Don't Blink or you'll miss The Pittsburgh Poker Open Event #28!!

Well, I "should" be able to pick up my availability to play more tournaments as spring/summer rolls around.  I did find some time to play in the PPO Spring Series Event #28.  I got to the casino with 10 minutes to spare the start time of 7pm.  This was interesting...there were 3 players signed up... I was going to decide to not play due to the lack of interest, possibly due to the Borgata events at the same time and the whole Easter weekend thing(This was Monday, though...)  They were apparently going to play the game out no matter if 3 was the total and give out a trophy, and have rebuys till 9:30pm(though I'm not sure what would happen if there could end up 1 player left prior to 9:30 would the game be over or would they just sit there and take tons of blinds...?)  I was curious to see what could happen and why not try to win a trophy(I'd take ANY trophy at this point).  So I was #4 and we sat 2 players at a table for about 5-6 minutes when a few more stragglers came over and by the end of the first level we had 2 full tables(near full) about 16 players.  2 players were quickly KO'd at the other table.  My table was pretty straightforward with pretty tight play happening, nobody getting crazy and nobody taking over.  I was down a little and up a little when 5 minutes in....The 3rd level, a girl who'd played apparently pretty tight up to this point(55 minutes isn't a good indicator, but it's all I got...) raised 100-200 to 600 in early position(70BB effective stacks, 14K).  I look down at pocket Ks and make it 1500.  The fact that she raised 600 wasn't necessarily a red flag, 3x wasn't un-standard at this table at this time.  I was pretty much making 2.3x raises and my 3bet 1500 isn't all that large.  I basically figured she'd call with A-Q and below Js, possibly raise higher than that and maybe the 1500 smallish looking raise could make a few A-Q and below to possibly 4-bet me but not necessarily look committed.  All folds around to her and she makes it 4K.  I'm pretty pumped about this, however, I also instantly feel gross in my stomach, like there's a possibility that her entire 4bet range is only AA....
I hope if her possible range is still (on the tight side) Qs and up+ AK I don't think I can ever think of folding.(right...?)  I don't like Calling, it allows me to get outplayed by an Ace on the flop if she's going to shove a lot of post-flop hands after putting in so much and it's near 1/3 of my stack.  However, at the same time, I don't know if she'll also ever call a shove with anything but Aces...Oh well, I shoved and she called, just as I feared Pocket Aces, dryest, most boring board you could ever lay your eyes on and I couldn't even vie for a 14 players left tournament trophy...couldn't even make the final table...gross...

It's been a while since I've had a legitimate cooler and so early...so I guess I was due pretty hard...

Can't wait for next time...hopefully sooner than last time...

Where did I go?!? Am I back!?

I've been really busy the last couple months.  Lots of personal things going on and work has been pretty time consuming... All of which has been taking away from my Poker playing, unfortunately.  Some things just can't be helped and I'm lower on my bankroll than I'd like to be.  At the start of the new year I planned(resoluted?) on playing at least at first every Sunday game until I could afford more expensive games.  I had a good start, played in 3 tournaments, 2 rebuys and 2 cashes.  Taking my alotted $150 and making it just under $600.  Since then I've played in a few Poker League games with my friends and I think since my January tournaments, I'm not playing as much as I'd hoped I could, therefore, I'm not playing as well as I know I can...  I noticed this at the finale for said Poker League when I pretty much bled chips when I shouldn't have and my 10s didn't hold up against AK when I could've turned things around.  I shouldn't need to let things get to that point, at least not in the way I did...  Oh well, I think I'll be able to turn a new leaf with the Pittsburgh Poker Open Spring Series and onward.  I would've liked to have had at least 2K to play in a few more tournaments I felt were the best deals(guarantee's, etc..), however, I'm going to be held to playing 3 tournaments, 2 of which are satellites and one 100+25.  I think that's the smartest thing to do with my bankroll for now, that would put about half in danger if I only put out 1 rebuy per satellite and hope to go with 1 buy in of the 100+25.  The 100+25 isn't even a guarantee, which most of the others are, except they are almost double the buy-in so it's just not really do-able for me yet...even playing in these 3 are stretching my roll into uncomfortable territory, but as soon as May I should see an increase in my bankroll-repositories with which to refresh from on a monthly basis.

