Sick Sick Run

Quick update to last night. I played 8 more real quick before going to bed. It looked pretty bad because I had busted out of 6 of them and the other 2 weren't looking too good. I ended up winning them both and broke even on those 8. That ended the night with $184 in my account.

I came home from work today, went for a run, took a shower, ate some dinner and then fired up 12 sit n gos. I won 2 of those, and got 2nd in another to break even again, thinking that would probably be it for the night. Lost tonight was probably the sweetest thing I have ever seen. I almost went to bed after watching it. My laptop was sitting in front of me and I fired up PokerStars not really thinking about it and saw they are doing a double FPPs promotion for February 29th. Since I probably won't be playing tomorrow night being Friday and all, I decided to play 8 more. I am damn glad I did. Stats:

8 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 4

2nd - 1

3rd - 0

Profit: +$38.80

ROI: +142.65%

No one could touch me. I was able to actually get some pretty good reads on people this go around for some reason. My laptop is only a 15" and the resolution isn't very high. Basically I can't see any other table except the one I'm playing. This does not help me when I'm trying to keep track of people at the 8 to 12 tables I try and play. Generally I just err on the side of caution and play pretty tight where as if I were able to pay closer attention, I would be able to make looser calls where appropriate. Today people must have had memorable avatars or something because I didn't have any trouble remembering who seemed to be the tighties and who were the nutballs. Example:

POKERSTARS GAME #15626369105: TOURNAMENT #79090374, $3.00+$0.40 HOLD'EM NO LIMIT - LEVEL VII (100/200) - 2008/02/29 - 00:50:04 (ET)
Table '79090374 1' 10-max Seat #10 is the button
Seat 1: Man of Lard (1820 in chips)
Seat 2: KBeatrix (2985 in chips)
Seat 3: cachuchin (3715 in chips)
Seat 6: PeteAce4690 (3130 in chips)
Seat 10: babygirl8708 (3350 in chips)
Man of Lard: posts the ante 25
KBeatrix: posts the ante 25
cachuchin: posts the ante 25
PeteAce4690: posts the ante 25
babygirl8708: posts the ante 25
Man of Lard: posts small blind 100
KBeatrix: posts big blind 200
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to PeteAce4690 [Ah Ts]
cachuchin: folds
PeteAce4690: raises 400 to 600
babygirl8708: folds
Man of Lard: folds
KBeatrix: raises 2360 to 2960 and is all-in
PeteAce4690: calls 2360
*** FLOP *** [3h 8c Ks]
*** TURN *** [3h 8c Ks] [Qd]
*** RIVER *** [3h 8c Ks Qd] [Jh]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
KBeatrix: shows [Ac 3s] (a pair of Threes)
PeteAce4690: shows [Ah Ts] (a straight, Ten to Ace)
PeteAce4690 collected 6145 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 6145 | Rake 0
Board [3h 8c Ks Qd Jh]
Seat 1: Man of Lard (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: KBeatrix (big blind) showed [Ac 3s] and lost with a pair of Threes
Seat 3: cachuchin folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 6: PeteAce4690 showed [Ah Ts] and won (6145) with a straight, Ten to Ace
Seat 10: babygirl8708 (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)

I generally wouldn't make this call when I don't have any reads on the player. I have to call about 2300 more to win 3600 which just isn't quite good enough. This person had been playing nutball poker, so I decided to call. I'm sure most people are nutballs at this level, I just can't pay close enough attention.

Anyways, I'm really excited to cross the $200 mark. I'm not too far from starting the 180 man $4.40 tournaments and moving up to the $6.50 turbos. I know technically according to my rules I could play both, but I want to treat those numbers as more of a floor for after I move up. I'd like to give myself a 10 buy-in cushion over the floor for when I move up a level. That way, if I lose those 10 buy-ins, I can just move back down. So if 50 buy-ins is my minimum for tournaments, and I want to play the 180 man $4.40 tournaments, I want at least $264 before I start them. And if I dropped 10 buy-ins down to $220, I'd wait until I grind back up. I'm giving myself a little bit bigger of a cushion for the very beginning though, which is why I chose $300.

Overall stats:

200 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 32

2nd - 25

3rd - 16

Profit: +$121.00

ROI: +17.79%

Bankroll: $221.00


And I'm out.

Started off Pretty Bad Today, and Updates from Earlier

As noted by the title, I started off running pretty bad. I've played a couple of days since the last update, and I actually played even more on Sunday than I reported. I played 8 more and won $29.20 for the day. That got my bankroll up to $181.60, which was pretty awesome.

