2-month update

So hey guys, I forgot to blog for the past 2 months. I really suck at this. Who invented the term blog anyway? It sounds so lame. Anyways, I'm going to start more, just haven't had the time.

November was definitely the best month on record, as could be expected for a close to ~$500 score in the first session! Turns out that the table I posted had left off another first place win, so most profitable online day was easily crushed. Combined with an Obama victory and the Hokies securing an improbable ACC Championship birth, I'm not sure November 2008 can be topped. I played about 20 sessions in the entire month and didn't have a single losing session. I don't know how that is possible, but I was running so good it was insane. I scored about $2,500 in November, rivaling my take-home pay at my real job! And I didn't log anywhere close to the same amount of hours online as I did at real job. I know I was just on a nasty heater, but locking in a profit in every single session was one of the best feelings I've had in my poker career. Just when I thought I was ready to start my pro career, December happened.....

I guess you can't run good forever, and December was living proof. I started off the month on the same heater I was on in November, finishing up about $400 for my 3 sessions. I was on travel in Kings Bay, GA for the first part of the month and got some good playing time in at my hotel room. On 5 December, I finished up my tour in GA and headed to the ACC Championship game in sunny Tampa. I got a speeding ticket on the way there (lame ass Florida cops and their speed traps and 9 mph over speeding tickets!!!), but met Maggie, Will, and Jen at the airport for a weekend of drunken debauchery and HOKIE FOOTBALL!!!!! Man it was great to avenge a regular season loss to Boston College for the 2nd year in a row! We looked really good and I had a great feeling about playing the Big East *champion* Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl. Tampa was a lot of fun, the weather was AWESOME, and we definitely took advantage of the 72 degree weather and the 3rd story swimming pool/hot tub at the hotel. Shit was pimp.

December 8 was back to life, back to reality. Posted a $225 loss first day back. Excellent. Couple small scores, couple small losses, until doomsday (aka 14 December 2008). Posted worst loss ever on that day ($545!!!). Man that really sucked. That was good for about 20% of my bankroll, but I am still rolled for the level I'm playing, so its all good. Just variance kicking me in the nuts. Proceeded to split sessions for the erst of the month and ended up only $263 for the month. Considering I played 262 tourneys, my ROI obviously took a HUGE hit (only 3% for the month, compared to about 20% overall). Not happy times.

Had high hopes for January, especially after the Hokies wrecked Cincy in the Orange Bowl! BOOOOOOOmmmmm it felt good to finally win a BCS bowl. Unfortunately poker wasn't as kind and I finished down $500 in 3 sessions by 4 January.

At that point I looked into the possibility of rakeback. It is basically a percentage of your buyin that the site gives back to you by signing up with one of their affiliates. At Full Tilt, the rakeback is 27% of all rake paid, so for every $33 + $3 tourney I play, I would get back 27% of $3, or about $0.75. I really can't believe I have played this long without knowing about that, its like I was just lighting free money on fire. Considering I played about 1,800 tourneys since July, I would have basically gotten a check for about $600. I estimated that, given my current rate of play, I would give up close to $3,000 this year alone without rakeback. That is assuming I stay at the $33 level, if I move up and play $50, or even $100, you can see how much free money I would be giving up. That is unsat.

Unfortunately, Full Tilt is being a bunch of douchebags about retagging my account as rakeback eligible because I signed up under some other shitty affiliate (I think it was SNG Planet...do NOT sign up there...sign up through www.rakeback.com). So I withdrew my entire bankroll and am moving it to another site, and closing down my Full Tilt account until they see things my way. Not sure where I'm going to play at yet, but probably Poker Stars or Ultimate Bet *Cringe*. I hope they've cleaned up their act....we'll see!

So that means I won't be playing for the next couple of weeks while I wait for my Full Tilt cashout and wait to deposit on a site of choice (with rakeback, of course). But once I get that squared away, I will be ready to roll and be sure not to neglect the blog.

Until then, peace bitches....

Welcome to VTBalla34's Poker Blog!

What's up everybody? I don't know how you stumbled across my blog, but thanks for coming out. I wanted to start this blog to track my poker results and help find leaks in my game, and generally keep me off tilt when I'm running bad. First a little about myself:

I'm 26 and am a proud graduate of Virginia Tech. Go Hokies!!! (Even though its VERY hard to root for them sometimes). I am an engineer for a defense contractor in Maryland. We work with the Navy's TRIDENT Submarine weapon system, which is basically the most badass thing known to man. I've been doing that for 3 years now and really enjoy it. I live right beside of work, so my commute is pretty awesome. I want to get back into the gym and play more basketball (since I played in college), but at the end of the day, I'm usually just too lazy. And besides, its really tough to not come home and get on the internet when there are so many poker players just waiting to hand you their money. Which brings me to my second point:

I am kind of addicted to online poker. I've logged about 1,000 SNG's since mid-July on Full Tilt Poker and have made a pretty good profit in that time. I'll be posting graphs and shit to track my progress, so all of you can follow along. Don't worry about selling me out to the IRS; I pay all my taxes in April!

Since starting with $5 SNG's on Ultimate Bet (as TKEStunna) in the Fall of '04, I have probably logged close to a million hands of poker. Ultimate Bet's software sucks when it comes to interfacing with add-ons, so I'm not sure how much I made on there, but I did pretty well. In around the July timeframe, I received Colin Moshman's "Sit N Go Strategy" book and have improved my game significantly. Around that time, I made the move from Ultimate Bet to Full Tilt (as VTBalla34) mainly due to the superuser scandal, but also because FTP has >>>>>>> volume than Ultimate Bet, which makes multi-tabling so much more profitable. I usually play between 4-6 SNGs at a time and am going to work up to about 10-12 once I get a dual-monitor setup. Since moving to FTP, I've made ~$3k in just over 3 months. Not bad part time, but I'd certainly like to up my volume and try to pull in more disposable income. I post on Cardplayer Forum as VTBalla34.

So without further ado, welcome to my blog and tell your friends. Feel free to leave any comments, be it praise/hate/indifference whatever. I've made a lot of people angry online with my Phil Hellmuth-type banter, and have come to terms with that. So haters, bring it on. Let's roll, ya'll........