AK-Flush94

So as you can guess I work full time as a poker dealer, i’ve had a few journeys on this site before but both times I’ve been felted and stopped playing online! Recently I’ve realised that there has been a lot of factors which have hindered my game and I am working on plugging them!

Since finding poker I have gradually slipped into house games and all around found myself with ridiculous amounts of gamble in me which as you can imagine doesn’t mix well with playing poker! I’ve recently self excluded myself from a lot of sports websites, including my main place of playing poker Unibet. I’ve also self excluded myself nationally from casino’s for six months in hope that I can cleanse myself of the gamble i’ve built up.

Party Poker being one of the only sites i’m able to play on, I recently decided to deposit, self excluded from casino games and sports betting, and so far so good! Sadly I didn’t register for Party through Poker VIP so in terms of rake back its virtually zero for the moment.

I deposited $300 and started playing $10NL and after not playing online for a while and being used to live poker, its safe to say that venture didn’t go to well!

Attached Image

However unlike before I swallowed my pride and moved down to $4NL instead of chasing my losses! Being a Mac user there aren’t many sites which offer decent rake back and have HUD, so this being my first time using hud stats I find it a lot easier to isolate weaker players, but also being able to see my own stats is a massive help as it helps me realise when i’m playing spewy, as often I can be on tilt for a whole session and not realise!

I started playing 4 tables of the zoom equivalent, and was marginally over breakeven, however the zoom tables do not have hud for Mac! So in the last few days I switched back to $4NL regular tables and have been finding life a lot easier. I started playing a lot tighter and cutting out random spews. I have also implemented a stop loss of 3 BI and if I surpass that I stop playing, I think recognising I am at risk of tilting and just cutting sessions short is going to be +EV long run and gives me a far better chance of keeping my roll long term for the first time!

Attached Image

Volume wise, my job is great because I work 10 hour shifts 4 times a week, so have 3 days off per week, but i’ve also been playing a session before and after work and been playing around 1.5k hands per day whilst at work.

Goals

Short Term

Continue playing $4NL for at least 30k hands
Buy myself a desktop PC
Find myself a poker room to suit my needs post PC

Long Term

Save up money for a live poker roll within the next six months
Aiming for 30-40k hands monthly

Last Post 7 years ago by

AK-Flush94

Posts

6,863

Views

Copy post URL

https://www.pokervip.com/thread/view?forum=my-poker-journey&slug=dealing-and-grinding&nav=5767b45ad3904347728b45ac

Hey buddy nice intro there and seems you love the action as much as I do!

I think your goals are very clear and super achievable which is a great thing.

One thing I will be super blunt about is you are already failing before you even begin. If you are a poker player who wants to take poker seriously you cannot be missing out on so much money playing without rake back, promos or big races. I am not just saying this btw as our business is an affiliate and it is how we make money but ask any player on this forum or elsewhere and they will back this up.

You know say you rake $200 a month and you get 10% back from a VIP scheme over on Party that's $20. But say you signed up to a site properly and received back 50% that's $100. Over a year you are talking $960..... and that is if you don't move up or increase your volume. As a 4nl player that is 200+ buy ins ......

So if you are looking for soft sites which give high returns check these out

1) TonyBet

- Entry into our Top777 Rake Race
- 100% first deposit bonus up to €2000
- €1000 reload bonus
- Upto 80% weekly rake back (See Here)

How soft are the games?

2) BetVictor

- 30% rakeback ANYTIME
- 200% deposit bonus up to €1000 (clears at 20% rake back)
- Entry into our Top777
- Exclusive BetVictor €3500 rake race

Soft games?

I can fire more in if none of these do it for you and do apologize for the huge first post in this thread. I just genuinely want to see you succeed and crush.

Hi Jon, I have accounts on both sites! Tony bet was great reminded me a lot of Unibet and I liked the weekly rake back, however the traffic wasn't the best, but I think I had no way of tracking how many hands I'd played so would be playing completely in the dark! Bet Victor is probably my first pic once I get a PC as the HUD doesn't work on Mac! However sadly i've already used my deposit bonus on both!

Weekly Update

So I have recently moved house and am now living with my family and will be receiving the majority of my new setup tomorrow morning, and having dropped my hours to 3 nights a week I can settle into grinding. I saw the promotion on party poker and considered diving in but decided that i didn't want to put the hours in as i'm sort of all or nothing and would of been aiming for the 250k hands and thought that i would probably struggle to breakeven putting in that much volume. I decided to try Tony Bet and I have fallen in love much like the closest thing I can describe to Unibet. The traffic isn't amazing consistently but recently if I play at peak times I can manage to get 6 tables running towards the end of my sessions. I love the weekly rake back, and have managed to find a way to track my rake using the % of bonus cleared.

