November update

Decided to post today after a few things happened to change some things(again) in online poker for me. Bodog has been working on a new poker client. They added some 'features' that are very detrimental to winning players. The new client rolled out today.

The biggest of these is the introduction of what they are calling the "anonymous player" feature. When sitting at a cash or single table sng, you are given the number of your seat. In mtt's, you are given a number for the entire tournament. That's right, your screen name is no longer shown. So any history you have noted or in your tracking software for players, means nothing now.

Even though I did use a hud, I wouldn't be against not being able to use them. But having the "anonymous player" deal is ridiculous. I can't even tell if the player is a regular anymore. All information based on players is irrelevant, expect for during that particular cash session or tournament.

Just another way for Bodog to try and level the playing field so winning players have less of an edge. They did away with waiting lists for cash games awhile ago for the same reason. I saw a quote from one of the Bodog higher up's that they would rather have all losing players (ie everyone lose to the rake), so they wouldn't have to pay out players. By doing this their profits would go up.

Overall I did ok on the site. I was up 1k in cash games, but down about 500 in tournaments. So, I'm leaving the site with 500 more then I put in. I've already cashed out. Glad I paid 740 dollars in rake for cash games alone and probably 200-300in tourney rake, to a company that wants to do away with winning players.

I also had put 200 dollars on the everleaf network, which I didn't really like playing on. Have requested my balance of 180 as a cashout there as well.

So, what will I do with my time? Well, I still really enjoy playing so I want to continue to do so. However, I don't really want to deposit on the merge network. Thus, I'm going to play some freerolls on the Hero Poker skin.

They have a few options:

1) $5 prizepool 24 player 6 max PLO sngs with a max of 3 running at a time
2) $1 prizepool 9 player PLO sngs, with a max of 3 running at a time
3) $200 prizepool mtts, 5 running daily; these are on all the merge skins

Then for small buyin if cash the freerolls:

1) $.33 mtts NL, PLO, and horse starting at 6 PM daily
2) Plus a bunch of other < $1 mtt buyins

Thus, the plan is to put my time into these and see if anything develops. So why not just deposit? I could after I get my bodog/everleaf money, but I really want to try this freeroll challenge. I'm tired of depositing into sites where there is a good chance that everything might be shutdown at some point. If I don't deposit and then lose the balance I won't really have anything invested but time. At this point don't really have anything that interests me like poker, so at least I'm still playing.

One last thing, last blog I wrote was going to write some strategy posts. I started on one, but never finished it. Perhaps later I'll look back into it.

Follow MNPuck on twitter if you want updates on how the freeroll challenge is going. As always thanks for reading.

MNPuck