Go big or go home?

While sweating Chris H. in a SnG on Sunday he said something I've been pondering about a lot lately. "Time to get out of the kiddie pool" he said. I've got the bankroll to move up in limits again but I still have that red ink dripping on PokerTracker from my limit hold em' play. Even at $1/$2 I'm still a break-even player. No-limit is a horse of a different color, I'm tracking a nice win rate there. Funny thing is that I won't play above $25NL at PartyPoker, but I have no reservations about playing in 2-3 of the $100 buy-in NL tables at Crypto sites or any other sites. Playing with scared money again? I'm not really sure what the hangup is about Party, but I prefer taking the small fishies for a decent gain, rather then move up to at least the $50NL game. Perhaps after clearing the latest bonus offering from PartyPoker, I'll try out the $50NL maybe even adventure into a $100 NL table. You can stop your laughing now :P

Ok, my bonus whoring muscles were fully flexed last week.

Multipoker's signup bonus got finished and made $45 through playing the $25NL tables. Nothing exciting, just grinding away and picking off the occasional over-zealous player with a set or more.

Intertops was next and finished up with the reload bonus plus $85 playing the $25NL tables (I kept $30 at their casino for the fun penny slots with bonus games, hopefully to get my slot habit kicked by the time I go to Vegas in 3 weeks).

I cleared another 300 hands at Paradise on Sunday morning. This bonus has been difficult to clear since I was trying to play NL most of the time but found the clearing rate to be much faster on the limit tables. Another drawback is that you are only allowed to play three tables (but you can enter a tournament for a fourth table). Which is what I did after seeing a PL Omaha Hi $5 tourney (keep all kiddie pool referrences to yourself Chris :D ). There were re-buys and add-ons allowed but I figured I wouldn't re-buy, but would add-on should I make it to the break. I doubled up on the second hand going all-in on a wrap straight draw with a nut flush re-draw. The straight hit and I was comfortable until I noticed a player stalling after just four hands. He would use his time bank every decision, he would re-buy every time he would go all-in or betting the pot. Worst five bucks I've ever spent aside from maybe getting that undercooked Cordon Bleu sammich from Arby's. I was in a good mood from my cash game play but damn this guy sucked all the fun out of play this tournament (and tournament play is rare for me since I spent the majority of my time chasing bonuses). I couldn't catch any good starting hands (he would go all-in off of low two pair or even just top pair) against him. So, I decided to treat Little Drizz to some Papa John's pizza (sausage and mushroom for him, pepperoni and bacon for me) and get him down for his nap. Lunch and getting the little one down for a nap took 45 minutes and to my surprise I hadn't blinded out yet, but the T15K+ stacks made my little T2K stack look pretty meager. So, I pushed with the first semi-decent hand I saw AK77 double suited and pushed for the pot. All spades on the flop. I didn't have any. Time for my nap. At least I didn't spend $60+ on a $5 tourney like the re-buy/stalling yokel did.

Night-time was a little more serene as my wife made a delicious pot roast with taters and my parents dropped by with an ice cream/fudge/carmel cake. Yum-yum. My mom hit a "jackpot" of $20 on the penny slots at Intertops, so I hope I'm not hooking her onto internet casinos since she's already making 3 trips a week to Mistake Lake.

WPBT - I R In, but I'm waiting to see if there's going to be a room rate at Aladdin before I finalize my plans as the wife will most likely be coming with and we'll be staying at Imperial Palace since money is tight (unless I win some MTT between now and June :D ).