The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

Its 16 consecutive winning sessions now with The Vulture which is my new record. Picked up another $33 today and this steady drip feeding of money into my account is starting to get boring……about time I had a massive what the hell mega tilt session where I blow $100+……..you think I am joking……its only a matter of time.

Got lucky today when I had KK vs AA and flopped a king, actually I dont think that he would have stacked me as a tight reg with 100bb+ in full-ring NL50 who four bets usually has AA on that site but he just priced me in to see a flop. With a flop of K-J-9 two suits, he went all-in for $35 on the flop. So I was a king away from having a losing session but on and on this run goes.

I am now $703 ahead this month after 25 hours of play and confidence is now total. But I dont know what to do with regards this system, I will be tutoring this soon so it stands to reason that I should be playing it while I tutor it as well.

The hourly rate is such that playing 40 hours a week would generate $4000/month and that PROVES that you can actually play poker for a living without having tons of money behind you. With the exchange rate then this equates to around £2400/month and plenty of people up and down the country are not earning that kind of money as that equates to about £40,000 PA pro rata.

So I have actually done it and I still havent dropped more than $150 since Dec 1st. To say that I am proud of what I have done is an understatement. I think that it is my greatest achievement in poker to be quite frank. Being asked to write for 2+2 was an honour and working with David Sklansky and Mason Malmuth is an absolute priveledge. So was being asked to be a coach on Stox Poker, something that I sadly had to decline.

Also getting an offer from Joe Beevers of The Hendon Mob last year to back me upto 50% to play in the £250,000 ($500,000) main event at DTD (something else that I sadly had to decline) was also an honour. Its really something when people of that note value your game like that and this means more to me than any money.

But I really cannot recommend Cake Poker enough, it isnt anything to do with the fact that I am beating up on their NL50 games or that I am an ambassador for their site, I really think that this is one of the best networks out there and the people behind it are first class.

So see you soon and take care

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

These days I am hardly ever seeing any action in the 25-50 game and it doesnt matter where I play, its the same. I have options of getting money into poker sites and luckily enough contacts to be able to help me do it.

But the value is getting so thin at this level that I wonder why I still play it. I seem to be looking for players that dont exist half the time. But 25-50 is a serious almost world class level and this is an indication that I am probably playing too high. This is like the highest level beneath the nosebleed stakes and when you consider that Brian Townsend regularly plays this level then you can see what I mean.

I think that I am going to focus my attention on these systems and playing heads up at NL400 upto about NL1000 in future. I can still use my Poker Office 5 software to help me game select and I will also be using another piece of software soon called Poker Crusher so I can cross reference certain data before I play.

Hopefully this will mean that I should be playing more poker but to be honest I think that the vast majority of my play will be with The Vulture and the other systems anyway. When you consider that I am contemplating taking the Vulture into NL100 this summer or autumn then there is still tons of work ahead.

I have already informed my partner that our deal will have to be absolved, I dont need backing to play heads up games at the levels that I am and as of now, I wont be playing any 25-50 games any more. It just doesnt seem worth it to me to be risking a huge downswing for the profit that I stand to make in a year. I am only 53k (dollars) ahead this year and that is barely ten buy-ins.

I think that 30 buy-in downswings are very real now at this level and I dont want to lose $150k as that could well turn into 250k with my temperament lately. If you double the 53k then I am effectively only making 100k a year. That is less than many pro’s make at NL200 through NL600 and their downswing potential is only a fraction of mine.

It just isnt worth it, I may as well play lower and encounter more fish. The problem is that the 25-50 level is not the same as it used to be a few years ago where you could guarantee big sports bettors coming in who didnt have a clue…….not anymore.

I just dont have the time anymore to dedicate to this level, too much writing and promotional work and I need to treat these players at this level with more respect than that. So I will be altering how I play from now on and the 25-50 level is now history which is just about right. But I am using the profit that I made from this to bankroll me playing heads up.

So a different second half of 2009 is coming for me, take care and see you soon.

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

You shouldnt really aim for winning sessions as a poker player. Making a winning session your aim can lead to people manufacturing winning sessions by stopping when they are ahead and playing on when they are behind. This can lead to a blowup when a loss really arrives.

I just end my session when it reaches a certain time which is usually around the 45 minute mark as a rule. I had two very low winning sessions with The Vulture yesterday, so low in fact that the combined winnings of the two sessions came to less than $5.

Added another winning session this morning of $42 which now makes 11 consecutive winning sessions with The Vulture. My record is 12 that I did in April so two more sessions to beat that…….bocked it already.

I am now around $3550 ahead since the 1st December but the real progress has only been made recently and this past two weeks has seen me hit the $30/hour mark. If I take away the silly session on the 1st June where I spewed $118 then my hourly rate this month has been a staggering $34.70/hour.

I have also spunked off around $50 yesterday, this was tilt. Actually this wasnt anger related tilt but a completely different type. This tilt was based purely on my head not being right when the session started. This is obviously something that is always there lurking in the background and I need to prepare for it and be aware of it.

I am still nowhere near knowing what the optimal earn rate for The Vulture actually is. I have only been playing four tables recently and I have been picking up more value than when I was six and eight tablling so this has obviously compensated.

Because I have lost so much money spewing for various reasons and because I still dont know what the optimal number of tables is then I am some way short of knowing just how far I can take this. I think that the technical side is basically there, if I am going to increase the earn rate then I am going to have to focus on myself a little bit more as this is where the extra profit will be.

Its all great fun, take care and see you soon.

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

Long time viewers of Pokersharkpool will be all too aware of the fact that I have been complaining about my lack of concentration problems for quite some time. I almost had a disasterous session today with The Vulture as I basically mentally drifted into playing two large pots with mediocre hands that just didnt merit that level of action.

In no time I was down $65, the remarkable thing was that I quickly ended up in front with a lucky run of cards and ended the session winning $2. But these issues are obviously here to stay and the frightening thing is that I have also been drifting in the 25-50 games as well so this has nothing to do with the level of stakes.

Something needs to be done so I have sent for a book today from Amazon on sports psychology and specifically, techniques in improving concentration. This has always been a major problem for me ever since I was at school. It definitely held me back as a Chess player earlier in my youth and it is starting to hold me back now.

The thing is that when I first started out playing online, the level was so poor that you could basically just turn up and win and little concentration was required as the card dependent strategies basically did most of the work for you.

But players are better these days, they make less errors, they provide you with less value and this means that any lack of discipline is punished and the money takes longer to get back. They have a name for it in Tennis and it is called an “un-forced error” and this is what it is in poker…….an un-forced error.

There are lots of factors that dictate how a person can lose focus and fatigue is one of them and I must confess to not getting a great nights sleep last night and this happened last month as I recall and a bad session soon followed.

It just underlines that even someone like me who does nothing but advise others on what to do is guilty of not following their own advice. But I will take whatever help that I can get and if that means getting it from a book then so be it.

See you soon and take care

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

Someone e-mailed yesterday (Mike Porelka) and asked me to clarify what I mentioned yesterday with regards what I said about the similarities between limit and NLHE and how close they are.

Well I hope that I made myself clear but if not then I will have a second stab at it, they are almost two totally different games that share many common themes……this is about the best that I can put it. They are different enough to give millions of players worldwide an awful lot of trouble and NL players find moving to limit tough and vice versa.

Any player who thinks that moving to limit hold’em is simple because you are not risking your entire stack has seriously missed the point of what limit is about. You may not make an error that costs you your entire stack like in NLHE but if you cannot make good solid poker decisions in enough quantity then limit poker will be like death by a thousand cuts.

My analogy with the isolation with position example yesterday highlights a clear point.

NLHE……..a weakish middle position player limps in and it is folded around to you on the button with the 7-5……you raise the pot to fold out the blinds and isolate against the single limper or to take the pot down pre-lop.

LIMIT…….same situation but here you wouldnt want to raise or even call as you are isolating with a hand that cannot stand a showdown and you will see many more showdowns in limit hold’em. Plus the single bet raise will likely not fold out the big blind either.

In this instance, say of the aggressive cut-off raised and you held J-10s on the button, now would be a good time to three bet and isolate with position in limit. The combined effect of your position, the action probably folding out most of the range of the SB/BB and the average range of the raiser makes the play viable in this instance.

So you can see that they are similar in principle but yet very different and those differences have to be learned. This is basically part of what I meant when I said that they are alike. I didnt mean that you could just do the same in limit that you can in NL and vice versa. But once you start to become familiar with both games then you will see the similarities in both…..I hope that makes what I said a little clearer but time and space dictates that I cannot write more.

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

Someone sent me an e-mail a couple of weeks back which I didnt reply to and asked me about the differences between games like limit hold’em and no-limit. While each game is really a game in its own right, they do share a large number of concepts and principles.

Position is key in both forms of poker, emotional stability, bankroll management, value betting, bluffing, check raise bluffing and the list goes on and on. Another common theme is the isolation with position play which is certainly applicable to both limit and no-limit.

I would advise anyone to read Super System 2 and read Doyles no limit section and then follow that up by reading Jennifer Harmans section on limit, reading these wont necessarily make you a world class player but they will make you see how the two games are very closely linked like Snooker to Pool, Tennis to Badminton, Cricket to Baseball, Rugby to Aussie Rules etc etc……you get my drift.

So whenever you read about any form of poker, do remember that principles and concepts span them all and if you can learn how to play “poker” then applying yourself to a new game should be a lot easier than what you think. Played two more sessions with the Vulture today, won $9 and $33…..like shelling peas. $480 ahead this month after less than 18 hours.

Played a hit and run today as well and won $123…….poker is good at the moment even if it isnt making me rich enough to retire on.

See you soon

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

This is starting to get a little boring now but I picked up another $65 this morning playing five tables of NL50. I am now around $446 ahead this month and steaming ahead like a juggernaut once again. Watched a few coaching videos recently which gave me a few ideas but to be honest there isnt really an awful lot of things that I need to change now.

I havent tilted badly since the $118 loss on the 1st of the month and I am sure that I would have been a further grand ahead over the past 2-3 months were it not for tilt. I simply dont know why I am doing this…….well I do know why…….its just that they are not valid reasons (as if there are ever any valid reasons).

