Bonus

My last post kind of sucked. I didn't put enough thought into it, and my calculations were all based on estimates. So take it with a grain of salt. Thanks to Dave and Wes for pointing out some of the flaws in my reasoning.

I'm glad I wrote the post anyway. This blog is all about spouting off in hopes that we'll get better at poker.

I've been thinking that perhaps one of the problems with my flawed April was that I didn't come in with a plan. In previous months, I experimented with shorthanded play, then multi-tabled 1/2 no limit and later moved up to the 10/20 and 15/30 limit games. Then in April, I started losing at 15/30, then at 10/20. I wanted to play well at those limits, but I was shot down. No excuses, no reasons.

As much as I hate to admit it, rakeback and bonuses still account for almost all of my profits. I can consistently kill the lower limits, but I'm a break-even player at 10/20 and a losing player at 15/30 (although in a pretty small sample size). I hope someday I will be able to beat these games without having to rely on rakeback to make up for my losses.

What's frustrating is that I don't know what I'm doing wrong at these limits. I feel good about my game and my reads. So I'll just keep studying and improving.

In the meantime, I have come up with a plan for May that will almost definitely result in lots of profits.

That plan is to bonus whore to the fullest. I plan on hitting up many of the B2B sites. See Sound of a Suckout for more information about their bonuses. I'll play the usual blackjack bonuses, although the only good monthly ones left are at Intercasino, Littlewoods and William Hill. Many of the other blackjack bonuses have shrunk to $25 or less.

I also need to sign up at Titan and Noble, where I have never played. I recently cleared the $250 sign-up bonus at BetFred, which runs on the same software as the aforementioned sites. Then I might create an account at Bodog and others. And I never did finish the juicy and easy-to-clear IGM-Pay bonuses at Starluck, Planetluck and Aceclub casinos.

There's still plenty of free money floating around out there, and I plan on grabbing it.