About two years ago, I dabbled briefly in online poker, but never really took it anywhere. I opened accounts at PokerStars, Everest Poker, Titan Poker and Betfair, and I think I made about $50 playing mostly limit hold'em at <$0.20 stakes. Then things got busy - I had my graduate thesis to finish and I got a full time job, and so I just stopped playing. Well, the job has settled down a bit, and the thesis has been submitted, so it seems like time to take it back up again.

If I'm going to improve my game, I think I need some of those tools that track your hands and let you analyse how you're doing. I came across Poker Office and it looks like it might do the job. They have a deal whereby you can get a free copy if you earn 500 points at William Hill Poker, so I've signed up with them and we'll see how it goes.

I deposited my $50 today and went to start playing, but I obviously picked the wrong time of day (3pm NZ time). The limit holdem tables were almost empty, so I just played a couple of No Limit 10c+2c Sit & Gos. The first was a 6 max, and I went out in 3rd place, getting nothing. The second was a 9 player SnG, and I came first in that, winning 50c. No Limit isn't really my thing though, so I'll have to figure out which times there are more players online.

I was on only a little bit later today than yesterday, so there was only one table at 5c/10c stakes. I played it for a couple of hours until it got down to 3 people and then I left to spend an hour at a 2c/4c table. Made about 85c. Seems I can still remember some things from a couple years ago, but I really need to dig out my books again and brush up.

I was playing 5c/10c limit Holdem full ring at William Hill for about 4 hours this afternoon/evening. There were only 2 tables on the iPoker network, and eventually merged down to one. One particular player on my right had been playing fairly unspectacularly for about an hour – mostly calling, very few raises, mostly seemed to have at least one high card in his hand at showdown. And then he suddenly seemed to go nuts.

Played a few hours of 5c/10c limit at William Hill today. Still single tabling for the most part although will probably work up to two tabling soon. I do get a bit bored single tabling – mostly I read poker forums or other stuff on the net while I’m waiting for others to act. This is probably not such a good idea. I think I should be more focused on the table, and trying to get reads on the other players. I’m really not very good at that so far.

I was a little bit bored last night, and logged onto a Razz play money table to see if I could figure out what was going on. Razz is apparently a low-hand version of Stud. While I’ve never played anything except Holdem, I think I managed to figure out the basics, tripling my play money in the process.

I was playing a couple of freerolls for my bankroll management Full Tilt Poker academy challenge and came across a freeroll for New Zealanders only. There were 390 entrants, and even though I don’t really play No Limit, I entered anyway.

Yesterday, one of the Sit & Go's I entered turned out to be actually a satellite to the Daily Dollar tournament. I was just looking for the cheapest SnG I could find and didn’t actually pay attention to the prize pool. Top two places got seats, so when we got down to the final three and one of them went AWOL, I just folded my way into second place.

Spent about 6 hours today idly 1-tabling 5c/10c limit at William Hill. Lost a bit over $3 during the course of the day. The cards didn’t seem to be running my way. I got aces once and everyone folded, and the best hands I got were queens about 4 times and each time they were beaten by either aces or kings. The last two times I laid them down on the turn rather than put more money in the pot as I’d done the first two times.

A couple of times I’ve been on Full Tilt and seen Kenny Tran, one of their pros playing at the 5c/10c limit tables. The first time I saw this, there was only a single table full at that limit and it had a waiting list of 36 people. All the other tables were empty and I couldn’t find anyone to play a game with.

Today was about as bad as yesterday. I lost about 3 dollars in about 2 hours at the 5c/10c tables. I did a few stupid things, like calling down to the river with nothing but a straight draw even though the other guy was raising and reraising and clearly had a hand (he flopped the nut flush). I don’t think I should play when I’m not able to focus properly. I think I’ll give it a miss until I’m recovered from the swine flu.

Well, I’m more or less recovered from the flu now, and it’s Christmas day, I’m stuffed full of christmas dinner so what better to do than lie on the couch watching tv and playing a bit of poker?