My plan is to play

1. Saturday April 12th 9am re-entry satellite into Event #6(It's speculative but probable I miss this.)
2. Monday April 14th 7pm 100+25, 20 minute blinds, 15K to start
3. Saturday April 19th 9am re-entry satellite into the Main Event
(There are 4 days scheduled for the Main Event, Friday Day 1a, Saturday Day 1b, Sunday Day 2, Monday Day 3)

These plans would change in the event I cash at one or more of these, causing me the ability to play another event.  There's an interesting Pot Limit Omaha for 100+25 on Wednesday April 16th 7pm.  I'm not really good at Omaha, though I'm expecting most other players can't be that much better and I would suspect that most other players might even be much worse than myself.  At the very least if I had a larger roll it would be fun to play in this event...

My original plans from last summer were to play in either the WSOP this year or at least the next Pittsburgh Poker Open Summer Main Event, so it's still possible one of these could still happen this year...keeping the dream alive!

Poker League Season 10 Regular Season results

Player	Week 6	Week 7	Total Points	Dropped Total
Heck	0	5	52	52
Jake	9	12	52	52
Terri	7	7	49	47
Chris	5	4	49	46
Fred	2	0	46	46
Shae	12	10	39	39
Jaime	8	3	42	39
Jon	6	2	36	36
Craig	10	8	34	34
Chivers	3	9	34	31
Sean	4	6	30	30

Shae, Craig and Jake really made a nice run in the final 2 games to up their scores.  Shae ended up with the most KOs in the regular season, based almost solely on the fact that she KOed 12 players the last 2 games.  I got a little unlucky to be first out Week 6, there were 8 or 9 all-ins survived prior to my all-in that was unsuccessful.  That game, at least from the early few KOs could've gone a lot of different ways.  I missed Week 7, however, Shae kept up her demolishing ways and I heard the game was over around 11pm, easily the earliest a game has finished up in a few years at least...

The finale was this past weekend and in the interest of "not so long blog posts"(Too late!) I'll write up a seperate entry for the finale.

Failing a Satellite

So I played in a River's satellite to try to get into the 225 Saturday deepstack a few weekends ago.  The Rivers has been having three $225 deepstack tournaments a month with a Month end $550 deepstack tournament.  I've previously played in 1 Rivers satellite of this type to get into a $550 deepstack back in July/August - talked about it my ALMOST MAKING IT post.

First of all, I usually play poker with 2 card protectors.  First one I use strictly for my cards.  It's the first chip I've ever received.  a Venetian $1 chip, I strictly use this as my card protector.  My other one has changed throughout the years, but the most recent ones have either been a Boston souvenir chip my wife got me when she went to, ugh Boston(duh) and the one I've been using is a Pittsburgh Penguin's chip I have no idea where I got it...  This day I think my daughter must have been playing with them and I couldn't find them(took 3 weeks to finally find them)  So I went to this tournament stag...or it felt stag...

There seems to be a pattern developing that every tournament that I've played lately at Rivers seems to have a massive(relative) turnout.  There were 56 buy-ins for this particular satellite that one of the dealers mentioned there's usually 30-ish.  I played 2 buy-ins.  First buy-in I was really card dead and the 1 hand I tried to bluff my opponent had basically what I was trying to rep.  The other 2 hands that were decent starting hands ended up being second best.  I raised with A-Q and got 2 callers, c-bet the 10 high flop and got raised by caller1, caller2 called so I mucked.  The other hand was my last I raised with pocket 7s with about 15 bets left, got re-raised by a pretty active player.  I called and shoved a 4-6-8 flop, my opponent called with Ks...nothing helped and I was out pretty early.  (I actually didn't shove the flop, I put all my chips in except for the 100 denomination chip I was using as my card protector...ugh... the turn was a brick so I checked cause I thought it would be funny and then shoved the Q river...not that it mattered)

I rebought and was put on arguably the most action packed table in the place.  Blinds and antes were high enough that we should lose players fairly quickly until the dust settles a little bit, but we were literally going through players ever 3-4 hands.  I admit I got lucky, with the A-Q,7s from the prior buy-in not panning out, my first hand I played, possibly 2nd hand dealt I looked down at pocket Ks in late position.  A raise and reraise prior to my turn was enough for me to shove.  I got called and Ks won over 10s.  5 or 6 hands later I look down at pocket Aces.  I played them a little tricky.  Based on the dynamic of the table being pretty aggressive I called an early position raiser, flop was pretty dry so I check-raised him all-in and he called me(it felt like this particular player would respond better to aggression than to continually give him rope) He flipped over A-Q and was pretty much dead and rebought(I almost had another shot to KO this same guy later when he shoved and I had 5s, but based on the situation at that time I didn't want to risk 1/4 of my stack for a possible flip/possible dom situation)  I pretty much played 3 big hands and was able to just about coast to the final table.  This satellite paid out 6 players, 5 got a buy-in of 225, 6th got 209.  We lost 2 players pretty quickly and I was able to battle my stack from having 5 bets to 15 bets with blind/ante shoves.  However, the blinds were going up at an insane pace.  We went from 3k-6k to 5k-10k, with 10k-20k coming next... I had just gotten my stack to about 48K, probably 3rd or 4th at the table.  Blinds went to 5k-10k across the table from me, meaning in 4 hands I'd be the BB for 10k.  I went from having 9 bets to 4.  So I look down at A-8.  My immediate thought was to fold, everyone was playing really tight at this point, folding all the way around, so while I know only bigger hands are calling a shove from me, I should be able to pick up the blinds and antes just about all of the time.  That's what I thought when I shoved all-in.  Probably the Shortest stack in the room shoved for 17K, all else folded.  He held 9s and I hit an 8 on the flop, though nothing improved and I was down to 30K and I doubled up the shorty...  Next hand I look down at AKsuited...thinking if I made a mistake with the A-8 I felt like I had to make up for it here, so I shoved...the new short-stack called with pocket Aces and I lost another 20K...Next hand I was UTG and had 9500 left, looked down at 5c4c and folded, hoping to win the all-in in the blinds hand... I ended up having Q-6 and lost to A-Q when we both hit Qs and an Ace on the river.  I went from thinking I was getting the buy-in to holy crap being out and not really knowing what happened within 4 hands... Usually I'd say that's poker but I think I made a few monumental mistakes.  I think that even though I had only 4 bets, there were other stacks that were lower than mine and I should probably figure that I'm favored to make the top 6 if I just fold and hope 2 shorter stacks don't win their all-in moments.  I read an article waaaaaaay back in 06 with a follow up in 09 written by Bernard Lee on ESPN about folding Aces in satellites when you're pretty much guaranteed the spot.  I felt like I was less guaranteed the spot than the situation he explains in his article, however, I was probably in better shape than I realized...

A few hands after I was KOd the 1st short stack I doubled up shoved and was KOd.  What happened next was really interesting.  There were now 6 players left, 5 get a buy-in 6th gets 209.  Not much of a difference, but still a difference.  Well, the uber-chip leader comes back to the table(he'd sat out the last 20 minutes or so since he was probably a lock at a spot) and the super short stack guy at this point put out there the option of playing 1 hand and the worst of the 6 would get 6th place.  The hilarious part of this was that he ended up getting the table to agree to this right as he would've been the BB, and almost all-in anyway.  Everyone agreed, including the 2 super-stacks who had about 12 blinds(over 100K at 5-10K) for some reason... The dealer puts out the last hand and the chip leader, again, he'd previously been sitting out for the last 20 minutes because he was pretty much guaranteed a spot so long ago  ended up being the loser of the hand.  I think he ended up buying into the 225, however, he cost himself $16 when he didn't have to...blew my mind.  I was in awe at the fact that the short stack was almost all-in and prior to the deal got everyone to agree to give him the same shot they all had to get the buy-in ...awesome job guy!

To sum up my satellites so far, I've played in 2, one in July where I made it to the 550(top 2) and this past one for the 225 where I was KOd in 8th because I was probably dumb... I would've liked to have a 100% satellite payout for just a little while...

Poker League Season 10 Game #4 Results

I finally got the "official" results through e-mail the other day:

Player	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Bounty Bonus	Total Points	Dropped Total
Fred	9	12	7	12		40	33
Heck	12	9	10	10		41	32
Chris	10	8	3	9	1	31	28
Jon	8	0	12	7		27	27
Terri	7	7	9	8	2	33	26
Jake	4	10	0	6	1	21	21
Jaime	5	5	8	5		23	18
Sean	6	6	2	0		14	14
Chivers	3	4	5	3		15	12
Shae	2	0	6	4		12	12
Craig	0	0	4	0		4	4

I would like my spot to be more undisputed, however, Heck is points leader, I'm points after dropped leader.  Heck is also winning on KOs and cashes for the season:

Player	Knockouts	Cashes
Heck	11	4
Fred	9	3
Jon	5	1
Chris	4	2
Terri	2	1
Jake	1	1
Craig	1	0
Chivers	0	0
Jaime	0	0
Sean	0	0
Shae	0	0

I have a few good ideas for Chris' costume, my favorite idea I'm going to have to create it myself so I've gotta get on that soon.  I also need to get a few KOs to help widen the gap, no way do I want him to have any chance of overtaking my lead in the final regular season game.  I just have to play my game and they'll come as they always do.  Only 3 games to go before the finale!

Poker League Season 10 Game #4 Recap!

Wow, already past the halfway mark!!  Game 4, we were missing a few players, Craig and Sean, so tables were split 4 and 5.  I was at the 4 table and since we were starting this way and didn't want to take multiple blind levels to play hand for hand we decided not to(we probably should've instituted hand for hand at some point, however).  I bet with Chris that 1st out would be prior the 8th level(20 minute blinds with a break would be near 3 hour mark).  1st one out was somewhere around the 11th level, it was Chivers.  1st, 2nd and 3rd one out should have actually been somewhere around the 8th level, though, there were 2 short stacks at the other table, I think Chivers and Jake and our table, Chris around that time all had something like 10 bets, 2-3K.  Chris lost a lot of his stack early.  He was making really loose calls all over the place.  He called 3 barrels from Jon with A-2, flopping a gut-shot and hitting a 2 on the turn.  He called Jaime with Ace high and another hand he called a turn and river bet with an under-pair.  He was really trying to make hero-calls all night.  Finally he had 3K left and went into Craig-mode(decidedly, Craig-mode is now official for all-in or fold situations)  At about the same time, Chivers and Jake were in Craig-mode also, this was about 7 or 8th level.  Chris was able to win a few shoves and got himself back to a respectable 5K or so when I found myself sitting on a little over 4K when I went into "Craig-mode".  It was at this point we realized how much of a disadvantage our short-stacks were to the other table's short stacks.  We went through a hand roughly in maybe 1 1/2 minutes for a full hand while the other table was taking a lot more time than that even on B vs B hands or an open and all fold hands.  We decided to sit and wait out a hand and we literally watched the time go from 18 minutes left in the blind to 12 minutes left in the blind while the other table went through 1 hand and a shuffle and deal into the next hand...ugh!  We must have played 30 hands more than them at least...So while we played the last couple hands as a "hand-for-hand" style I "survived" and Chivers went out.  He said he played his best poker of the season.  Terri was destroying the other table from the start, apparently holding Aces a few times, Ks and Qs.  One hand he held 7s and hit a set, just owning everyone.

1st hand at the final table I shoved, pretty sure I had Ks.  Heck asked Chris "How's he been playing" as if he wanted to call me pretty light.  Honestly, I can't even remember if Heck called me and I doubled up or he folded...Most of the tournament was a blur...One hand I do remember, I think Jon either opened or shoved all-in for a small amount, maybe 5 blinds, Terri went all-in over the top(chip leader) and I looked down at pocket Aces and called,  Terri had 10s.  I won that hand and pretty much crippled Terri and got myself up to a really nice stack.  I think I was 2nd in chips, Heck in 1st, Chris 3rd and Terri 4th.  Terri went out next, I think Chris KOd her.  Heck ended up KO-ing Chris and then Heck and I went heads up for a little over an hour.

We went back and forth a bunch, I tried to slowly wittle him down but we ended up switching stacks a ton mostly staying even.  Heck's been really good this season, cashing in all games.  Winning game1, 2nd place losing to Jon last game and now top 2 in this one.  Final hand I got lucky and I was hoping to trap Heck, he raised and I wanted to 3-bet but decided to "trap" and called with K-9, I flopped a K and decided to keep the rouse going, I turned another K and he shoved the river with an A-6(paired the 6) and I probably thought a little too long for the call... Heck can either make the worst play in the world or the most ingenius play in the world and lately he's been getting lucky when he's had the worst of it(K-8 One-time! vs Ks) and getting action when he's got the best of it.  I called and it was over.  I was told I was undefeated at Heck's place, however I know I was out early one time but I have won the other 3 times, 2 of those times were against Heck Heads Up, 1 last season, 1 this season.

Fred and Chris KO Bet:(We both KOd 2 players)
Fred: 9
Chris: 4

Possible Season 10 Great/Terrible Storylines:
Heck and I play Heads Up for the trophy this year, and Heck has beaten me twice the other 2 times we were Heads Up for the trophy so along with the last 2 heads up matches I've won, he's definately due to beat me...These are probably self-fulfilling prophecies somehow...It would really suck to have Heck's name up on the trophy for a 3rd time, especially since I don't have my name on the trophy at all, and most especially if every time Heck won it was Heads Up against me...Maybe Craig will miss the rest of the season, only to show up and win the finale...?  Maybe Season 10 is when we'll get one of the women of the league to be the "Luckiest Bastard"??...Maybe I'll finally get to be the Luckies Bastard...time will tell...

Rivers Tournament early thoughts...

I was having an issue with my last post at the end having some kind of strange code replacing my text so I'll just put up some thoughts of the last 2 tournaments here:

Now I know I'm playing the cheap tournaments; $50 Sunday, $125 Poker Opens, etc... The one $550 deepstack I played in I don't remember having a beef at all with the way it was run...so maybe it's just the fact that I'm playing in the cheaper tournaments....
However, the more tournaments I'm playing at the Rivers, the more I'm worried I'll be frustrated at the way they are being run. In my last $50 tournament, I don't think we played hand 4 hand at the money/final table bubble(it worked in my favor I guess...I made it?)

My biggest beef would be the blind structure as the blind levels jump at the strangest times, 5K-10K to 10K-20K to 20K-40K(we chopped prior to this level). To me, nothing says, "We don't really care about you and GET THE HELL OUT OF MY POKER ROOM!" like doubling blinds at the end of a tournament. I only hope the more expensive tournaments are be more leveled out.   I also remember there was 1 other level jump in the middle of the tournament that seemed unnecessary.  At the time I thought maybe they skipped a blind to help move things along, having 50% more entries this last game.

Another issue is that it seems silly to only pay out 8% of the field,10 of 122 entrants got paid in my last tournament.  They have the payouts stacked so much toward the 1st 3 spots, and they have the blinds doubling at the end to the point everyone has less than 10 blinds that it would be foolish to not chop...  Again, I hope this is just because I'm playing in the cheaper tournaments and I don't remember thinking this when I played the 550 deepstack so I'll just have to decide after playing a few of those...if I still have an issue...

2014 50% Cash at the Rivers

So I noted in my last post that I have a new proposition, a new years resolution, if you will, to play poker at least once a week.  Though I wasn't able to play at the Rivers last weekend due to "life" and the super frigid cold and snow... I played last Sunday(1/19) and Poker League was at Heck's this past Saturday(1/26).

I'm actually starting to think I should take a pad and pen to the poker tables, if I'm going to play every week and give some kind of accurate detailed report of my tournament experiences I probably should write things down during...Maybe I can go all Gus Hansen and take a recorder so I can record a hand after it's played...  I'm also going to try to keep track of my bankroll, $ spent, $ earned, etc...

Rivers 35+10+5 tournament(Cheap Bastard Tournament)

