Week 10

After another rollercoaster couple of weeks my BR stands at $420 but only a couple of days ago it was down below $200. In 2 weeks I’ve played 39x$5 for a profit of $130; 173x6.50s for a profit of $131; 32x11s for a profit of $152; 19x16s for a loss of $169; and 13x22s for a loss of $241. In a nutshell I’m winning at 5.50s, 6.50s and 11s but losing it all at the 16s and 22s.

So I need to be playing games at which I consistently win and play less games at which I lose. I’ve been thinking about playing some 18,27 & 45 man SNGs. I’ve started playing sets of 4 of a particular game: if I show a profit in that set I play another of the same game and so on until I lose money in a set at which point I move to another game. The idea is to keep playing the games I’m winning at and reduce the number of games that I’m losing at. It’s early days yet: I’ll let you know how things are going.

Month 2

This month was all about STTs. My aim for the month was to play 100 games and I managed 370. However, this was at th expense of playing very few cash games.. That’s fine for now, I’ve just reread PNLHE and the Harrington on Cash Games books are out at the end of the month. So background work is still going on while I continue to master STTs.

I ended up playing 82x5s for a profit of $107 (24% ROI); 18x6s for a profit of $77 (66% ROI); 250x10s for a profit of $225 (8% ROI); and 22x22s for a big loss of $403.

After the bad run at the 22s, finishing ITM 3/22, I started looking into STT variance and have decided that I’m playing with too light a bankroll at 20 BIs. My latest idea is to play 500 6.50s, building a bigger bankroll and getting a minimum sample size to measure my ROI, hourly rate etc.

Until recently I’ve avoided turbos because of the increased luck factor and associated drop in ROI. However, I can play 200 turbos a week and get a sample of 500 games in a little over a fortnight. If I were to run at a 10% ROI I’d pad my bankroll out by an additional $300, $600 at 20%. I’ve already finished 300 games at the 11s and I’d like to complete a 500 games sample at that level by way of comparison. And then there’s the 16s. I’ve heard there are a lot of regulars at that level but I’ll give it a shot when I have 20BIs i.e. sometime later this week.

After playing all these STTs at Stars I will be a silver star by the end of the month. I’m not really aware of all of the benefits but a 50% FPP bonus is good for a start. Sign up bonuses with other sites is something I’ll have to think about more but I’ll wait until my bankroll has grown a bit and I’m playing at a higher stake.

Aims for the coming month:

Continue concentrating on STTs

Play 500+ STTs (including turbos)

Get 500 game samples at 6.50s and 11s

Take a shot at 16s

Week 8

I played 96 $10 STTs for a profit of $42 (<5%>and although the profit was small I have gained confidence at this level. I managed to take my bankroll over $440 and took a shot a the 22s. I played 5 games and managed a third for a $74 loss for the week.

Week 7

On the whole a good week ending with a bankroll of $320. I didn't play a single cash game all week but managed almost 100 STTs. I played 90 $10 games for a profit of $135 (13% ROI) taking my bankroll over $400 and moved up to $20 games. I played a set of 4 games finished OOM i n all of them and have had to move back down again. Exactly the same thing happened a few weeks ago when I moved up to $10 games and it didn't take me too long to work them out, so I'm not particularly worried. I'm quite comfortable playing $10 games so I should be able to take another shot at $20 by the end of the week.

Week 6

It was a bit of a rollercoaster last week but it finished with my bankroll standing at $253. The week began badly: before long I was down $100 and had to drop back down to $5STT and 5NL. This was a result of a bad run playing STTs. I felt I didn’t really get the game fully so I took myself out and bought a copy of Moshman’s SNG Strategy. I have a copy somewhere but can’t find it. Anyway I read this through in a day and my results picked up straight away. I went back to killing $5 games stepped back up and had some good results in $10 games.

It seems my problem was twofold: playing too many hands too aggressively early on and not fully grasping the dynamics behind later stage play. I've downloaded SNG Wizard on a 30 day free trial and I'm reviewing the majority of games I play. Lat week i played 52 $5 games and 12 $10 games. In the coming week I hope to reinforce what I've learnt with continuing good results at $10 games.

I played very few ring game hands last week, around 300 for a small loss. I don't expect to play to many this week either as I continue to develop my STT skills. I did buy another copy of PNLHE which I'll start working through later in the week.

Week 5

After another good week my bankroll stands at $223. I’ve moved up to 10NL and show a $35 profit over 1300 hands for a win rate of 13BB/100. I’ve successfully stepped up the aggression and am now playing proper TAG poker: 15/10/3 at 10NL as opposed to 18/5/1.7 at 2NL. This transition may account for my showing a loss at 5NL – I played 900 hands last week for a small (3BB/100) profit but I’m still showing a slight loss over a total of 3K hands.

I’m still tinkering with my ring game starting hand selection but I’m pretty clear now what I’m doing preflop. The main change post flop has been relentless c-betting – I raise it up before the flop and then bet out. Simple but effective. I’m thinking this is going to need a good bit of refinement at higher levels.

I’ve played quite a few STTs in the last week: 46 at $5 for a profit of $134 (53% ROI) and 27 at $10 for a loss of $81. I’m still developing my STT strategy, currently I’m playing TAG for the first 3 levels and then change up through the gears to LAG against opponents based on their stack size and degree of tightness. This basic strategy works well for $5 games but I’ve struggled a bit at $10.

When I moved up to $10 I played a set of 4 games, finishing out of the money in all of them. My bankroll took a severe dent, dropping from $210 to $165 and the lower bounds of moving down to 5NL/$5 STT. I played $5 STTs until my bankroll was back up to $200 and then switched back to $10 games. This has happened a couple of times – I’m using my licence to print money at $5 to fund my education at $10. I am improving and it shouldn’t be too long before I’m regularly beating the $10 games. I’ve been 4 tabling at $5 and this works well for me. However, at $10 I’ve found I play better 3 tabling. In future I intend to 2 table when I move up a level until I know I can beat the new level and then add more tables if appropriate.

Over the coming week I want to crack $10 STTs and continue to show a good profit at 10NL, it would be good to maintain a win rate of over 10BB/100. Last weeks aims were to show a profit at 5NL/$5 STTs was met, particularly with the STTs.

Month 1

After the first month of the challenge my bankroll has risen from it’s original $40 to $213. In month 1 I played 12,750 hands in ring games and 23 STTs.

I started the month playing 2NL cash games which I beat for 21BB/100, not fantastic I know but this was my first venture into cash games. To begin I was playing quite passively but I’ve stepped up the aggression as the month has gone on. After a couple of weeks I’d taken my bankroll over the $100 mark and moved up to 5NL, lost $17 over 600 hands and promptly moved back down again. I consistently beat 2NL over a week and had a second go at 5NL; playing 2500 hands for something like 2BB/100.

At about the same time I began playing $5 STTs, to great affect. I played 22 in a week for $85 profit (70% ROI), taking my bankroll over $200, allowing me to move up to a higher level again. This only happened last night but I managed to get 150 hands in for a $6 profit at 10NL. I’ll be moving up to $10 STTs this evening. The next bankroll targets are $400 for $20 STTs and $500 for 25NL.

The following is my ring game profit graph for the first month:

My goals for month 2 are:

More hands than in month 1

More profit than in month 1

Beat 10NL/$10 STTs

Play 100+ STTs

Improve post flop play

Week 4

Last week went well: I crushed the 2NL tables and took my BR to $100 in the first couple of days. I’ve since shown a small profit at 5NL (2BB/100) over 1500 hands and with some good results at $5 STTs I ended the week with a BR of $147.

In total I’ve played 9500 hands at 2NL with a win rate of 21BB/100 and stats of 18/6/1.7. At 5NL my overall win rate is still negative (-6BB/100) including a $17 loss from a previous attempt at this level a couple of weeks ago. I’ve stepped up the aggression at this level, playing 17/10/2.2.

Over the last week I’ve played 6 $5 STTs, winning 2 and finishing 3^rd in 2 for a profit of $30. I’ve also played a couple of 5 table SNGs and a larger field scheduled tournament. I scheduled tournament (200/3200) so show a profit in these too. I’m thinking about changing my BR requirements for STTs from 1/20 to 1/100 but I’ll see how things go over the next couple of weeks and accept the fact that variance at 1/20 will keep moving me up and down levels. I may also play 1/100 with a min of $5 meaning I wont move up to $10 until my BR reaches $1000. We’ll see.

In the coming week my aim is to simply show a profit playing a mix of 5NL and $5 STTs. Wednesday is the end of the first month of this challenge and I’ll post a full breakdown of results and stats.

Week 3

I reached $100 on Monday evening last week and stepped up to level 2 (0.02/0.05), alas with no great success. I lost $17 over 700 hands and dropped back down to 0.01/0.02. I now have 7000 hands at this level with a win rate of 20BB/100. Then last night I was placed out of the money in 5 straight STTs and my bankroll at Absolute was no more. As a result I’m going into week 4 with a roll of $77. The idea for the week is to take this back up to $100 and have another crack at 0.02/0.05. Should I lose 20% of my bankroll having moved to a new level I will drop back down and rebuild.

Week 2

After 2 weeks I’ve played 4800 hands – my initial bankroll of $40 now stands at $93 with a win rate of something like 17BB/100.

