The Quest continues ...

My quest to become a good online tournament player continues as the first month of 2009 comes to a close. I've been playing mostly MTTs the whole of January with buy-ins ranging from $10 to about $30. My schedule would usually look like this. Work from 8:30 AM to 5:30PM, come home, have dinner, play with the kids for a little bit. Then fire up the old PC and start playing. I'm averaging about 2 to 3 MTTs per night played simultaneously from about 9PM to whenever I bust out.

So far, the results have been encouraging. My ITM rate has gone down since my playing rate has gone up. But my overall profit has been on the upswing. Recent notable events include a 3rd place finish in a JBET 1.5k Guaranteed. 2nd place in a 3K Rebuy Tourney at Cake. And just last night, I took down 2nd in a 5.5K FTP Tourney. Didn't really have time to take screenshots so just take my word for it. Heheh

The JBET account was newly registered in light of the recent APT, but I never did get around to playing any of the qualifying freerolls. I do want to wish good luck to every Pinoy who qualified especially fellow PM members. Since this is the first time I played in JBET, I wanted to comment a bit on the experience. First off, the software is buggy. The software would usually stop and hang if you play too many tables or sometimes for no reason at all. This also happens to other sites which I think is caused by the fluctuating speeds of the DSL connection. But the other sites recover automatically. JBET does not. It just stays in that "stop" position unless you close all the open windows and restart the software which is quite troublesome. This is also the first site I have ever encountered which does not seem to have an automatic tracking facility for bonuses. For some weird reason, they are requiring you to email them to inform them that you have already achieved your bonus.

On the positive side, it is absolutely filled with donkey players. I have never seen so many illogical moves in a money tournament than the ones I played in at JBET. It's like people are willing to gamble with junk all throughout the tourney. Normally this kind of reckless playing happens at the start of the tourneys. But once all the fishes are weeded out, then it becomes quite serious and you can usually expect good play. Not in JBET though. Even as we were already nearing ITM, people were still getting caught with weird plays that spewed chips left and right.

Finally, and I don't know if this is a good thing or not. Once you reach the final table, you have the option of offering chop deals with fellow players. They have a nifty module where you indicate the deal and if everyone clicks that they agree, it automatically ends the tourney and distributes out the pot as per agreed. I have seen chop deals happen in Pokerstars but it would usually entail some manual intervention by a PS staff. I guess it's good in the sense that it shortens up some play and you can even out the distribution of prizes automatically. But I'm used to playing for top 3 and it sort of jars your train of thought on how you approach an MTT. I'm still on the fence on this feature, but I would think its something that most poker players would appreciate.

And that's what's happening so far. See you next time !!

Withdrawal by Cheque

I'm not sure if this tidbit of information is interesting to most of you. But worth posting for future reference I guess.

During the 1st week of January, I requested for a cashout from Cake Poker. This was long overdue but since the demise of Moneybookers, I was too lazy to figure out how to make a withdrawal. Eventually I got around to emailing them and activating the withdrawal by cheque option.

Cake Support was very helpful and got this done promptly after some verifying of account information and such which was quite understandable. I then found out that there was a $35 courier charge for sending me the check. This was also OK for me as getting it safe and sound was worth the small amount.

I finally received the cheque last Saturday via FEDEX. I expected a check in US Dollars or Euro. But to my utter surprise, it was a peso cheque. Seriously, it was an ABN-AMRO Check and it was seemingly issued from their head office in Ayala Avenue, Makati. The account name listed on the cheque was PACNET Service Europe Limited . I double checked the Fedex package and it came from the Cake office in Vancover, Canada. Heheh ... I have no idea how they did it. But it was very welcome as I didn't have to wait for clearing. I could just deposit it and the funds would be available for immediate use.

The only drawback is the conversion rate. Roughly, it came out to about 43.42 is to $1. Which is highway robbery if you ask me. If I'm not mistaken, the current rate is about 46.8 or something. But heck, what can you do. I'm just happy that they have a withdrawal method for the Philippines that is fast and secure.

The thing is, if the cheque came from a Philippine bank, why not just send it to me directly to save all those courier expenses??

The Year That Was ...

First post for 2009 and as per custom, let me do a quick recap of what happened to my poker playing this past year. Before anything else, let me qualify to everyone that I am a low limit recreational player. I work 8 hours a day, 6 days a week and travel quite a lot. So my playing time is limited to a few hours a day plus the occasional Sunday. I don't consider myself a pro in any sense of the word. But I am an avid student of the game.

With this in mind, I am happy to report to my stockholders (which is basically my wife and kids) that I've managed to triple my online bankroll this year while still managing to take out around $3K worth of profits. Whether this is big or small is relative obviously. But I am quite satisfied with this level. Again as I've always said, where else can you play a game which you enjoy tremendously where the money inflow is positive instead of negative. A lot of my previous obsessions have always taken out a chunk of my salary and poker is the only one that is the opposite, actually giving me extra spending money. It is also the only hobby that my wife encourages me to play, sometimes even chiding me for missing out on some of those early morning freerolls which I qualified for. Heheh. Buhay nga naman.

Also in 2008, I did finally get to play in a Sunday Million Tournament and even made it ITM which was good. My playing has evolved a bit. Instead of focusing purely on single table SNGs. I find that I play in a lot more MTTs now. Surprisingly, my ITM rate is quite high for MTTs hovering in the 30+% range. I find that I also enjoy MTTs more with its unique challenges and formats. Cash game experience is still zero except for the occasional stab at low limit tables when I am trying to chase a bonus. I find that I'm clueless when to quit when I play cash. Sometimes I'm already up 2 to 3 buy-ins and I end up losing it back to the table. This is so unlike SNGs or MTTs where you always know where you stand and there is a definite end time.

If there is any regret that I have for 2008, it is that I fact that I played in only one (count them in your fingers) live game. And it was even a charity event where the players were not really playing seriously. So for 2009, this is the main thing that I would work actively to change. I would like to play in at least 2 or 3 big live local tournaments. With the growth of poker in the Philippines, I am sure that there will be lots of live MTTs with great prizes. So let me try to qualify for one of these suckers.

I guess that's it. Happy New Year to everyone !!