Betsson from microgaming is offering 30% rakeback anytime and I don't know of any demands to receive it.
If you don't like microgaming, maybe the guys from pokervip can set you a good rakeback deal on ipoker on some skin with no minimum rake requierments too.

Good luck!

I think u should stick to stars ,as u said ,zoom suits u fine and and the rake is also lowest around .

For microgaming we have 4 choices which can all be seen Here

Stan James no longer has the $200 a week rule. So anyone can get it no matter what the amount of rake has been.

So on there your deal will look like

- 30% rake back. 20% paid weekly, 10% you cash in anytime.
- 200% deposit bonus up to $1500. Clears at 20% rake back equivalent.
- 20% instant bonus
- PokerVIP $55k monthly rake race
- 2 * $5k SJ rake races
- Freerolls

& more.

Soooooooo yeh pretty sick and unbeatable

Having a very good week and my BR is at an all time high of $235.51.

Approaching 15k hands now and very very close to my target of $240 to start having some shots at 10NL




Also Party Poker were nice enough to put $5 in my account as I haven't been on there in ages, so using that as a freeroll and have nearly doubled that up now.

Still using Snowie as a reference point and importing hands every now and again, still finding it really useful with plugging the leaks in my game.

Nice man! I'm about to take shots at 10NL too!

How are you finding Party these days? I used to play there but moved when they said they were stopping downloadable hand histories! I heard they never actually ended up implementing those changes, correct?

Party did appear to be super soft in comparison to stars so far.

I thought that downloadable hand histories had been stopped for Party too.

However gone on to HM2 this morning searched for my user and my hands are there!

Good News!


I have made it to $240 and the 10NL shot has started, and started pretty well.

I have put all of the hands I have played on Will Hill, Party Poker and Stars into this one Alias and the graph is below. Just passed 20k hands!




I havent noticed a change in my play but my non-showdown winnings have started increasing a lot over the last week.


I have made myself a target to play 120k hands in 2016.


Party Poker noted that I was using the free $5 and made me a bonus of $10 if I get to 7 points in a week.

So I am staying on Party Poker and trying to clear this bonus, once this is done I will add the Party bankroll to Stars.


My combined bankroll on the two sites is now £262.17

@msilvo How's the snowie hand analysis tool treating you? Is it helping you fix problem areas and is it worth a buy?

@Cookie Monster I am still using Snowie for hand analysis but a lot less frequently than I was when I started this thread.

The thing with Snowie is that it doesn't take into account the stakes you are playing and the type of game.

E.g. In micro stakes speed poker games you should steal the blinds far more from SB and BTN, as players will regularly fold. However Snowie treats this just the same as if you were playing the highest stakes available. So routine blind steals are analysed as errors by Snowie.

I tend to import hands every week or so and only pay attention to my blunders. (Hands where the EV loss is 1.5 or greater)

I believe these errors are correct regardless of game or stakes and should be looked in to.

I am also finding the balance tools to be useful, these give information about how much I am checking/betting/raising in comparison to Snowies recommendation. As you can see I am cbetting far to often currently and I will try to find better spots.




I would recommend you get the trial and analyse small samples of hands at a tme, if you startto see improvement in your game, results and confidence consider subscribing.

I do credit Snowie with turning me into a winning player from break even. If you do give it a go let me know how you get on!

I have managed to clear the bonus on Party Poker so will be topping up my Stars bankroll to keep going at 10NL with $22.58

@msilvo Here's my question with GTO theory: how does it account for different player types, especially at the micros? I would think that exploitative play is far more important than GTO play, especially at the micros where the players are just bad. Maybe I'm completely wrong, but I don't think GTO takes into account player types. You said it about SB stealing - snowie seems to continually think those are errors, but if you've got a guy in the BB who folds a ton of the time to SB steals, you're going to SB steal on him all day and it'll be +EV.

Balancing is another thing at the micros that you really don't need to do or at least worry about too much. GTO might suggest that you balance certain ranges in spots, but if you've got exploitative lines on these players you're going to be taking those all day long.

I think GTO is great on paper and probably much more valuable at the higher limits, but I think in NL the exploitative lines are more valuable. I don't think NL will ever be solved because of the human element that has more of an impact on NL than it does in LHE. However, I could be way off in all of this so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

I tried Snowie in the past and I think I had the same questions about GTO and the errors it finds. Snowie is a really cool concept and hopefully it continues to help you crush.

Nice graph! I have noticed in the most painful way possible that variance is a very real thing in poker, and sometimes things just go ugly. Keep up good work!

I have been putting in a lot of volume over the last week or so and I have hit a nice milestone. $100 profit since I started this thread




My 10NL shot is going well despite a $40 downswing about a week ago, I have managed to cash in another 1000 starscoin for $10 so my bankroll is looking fairly healthy at the moment.




I notice from other journeys I have read that people have been putting discussing their other goals other than poker.

At the moment I am in training for my first triathlon, I agreed to it as part of a bet with a work colleague but I am really getting into the training now. I have been running for some time and did the London marathon last April but swimming and cycling are new domains!

As for poker goals I mentioned in an earlier post that I am trying to play 120k hands this year but I also want to play my first ever live poker. I am on the look out for a nice friendly low stakes event. I live in the Midlands so I should be able to find something good at the Grosvenor casinos in Birmingham or Coventry. If I enter anything I will let you know how it goes.

Nice upswong! Keep grinding!

I have decided to start using a HUD again for the first time since starting this thread.

Foolishly I thought that HUDs had been banned on stars as way back in November I received a message whilst playing like the one below.




Again foolishly (there is a theme here) I only read the first part of this and thought (AHHH banned from Pokerstars!!!!) closed the message and the HUD and haven't used one since.

I was watching the recent review of Colly191091 for zoom and stars and realised I only needed to update my version of HM2

Anyway I have decided to go with a fairly basic HUD, I find when they get too detailed I too distracted with stats and not enough on playing good solid poker.

Foolish fools do foolish things lol

Yeh was just part of the HUDs being banned altho i think more parts will soon be outlawed until everyone has a super basic HUD or they are gone forever so make the most of it!

I know its been a while so I am going to check in, not an easy one for me to do.

Was hoping to report on some positive news but unfortunately I have none

I have been on a downswing for about 2 months straight, had to drop down to 5NL and unfortunately I am still going down!

I am using Snowie a lot to validate my play and it still states I am playing well.




However my overall graph now looks like this.




Obviously this really sucks and confidence is suffering as a result.

Still working hard on my game as I know this cannot last, I still have a lot to work on

Temporarily dropped back down to 2NL.

I have obviously developed some leaks in my game and I am trying to work them out by playing at the lowest risk possible.

Also had my first ever royal flush yesterday

Wish I could have that very same leak!

Great to see some discipline about the place, willing to put the ego back in the drawer and sort things out.

Nice job, another one doing it right.

Quick update.

I have started playing on IPoker through Gala, created a new account through Poker VIP and got a great deal.

The best deal for me was the 5x5euro tickets that you get for free. I managed to convert a couple of these into 10 euro spin and go wins.

Got a £5 bonus for getting one loyalty point and will get £5 for every additional 300 points I earn, the bonus period lasts until late November so plenty of time to get some more bonus money.

On top of this, I am winning at a very good rate. The games feel so much simpler than on stars.

I don't intend to go back to stars any time soon