Its not the end of January yet and I’ve already broken one of my New Year’s resolutions: I’ve been multi-tabling, 4 at a time in fact. I was looking at some monthly results posted on one of the forums and saw people playing 50K+ micro limit s hands a month and showing a healthy profit. So I’m going to give it a go and intend to multi table through the first few levels at least.

Level 1 is now almost complete - $7 more to go and then its upwards and onwards to 0.02/0.05. Win rate has dropped significantly from week 1 but is still above target. Over the last week I’ve tightened up a fair bit (20% VPIP) but I’m still rather passive (0.7 Total Agg. 5%PFR). As I move up a level I’m looking to tighten up further and to increase the number of raises preflop – call less hands. My briefcase disappeared in the week along with my copy of PNLHE. I definitely need to pick up another copy but in the meantime I’m reading NLHE Theory & Practice.

In the last week I’ve played a few STTs (8) as well. Although Absolute charge 20% at micro limits these games show an $8 profit or 40% ROI (over a tiny sample). At some point I will spend some time working out an STT strategy but at the moment I’m just keeping my hand in and recycling Absolute’s kind gift.

My main target for next week is to move up to Level 2. I’ll play at least a few hours at a single table to ease myself in and I’ll let you know how its going soon.

Week 1

After a week I’m showing some definite progress. I’ve just completed a thousand hands and I’m showing a profit of $20. I’m seeing 30% of flops and raising before the flop 7% of the time. After a few hundred hands I tightened up my starting hand requirements. In particular I stopped playing unsuited 2 card Jack or higher hands out of position, with the realisation that I’m not going to win very much money with top pair so-so kicker after the flop. I also stopped always completing the small blind in an unraised pot. Although the pot odds seem good you’re going to be out of position for the rest of the hand. I’ll only complete if my starting hand is in some way connected e.g. 2 gap connectors. I realise that seeing 30% of flops is quite loose but I’m comfortable playing that many hands at this level. I’ve been quite good at building big pots with good hands and by tightening up on starting hands I’ve minimized the number of loosing hands I play. The result has been a profit in the region of 50BB/100 hands, well above my target of 15BB/100.

Absolute Poker has very kindly put $10 into my account which I haven’t used in some time, as a means of luring me back to their poker room. With my cash game profits, this has taken my bankroll from an initial $40 to over $70 in the first week. My next target is $100, when I’ll be moving up a level to 0.02/0.05, $5 STTs and $1 MTTs. I haven’t played a single STT as part of the challenge – I’ve been concentrating on cash games, but I intend to play a few over the next week, using the cash Absolute have kindly contributed. I haven’t played MTTs either – I deliberately organised my bankroll strategy so that I needed to move up a level to play MTTs – I needed the break. But it’ll be nice to play the occasional big tournament (big as in field size, not buy-in).

The last week of playing cash games has returned me to basic, ABC poker, rarely bluffing and only building a big pot with good hands. Although the level is very low it’s reassuring to be showing a good profit. Long may it last!

Day 2

OK, two days into my new regime. So far I have played four 0.01/0.02 ring game sessions with a profit of around $4, over 250 hands. It does not sound like a lot of money but it represents a 10% increase in my bankroll, to the dizzy heights of $44. I am reading Professional No Limit Hold Em as a starting point to mastering ring games having read very little on the subject. I get the most of the fundamental concepts such as pot odds, implied odds etc. but some of the more advanced concepts will take a little work. I feel quite comfortable at this level, which is a good job and although I have had a number of bad beats, I am confident that I am playing more or less correctly (getting all in with trip 3s against a pair of kings on a rainbow board, only for the third king to come on the river) and that I will make money in the long run.

Introduction

I have been playing poker for a little over a year now, mainly MTTs but a few STTs and Ring Games thrown in for good measure. I read a fair bit for the first half of the year: Slansky, Harrington etc and in 2007 I show a profit of around $2500. Since the summer I had been playing large MTTs at Pokerstars with buy-ins typically between $20-50 and the occasional Sunday Warm Up, qualifying through satellites. I found the high variance in these large games hard work, a significant win every month or so with long lean spells, meant I had a hard time maintaining interest. I used no form of bankroll management and I do not think that helped either. I have brought myself a nice camera and had a lovely holiday with my poker winnings but started the New Year with any bankroll to speak of.

So, some New Year’s resolutions:

I will play strictly to a bankroll management strategy

I will never multi-table

I will read and re-read quality poker strategy books

I will master ring games and STTs

I will not cash out until the end of the year

My bankroll management strategy is quite simple: I will not invest more than 5% of my bankroll in any single ring game or STT and 1% of my bankroll in any single MTT. I have started from the very bottom of the poker pile with a $40 bankroll on Pokerstars. The idea is to build this up, stepping up through the levels and see where I end up in a year’s time. Will I make more money than I did last year and how high up the poker ladder will I climb? I guess the real question is how much can I turn my $40 investment into?