Week of August 10th 2008

For this week, first I will talk about my poker play, then a little up date on my up coming travels.

Like many jobs on-line poker offers bonuses. I play at Poker Stars, they offer several types of bonuses. Two that I focus on are Frequent Player Points (FPP) and re-deposit bonuses.

FPP are points you earn for the amount of hands you play and the amount of money that is in the pot at your table for each hand. Similar to Frequent Flyer points you get when you fly. FPP can then be used to buy things as simple as a Poker Stars hat to as fancy as a Porsche Caymen S. You can also achieve different levels of status, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Supernova, and Supernova Elite depending on how many FPP you get each month. You can make a lot of money just on the FPP. There are some players that try to just play break even poker (not win or lose) but they play a lot just to accumulate points.

Re-deposit bonuses are incentives that Poker Stars has once a quarter, where you are allowed to redeposit money back into your Poker Stars bank account. You get a bonus on the money you deposit. For example this quarter you could deposit up to $600.00 and get a 20% bonus. The way you collect the bonus is by accumulating twenty times your bonus amount in FPP. So for example I re-deposited $600.00 which made my bonus amount $240.00 (20% of $600.00) so in order to collect the $240.00 bonus I need to earn 4,800 FPP, the time frame to earn these points is six months. The best part is as soon as you deposit the $600.00 to qualify for the bonus you can withdraw it. So it does not cost anything to participate in the bonus. The $240.00 is free money.

This background is important to my poker play this week. Instead of focusing on my play I focused on FPP to qualify for my $240.00 bonus. As I have mentioned before it cost about $1.00 to live a week in Botswana, so $240.00 will carry me several years. So I played volume poker this week, rather then quality poker. The goals accumulate FPP and break even on the money play. I played over 5,500 hands of poker this week. This is a record for me; this was over a 37 hour period. That works out to 147 hands per hour. Most times I was playing 3 – 4 tables at a time. The plus was I made a little money rather then just break even and I accumulated 2,756 FPP. So I am over half way to my bonus. I am not sure I will try this strategy again, though it was very profitable, playing poker for 37 hours is like having a traditional job. Now that I have a nice jump on getting the $240.00 bones, I think I will go back to my normal strategy of quality poker play. I thought I would share with you two hands that are not representative of quality poker play, but more about terrible play where I got lucky, but when you are playing high volume you can take chances because you have enough volume to make up for the hands you lose.

POKERSTARS GAME #19634503122: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.50/$1.00) - 2008/08/15 - 11:06:53 (ET)
Table 'Telesto III' 9-max Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: soncuze ($57.30 in chips)
Seat 2: Faiv ($128.15 in chips)
Seat 3: DCIAce ($17 in chips)
Seat 4: BierDaniel ($16 in chips)
Seat 5: earthquake33 ($100 in chips)
Seat 6: cobis ($115.25 in chips)
Seat 7: Daantje72 ($61.35 in chips)
Seat 8: DUG ($119.10 in chips)
Seat 9: Tobsen ($166.80 in chips)
BierDaniel: posts small blind $0.50
earthquake33: posts big blind $1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DUG [Ac 9d] Normally I would not play this hand.
cobis: calls $1
Daantje72: folds
DUG: raises $3 to $4 Just trying to steal the blinds.
Tobsen: folds
soncuze: folds
Faiv: folds
DCIAce: folds
BierDaniel: folds
earthquake33: folds
cobis: calls $3 Must have a pair with a limp in bet.
*** FLOP *** [6d Js 9c] I hit middle pair with a good kicker.
cobis: checks Must not of hit
DUG: bets $5 Maybe I can take the pot here.
cobis: raises $5 to $10 Oh, shit must have a hand
DUG: calls $5 The Pot is $18 so I am getting about 4 – 1 must call.
*** TURN *** [6d Js 9c] [Tc]
cobis: bets $11 Low bet half the pot means he wants me to call, I still only have middle pair this is a dumb call.
DUG: calls $11 Like I said this is not quality poker.
*** RIVER *** [6d Js 9c Tc] [Ah] Now I have 2 pair and the best 2 pair unless he has AJ or AT
cobis: bets $38 He could have a str8 with 78

