Image by Jam Adams via Flickr

Our Affiliate manager at Bodog, we’ll just call him Paul, is a  cheer leader of sorts for VIP Poker Stop members. With the attention to detail of an IRS auditor, he has kept the tournament support coming.

Paul wants us to know that the upgrades to the Bodog Poker Software have been well received. I can vouch for the changes too, far fewer network problems and crashes. I play there at least twice per week and haven’t had a crash in over 3 months. The 2nd thing he wants is for one and all to have fun playing poker at their Site. Last, Rocking and Rolling is allowed and encouraged at Bodog Poker/Sportsbook (not his exact words, but close ha-ha!) I have to say that the Members at the VIP Poker Stop Forum are just the group to give him what he wants.

Come Thursday July 23rd starting at 6:05pm (PT) there are some great opportunities to increase you Bankroll at this top cabin Card Room! If you are not currently registered with Bodog, thanks in part to Paul, we have some great sign-up deals. Cruise on over to www.VIPPokerStop.com or shoot me an e-mail and I will give you the full run-down. Additionally, many of you at the VIP Poker Stop Forum belong to the Sports Book Review (SBR) Forum too. Please note SBR is having a tournament starting at the exact same time as ours. Coincidence, I think not. If you plan and play your cards right (get it, Poker, cards, LOL) this is an opportunity to double you pleasure and double your fun by playing in both;  Get Ready to Rumble!!!!!!

So about right now this Post is really looking like me shamelessly plugging some Poker Room and Sportsbook Forum. In some ways I am, but with a specific purpose. See if you can figure what my message is while you are reading.  If you know Bodog like I do, you can TRIPLE your Poker fun (and potentially pad your bankroll) by playing the Bodog $500 Freeroll that kicks-off at 6:40pm (PT) in addition to the other two private Freerolls I already talked about.

Next Bodog VIP Insider tip; you can earn VIP points even when you play private

tournaments like ours or, the daily freerolls. So, if you paying attention, I will be able to play in the VIP Bonus tournament on Thursday too, which starts at 7:40 pm (PT). What Poker Room offers the kind of line-up Bodog does on July 23rd? I’m not sure there are any? Bodog is the only Room I know to offer you QUADS. Without paying  any entry fees you can play in $1,700 worth of tournaments against modest fields of Players. Are you starting to get the picture Sparkey? 

If you are a thinking Man (or women’s)  Poker Player you need to apply what you know about winning on the felt to your Poker related activities before you hit the felt. Bankroll building and management isn’t just about plopping your money down, playing and trying to win. It is about giving yourself the BEST CHANCES to win when you do play.

When I first started playing poker I tried to play Every tournament. That was expensive and time consuming too. All of us have activities that compete for the time we have for Poker; a wife and family, a primary job, other hobbies and the list goes on. For instance, I am running out of time to make my goal of $10,000 by August 1st. This despite having built my bankroll to $1,800 from $0.00. Authoring a Poker website, a Poker Forum, this Super-Blogger System and two other websites, took me away from playing and being active in those Forums that helped me find the better tournaments in the first place. But Thursday I will give myself four good chances to add to my poker winnings without the worries of big fields, lots of semi-pro players and the time it takes to navigate them all.

One of my recent posts talks about why I am no Chris Ferguson. In the case of my bankroll, that is a good thing! If I was doing things Chris’ way I would still be looking for my 1st $100.

Bookmark this Site and see how you can achieve great results too. By keep up with CRAZYBEAR’s blogs and the posts made at the Forum, you get the benefit of my Catholic School, if there is a short cut I’ll find it, way of thinking. I am all about figuring out how to win in an efficient and cost effective manner. Follow me and you can achieve this mind set too. Since this is a Blog and not a website, you can share with me and the rest of the readers too; because frankly Sparky, I am running out of fresh ideas and time! 

Highlight any portion you want:

Image via Wikipedia

 Do you ever get in a funk playing the same old games at the same sites? It doesn’t have to be that way.

I have a background in computer software and systems. I was partners in a computer software company for 10 years before I sold my interest in 2002. This knowledge and background gives me a health respect and fascination for online poker rooms. Just to be sure I wasn’t missing something, I thoroughly “Road Tested” some 100 plus sites both approved for U.S. players and some that aren’t. As some of you already know there are only a dozen or so distinct software packages for U.S. approved sites and many of the rooms have the same games/tournaments which they share in common. That said, there are differences and variations that make some standout over others. I enjoy and play a lot at the Cake Family of Poker of rooms including; Doyle’s Room, Players Poker BetUS and 10 or 12 others. Most recently a medium size room that I have enjoyed over the years, PokerWorld moved to the Cake Platform. Lock Poker is also a new room on the Cake network and The Greek Sports Book has added The Greek Poker through Cake.