Then yesterday happened, and nothing would hold for me. I only remember a couple of specific hands since I played 8 and 9 at a time. Just dumb crap like KK < AJ, which happens. It doesn't hurt as much as it used to, but I still cringe when I see it happen. That's kind of why I like playing 8 and 9 tables at a time because I don't see it happen. Anyways I played 17 sit n go's and actually lost for the first day in a while. Stats for yesterday:

17 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 2

2nd - 2

3rd - 0

Profit: -$9.80

ROI: -16.96%


It's probably not really useful to show my ROI for each day. The only one that really matters I suppose is overall ROI, but whatever, Poker Tracker gives it to me.

Stats for today:

13 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 2

2nd - 1

3rd - 3

Profit: +$12.80

ROI: +28.96%

Bankroll: $184.60

I guess that sharkscope just doesn't handle PokerStars very well anymore. The site says something about PokerStars banning sharkscope while playing, so maybe PokerStars is interfering with stats gathering somehow. I know my stats aren't in there correctly. Anyways, so far this little challenge is going pretty good. I really want to get to that $300 mark I set for myself so I can start getting in the 180 man $4.40 tournaments.

Another Update

I haven't updated for a week. I've been busy this week with work and a couple of other things, so I haven't played since last Sunday, which I played a bunch, but didn't update. Just more sit n go's like I've said. Here are the results:

Feb. 17th:

32 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 5

2nd - 4

3rd - 2

Profit: +$14.20

ROI: 13.05%

Feb. 24th (So far at least, I may play more later today):

9 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 1

2nd - 3

3rd - 0

Profit: +$11.40

ROI: 37.25%

Overall results thus far:

133 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 18

2nd - 20

3rd - 11

Profit: +$63.80

ROI: 14.11%

Bankroll: $163.80

Overall I'm pretty happy with this. I think I can get my ROI up at this level because the play is pretty bad I think. I should be pretty available to play in the next couple of weeks so I'm hoping to put in a decent amount of volume. All I need to do is double what I've got and I can start playing the $4.40 180 man sit n go tournaments. I don't know much about those tournaments but I have to assume the play is bad, and they fill up quick, so I can play several at a time.

More Updates

Febuary 13th:
Played in 44 more of the 10 man $3 + $.40 turbo and won $3.40 for a grand total ROI of 2.27% that night.

Febuary 15th:
Played in 13 of the sit no gos and won $6.80 for an ROI of 15.38%

It's pretty strange, Sharkscope doesn't seem to be tracking me 100% correctly. Maybe because I play so many at a time, or maybe it's because PokerStars has been sucking a lot with Sit n Gos going down this last week or so. Either way, before I started this challenge, I was down about $10 on a total of 5 - 10 sit n gos that I had played some time way in the past, and now it says I'm only up $5, which isn't right. Anyways, I have only played sit n gos on this challenge so far if you couldn't tell, and here are my stats to date:

92 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 12

2nd - 13

3rd - 9

Profit: +$38.20

ROI: 12.21%

Bankroll: $138.20

I'm pretty happy with this start. Once I hit $300, I will start adding $4.40 180 man sit n go tournaments to my regimen and start crushing hopefully.

Sit n Gos

Finally got my $100 in to Stars tonight, and started playing some 10 man $3 + $.40 turbo sit no gos. I played 25 and only won a whopping $2, but at least it's positive. I started off only playing 3 at a time since I've barely played on Stars. I quickly moved up to 10 at a time and did OK. Nothing too much to report, although I did get a royal flush, which is a first for me, so that's pretty cool. Maybe I'll bang out some more of these later tonight. I'll probably continue to play sit n gos until I get a few hundred dollars in here and can start playing $4 + $.40 180 sit n gos.

Edit:

Played 10 more and won $26 more dollars. So my roll is now up to $128. Pretty good starting night. 

Totals for the night:

35 - $3 + $.40 turbo 10 man sit n gos

1st - 7

2nd - 4

3rd - 1

Profit: +$28

ROI: 23.53%

I'm happy and going to bed.

Deposit Troubles

I was having troubles getting money in to PokerStars with eCheck, but all should be cleared up now. I will hopefully be posting soon with status of how that deposit is working out for me.

The Reason

I realize that there are a lot of poker challenge blogs out there, and I felt left out. I also was hoping to find a way that would force me to play poker with solid bankroll management so that I don't tilt off my hard earned bankroll in a short fell swoop. I've been playing for quite some time, and I feel that when I stick with a bankroll, and don't play outside of it, I am a very solid tournament and sit n go poker player. My problem is I'm prone to either get stars in my eyes and take too many shots at big tournaments, or to tilt off my whole roll.

I want to turn $100 in to $10,000 on PokerStars.

Here are my rules:

• Minimum 50 buy-ins for MTTs.
• Minimum 30 buy-ins for Sit n Go's.
• Minimum 25 buy-ins for Cash Games.

I have hardly played at all on PokerStars, and am open to suggestions as to what games I should play to start with. I know that I will mostly be playing tournaments to complete this, so I know that my results will be kind of swingy.

Anyways, wish me luck, and I will keep this blog updated with my results.