There were 122 entries, which probably amounted to about 100 players in the tournament.  I'm pretty sure they had 11 tables to start.  This was much larger than the week prior, I believe because of the yearly freeroll that was happening that day, there probably was a higher turnout and this probably shouldn't be considered a regular occurance.  My table was pretty beautiful.  TAG/NITs throughout with 2 to 3 Looser calling-machine players.  This didn't help me win many pots, however, in the early goings.  Our table didn't break for a long time, so I got to play with a core group of players for almost half the tournament.  This allowed me to use really strong reads when I needed them as the blinds got higher.  My real turning point hand was around 40 players left, I was sitting a little over 5K in chips, blinds at 300-600 50 ante when I looked down at pocket 2s. There was a raise and a caller prior and I decided to shove.  Prior to this I was able to shove preflop and take it down a few times without any callers, as 5K was too much for these guys to risk at this point.  I thought this seemed like another good spot to squeeze and even if I get called a little light I'll probably still have a 50/50 shot some of the time I get called.  I never know what to do with ducks, so in this case I didn't like folding, and calling seemed wrong, so shoving appeared to be the "most right" thing to do...I dunno... Next guy shoved and 1st raiser called, unfortunately, and I was up against 2 monsters, Js and Ks.  The flop was amazing, though, all small and a duck to boot.  No J or K on the turn or river and I more than tripled up that hand to about 20K. Ks knocked out the Js.  I was able to get my stack to about 30K when I was just about decimated.  500-1000, 100 ante and at this point, it's all-in or fold mode for about half the field, whether they know it or not is what I have to decide.  A guy in early position shoves all-in for 14K and I look down at suited AK(spades)  I shove all-in myself and it's A-5off vs AKsuited, The door of the flop was a 5, so I knew right away I was in bad shape to KO this guy, but more importantly, reverse all the luck I had with the ducks and the work I'd put in since then...  The river pulled out an Ace so I was getting chopped back down myself to near all-in/fold mode...again...  This is what's really crazy about this tournament.  From this point on to the final table I was sitting on 10-15 bets.  I basically weaved my way through every situation and hand and if it was a good spot I shoved, if it wasn't I folded.  This went on to the final table...

Final Table:
Wow, I made it to the final table.  Payouts were only for the top 10 players(Final Table), this, to me seemed like a really small % of the field to get paid(10/122, 8%??), but I guess that's what I should expect for a $50 tournament?  I'd be really peeved if it were one of their poker opens, though.  I think they should probably pay out around 12% at least, maybe especially since there were so many buyins... Anyway, I think the final table bubble was pretty nice to me, I decided that I wasn't going to fold my way there and I made a few good shoves to make it and get a "decent" stack to start the final table.  A set of 8s helped double me up to near 25 bets, too.  Since we would go from 6 players at my table to 10 for the final, I knew that I'd have to tighten up my shove/starting hand ranges if/when I made it, not to mention the time each hand would take would also increase. 

So we're at 10 left and the blinds are 4000-8000, 1K ante and I have 75K stack, most certainly one of 3 shorter stacks, though the largest stacks weren't much more than 150K.  UTG+1 limps, and she'd been playing really passively at the other table and had a larger stack of about 130K.  So I took her limp as pretty weak, at least not something she'd risk her large stack on.  Another limps, and I look down at KdQd.  This seems like a decent spot in the cutoff so I shove, UTG+1 calls quicker than I thought and other limper folds.  She flips over AsJs.  When she called that quickly I thought I might be dead, so small victory there.  Flop was brutal, and I saw it unfold as if I knew what it was probably going to be, K-Q-10...She flopped the nut-straight...I didn't even realize I had any outs at first as a 5d hit the turn.  As the dealer began flipping over the River, I realized a K or Q would be my only savior, I saw the King of Spades.  She looked pretty devastated as the realization of what happened settled in and I counted out my chips to near 200K stack.  In the few hands after this we lost the woman sitting to my left and that's when murmers of chopping began flying around.  At this point, I think we would all get $450, or between 4th and 3rd place money.  I would entertain chopping only if everyone else wanted to, so I waited to declare my decision.  The woman I just chopped in half didn't want to chop, however, and ended up shoving with K-7, getting called by AJ and she was history.  There were 2 stacks larger than mine, blinds were now 10-20K 3K ante(I know, they went from 4-8,5-10 to 10-20, wtf? I had at least hoped there'd be a 8-16 in there)  Why play in the tournament for 6 hours to make the final table and then have the payouts be a crapshoot is beyond my comprehension...) I had 180K, most had 120K-ish, chip leader had 260K after his KO.  Now we would all get 482, 3rd place money was 498, the next one out gets 187, then 207, 260, 310, 350 and then 398, 670 and 1206 for first. I thought this would be a good spot to chop due to the large amount of risk even for the chip leaders, I mean, every pot preflop was sitting at 50K at this point...It would be a crap-shoot of who would win and I guarantee myself almost $500 at this point.  We all decided to chop.  We counted out our stacks and took the points for that spot, so I got 8 points for 3rd place.  Moneywise, 8 players all took home $482 and after 2 Rivers tournaments in 2014, I've spent 110 and walked out with $482.  Adding $150-$55 I've allotted myself for the month, that's a total of $522 for my poker bankroll so far.  I don't expect this to keep up, but I'm cashing in half of my tournaments so far in 2014! (Small sample size :-))