Belated August summary

Usual story, really. Started the month with a horrific cooler, recovered late to be well ahead and finished a little bit on the cool side.

Bankroll started at $8286, and finished on $8333. That takes into account the fact that I had to transfer $253 from my bankroll to a new "losses" column owing to the collapse of Eurolinx. It's possible I will one day see some of that money, but I somehow doubt it.

The gain in "total profit" was a pretty measly $301. Most of that probably came from bonuses and rakeback.

My biggest problem at the moment is that my lucrative sites have dried up. The NoiQ rake races which once were fantastic have turned into wimpy weekly bonuses worth 10% at best (for me). The RedStar rake race turned into a "rake chase" which is a complete waste of time. Eurolinx, of course, has died completely, taking with it a rake race which has paid amazing dividends for most of the last year.

My main objective for this month, then is to find a new decent long term room with decent rakeback and something extra like a race or regular bonus. In the meantime, I might also look for a quick kickback or two.

Mid-September update:

I now have a pretty good rakeback deal on Purple Lounge, which allows me to continue cashing in on the Microgaming fish. Continuing to play on Microgaming sites is a bit risky, since they obviously do not have adequate protection for punters. I will protect myself as much as I can by minimizing my roll on the site as much as I can. On the whole I think it's worth the risk. Just.

I also decided to do the Regalos PokerTime kickback bonus. This bonus looks very attractive, at around $200 and 200%RB equivalent. The problem is that PokerTime (previously on the Microgaming network) is now a stand-alone room - a fact I was unaware of when I signed up. They now have barely twenty tables running at any one time, all no-limit holdem, and only 3-4 at NL50 or above. I am still going to finish the kickback, as it is very easy and the players on the site are laughably bad. The biggest downside is that almost everyone on the site is short stacking - probably because they're all doing kickbacks at >100% rakeback. This site is going nowhere fast, and I am going to finish the deal and cash out as soon as humanly possible.

In other news, I have burned a whole stack of cash on Full Tilt attempting to do their "take 2" promotion. Yuk.

Finally cracked the $3k.

I finally cracked the $3k mark last night, after I had actually aimed to get there by the end of 2008. It's good to get it out of the way.

I played two limit tables (1/2 and 2/4 Eur) and a $50NL table on Eurolinx. Ran ok in NL, finishing up about $20. Ran bad on the 1/2 (down 20BB), but very well on the 2/4 (up about 15BB). The 2/4 was actually a very fishy table with about three players with VPIP over 50, and going to showdown too much. I won quite a few nice pots showing down ace high and weak pairs.

I don't know why, but it seems to me that the average play at 2/4 (and often 3/6) on Eurolinx seems much worse than 1/2.

I took up a reload bonus recently on Eurolinx - $150 at 13 raked hands per dollar (I could have gone for bigger, but I didn't manage to finish the last one). This makes for a pretty good deal when you add in the rakeback and rake race. I'm also looking at signing up for a new kickback on Unibet (also Microgaming) via PSO.