[Garland]

Here's my description and run so far:

I'm a part-time player who has a full-time job (teaching math, and a Masters student too). My story has been of playing at Ultimate Bet. I play at Party + skins, Prima and Paradise Poker when I have bonuses to clear there. I consider myself a tight, solid, aggressive player who puts the move on sometimes (squeezer with occasional moves, who isn't afraid to experiment). I play extremely within my bankroll, perhaps even to a fault.

First Limit: First I started playing NL50 (100x BB) seriously mainly on Ultimate Bet on April 2004 and moved up to NL100 on June 2004. I had played over 8000 hands, and built up confidence that I could beat the game, but definitely not to my fullest potential (4.2 PTBB/100 hands).

First Move: I definitely was overrolled (built from bonus whoring, limit play, NL play etc.) for that game and moved up to NL100 on June 20, 2004. I played that game off and on for 6 months. During this time, I discovered allowing bluffers to bluff away money and making more gutsy strategic calls of big bets and strategic checks of various flops. On November 22, 2004, I discovered Ultimate History (God, did that save my clicking finger) and GameTime, which has improved my game dramatically. My earn for over 10,000 hands was about 8.12 PTBB/100 hands for this limit.

Second Move: On December 11, 2004, I moved up to NL200. Initally I was killing the game for 3000 or so hands, and earned a total of 13 NL400 Buy-ins I felt was necessary to move up in limits within two weeks (13 because I had reserves from playing other sites). I consulted my friend, who suggested I play at least 10,000 hands before moving up. I thought that was a sound idea, and continued to play it languishing for about 3000 or 4000 hands before inching up to earning 15 NL400 buy-ins by 10,000 hands. My winrate took a hit at 7.31 PTBB/100 hands (for limit of NL200 only), but my confidence was still high. I knew I was ready to move up despite having a bad run for about 3000-4000 hands (really I was stagnant during this time, not going anywhere that much).

Third Move: On March 6, 2005 I ventured into NL400. During all this time, I've been running extremely hot and playing pretty well making solid reads on particular opponents and putting targets on certain opponents and reading hands cold. I have also caught several one and two-outers that have helped my cause along the way. I have now earned well over 20 NL400 buy-ins (or ~14 NL600) at this level with 9,000 hands so far and a winrate of 10.02 PTBB/100 hands for NL400.

Anticipated Fourth and Fifth Move: I am within several weeks of making my next jump to NL600 (100x BB). Obviously, I'm not doing it at Ultimate Bet as they don't offer this. The reason I've been playing at Ultimate Bet is the near bottomless bonus dollars that have basically given me back most of the rake (it's very important for me to maximize profits, and I feel many players downplay the importance of the rake eating at your profits). So now I've signed up at Eurobet as my rakeback site in anticipation of the move hoping the NL600 game is as sweet and profitable (maybe more so?) as the NL400 and NL200 Ultimate Bet games. At least the Party NL200 and NL400 has been very good so far. I'm hoping to jump to NL1000 on Ultimate Bet and Party by the middle of summer. Wish me luck.

Final Note: I haven't had a downswing of more than 2 or 3 buy-ins in all of this time. However, I've only logged ~38,000 NL hands on UB (but probably around 30,000 more NL hands at various limits of no limit games combined at other sites). I continuously hear stories of good solid players losing 5, 10 or more buy-ins and keep anticipating this for myself, but I (a) consider myself very lucky not to have been through that kind of downswing yet and/or (b) know when to muck a strong hand in the right situation and/or (c) know how to push my edges well. I know when the downswing does finally happen, I will have to buck up and play through it. I will move down in limits if the situation warrants. I also know that I have a lot of things to learn yet, and that I appreciate 2+2 and being able to post my hands, get criticism and analyze hands. Without this site and an open mind, I would never have grown in the last one and half years, and be as successful as I am now.

Garland