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.

I got an e-mail from a girl last week who asked me what I thought about the future of poker and especially online poker. Well for one it has survived the UIGEA in 2006 which I predicted that it would if you read my earlier posts. That bill looks like being overturned now under Barack Obama. With more countries now accepting online poker as being legal and with vast numbers of younger people taking an interest in the game every single year then the numbers of people coming to poker every year should be steady.

The boom was never going to keep up, booms never do……the arrival of internet poker, under the table cameras and poker being on TV kind of happened very close to each other at about 1999 and that was the reason why poker took off. I wonder just how big poker would be if the poker that people were seeing on their TV couldnt be “replicated” on their very own computer.

Poker is not going away, this is simply because people want to play the game just the same as people want to gamble. Denying them the right to do this would only serve to drive it underground and that is what we dont want. Poker is here to stay, sure…….it may go through stages where numbers may drop at the WSOP or the amount of poker on television may fall but the game is now big enough to ride that.

So poker is going nowhere and will be here for as long as it is legal to play it. Like I said on here in 2006, it will take more than some bill to drive poker back to where it was in the nineties…..its grown far too big for that.

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.

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.

Because I am using The Vulture on Cake Poker then I obviously cannot use tracking software as that network does not allow it. This means that The Vulture is taking longer to complete than what it normally would. I have had to rework a few things as there were a few things that didnt feel right.

I know that this may feel strange based on how well it has done but I can tend to feel when something is wrong…..its just experience. I have barely made any money now for about a week. Still ahead but only by about one buy-in or so.

I have made even more refinements over the past 24 hours involving big pairs. I was definitely giving too much action with these and I have had a glut of them beaten lately which has obviously been the reason why I am treading water lately and it aint variance either.

I am making money easily enough and then handing it back by misplaying big pairs……its funny but yet I didnt do this playing 25-50. Could be that I have not fully adjusted with these hands after playing so much heads up and six max at higher levels and not to mention years of limit play……thats enough to mess with anyones head.

Had a day off from playing today to reflect on a few things and I think that I will come back stronger. What my plan is……I will play as usual until the end of August and then look to increase tables and try to get The Vulture earning $50/hour by the year end at NL50.

Enjoying the work though……solving problems is fun….but only when you find the answers. 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.

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 a total of 10,700+ hands last month with The Vulture and made $822 playing NL50 on Cake Poker. This worked out to a very powerful 7.61 ptbb/100 which was an increase on the previous two months but then again I expected that it would be.

I have obviously been tweaking the system and when I said a couple of months ago that I was close to completion…..well I was wrong. This may be one of those things that needs constant attention…..like a car or a woman

For me the holy grail will be reaching 10 ptbb/100 and I think that is possible but I need to do two things. Firstly I need to focus better and I think that I will achieve a better attitude this month…..fingers crossed. Also I need to adjust my play around the blinds and it needs to be a tad more sophisticated than what it is.

So I will be testing this during July, played a session this morning and won $23. I also want to test this at different times of the day as well and I intend on playing more evening sessions this month and I intend to log the differences playing at different times of day. So July will see even more testing and changes and will just have to wait and see what this does to the bb/100 rate.

Played two sessions of Heads up yesterday and got very lucky, first hand I get AA vs QQ and win 100bb, next hand (different player I get JJ and hit a flop of A-J-5 and they have AK. Poker sure is easy when you get cards and flops like that. Won over $1000 so a great end to the month and not having to sweat the 25-50 is proving great for my stress levels as well as mindset.

Not sure that playing HU is helping me to play The Vulture but there you go. Been using Poker Office 5 recently to help me with the Heads up games and this has proved yet another valuable tool for me and has defo helped me to beat these games by selecting opponents better.

Looking forward to a very productive second half of the year…..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.

I have been doing some conversions with regards my win rate using The Vulture today and it appears that when you convert this to ptbb/100 then it is doing very well. It ran at 6ptbb/100 in April and 4.5ptbb/100 in May. It is currently at about 8ptbb/100 for June.

I cant really compare earn rates from different months as I have been chopping and changing the system. But I was on 2+2 today looking at a thread that discussed earn rates for NL50 and it appears that mine is up there with the best of them. I am only counting since April 1st as this was when The Vuture was approaching completion. Unfortunately this means that the sample size will only be about 35,000 hands during that period but thats still significant if a long way from being conclusive.

Apparenty 10ptbb/100 or above is an absolutely crushing rate at this level and I am confident that I can do this next month or the month after. I have made tremendous strides over this past 7 days and especially over the past 48 hours. These further improvements have strengthened the system and if I can improve my own mental state then I really think that 10ptbb/100 or 20bb/100 which ever you prefer to use can be achieved.

Really looking forward to the next couple of months…..now its back to watching Murray vs Wawrinka in the Tennis……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 a short session with The Vulture this morning winning $6 or so. Amazingly I havent had a losing session since the 11th June and have now recorded 25 consecutive winning sessions and the win rate is approaching 90% for this month. Most of those sessions have been tiny wins of between $10 and $30 as the sessions are only short so I am seeing lots of smaller wins rather than say playing for several hours and seeing wins of $100+.

But I ran a big bluff today which cost me nearly $20 but there are obvious weaknesses with my mindset and I am still playing on certain occasions as if its the 25-50 game. I bluff raised to $17 when I should have folded to their pre-flop 3-bet after I raised from the button with 10-7s and was 3-bet by the BB to $5.50.

Flop came 8-8-3 and they led out for just over half the pot, I raised and they shoved……money down the pan. This is not excactly a lack of concentration…..or maybe it is. I think that I am still having to come to terms with playing so low and it hasnt fully left me.

I am still spewing too much money but to still get $28/hour this month and 25 consecutive winning sessions is great. If I could just stop this spewing then I could hit $35/hour if this $28/hour over 4 tables is accurate. If it is then I could train myself to carry this system effectively this time to six tables and then The Vulture could hit the $50/hour mark.

I need to sort a few things out though before that time comes. My ultimate goal is to take this into NL100 and try to hit the $100/hour mark. That is still obviously some way off but if that could be achieved then that would equate to $16,000/month playing full-time.

I have decided to carry on with The Vulture for a few more months yet, I really owe it to myself and millions of others to really see how far I can take this thing. It has come a long way since the 1st December, imagine where it will be this time next year……who knows.

The more that I think about this the more it excites me, I could end up earning more money a month on average with this playing NL50 and NL100 than I did playing at the 25-50 level, that would be crazy and would just underline that I made the correct decision to drop playing at that level.

Played a few sessions of HUNLHE over the past few days and won just over $500. I am really starting to enjoy my poker far more now and it is a lot less stress when you are playing NL50 and working on a serious project than incurring the variance of a NL5000 game.

Happy days……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.

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.

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.

I have titled this blog entry under the old “$1000/month challenge”……this was the category that I gave to blogs about The Vulture when it first came out. My original goal was to make $1000/month playing NL50. Looking back at my old posts now and that figure seems laughable.

Despite the fact that I havent made $1000/month since the first month in December, the hourly rate is such now that all I basically have to do is put the hours in. At $28.70/hour since the 1st June, this would equate to $4592/month if played for 40 hours a week as a full-time job.

Like I said in my previous posts, I have been practicing my concentration levels and if I can make $25+/hour this month whilst having several bad tilty sessions then I am hoping for more next month. If I can peak out at say $30/hour with better concentration and then try to slowly increase tables one at a time then I could be hitting $50/hour with this by the end of the year.

I certainly think that this is a possibility and now I am totally fixated with just how far I can push The Vulture to its maximum combat ceiling (to quote an aerial term). If $50/hour is possible then this equates to $8000/month as a full-time working job and for NL50 with low variance…….well I wouldnt say its a miracle because that is a word too widely used but incredible would be a far better word.

There are many regs at NL200-NL600 not pulling down that kind of money. I am still making mistakes though, yesterday for instance I lost $20 in a pot that really should have been less than half that amount. These little things niggle me but they are just another step on the road to reaching the optimal Vulture performance…….how high can The Vulture soar…….watch this space.

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.

Like a phoenix from the ashes I am slowly but surely being reborn as a poker player who actually concentrates intently while playing online. This has definitely been a problem of late and was why the results for the Vulture were so poor last month and I only made a very poor $11/hour.