I haven't yet received any chunks of the Refill bonus but i'm nearly through the first step so the rake back is soon to improve but here is a graph for the first week at 5NL. Debating whether or not i'm going to take shots at 10NL or not as my win rate is pretty ridiculous at the moment and i'm not sure whether there will be as many players punting off stacks but rake back would double so I'd have to do some maths to see what win rate id need to make at 10NL to make it +EV. Enjoy the Giraffe and light brag!

Attached Image

Love this in every possible way buddy! The fact you even create a graph like this shows you are in this 100%!!!

TonyBet is a sick idea! I wish people gave it more of a chance. Afterall if people complain about the traffic and then bail how will it ever grow? Sit down, grind the peak times and print money!

Made many notes on the villains?

Yeah im a bit OCD haha. To be honest I was put off at first about low traffic but less traffic means less regs and if you get on just before the games get going you can end up with a table full of 5 fun players. I will also opt to sit out at an empty table instead of joining a waiting list if there are like 3/4 regs because its most likely the fun player leaving. Also future fun players will want a seat straight away and hop into my dungeon. Struggling to get my second monitor to run simultaneously but setup is good to go!

Attached Image

Ooooooooh that is bloody gorgeous. Wish people posted their setups more often.........so sexy!

Yowsers that's a setup and a half. You must be a gamer as well then, you can't have that for Poker surely!

Whats your game of choice?

@thetallpaul yeah I spend most of my time gaming on days off, limit myself to poker 3 hours or else I get too involved and can't leave bad games, can't stop when playing bad ect. At the moment I'm grinding my childhood obsession, oldschool runescape, haters gonna hate 😋
I'm planning to get an Xbox so I can use my second screen, at the moment I'm running my setup through my MacBook Pro so can only have one output unless I spend £100+ for an adaptor!

Weekly Update

So a lot has happened this week! I spilled coffee on my new keyboard 2 days after getting it and it is completely fried! I well and truly experienced the post picture upload run bad! Poker wise I hit my first downswing the last couple of days but have been putting in some good volume the last 2 days and have turned it around. Tony Bet graph up until now.

Attached Image

Also, through the volume I've put in these last few days I've managed to spike a place on there weekly grinders leaderboard. Plan is to put in some hard volume tomorrow as I can only get in 2 hours before work for the rest of the week. Ive taken to Tony Bet really well, the software is perfect and the player pool is the nuts, had a few issues with disconnections and my overnight balance drops slightly, I thought it was due to exchange rates but its pretty consistent and never seems to go up, but other than that I have found a site to stick on maybe even past when I can return to Unibet.

Attached Image

Life wise since moving home with my family Im trying to shed some weight, having been a sprinter for 4 years before I went to University I let myself go pretty bad. I was 5ft 9" 13 stone 9 lbs when I moved back at the start of the month, having been around 11 stone 6 lbs in shape, I have been grinding the no carbs 4 days when I'm off and ate out the 3 nights I worked last week. I hadn't planned on having 3 cheat days but I didn't bring enough food to work and it has been dead recently so I kind of screwed myself over, so unfortunately no sick hands to share with you from work. Currently at 13 stone 4 lbs, Ive been weighing myself every 3 days so that I can possibly graph it, sexy graphs always help!

The weight loss is also partly pushed by the prop bet I have with another dealer. About a month ago he wanted a 100m race, he is around 10 stone, and athletic, both being smokers. I managed to spike against him, and now we have a 1500 lined up for the end of September! Let me know if you wanna buy any action

I joke.

Update Post

So it has been a while and for a change it's not because I went busto! I went on holiday to Ibiza with friends and it took its toll on me. It took me a while to recover and I found myself not playing very much. I decided to have a punt at 25NL and lost a few buy-ins and cashed out my roll from Tony Bet. Also tried very unsuccessfully to 4bet bluff

@Jon-PokerVIP NH

At the start of October I considered re-depositing on Tony Bet but they have removed the re-deposit bonus which made up 25% of the rakeback and given the rake is 5% essentially uncapped at the micros, the site is nowhere near as attractive now. My self exclusion period ended on Unibet and I re-deposited, and so far so good, I really enjoy playing on the site, and have been putting in a lot of volume. Graph to follow of course.

Attached Image

Else where, the other party pulled out of the 1500m prop bet and through lack of implicit terms I came out empty handed. However on the plus side the weight loss has been going great and I now weight 11 stone 10 lbs for nearly 2 stone lost in just over 3 months, feeling a lot better for it.

Short term plans are to keep grinding Unibet. Given how good the games are at 4NL the plan was to not move up, but factoring in rakeback and that my win rate would only have to be 0.4 what it is at 4NL to increase my hourly, I'm going to finish 50k hands at 4NL to have a good idea what my win-rate is and hopefully have a far deeper shot at 10NL whereas in the past I had been taking shots with 20 buy-ins.

