Back at Party
Wow, there are bonuses all over the place. I cleared the InterPoker additional deposit bonus early last week (I think they cut the required hands to 300 due to the problems, I got it much sooner than expected). I played there on Friday hoping to hit poket Kings to no avail. On Saturday I didn’t really play much, but did so at InterPoker again in hopes of clearing the 200 hands needed to get an extra $20. I came up short in order to spend some time with Mrs. H and watched The Stepford Wives which was pretty entertaining, so it was worth the missed $20 
Sunday brought me back to Party. Me and 56,000 of my closest friends. 56,000. Oh my.
After all, how could a bonus chasing whore like myself pass up a $200 bonus? I think I’d loose my Bonus Whore Membership if I passed this up, especially because it was at Party. The only thing that almost prevented me doing it was the 7 day deadline. Ug, I hate that about Party. What I do like is that it’s very easy to monitor your progress on their “My Account” page. I don’t have to rely on PokerTracker and hope things are correct. 1400 hands (of course I was going to max it out) in one week is quite a bit for me, so I had to figure out if I would have time to do it or not. I then realized I would have virtually all Sunday to work on it, so I threw a grand to Party and got ready to grind away.
I pull up a chair to Party for the first time in 6 weeks and at a Party ring game for the first time in probably two months. The last time I played at Party I played SNGs and I’ll return to those after clearing all of these holiday bonuses as I think I’m actually better at those than the ring games. My sample size is still too small to determine that, but I’m more consistent there than at the ring games, at least so far.
Due to the fact that this was my first Party ring game in a long time this was also the first time I could try out GameTime+ (although the “docs” imply that it works with any site that supports PT, but I haven’t tried it on Crypto yet, has anybody?). Wow!!! This was awesome and helped me make a few decisions at certain times such as when facing a pre-flop raise, etc. I haven’t tried out PlayerView yet, so if anybody has any preferences for one or the other, let me know.
I first pulled up a couple 50/1 tables figuring that this would be a low variance way of clearing the bonus. Oy. First off, I notice that not enough pots were being raked, which was pissing me off. Secondly, I was facing the suckouts of 50/1 that were pissing me off even more. I dropped about $30 floundering around at 50/1 before I dropped that and pulled up 2 tables of 1/2. Ahh…back to a little normalcy.
Grinding away during the football games I was down a little, but was feeling pretty good. After dinner I pulled up another two tables and proceeded to go on a little rush and won back everything and finished the night playing 711 raked hands and was down $0.53. *whew* I know 700 hands in one day is nothing for some of you, but it was tiring for me, even playing as distracted as I play (watching football, reading 2+2, other general surfing). I figure breaking even for me is pretty good and I was happy with it. I’m halfway done with the bonus and now I should be able to finish it pretty easily now despite the holidays.
Maybe 3 tables would keep me a bit more focused. I did it the other night playing two Interpoker tables and one TGC table (their mini-view is great) and it was fine. I would have played more at TGC in order to work off their bonus, but they’re having some issues getting their bonus stuff figured out and while I’m sure they’ll get it sorted out, I figure I can wait until after the Party bonus (the TGC bonus expires after 30 days instead of the ridiculous 7 days at Party).
I stopped by the blogger NL table to say “Hi” for a bit. Looks like good times. I’m also thinking that maybe the $25NL tables are a good way to clear bonuses because virtually every hand is raked. The 1/2 tables are pretty good though too, I’m getting about 80% raked there so it’s not too bad.
I’m probably going to throw some money to Stars to at least get their reload bonus since they don’t expire. May as well get them stacked up and have them ready to go. Play poker without a bonus? No way!
Lord Admiral Radio
I was mentioned on Card Club’s podcast this week. You should check it out, not for my mention, but to hear the PokerProf give a nice long interview. It’s kind of nice to put a voice with the blog. Thanks to the Prof and others, being about to put a face with a name has been one of the highlights of the WPBT reports. Thanks to everybody who’s posted pics, I appreciate it.
i like Playerview a lot better. What a handy tool!
Chris can you send me a link to Playerview or GameTime+? Playing 3-4 tables for this bonus makes it tougher to get reads on people.
And how did you find the blogger table? Everytime I’m on I try to find it with no avail
Glad you like the Admiral
I hope to heck you can make it out for the next blogger tourney.
Chris, I use GT+ for the same reasons you discovered… it works with Party and Paradise and all the rest of the PT supported sites. It’s definitely helped me make some good decisions when faced with a raise while in the blinds, or even while holding a hand I’d normally play for one bet and not two. I’ll call the maniac liberally and hope to catch a good hand by the turn. I’ll fold to the rocks and eagles without second thoughts.