I happen to like Players, BetUS Power and Doyle’s the best of this group primarily for their Tournaments. Players has 5 or 6 freeroll tournaments that qualify you to play in a weekend tournament where you can win a $13,000 all expenses paid trip to the WSOP. Hurry, time is running out. Doyle’s has a daily tournament that qualifies you for a weekend $1,000 freeroll. Pretty good stuff.

I play a fair amount at Poker Stars, UltimateBet (which I prefer over its twin Absolute Poker), Timeless/Minted poker along with Carbon/Wass/PDC Poker rooms. They are all very good. For some reason I put Bodog Poker at or near the top of my list. It has its quirks and you either like it or hate it but I like the way the tables are displayed. The configuration allows you to play multiple tournaments (which I am doing most of the time now) and know right where you are at a quick glance. Bodog is easy to use, is well supported and has good cash games and tournament for all levels. For a variety of reasons I also happen  to favor playing at Poker/Sportsbook High-Byrd sites over the Top 4 which includes PokerStars, Full Tilt, UltimateBet and Absolute. The play during small buy-in and Freeorlls is not so reckless and the players tend to be more mature (another way of saying they aren’t Full Tilt young guns!) with some respect for the Game. With all that said I don’t have just one favorite. All the sites I mentioned have great incentives and freerolls so I often go where the best Games are being played.

Unlike some of the problems experienced in the Sportsbook industry, Poker Rooms are well equipped to handle cash-outs in a variety of ways and there are new and easier methods coming along everyday. Obviously, all rooms have some small print you have to be concerned about if you have received bonuses and freebies, but getting your money to and from the online Poker rooms is typically pretty painless.

So what’s stopping you; get out and play somewhere new. It will do you and your Poker game a world of good!

Highlight any portion you want:

Image by love not fear via Flickr

What do I say about a weekend so full of Poker I wanted to pull out of some tournaments late on Sunday. Now I have a glimpse of what the big live tournaments are like. Grueling is a good word. While I went deep in a number of these 40+ tournaments I only cashed 2 times until late on Sunday night. I was really starting to lose my confidence. Then I went on a run and finished 12^th, 10^th, 6^th 4^th and last but not least a 2nd. I believe if I was fresher I would have had one or two 1^st finishes but fatigue became a factor. With those wins and a number of high places and wins I netted another $390 toward my goal.

No big cashes but it definitely was a humbling and character building experience. I finally found a zone where I made solid decisions, stayed patient and found my places to make large chip gains and folded when I really wanted to push all in with marginal hands. Now if I can just recreate that mind-set EVERY time I start a tournament I might become a very good player and succeed at my Quest.

Highlight any portion you want:

Image via Wikipedia

“The Mission”

In keeping with the pattern that has emerged it is Wednesday and time for the mid-week update on

First a few announcements. I have been trying to keep up blogs up-to-date in about 7 different places and it wasn’t working so this weekend I figured out how I was going to go forward from here on out. I had established the primary blog on the Bankroll Mission on Google Blogger. No advertising or anything like that, just the facts. Thanks to the internet and the fantastic tools that are available I was  able to write it using Windows Live Writer. If you don’t have it get it! It is a tool included when you sign-up for a hotmail account, or Windows Live account which has replaced Hotmail. It is like Word and it allows you to connect and publish to multiple accounts with one click; amazing stuff. I am also putting together a website for another business enterprise so once that is up the blog will most likely be posted there.

Part II of my announcement is that besides the auto-post locations I am only going to keep posting manually here at 2 Forums. (Since establishing this Blog, that ended too). There had been such a good response that I wanted to keep energy going.

Now on to Poker. For about the last week the cards have been running cold until last night. Over the weekend I played in some pretty big payout tournaments; 1 that totaled $17,000, another for $5000 and 2 or $1000 and $500 respectively. I went deep in two but was only able to cash less than $10 each time. The dry spell continued until last night when I final got some cards and finished 9th in a tournament that paid just under $50.

I am trying to  pick one or two sites that are having WSOP qualifiers to see if I can win my way in. If any of you have found good qualifying tournaments please let me know. The weekend will be full of Poker and Websites, so that is it for now. LOL to you all at the Poker tables and in life too!

Highlight any portion you want:

Image by dragon762w via Flickr

Here it is Thursday and time for an update on the week and what the weekend holds. I didn’t play as much over the weekend and this week due to Easter and work commitments but I had a significant number of deep runs in tournaments. I cashed in 3 and missed some bigger payouts in 2 others. Aggression got the best of me in those two instances. I won over $150 in cash and tournament entries. I think some of my success was the result of playing less

and focusing more. Something to remember for the immediate future, quality not quantity. In my case that means 3 to 6 hours of play instead of 8 to 10.

The weekend line-up is full of Poker. One of my other Forum’s (which will remain unnamed out of respect for Sports Book Review) is having 24 invitational-only tournaments in 24-hours. Yes folks, 1 an hour for 24!! About 75% are freerolls. I am also entered in the Online Forum Challenge Event with a $1,000 purse Saturday, two other $1,000 purse tournaments all on Saturday and a WSOP Prize Package tournament with a total purse of $17,000 Sunday. I qualified for all of the events except the OFC through Freerolls.

Highlight any portion you want:

Image via Wikipedia

Here it is Thursday and time for an update on the week and what the weekend holds. I didn’t play as much over the weekend and this week due to Easter and work commitments but I had a significant number of

deep runs in tournaments. I cashed in 3 and missed some bigger payouts in 2 others. Aggression got the best of me in those two instances. I won over $150 in cash and tournament entries. I think some of my success was the result of playing less and focusing more. Something to remember for the immediate future, quality not quantity. In my case that means 3 to 6 hours of play instead of 8 to 10.

The weekend line-up is full of Poker. One of my other Forum’s (which will remain unnamed out of respect for SBR) is having 24 invitational-only tournaments in 24-hours. Yes folks, 1 an hour for 24!! About 75% are freerolls. I am also entered in the Online Forum Challenge Event with a $1,000 purse Saturday, two other $1,000 purse tournaments all on Saturday and a WSOP Prize Package tournament with a total purse of $17,000 Sunday. I qualified for all of the events except the OFC through Freerolls.

Highlight any portion you want:

Image via Wikipedia

Poker is a kick when you starting catching cards. I cashed in 2 tournaments at Full Tilt and qualified for 2 more big purse tournaments, 1 for $10K and the other for $5K. Now the trick will be to make the final table in one of the BIG tournaments. Last but not least I found a sign-up deal where you can get a bankroll of up to $500 and a load of big purse tournaments to boot.
Awe……life is good!

Highlight any portion you want:

Image via Wikipedia

The ongoing Quest.. $0 to $10K by Aug 1^st.

Last weekend was full of Poker but I only cashed once. You know how you go card dead some times. You see a lot of flops and never see a pair. That’s how it was. I did manage to cash Monday night. I also won entries into a $1000 purse tournament at Doyle’s and the $13K WSOP Prize event Saturday at Players. Lot’s of more Poker planned for this weekend as well.

When this happens I usually take some time to reflect and be thankful instead of wearing bad beats on my sleeve. So,  I want to thank all the people that have commented on my “Mission”. Everyone has been so encouraging. A common thread to the comments is that I have set a goal and I’m going for it.

We all need goals. They help us focus and put our best foot forward. When I am doing well in a tournament I always remind myself of two things; you can lose all your chips by making one or two bad decisions, and Second; make it into the money 1st (get in the top 50, 40, 30, 20, 15) and THEN work toward the final table. Set intermediate goals and have them as part of your game strategy.

On a related poker thought, we all need to strive for “Excellence” in our Poker. I prefer this word to the “P” word, Perfection. Poker is like life. There are no Perfect poker hands or games, no magical formulas that guaranty you win more then lose, perfection is unattainable. After all we are human, and no one is perfect. Seek excellence in your Poker game and in Life. You will be a better player, cash more and be at peace with yourself if you do!

Highlight any portion you want:

Image via Wikipedia

The Quest

I have been playing Poker for about 2 years and a lot of Poker the last 6 months. I got started like so many others, watching the TV coverage of the WSOP. For the last 2 months and I have had some reasonable success. I consider myself an up-and-coming player whose game has gone through the beginner’s learning curve already and is now improving rapidly.

Which leads me to the Quest. My immediate Online Poker “Mission” is to build a bankroll from $0.00 to $10,000 before Aug 1st. I know this is a real stretch so my poker activities (which are full-time at this point) all revolve around meeting this objective. With the ground-work that I have already completed my bankroll is ready to grow exponentially. I also have the potential of a bankroll sponsorship which would give me efforts a tremendous boost and could be one of the keys to helping me reach my $10K goal by August, or soon after. With a little luck and a lot of perseverance I can do it.

Highlight any portion you want:

Image via Wikipedia

 Welcome to PokerProfitOnline.net a blog series about how to profit playing online Poker and learn some cool stuff about life, the Internet and yourself along the way. Plus, there will be some great information about other aspects of the Poker Industry, using the Internet for fun and profit and how to apply what you learn about Poker to your every day life. This is the first of many posts. As they say in big business lead, follow or GET OUT of the WAY; ladies and gentlemen start blogging!

Highlight any portion you want: