2010 Q1 report - $239.55

I'm calling it a quarter. I just finished up a session which got me over the 50 Full Tilt Points mark for the day and qualifies me for silver status and 40 bonus medals which I will convert over to cash when I accumulate enough. For simplicity's sake, that achievement will be worth approximately $8. I had been stuck on the same green line number for a while though with rakeback the chart for overall roll has continued to inch higher. Fortunately for this last session I ran into a bunch of people just trying to give their chips away and I was happy to oblige them. Sucker end of straights would pay me off in full. Sets were willing to pay any price in hopes the board would pair. Random aggro garbage would try to shove me off of a set. Good times.

Based on official FTP HH files and rakeback reports, the preliminary number I am going with for the April 1 cutoff is $239.55 in total which is actually leaving off about three bucks of rake from today. The finalized number will be available tomorrow around 7am. I am actually still way EV- against the rake and am 41.92 in the hole but thanks to the miracle of rakeback the $181.47 that I received more than offsets that. Adding that $139.55 difference on top of the original $100 stake and even Andersen Consulting would have come up with the same total for the quarter.

Looking forward to next quarter I feel like I should at least be able to match that amount since much of Q1 was spent fumbling around. There is also the Take 2 promotion which will be good for $25. A second month of Iron Man silver status will add another $8 or so to the ledger which I won't convert to cash yet but it is an asset which can be tapped.

My Full Tilt Point balance sits at 4,178.56. I'm actually able to afford some reasonable gear at the FTP store now but I'm still sticking to plan to save them up for some fancy electronics. Currently I'm eyeing the MacBook Pro for 270,000 though I'm sure there will be a different model there by the time I get that much. Still, I'm between 1% and 2% of the way there at the very lowest stake level so gaining points is only going to get faster.

All told, a quarter with ups and downs, some aggravation, and plenty of teething issues. But systems are in place to smooth out the ride and I have hardly even scratched the surface of optimizing my play. I will likely branch out into another discipline next quarter but keep PL Omaha as a staple. Hopefully the Q2 report will be full of good news.