A Tourney For Bloggers?

Wow - this might be a boost to my effort....Just found out PokerStars has a tournament just for bloggers. The World Blogger Championship of Online Poker looks like an exciting way to freeroll into some very nice prizes. I am in the process now of getting authorized for entry as a blogger -wish me luck!

My play lately has been very erratic. I am taking way too many chances trying to get lucky and double up. Specifically, I have been playing way too much in early position. I think I'm calling more and playing more hands out of boredom. In fact, when I infrequently enter a $1 tournament, I find myself not being nearly as disciplined as I used to be. It has also been about six months since I read a book about poker, so I don't think I'm playing very sharply at all. To compound the problem, I tend to play at night when I'm most tired. Bad idea. My balance now stands at $45.08. I realize this is a 50% gain on my total investment, but given the fact that I was up to $90 a few months ago, it feels more like a 50% loss.

Anyway, I hope I manage to get into the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

Bad News, Good News, BIG WIN!!

1st Place out of 3,620 for $67.50!

Of course the good news is my big win. The bad news is that I went broke last night and needed to play a freeroll to get back to having enough bankroll to buy in for $1. Now I'm up to $68.41, an all-time high in this experiment.

I must be extremely careful. Three months ago, my bankroll was above $60, and just two weeks later it was down to $30. I really need to protect myself.

I've played nearly 11 months on my 3rd and final $10 buy-in. I had to resort to FFP freerolls twice to resume play, but I am still at it. I still feel like I need a big tournament win to propel this thing. I'm getting way better at the cash game, but to play well requires concentration, and too often I'm in a cash game and multi-tasking. Enough rambling...

I'm back!

No Graphics This Time!

When the remnants of Hurricane Ike came through and we lost power, I lost my PC. It never woke up from the power being off. Since then, I have resorted to keeping records old school, hard copy style. So......no graphics.

According to my records, it looks like I was at about $22.00 when my computer crashed. Now I'm playing on Seth's PC; he and his laptop are at UC.

My plan was to get my bankroll to around $50 and then concentrate on the $1.00 huge tournaments. That is pretty much what happened, but with no significant wins, my bankroll began to melt. Careless play and bad luck followed, and I actually went to under $20 at one point. I implemented an emergency scheme to buy in for only $1 until my bankroll got back up to $30, which I stuck to all the way up to $39. The scheme also called for me to leave the table immediately after a $0.50 profit, which I did not follow all of the time. In fact, once over $30, I made a couple of huge wins, always certain to abide by Ferguson's 10% rule which I've never violated. Today I stand at $34.91 after being up to $39 last night and staying up too late. Except for last night, I am generally pleased with my bedtime.......in bed by 11:00 was the third and final rule of the emergency scheme. Violating it last night did cost me some dough. Maybe balancing a few tournaments a week with the regular ring games is the better option.... I just realize that I'll probably need a huge win to leverage my bankroll and the more big tourneys I play the better chance I'll have to do it.

I'm up about $12 in two weeks, so I might continue to buy in for only $1 for a while; it certainly minimizes my risk, and I think it might make me more careful to not risk too much of the dollar too early. An interesting note, I've always decided to buy in to the tables with the highest possible average pots since the $1 scheme began. I actually like that environment better because it more closely resembles live play at the casino, and it has more promise of bigger wins.

One Year In....

It is Labor Day, 2008. Last year on Labor Day, September 3, I began this experiment. I bought in for $10 and that lasted until October 6. I went bust and bought back in a third time December 4. I basically went broke May 8 with only $0.10 and clawed my way back with FPP freerolls until I hit big June 27 in a freeroll finishing in 2nd place for $41.50. Since then I've been as high as $61.41 and as low as $30.36, but mostly in the $30's. Today my bankroll stands at $47.80. My first buy-in lasted 4 weeks, my second 9 weeks, and my third continues 9 months and running, freerolls notwithstanding. At one point about half way through, I mentioned that if I didn't have $100 at one year I'd have to seriously consider whether I could do this. I am still determined to make it to $10,000 but it is likely to take a lot longer than Chris Ferguson did it. He got to $10,000 in less than 2 years. My time frame is looking more like Seth's college career, which is scheduled will be four more years from now as UC has a 5 year Bachelor's program. I don't know what would make me more happy; me making it to $10,000 in that time, or Seth graduating college on time!
I have learned a lot during this experiment. One important thing I learned is that I spent too much time playing poker at the computer. I learned a lot more, too; maybe as much about how to approach this experiment as how to play poker. Nothing has helped my poker over the past year more than reading Harrington. In the Spring I read and completed the Tournament Workbook - very revealing about my play - and early summer I devoured his Cash Games books.
As Ferguson's bankroll rules imply, much of poker is discipline. In future posts I'll outline what I think I've learned about discipline and how I should approach this experiment - sort of a list of Do's and Don't's and other considerations regarding this pursuit. For now, I'm logging off while it is still a decent hour to spend time with Mai before bedtime. She convinced me to accept the challenge of a running Monopoly game, which we will start tonight and play a little at a time.

Went to the Boat!

OK, all of this reading about poker and practicing online might be beginning to pay off. I played for 13 hours at Argosy (after getting busted out of the Thursday noon tournament in the first round on a really really bad call) and cashed out with $1,203. My buy-in was $300. I am finally figuring out what deep stack poker is all about, and I am beginning to enjoy ring games more than tournaments, which is a real shift for me. My online account stands at $50, so it has been a pretty good summer for poker, even though I've not played much live.

In the Right Direction

I'm pretty happy with how things are going here with one exception: I'm missing too much sleep. My constant struggle is Determination v. Proper Rest. Playing when everyone is in bed is the best time of day to play - no distractions - but the obvious consequences are frustrating. I simply must figure a way to reconcile my appetite for growth with my need for proper rest. As stated before, switching over to huge tournaments once in a while rather than daily cash game play might work, but how often am I available for a 6:00 or 7:00 pm game that lasts 5-6 hours to win, and with minimal distractions or conflicts? Perhaps I need to find the answer and accept playing a lot less.

Bankroll Stays Above $30 for Over 3 Weeks

On the face of it, the fact that I'm happy about a headline like this seems rather sad. However, my next longest previous stint above $30 went only about 2 weeks. I've invested $30 since last September, and I now stand at $46.67. I've played on $10 for nearly 8 months, and once during that time my total bankroll was a mere dime. So I suppose you could say that since September 3, 2007 I've added 55% to my $30 investments. I'm still not very good at the ring games, but I'm at least treading water. I'd like to get the bankroll back above $50 and keep it there a while. I think $50 is a big enough bankroll that I can begin to enter some really big multi-thousand player tournaments for a dollar buy-in. As I've said before, and demonstrated in my recent comeback from being way under a dollar, winning a few really big tournaments is what will propel me toward my goal. Maybe once I get above $50 I'll begin to play in one or two of these tournaments per week. In the meantime, I think my ring game play is becoming a little better and beginning to show a little more consistency. If I can play the ring games well enough to keep the bankroll above $50, I'll have enough cushion to enter some really big $1 tournaments.