Help me give a big warm welcome back to my poker game. I had lost it for almost two months and yesterday I finally found it. I’m back in the ring!

I’ve written before that it’s been a struggle over the past two months. If it wasn’t for deposit bonuses, I would have been done quite a bit. When I last posted about my game, I was in the process of taking some time off. It was well worth it. I didn’t play online at all for a period of 10 days and was able to some reading and think about my game. TOP and ITH are both great books if you haven’t read them.

Party Poker was again offering a great redeposit bonus and it came just in time for my return to the ring. I was disappointed though to actually lose money while working off the required 1400 raked hands for my maximum bonus. Not only did I lose money, but I even ended up behind after figuring in the bonus! So much for taking time off to refine my game and get back to winning!

I was making the same mistakes that had been costing me dearly for the previous two months. I knew what I was doing wrong and just couldn’t stop. As soon as I’d click the button to bet or call, I knew I had made the wrong choice. Always calling check-raisers on the turn is not a profitable situation to be in at the low limits that I play (usually $2/4). You can pick off a bluff once in awhile, but not too many people have the balls to pull a check-raise bluff at these levels. I was calling and then calling another bet on the river. That’s 2 BB each and every time in a losing situation. Not good for the bankroll!

Another mistake I had been making was bluffing way too much. I’d say that of my bluffs and semi-bluffs, I was doing it about 90-95% too much! You can’t win money making this many mistakes and I surely wan’t winning. Bluffs simply are not very profitable at the low limits. There are too many fish that will call you down with bottom or middle pair that it doesn’t pay to bluff them. Simply let them pay you off when you do have a hand. It’s really not that difficult.

While clearing the bonus I think I was down about $350 (or only $150 if you incorporate the bonus I received). Something had to change. I thought about completely moving back down to $1/2 until I could fix my game. I thought about withdrawing $1000 from my bankroll to make sure I wouldn’t blow it. I thought about starting fresh from the lowest limit that Party Poker offered.

I decided against those things, but to change it up a bit. Last night after work I jumped right on the tables with a renewed focus. I’ve beat the $2/4 games before and I knew I could do it again. The bad beat jackpot was up over $200,000 so I decided to jump on some BBJ tables. I played my game and I played it well. The cards also helped me turn things around. Over the course of a few hours I wiped out the deficit from earlier in the week and was feeling good about my game for the first time in months. Poker was fun again! I was even able to let go of a table when I noticed that more rocks were seated than fish were swimming. I jumped back and forth between some tables over the course of the night and won on all but two tables.

I’m not sure what time it was when I made the decision, but I decided I was going to stay up all night. I’ve been having problems sleeping for a month now and about the only thing I haven’t tried is to really fuck up my sleep routine. What better to fuck up your routine than to stay up until the sun comes up? I played poker online for over 14 hours straight! Crazy? YES! But it worked.

At some point during this mammoth session I decided to install Ultimate Bet‘s software on my computer again. Ever since getting serious about my game and pulling my money out of UB, I hadn’t played there at all. Earlier in the week I received an email because someone used my screenname when signing up, so I had $100 in bonus cash waiting to be earned. I just couldn’t let this free $100 go to waste!

Well, I think I may have found a new goldmine. Err…wait, no. I mean, uh, keep playing at Party. These games at UB are unbeatable. HAHA! Everyone always talks about how bad the players are at Party. Chris “Bonus Whore” Halverson has mentioned more than once that he finds fish at all of the sites he plays. I was a bit skeptical, but it’s true. From what I had remembered before, most of the players on UB were tight rocks. Not so my friends.

I transferred $250 from Netller to my UB account and jumped on a $2/4 table and a $1/2 table. JACKPOT! I played until 8 this morning and won on every table that I sat down at but one where I lost $6. After going to sleep for a few hours I jumped back on this afternoon and found my new favorite tables. Party had short-handed tables at $1/2, but not $2/4. I’ve always wondered why. It doesn’t make sense not to have the extra tables. Well, UB has the 6-max tables at all of their limits I think. If you can correctly increase your aggressiveness and know when to make your bluffs, it’s like the money is growing on trees. I took one table for nearly $250 in an hour or two. That’s like 80 BB!

From what I had remembered, UB’s bonuses were hard to earn. If you are one of the first two people to sit down at a table, you get double the points and at $2/4 with a $1/2 table mixed in, I easily cleared the $100 bonus. My UB account now has over $700 sitting in it. That’s $250 initial deposit, $100 bonus, and over $350 profit! I think I’ll be playing at UB most of the time from now on. One of the highlights from the night/day was hitting quads twice in 4 hands on the one table. The first one was runner runner and the second one was flopped!

By using Ultimate History and GameTime+ with Poker Tracker, I’m still able to keep stats on every player at the table in real time. I actually like the whole system better than Party too. I had always like UB’s software when I played there last year. It’s quick, it’s simple, and it works. I prefer to have my seat right in front of my, not scattered around the table, like PP’s software does it. I also haven’t noticed UB slowing down my computer like PP does. Even with all of the extra software running in the background, the tables responded instantly. Another thing about UB, is that the players seem to be play faster. Maybe it’s the software that makes such a big difference, but I’m able to get in a lot more hands than I ever did at PP. If you want to start playing over at UB and don’t have an account, do me (and yourself) a favor by putting in “mtdewvirus” as a freind referral when you sign up and we’ll both get a bonus. I might have to look into their affiliate program since I’ve done pretty well with the Party and Empire ones.

Well, after playing all night and a few hours this afternoon, I’m all pokered out for the day. I may try to get in a few hours tomorrow, but I also have some other things to catch up on around the house. I also need to put all of the my tax information together for next weekend.

With my renewed confidence and finding a new ocean of fish at UB, I hope to be on a more regular blogging schedule. It also looks like I’ll be able to defend my WPBT title on Wednesday night. For all of the info on the next tournament being held at Poker Stars, check out the tournament announceement at the new WPBT site.

Update: The finaly tally from last night and today shows the bankroll going over $600 to the good and it’s at a new all-time high!