DUG: raises $38 to $76 This is the best part of no-limit Poker ALL IN.
cobis: calls $38 Oh shit he called.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
DUG: shows [Ac 9d] (two pair, Aces and Nines) I WON!!!!
cobis: mucks hand
DUG collected $200.50 from pot 100 weeks of life in Botswana
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $203.50 Rake $3
Board [6d Js 9c Tc Ah]
Seat 1: soncuze folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: Faiv folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: DCIAce (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: BierDaniel (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: earthquake33 (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 6: cobis mucked [Jd Td]
Seat 7: Daantje72 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 8: DUG showed [Ac 9d] and won ($200.50) with two pair, Aces and Nines
Seat 9: Tobsen folded before Flop (didn't bet)

This next hand is fun because it is about 5 hands after the last one and against the same guy.

POKERSTARS GAME #19634637064: HOLD'EM NO LIMIT ($0.50/$1.00) - 2008/08/15 - 11:15:12 (ET)
Table 'Telesto III' 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 2: Faiv ($135.5 0 in chips)
Seat 3: DCIAce ($33.75 in chips)
Seat 4: BierDaniel ($20 in chips)
Seat 5: earthquake33 ($96 in chips)
Seat 6: cobis ($86.60 in chips)
Seat 7: Daantje72 ($58.85 in chips)
Seat 8: DUG ($175.30 in chips)
Seat 9: Tobsen ($169.90 in chips)
Daantje72: posts small blind $0.50
DUG: posts big blind $1
Graf Zahl69: sits out
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to DUG [2c 2h] In quality poker I would not play pocket 2’s as they are only good if you hit a 2 on the flop which is about 15% of the time.
Tobsen: folds
Faiv: folds
DCIAce: folds
BierDaniel: folds
earthquake33: folds
cobis: raises $2 to $3
Daantje72: calls $2.50
DUG: calls $2 I called because my buddy from the last hand is in.
*** FLOP *** [9c 9h 2d] I flopped a full house, I have to be happy with this.
Daantje72: checks
DUG: checks I want to let the others bet into me. Since I have the best hand unless someone has 99 or 92.
cobis: bets $8 Here we go again
Daantje72: folds
DUG: calls $8 Just call I am sure he is still mad and will think I am a really bad player that got lucky last hand.
*** TURN *** [9c 9h 2d] [Ad] I hope he has an Ace so now he has 2 top pair.
DUG: checks Let him keep betting.
cobis: bets $16 As long as he does not have A9 I am golden.
DUG: raises $19 to $35 If he has an Ace he will call. I need to build the pot so he can not get away from the hand.
cobis: calls $19 he is hooked and pissed at me.
*** RIVER *** [9c 9h 2d Ad] [7c]
DUG: bets $91 The pot is big enough he will call any bet I make.
cobis: calls $40.60 and is all-in PERFECT.
Uncalled bet ($50.40) returned to DUG<>*** SHOW DOWN ***
DUG: shows [2c 2h] (a full house, Deuces full of Nines)
cobis: mucks hand Poor guy
DUG collected $173.20 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $176.20 Rake $3
Board [9c 9h 2d Ad 7c]
Seat 2: Faiv folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: DCIAce folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 4: BierDaniel folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: earthquake33 folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: cobis (button) mucked [7s As]
Seat 7: Daantje72 (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 8: DUG (big blind) showed [2c 2h] and won ($173.20) with a full house, Deuces full of Nines About 85 more weeks of living.
Seat 9: Tobsen folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Now for my travels, nothing great right now, I am in the planning stages of my next trip which is to Grand Teton Mountains, Wyoming. I will be there from August 29th to September 2nd. This is a 3 day hiking trip on the Grand Teton trail. I plan to take a lot of pictures and I will post on my return. This is a true backpacking trip were everything I need I will be carrying on my back. I am looking forward to getting into the great outdoors. This trip is through a company I found on the internet I will let you know how they are after the trip.

http://www.wildhorizonsexpeditions.com/

P.S. The picture for this weeks post is when I was in Jordan; I got hired as a falafel maker. Most of the time I travel I can not play porker so I need to supplement my income by to picking up odd jobs.