This wasnt to do with the system but my absolutely lousy operation of it. This month has seen me surge to $825 in profit after 29hrs and 40 mins for an earn rate so far of $27.81/hour. This is getting back to the level that I hit in April. But even this month I had the very bad $118 spewed loss on the 1st of the month and several other serious low concentration sessions which probably cost me somewhere between $200-$250 in total.

This would have effectively put me somewhere between $1025-$1075 ahead which is a rate of around $35/hour. I am getting back to the stage where my sample size for these new dynamics is very small again so the Vulture may have to be prolonged.

But my work on improving my concentration levels is starting to improve. But this will have profound effects I hope as a $30-$35/hour earn rate is only based on me now playing only four tables. I am working to improve my concentration so that it reaches a stage where I can play 6 tables with the same earn rate per table. This could see the Vulture hitting the $50/hour mark…….now wouldnt that be something.

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.

Had an e-mail from someone last week asking me what the optimal style was to play NL50…..obviously been reading my posts on this blog about The Vulture. Firstly this isnt an easy question to answer because what may be optimal for one person wont be optimal for someone else.

For instance, a player who plays FR games does so for a reason and that reason is usually tied in with the fact that they dont want to play six max. This tends to mean a player who is happier with the more sedate pace of a 9/10 handed game.

So there are clear differences here in the average player dynamic. But an “optimal” style of play is very individualistic. By that I mean that certain styles suit certain people based on individual personality traits. So an aggressive person may not be suited to a passive style and probably wont play that way anyway. Likewise to ask a passive person to suddenly start being the table bully is going contrary to their personality.

There are also different levels of aggression. But let me get one thing absolutely clear……THE VULTURE IS NOT AN “OPTIMAL SYSTEM”!!!…….then again it might be for some. But it is designed to lower variance at NL50 so weaker and more emotionally fragile players can not only stay in the game but also make money at it without a sick run blowing them out of the water.

You see, with poker you can have the necessary bankroll till the proverbial cows come home and still be mentally shot to pieces and not be able to make money simply because the style that you were using didnt suit your personality. There are many different winning styles in poker, you dont need to choose one just because someone else is using it or you read it on some website or out of a book.

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.

I have been having some thoughts about The Vulture this weekend and how I can best take this forward. Firstly I would like to apologise to regular viewers of Pokersharkpool if this site has become far too Vulture orientated of late but this thing is starting to take over my entire life.

I am currently reading a book on sports psychology that I think will improve my game tremendously. I think that it has already justified ny decision to drop to four tables. I have been guilty of being a little naive over these past few months in the belief that I could successfully multi-table and this has not always been the case.

I think that playing 11 tables was a mistake and probably 8 tables was a mistake as well. Playing eight tables of NL50 would net me about $200/month in rakeback playing 40 hours/month. But dropping down to four tables only halves that to $100 so it is only costing me $100 a month in rakeback. But I have been finding that playing less tables has meant that I have been finding more value per table and my earn rate per table has risen sharply.

So there is a definite trade off here but the point is that inexperienced multi-tablers of which I am most certainly one, struggle with the sheer volume of decisions that come their way. Its a bit like a novice learner driver going down the motorway at 80mph trying to listen to the radio, have a conversation with the person in the back seat and answer their cell phone all at the same time…….there is only one eventuality.

Despite me playing online since 2001 and seriously since 2002, I am still very new to the art of multi-tabling. I think that switching to multiple tables is something that cannot be done lightly and I have the greatest respect for someone like Tom Dwan who plays multiple tables at the nosebleed levels.

But the plan now with The Vulture is to either do one of two things, over the next few weeks I am going to work on my concentration levels and to really cement The Vulture as a winning system. I then want to totally get used to playing four tables very effectively and then see if I can move to 5 tables and retain the same effectiveness.

I have played 11 tables but obviously not effectively. I still think that there is a lot more $/hour that can be squeezed out of this system and I really want to take this as far as I can possibly go at NL50 with it before I hit NL100. I am really looking forward to seeing how far I can take this and how high in terms of $/hour The Vulture can really soar…….should have called it The Eagle.

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.

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.

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.