I am aware that I am only playing NL50 and that I will only be allowed to extract a certain hourly rate from this but it still seems to niggle me after so long. I have recently been exploring other avenues for revealing the mechanics of the system, I have several options but the main one is still my proposed blog on Cake Poker which is still the favourite.

The Vulture has certainly evolved as a bird since the 1st December 2008 and now is a much bigger and meaner bird of prey than a few months ago.  Short post today as I have an article to write and a ton of other stuff to do including my shopping so see you soon

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

A lot has happened since I started my “poker pro challenge”. I have basically proved that a player can make a living playing NL50 with basically next to no bankroll to speak of and no variance. I am $380 up this month alone in about 14 hours. This could actually be condensed into two full working days.

I have still to drop more than 3 buy-ins and to be honest, if I could handle playing 40 hours a week (which I couldnt) then I may be seriously tempted to play this system full-time and get $4000 a month with little stress.

This is about the same as I could expect from the 25-50 game given the number of hours that I put in but with the NL50 I dont stand to lose $5000 per buy-in. If I could take the Vulture into NL100 and be successful with it then it really could make some money and that is what I will be aiming at this autumn.

The problem with NL100 is that I have little experience of it so I dont really know how much of a jump in skill there is from NL50. I think that I will give The Vulture another couple of months and then look to throw a few buy-ins into NL100.

The trick to moving up is to take your existing game with you and see what happens, it may turn out that I may not need to adjust all that much and if that is the case then the jump should be relatively straight forward. I intend to play no more than 3/4 tables at NL100 as I will need to feel these games out more.

I will expect more aggression and so I will need to compensate for that somewhat but time will tell. I havent been playing more than 4/5 tables recently as I thought that my post flop hand reading and all round play was suffering when I was 8-tabling.

Anyway, the next step is to really finish The Vulture and then try and take it up a level. I think that I will concentrate on taking The Vulture up a level rather than testing a new system. So much work and so little time. See you soon and take care.

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

Played three sessions at 10-20 heads up NLHE last night and won $799. I really love playing hit and run sessions as many of the players simply dont know what has hit them and sit there waiting for you to show patterns in your play and then try to pick you to pieces with their tracking software.

Dont get me wrong, there is just no way that I would ever play like this but with online poker then these guys are fair game in my opinion. Someone asked me the other day if I play these heads up games on Cake Poker and the answer is no.

At this moment in time I am merely playing The Vulture on Cake Poker and nothing more. Also I dare say that with all of the writing that I do about the Vulture, limits I have played, amounts that I have won and where I live etc etc then it wouldnt be hard for players to suss out my screen name and that goes contrary to everything that I believe about the modern online game.

It will soon be time for me to reveal my half yearly results, actually I may wait until the end of the year as posting results every three months when you are only playing for around 15 hours a week is probably not the best thing to do.

I have decided to stay on with my partner, I no longer need him to back me but I am paying him a small fee to scout the 25-50 games for me at certain times of the day when I can play. This is a far better deal for me and this will kick in when our existing deal ends at the end of the month.

Anyway, take care and see you soon.

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.

The Dean is now taking enquiries from all interested parties regarding my new Poker Pro System “The Vulture” and also my forthcoming six max system “The Jackal”, anyone who is interested in these should contact me at Carl@Pokerquest.f9.co.uk to register their interest. The Dean can also be contacted at this address for all other poker, gambling and coaching related matters.

Played two sessions today with The Vulture, lost $33 in the first and won $27 in the second. I think that I have definitely strayed from the system today and played too laggy against limpers and the blinds. I corrected that for the second session and all seemed well.

It is so easy with poker to slip beyond doing the technically correct things all of the time. Sometimes winning gets so easy that it becomes the easiet thing in the world to believe in your own mind that you can do exactly what you want with certain players but you can only extract so much money out of NL50.

I am $300 ahead this month and the confidence level must be close to 100%. You have to remember that I am $3250 ahead since Dec 1st playing NL50 so this has to mean something in terms of the confidence of the system being a success.

I ideally want to start testing other systems but I feel that at this time that this would be rushing The Vulture as it is only this past week or so that I have made other significant improvements. I have still not dropped more than $150 from the peak in all this time and that in my mind is nothing short of remarkable.

Because I am not using my beloved Poker Office 5 and playing on Cake Poker, this means that the entire system is non sniffer orientated. It feels a bit strange not using data from Poker Office but then again I dont use Poker Office when I play heads up.

So really I only use the software whenever I play the 25-50 game. But a three buy-in maximum downswing is absolutely fantastic, I do play nitty in certain situations where I and other players would normally stack off but that all contributes to lower variance.

Anyway……see you soon.

PLAY ONLINE POKER THE WAY IT WAS MEANT TO BE PLAYED AT CAKE POKER; THE SITE THAT HAS ONE OF THE BEST RAKE DEALS ON THE NET AND THE SITE THAT DOES NOT ALLOW TRACKING SOFTWARE.

PLANNING ON HEADING TO THE WSOP? CHECK OUT CAKE POKER’S WSOP ONLINE QUALIFIERS.