Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Run it up...


I've been a long time member of PokerVT and I've been the forum moderator for the last 3 years or so. Things around PokerVT are pretty dead as of late so I decided to post my run it up challenge on BlackChip Poker there. 


I'm cross posting my post on the PokerVT forum:

First a little back story, I had a backer for MTTs for about 10 months from July 2012 through May 2013. I was on a really bad downswing and I'm sure had some bad play thrown in there and lost my backing. I haven't been playing a lot since the first of June. I had a little money over 3 sites and June wasn't any better than the few months before and I lost most of the little bit that I had. Starting the first of July I felt like the best thing I could do was take a long break. I didn't play any, well with the exception of a couple of very small cash sessions and 3 MTTs one night, until the last week of July.

I had finished 2nd in a Carbon Poker - Poker Maximus tournament back in May and a friend had staked me for that game so I owed him 1/2 of my profit. It takes forever to get withdrawals from Carbon so the check for his part didn't come until about a week ago. I kept $300 of it as a stake on Bovada and that's been going just so so to date. If anything good happens with this roll I'll post here as well.

It's been a long time since I've had to try to run up a bankroll and at first I had no memory of how I used to do it. I have to say though that it's proving to be really good for me to have to do this. I'm learning to deal with lots of bad players since I'm having to play very low stakes for the most part and this was something I had trouble with. I seem to have difficulty learning that you can't bluff fish. I would get really impatient when I played low stakes and spew a lot. When you have no bankroll you can't do a lot of spewing or soon you'll have no bankroll so I'm learning to contain the spew. I also used to hate to play any MTT with under $1K up top and I didn't appreciate the small wins of $200 to $500. Now I'm getting really excited over just $100 win. The $5.50 $3.5K gtd I played on Sunday (see below) is a total donkament and I had never gotten really deep in it before because I generally managed to spew off my stack. I was very pleased with how patient I was able to stay to make it to the final table.

I really like BlackChipPoker on the Winning Network and I played there a lot during the time I was backed. I had about $50 on there after I lost my backer but I'd managed to lose all but $1.42. On Saturday I decided to see if I could actually run that $1.42 into a bankroll. