Now were blogging!

Google has released an add-on for Microsoft Word that lets you write blog entries directly from inside Word (instead of using the sometimes frustrating web interface from the http://www.blogger.com/ web site). So now that it’s more convenient to blog there should be some more blog entries here. If you use blogger you can get this free add on at http://buzz.blogger.com/bloggerforword.html.

Contrary to last month, this month has been really good in the online poker arena. Playing at limits from 5-10 to 50-100 (50-100 is a definite stretch) I’ve managed to keep this month at about +10bb/100 hands overall to the tune of about $5000 up so far for the month. Besides the cards hitting me (which they have, but not to any supernatural level) I attribute this month to two things—Poker Tracker and the work I’ve been doing on my own loose card tilting. The one limit where I’m losing money (surprise) is $50-$100, and without that game I’d be up about $7500.

Poker Tracker (You can get a copy here) is a tool that imports hand histories from all major online poker sites and analyzes them. When playing at UltimateBet they have a utility available for download called UltimateHistory which will automatically request and save the hand history after each hand you play, and another utility written by a third party (and free) called GameTime Plus which gives you a heads up display of statistics for yourself and everyone at your table (naturally you can only see the hands your opponents have been in while you’ve been sitting at a table with them, but it does pull up statistics for all previous sessions where you may have played against them).
Instantly it tells you who is seeing too many hands and a basic idea of how they play the game (aggressive/passive before and after the flop and loose/semi-loose and tight). Armed with this information I was able to tighten myself up a few more percent and adjust my play vs my opponents on several occasions thanks to the information on the hud.

If you don’t have Poker Tracker you just have to get it.