Party Poker USETOWIN Bonus

I have not had any money loaded on PP since my "Cash Out Curse" but I noticed they had a 20% reload bonus this weekend. I am building a bankroll to deposit on Noble for their 100% deposit bonus, but I decided that I would risk the nest egg on Neteller to see if I could make the bonus and few bucks. I loaded $200 from Neteller and got a $40 bonus that would require 280 raked hands to clear. The bonus code gave you 7 days to clear the bonus.

Hmmm. I am going to be busy again with work this week, and I have been out of town most of last week. This equates more time for house catch up work and less time for poker. I decided I needed to play higher levels and try to clear the bonus this weekend. The only catch? I am out of town at my cousin's new house in Erie, PA. (Hi Kip) and he does not have high speed internet yet. I fired up netstumbler to see if I could find some unprotected wireless networks and BINGO! There are two within range of his house. I piggyback using my laptop and I am able to poker successfully. Occaisonally, the connection would drop for a few seconds or a minute, but overall was servicable. I began to grind at 2/4 Limit Hold Em.

It has been awhile since I sat down and made the mental decision to grind. Play only premium hands, play them aggressivley, don't chase and be very aware of position. It is not "fun" poker, but it is profitable poker. I decided to one table to keep my concentration on the other players and their style since I do not have poker tracker on my laptop. It was up and down through the first 100 raked hands with some amazing beats. I had QQ cracked twice in a row by the same guy. Both times he had junk hands and he made two pair each time. I did not panic, complained, but did not panic. I managed to hit a straight flush on him later and felt better. Overall the pocket QQ were 50% for me that day.

I moved up to some 3/6 6 max and the swings increased. The most memorable hand was my pocket 66 with a JJ10 flop. It was heads up. I raised, got re-raised and I completed. I put him on a J. The turn was a gorgeous 6 and I was only afraid of J10, 1010, or JJ. The pre flop play and my observations of this guy led me to believe he would have re-raised my pre flop raise if he had a pocket pair. I was comfortable ruling out 2/3 hands that could beat me. Since we were heads up, I decided to push... I can see this guy defending his set with AJ, KJ, maybe even QJ. There was a small concern in the back of my head that he might be holding the magic and statistically small probability J10. We capped betting on the turn (24 each) and the 8 river (another 24). Confident in my full house of 666JJ I watched him flip JJJ1010. Shit. That hurt. Not sure if I can get away from that hand in heads up. Don't have the hand history, but welcome any comments about how you might have done it differently. While there are many opinions about how to play a hand in any situation, I like to hear them and evaluate them and possibly learn something new.

I have not run the hand through any kind of probabilites calculator, but I know I started ahead (probably 54% to 46%) and even upon reflection, I think I would play it the same way next time.

That hand aside, it was fun to play limit poker again and I eventually came back from the big losses playing premuim hands aggressively. As I am writing this, I have 238 raked hands and I am up $57 before the bonus. I plan to cash out whatever I have after the bonus releases and get my focus back on the HU challenges (personal one and the public one).

Looking forward to round two of the challenge and wish the opponents left good luck.

Hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend and getting some poker in!