, Mexico to warn the president about an impending earthquake??!! wtf. You can also check on my buddy Dawgonu's poker blog/website: dawgonu.com.

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Probably my best month playing poker but didn't make much money?!

Date: Mon, Aug 31, 2009 Internet Tournament

Last month I had my best month in a long time, making multiple final tables. This month, I knew it would be hard to out due myself, but other than the actual money I made, I statistically played better than ever. I know it sounds like some sort of BS to make myself feel better, but I continued to cash deep into alot of multi-table tourneys and I absolutely killed the double-up sng's, cashing 68%!! My main downfall was finishing deep in alot of expensive multi's without any really big cashes. I had some vacation and other free time so I wanted to take advantage of the rare opportunity to play big tournaments. Luckily I made it back in sng's, but not by much, so it looks like it's going to be profitable by only my rakeback alone. I also played the most hours this month in a long time and have improved my abilities to play multiple games at a time. Previously I could only play 2-3 tables without screwing up or not paying attention, etc. This month I was running 3-6 games with little problems and expect to go back to a more grinding schedule in Sept.

There is one big caveat. Iand my buddy Dawgonu wereoffered an opportuntiy to rent a week at someone's time share anywhere in the world for basically $800 or $400 split. So we're taking the girls and heading out to somewhere exotic!! It looks like our main expense will be the plane flight. We're thinking Hawaii since most of us haven't gone yet. Any suggestions?? We gotta book it fast, so it might throw off my plans somewhat.

Things are starting to fall together well at the new home. Everything is pretty well organized and we had a party for my sister who just moved to Arizona. After we get back I want to look into buying one of those big L shaped leather couches for my living room and maybe eventually get a LCD TV, which will be a nice compliment to when Ifinally get the cash to buy one of those real nice professional poker tables for my dining room some day.

It has been butt-sweatty hot the last couple weeks here for So. California standards around 90+ for many days. Too hot to take advantage of the beach or anything until after 7pm. I need to get back into some sort of an exercise routine. I'm not fat by any means, but nowhere near what I used to be and I feel more out of shape every month. My dad, who's in his late 50's just started running and now he's doing a marathon and practicing 15-20 miles a day!! That's so awesome and I'm so pathetic now. At 6' I used to be able to dunk a basketball and run a 5 minute mile and now I suuuucckk. Surfing has still been fun and I'm talking myself to get back onto the golf course, but it's really hard for me to try and pick things back up and suck when I used to be so good before. It's like coming out of retirement at 31 years old, lol. I guess I'm being a bit dramatic. I'll probably hit the driving range before I take off on vacation.

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