Female poker geek anonymous

It’s like madness suddenly for a low stakes player like me. I was pretty happy on January 31st to plonk down 40k FPPs for that discounted 650$ bonus. Hey, I was playing 10/20 and the VPPs were flying around. Suddenly I had that needed FPP, Platinum status and was on pace for almost double, well, at least 1.5x SN.

Oh how times have changed. I am huffing and puffing to make 1000 VPPs this month, I can’t fathom how people get to SN and even much higher just playing .5/1 LHE. Now that I’ve moved up to 1/2 it gets a bit better, but it’s still so slow watching the VPP counter. The 650$ are still far away, but suddenly that’s 325BB, so it becomes more valuable somehow (funny how that works).

Add to that that Cake and FTP are releasing bonuses at the same time. 300$ at Cake, 100$ at FTP, with similar payout rates (0.06 per FPP and FPPs get awarded the same way), I’ve got a lot of bonus grinding to do. The 650$ and the elusive SN status seem so far away now.

It’s so strange how online card rooms get us. It used to be so easy to just jump from poker room to poker room back in 2005 / 2006 and clear bonuses. Absolute had these constant 50$ I would clear, I forgot some of the weird names of poker rooms I deposited money into (they are tucked away on some file on my old computer along my Pokertracker 2 hands). I was so bad back then, yet the bonuses kept me a winner. Amazing how the games are now.

Switch to 2010 where every FPP is down to a science. People haggling over 1-2% of rakeback. Professional rakeback grinders nowadays are a serious force to contend with and one is not playing for shitty poker books in the store anymore, but for serious $.

I often fall into that trap too. Play a few more hands that day to maintain some status, move up a level, because I don’t want to play 2 hours, and hey, I can clear it much faster here. Oh poker rooms, you have perfected it! Much better than the live fishes coming back night after night waiting to hit that bad beat jackpot, you have your minions coming day after day, playing for points, you make more a ton of money, they get the crumbs, everybody’s happy.

But alas, I’m very happy too, tha I’m effectively playing rakefree on Stars and to like 75% rakeback at Cake and FTP :D I just need to remind myself to keep playing well and not look at the VPP counter all the time. Just like not looking at the cashier, there’s an extra distraction I have to block.

Update on moving up:

Doing quite well at 1/2. I’ve got to pat myself on the back on some nice b/f’s I’ve made on the river, which I’ve paid off in the past. Regaining confidence back is also nice. I’m game starting a lot and my winrate is better there, which should also do wonders to regain my confidence in the HUHU games in the future. The 70BB deficit is erased and I’m up about 45BB now, mostly at Stars. I’ll post end of month graph next week.

Small funny story: I accidentally sat down in a 2/4 6max game and I really scratched my head, why I had so many notes and reads and hands on the other players. I was really worried that the games were bad and that people were also moving down with me. Yes, some had moved down from 3/6, but others were always there at 2/4 and my notes were from when I was playing those games. Suddenly I get involved in a huge massive pot 4 ways in which I make top full house (don’t ask, I don’t remember) and this 105$ pot gets shipped to me. I start doing calculations and suddenly I realize that this is quite unlikely (impossible, because it wasn’t capped at every street by every player) at 1/2. I laugh and sit out next hand. They must have thought: another hit and runner.