Free Money and Diversified Funds

There’s nothing better than free money, especially when it ends up in your online poker account. Ulitmate Bet must be getting desperate, because they put $10 in my account to get me to try the site again.

Now, I’m not a major fan of UB. Why? Because when I first started my online poker adventure, they were the first site I tried, at the request of a friend of mine. The first thing I noticed was the customer service was terrible. They were going through some kind of upgrade mishap, and I had a terrible time depositing any money there, or getting anyone to help me out. So, I said forget it and opened an acocunt on Pokerstars.

Well, that friend of mine continued to beg me to deposit some money there so we could play some SNGs together, so I finally did – $80. One nice thing about it was I got a matching deposit bonus, something Pokerstars never does. The SNG experiment didn’t go so well. I just didn’t have enough of a bankroll to handle the swings of $5 and $10 SNGs. I got down to $.07 and I never redeposited.

Three nice things about this tiny $10 in my UB account:
1) I know a lot more about BR management than I did when I started playing online.
2) I have $45 of uncleared bonus from my original deposit.
3) It appears it’s easier to clear your bonus than it used to be (I’m going to examine this in another post).

So, with those 3 things in mind, I’m on a new quest – clearing my bonus on UB at the .01/.02 tables. As long as I play a solid game, I don’t see any reason why I can’t do it. I was able to turn my last $3 on Pokerstars into usable money without a bonus, so I’m thinking this should be easy.

There are some differences between .01/.02 at PS and UB. Notably the buyin on UB – it’s a max of $2. This is good and bad. The good is that stack sizes will be relative to mine with the smaller buyin (although it’s a huge percentage still – I’m buying in for 20% of my BR, usually not recommended). When I started working my way back up on Stars, I was buying in for $1 with everyone else buying in for $5. People were less inclinded to let me draw. I was forced to play top pair very aggressively. The bad is that it’s that you’re buying in for a shorter stack – your implied odds are lower (which means my PTBB/100 will be lower). That means tightening up. Junk hands aren’t going to be profitable without all that money behind. PS allows a buyin of up to $5 (250BB) vs the $2 (100BB) on UB. 100BB isn’t exactly shortstack poker, but with most of the stacks between .80 and 2.00, there will be a lot of cases where playing small pairs after a raise probably just won’t be worth it, and that’s where a large portion of my profit comes from – stacking someone with a small set against a high pocket pair. If your opponent doesn’t have 10 times his preflop raise left in his stack (it’s really 8, but you have the rake and the times you will lose set over set to consider, so I like the overlay), it really isn’t worth it, especially in early position.

So, with all that it mind, I played my first 4 table session last night. I was a little brazen, and bought in for $2.00 on 4 tables – 80% of my new BR in play. I should have bought in for 4x$1. How did I do? Within the first 5 hands I was stacked – flopped a nut straight against a set, and the river paired giving the guy a boat (just bad luck, I would have played the hand the same way he did – he played it correctly). 5 hands later, I lost with KK vs. TT to a rivered T (I got it in on the flop). Down almost $4 dollars. I put the rest of my money on the table, and then came this hand:

Hand #42331xxxxx at Abdouramane (No Limit Hold’em)Started at 10/May/07 22:42:50
unknown is at seat 0 with $1.91.
ringaling is at seat 1 with $3.62.
unknown2 is at seat 2 with $2.02.
calling station is at seat 3 with $2.37.
crazy is at seat 4 with $8.58.
quiet is at seat 5 with $1.84.
me is at seat 6 with $2.33.
unknown3 is at seat 7 with $1.02.
justsatdown is at seat 8 with $2.
loose is at seat 9 with $1.91.
The button is at seat 5.
me posts the small blind of $.01.
unknown3 posts the big blind of $.02.

Pre-flop:
loose folds.
unknown folds.
ringaling calls.
unknown2 calls.
calling station calls.
crazy calls.
quiet folds.
me calls.
unknown3
checks.
Flop (board: 6c 5d Jc):
me checks.
unknown3 bets $.02.
ringaling calls.
unknown2 calls.
calling station calls.
crazy calls.
me calls. (loose call for me)
Turn (board: 6c 5d Jc 7s):
me checks.
unknown3 bets $.24.
ringaling folds.
unknown2 folds.
calling station folds.
crazy raises to $.96.
me goes all-in for $2.29. (Gotcha!)
unknown3 goes all-in for $.98.
crazy calls.
River (board: 6c 5d Jc 7s Js): (no action in this round)

Showdown:
me shows 7d 7h.
me has 7d 7h Jc 7s Js: full house, sevens full of jacks.
unknown3 shows 4c 5c.
unknown3 has 5c 5d Jc 7s Js: two pair, jacks and fives.
crazy mucks cards. (crazy has 6d 7c.)
Summary:
$.57 is raked from a total pot of $5.80. (yikes that’s a lot of rake – 10%)
$.31 is raked from the main pot of $3.18.
$.26 is raked from side pot #1 of $2.62.
me wins the main pot $2.87 with full house, sevens full of jacks.
me wins the side pot $2.36 with full house, sevens full of jacks.

I normally don’t make that flop call, but because everyone had called in front, my call ends the betting, and the board doesn’t look like it helped anyone, I may be able to take it away, or I may get lucky and catch a card for .02. I know I can get paid by crazy if I hit something – he was playing 85%/25%/8 and getting lucky. I hit the money card on the turn. I wasn’t afraid of a set of jacks, because the table was pretty crazy. If someone had JJ preflop, there would have been a raise. I was slightly afraid of a straight, but I had boat outs if I was behind.

I was up and down after fighting my way back at my other tables, but overall up 35% for the session. I think if I can just maintain my tight steady game that I have at Stars, I should be able to clear that bonus on UB. I’ll probably stop all play at Stars and FT until I clear it or bust out, whichever comes first.

BR
UB 13.53 (45.29 in pending bonus)
PS 77.47 (had another nasty session)
FT 28.75