Plans for the future are to see how 10NL works out, if my hourly increases I will continue and hopefully take shots at 25NL long term, however if I cant beat/ hourly rate doesn't improve then there is no shame in moving down! My plan is to withdraw each month and invest any profits into stocks & shares.

Monthly Update

So its been a good month on the 4NL streets, took a shot at 10NL which failed sadly. I felt like I ran pretty bad and then spewed off the rest of my stop loss. I play 6 tables currently, sometimes 8 if games are good, and I feel like if I was to cut to 4 and try again I could probably make the 10NL shot stick.

However I don't want to of played so many hours to then lose profits trying to move up again, and after a good month and a big sample size, I just don't think it would be possible to beat 10NL for more than I beat 4NL currently because of how soft the games are. So the plan is to stick to 4NL and invest profits into a stocks and shares account. Currently have the rake race and several other bonus' heading my way for this month but this is the up to date graph.

Attached Image

Monthly Update

So after ending last month on a 10BI tilt off session, we started this month on a heater, and it just didnt seem to stop! Volume wise has been pretty poor compared to last month, but the Unibet honeymoon period has worn off a little, and I had some PC issues which had me off the streets for a few days. This month has proven to me that moving up isn't necessary as last month wasn't just an insane heater, the games really are that soft! I have to say I think Unibet is miles ahead of any other sites for microstakes grinders, especially at the lowest levels. Rake is 1% at 4NL and of that you get the rake race payments, on top of the numerous tickets you receive. They also run endless promotions each month, really pumping money back into the lowest levels.

Recently purchased a second monitor and a stand to get the screens at the correct height, has made a huge difference in comfort, especially playing longer sessions. Pictures and graphs to follow of course! (This months profits not yet cashed out and invested)

Attached Image

Updated Goals

Short Term

- Continue to play 4NL. 50k hands per month. (Ongoing)
- Have saved £2.5k to initiate live poker roll by end of January.
- Study 1 Hour a day on days off (Crush Live Poker)

Long Term

- Save £2k in Stocks & Shares ISA by August
- Win 1,000 buy-ins at 4NL (No time-limit)
- Play 1,000,000 hands at 4NL (No time-limit)

Elsewhere in general life, I now weight 11 stone 1 lbs, closing in on 3 stone lost! Hoping to start regaining my fitness, and may the heater continue!

Nice post keep it up

how do you get the hand count from unibet, you ask support evry month ?
and the graph, make note of the bankroll every day ?

lennuk: how do you get the hand count from unibet, you ask support evry month ?
and the graph, make note of the bankroll every day ?

I take a note of my balance every half an hour, and hands I go off 80 hands p/h per table. It's the best you can do on there, also 4x flops seen per hour assuming 25% VPIP works out nearly identicle. Are you also on Unibet, if so how do you feel about the software update?

Good way of doing it! Sounds like a pretty correct count also

Do you like the new Unibet update? I like how easier it is to resize the tables, I can play more with much less overlapping. The hand replayer is also something I've wanted for a while.

Don't know if you do it but for quite a while I've been exchanging most of my tickets for playthrough bonuses. You can do it through the Unibet community but I just go on their help chat and ask them to do it for me. The playthrough bonuses clear at around 20% I think, I'd rather have that then use the banzai or mtt tickets I end up getting.

Best of luck! You've really been crushing.

@Ovi8fan

My initial response was that I hated it! I used to love there 4 colour deck, but I'm not a big fan of change in general! I thought the software was perfect before the update, although there was a bug which meant having to close and open a new table pretty frequently. When you're deep on a good table its pretty annoying! If the update has plugged that then fair enough! From what I've seen other than giving a re-player, we're still unable to copy & paste any HH, unless I'm missing something?

The tables for me have been made harder to line up! They used to adjust without having gaps, but now I have to have them slightly smaller and have gaps between tables :/.

Had no idea about the ticket swapping, in the past I'd just try and use the tickets for further mission requirements. Would far rather the bonus, I have to confess to doing my absolute nuts one day in Banzai, good fun though I guess :/.

Yeah overall I liked their older software better too. Now I need to resize the tables manually to get them where I want them without space between them. Also you're right, still no real hand history it seems. The software still has a bit of a video game feel to it, especially the way chips move now.

For the tickets, they can exchange them for bonuses worth 1, 5 or 10 euros I think, something like that. I usually have mine exchanged for a bunch of 1 euro bonuses that get cleared one after the other. Your tickets need to be unused though.I think it's the closer you can get to rakeback there without raking in thousands.

Add your "Room Name" username and register with PokerVIP