Bickmat's Razz Poker journey

Holiday schedule was fairly busy for me. Spent the holidays visiting Nashville and Memphis doing all the touristy things there which was fun.

I also switched my money over to Poker Stars. I like Full Tilt however when I signed up I didn't know about the rake back deals. Once you are signed up you can not get rakeback because you have to sign up with an affiliate.

If I could get a rakeback deal I would play exclusively at Full Tilt. I find it a little ironic that the way their customer rewards program is driving me to other sites.

After I finish off my PokerStars bonus I'll plan on doing gathering up deposits at some of the other sites.

I'm interested in Bodog because of their beginner tournaments where they pay half the field. I think this would be a good way to get some cheap experience for holdem sit-n-gos and baby mtts.

I'll probably go with Absolute poker next becasue it will work on my Mac and I can get rakeback. I'm aware of the cheating scandal that recently happened but am not too worried about it since I am a low stakes player.

As for actually playing poker I just finished final tables a $10 razz tournament with 104 players. I was extremely short stacker early in the tournament then managed to get a huge stake $40k around the half way mark. I ended up treading water till the end. And bricked some premium hands and ended up at $10k with about 10 people left. I managed to steal my way to 7th position while being card dead but the antes became so large that the big stacks where able to call me down in the end.

PokerStars Tournament #72644333, Limit Razz
Buy-In: $10.00/$1.00
104 players
Total Prize Pool: $1040.00
Tournament started - 2008/01/13 - 16:45:00 (ET)

Dear bickmat,

You finished the tournament in 7th place.
A $42.64 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

Final tabled a razz 2k last night tournament last night with on of the tokens I won earlier. I was chip leader early and that gave me room to wait for premium hands.

I ended up being card dead near the end and basically was being blinded out so had to take a shout with a79 against the massive chip leader at that point and ended up placing fourth for $180.

That was a saving grace for my bankroll as I've made some mini cash outs and have also been running badly in the cash games. Right now heads up sit and gos are where I'm doing ok. My bank roll is too low right now to play the heads up 2/4 table which I've down well at in the past.

Goals for me right now are just grinding out the heads up razz sit and go and playing the odd tournament now and then.

I saw that bodog poker had beginner no limit holdem sit and gos where half the table is payed. I might try that to help me with my NL game. I've been watching the StoxPoker videos and those are certainly helping. I tend to be either too weak or too aggressive so just need to get a good balance.

I'd also like to try the poker stars steps. Step 1 is 7.50 and it seems like you could go quite far with a small investment. But I need to get better at the NL sit and gos and need to increase my bankroll before I consider that.

Haven't posted a blog in a while because I've been fairly busy with the holidays and all. I've also been watching the videos over on stoxpoker and that has helped a lot with my holdem game.

As for razz I'm fairly frustrated with it as I've run fairly bad in my last sessions. I need to spend some time going over hand histories which is part of my homework that Dr Razz gave me.

On a good note is I've played in four few token sit and gos - the ones where you win $24 tournament tokens. I've won almost every single one of them so have a three tokens sitting in my account. The only problem is that I am hardly ever home when the razz $24 tournaments start.

I just signed up for a yearly subscription to StoxPoker.com. It was a little pricey but hopefully it will pay for itself if it helps me become a better player.

This does leave my bankroll pretty low so gonna stick to the 1/2 and 2/4 tables and the 20 hu razz sit and gos. I'm going to set a goal for myself of hitting 1500 by the end of the month which whould be winning $500.

So we'll see how this goes.

Well had Dr Razz go over a heads up sit and go the other day and critique the hands which has been useful to me. He highlighted my bad plays and gave me something to think about and try to incorporate in my game. My next step is to self critique a heads up game. Going back over the hand history of a game is a good exercise for me as it lets me really see bad plays I make and how often I make them.

I've been doing fairly well in the cash ring games which is a big improvement for me.

I've also started playing the $50 heads up sit and gos but have not been very successful at it. I think the issue here is that against two decent razz players a heads up match essentially becomes a coin flip. Generally the games I've been playing me and my opponents have been roughly equal and then the blinds get to the point where one hand will decide the match.

I am quite happy with my progress with my nl holdem game. The other night I came in 2nd in the Poker After Dark free roll. Was disappointing since only 1st place advanced but I was very happy with how I played.

I've been playing the $5 sit and gos and am starting to place fairly consistently. It's not really profitable yet but I'm much better than when I started.

Been playing a lot of ring games lately and seem to be doing better this time around.

Most of these winning came from playing $50 heads up sit and gos. Twice in a row I had opponents sit down and then ask how to play razz :) I generally try to be decent about it and point them to the article on my page.

I'm not sure if people are joining by mistake thinking they are playing holdem or if they just think razz is a total gambling game. I'm not complaining either way.

Sent $50 to a friend that wanted to try poker out.

Poker Enthusiast is running another $5 razz tournament. I missed the last one but hope to play this time assuming I have the time free.

I had a fairly good weekend at the tables. I mostly played cash games and am finding that the 1/2 table is more profitable than the 2/4 table. Last night someone was at the 1/2 that had never played razz before so that was like free money.

I also played a ton of $1 single table no limit texas holdem sit and gos. Full Tilt had a sit and go madness promotion going and each time you won 1st place you got entered into a raffle for some extra prizes. I won like 3 or 4 of mine.

The main reason for me playing these games is to get experience with holdem tournaments. By the end of the weekend I was feeling much better about my game. After the promo finished I played 3x $5 sit and gos. I ended up winning third (9), first (13) and second(22) so about $33 in profit.

Played my standard 2/4 heads up razz game but also tried out the 2/4 and 1/2 ring games. Ironically I did better in the 2/4 game than the 1/2 game. I either case was able to post a satisfying win for 2-3 hour session.