Plugging along

I havent had much time for online poker due to the holidays. This time of year is always busy with family and traveling and such. So, tonight is the first time in over a week I have played any poker online. My little break seems to have been good for my luck.

I sat up and played on Stars with my dad for a while. He refuses to follow any guidelines for bankroll management, and gets frustrated with me for not buying into tournaments where you can win "real money". Luckily, I now have much more discipline in that area. It makes it easier to stay disciplined when you see someone else who has none. I really want him to be more disciplined, but he cant seem to get the same rush from the smaller buy in tournaments. He actually did very well tonight, but because he took his winnings from the smaller buy in tournaments and bought into bigger ones, he only increased his bankroll by $6. He had two 2nd place finishes and a 3rd.

I, on the other hand had one 1st place and a couple small cashes and have increased mine by $160, and I am chip leader in my last tournament with 8 players left (money at 7th place). We really had about the same success tonight playing, buy my results show in my bankroll and his do not.

This is such a great illustration of why so many poker players fail. They always chase the big win, while the real winners at poker just go steady and slow. The good news is, he started to see the difference as we got to the end of the night. Although he wont stay within good bankroll parameters, I think he will do better than he has been online.

Happy New Year!

On the Rebound

If you have been reading along the last few weeks, you know I have had a terrible run. Finally, I have made a bit of a comeback. I amended my bankroll strategy for the Sunday million double shootout satellite tournaments. It is $11.70 to enter, and there are two seats guaranteed. Late at night and early in the week, these only get about 3o players. So, you are getting a good overlay as well as only having to beat 1 or 2 players to get into the second table. I played four of these tonight and won two of them.

In case you dont know, you can win these and then unregister and get the credit in tournament dollars. My bankroll is back over $500 and I am feeling good about the direction my luck is moving online. I will play a few more of these over the next few days and then covert the tournament dollars to cash in the 45 man sit n go's again.

Took a break from Online...

After my terrible run, I decided to take a few days off from playing online. It was far too discouraging to continue in that state of mind. I have been playing more live poker this week with a great deal of success, so I am hoping that will crossover back into my online play this week. I plan on playing quite a bit more and try to begin the rebuild of my bankroll. I will update after my next session.

The slide continues

Wow. I cant tell you how frustrating and discouraging this bad run has been. I have bubbled at least 8 times in the last 20 tournaments. I consisently get my money in good and get sucked out on. I know everyone experiences this, but I have literally cashed 5 times in my last 80 tournaments. This is a great test of my discipline by staying within my bankroll and rebuilding. During this slide, I have gone from a peak of $1350 all the way down to my current position at $248. I am going to mix in some 16 man turbos with my 45 man turbos and see if that helps turn around the luck. Since I have dropped so much, I am back to $6.50 tournaments, so if any of you are on pokerstars, look for me in those. Username is Strumey.

I thought I would update this post with my continued terrible luck. I played 10 tournaments with 2 bubbles and in the $2 multi I played, I cashed for $4.50. I had KK vs Ace, rag end 3 of my tournaments. I am now below $200 and dangerously close to moving back to $3 tournaments. I could use some dumb luck right about now.

Back up Gulf Coast and an Update on my Progress

Sorry for the delay since my last post. I was waiting until I got back up Gulf Coast before I posted anymore updates. It seems silly to post when you know you arent getting any readers.

Anyway, I have had a rollercoaster of a ride the last two weeks. I peaked out at $1350 before I got sucked into the Sunday Million where they added an extra million. I managed to qualify, but I spent money I didnt have earmarked for that. So, I did break my rules a little due to the hype of the extra cash in the prize pool. I managed to make it fairly deep but still a couple thousand out of the money. I think karma has a way of punishing you when you stray from your guidelines and goals. Since that time, I have gone on a major cold streak. Running bad coupled with a couple drunken nights of playing $57 heads up SNGs has knocked me back down to just under $500. So, now I am restricted to $12 multi table SNGs until I get back up to $1296 and can move back up to $27 tournaments.

I am grinding on a couple of those right now, so hopefully I can cash and get back on track.

I havent been able to figure out how to paste an excel sheet on here, so I will have to wait until I figure that out to show you the chart.

I have still been limited in the amount of time I have had for poker this weekend, so I havent made a lot of progress. Actually, I have gone backward a little. I tried playing some heads up tournaments, and had extremely bad luck. I went 1 for 4 and decided that I would stay away from those. I am currently in my first large multi table tournament since I started this challenge. It is the $11 $15K guaranteed on Stars. Luckily, I have had some good cards that held up, so I am in the top 10% and very close to the money.

I have a lot of work to do tonight, so I dont know how much more I will be able to play, but I would like to get in at least four 45 man tourneys. With a good showing, I could be above $1k for the first time.

My Formula and a Progress Update

I havent been able to play very much the last couple of days, but the little I have played has been good. I am currently to $954 and playing in one $12 45 man turbo on Stars. I think this would be a good time to tell you a little about my strategy for this quest.

I am focusing on mostly 45 man turbos to grow my bankroll. I have had a lot of success with these, and I really like the format. Most are over in less than 90 minutes, and I can play 4 at a time without any performance dropoff. I have also set up a formula for my bankroll on what levels I can play. Basically, I make sure I have enough for 40 buy ins for any given level. In order to move up to the next level, I have to reach 48 buy ins. I then allow a 16 buy in window at that level before I have to move back down. Until last week, my longest streak without cashing was 16. It is now 20, but my wins also seem to go in streaks. So my current bankroll is 954, so I am playing $12 tournaments until I get to $1296 (40 tournaments* $27 = 1080, Plus 8 tournaments *27 = 216)

I hope that makes sense. I will do my next post from my other computer which has the spreadsheet, so it will probably be easier to see.

Well, I just busted out of the tournament I was playing. AQ vs 77. 7 0n the flop. I will update again tomorrow.

I'm Back to Document the $10K Challenge

Hello everyone,
Sorry for my long absense from blogging. I had a long period there where I lost a lot of interest in poker. The whole scene and lifestyle started to wear on me, so talking about poker was the last thing I wanted to do. Blogging took even more effort, and so my heart just wasnt in it.

However, my passion for the game has been renewed by a good friend and one of the best tournament players I know (yes, I taught him everything he knows. HA!). My friend Travis is an avid student of the game and mentioned the famous $0 to $10K challenge that Chris Ferguson made famous on Full Tilt. This challenge sparked my interest because it is all about bankroll management, which most players dont have the discipline to to maintain. After talking with Travis, I decided I would do a similar challenge, but enforce my own bankroll management rules and see where it goes. Travis was already underway starting with $100 and trying to get to $10K. He shipped me $40 to start and I quickly grew that to $150 and shipped the original $40 back to him.

I know we are not starting at $0, but freerolling for weeks at times that are inconvenient to play are not worth my time. Instead I thought it would be good to show that you can make a small deposit and grow it slowly and steadily into something meaningful. My target is also $10K, however, once I reach $10K, I plan on cashing out any amount above $10K on a weekly basis and have the original $10K as my base bankroll.

I have been going for three weeks and am currently up to $800. I plan on keeping a semi-daily log of my progress here, as well as continue to explain my theory on Tournament bankroll management, as well as posting my self inflicted rules. So far, I have done a decent job of sticking to them, but have wavered a few tilty drunky nights. Luckily, I have not wavered enough to destroy my bankroll.

Til Tomorrow!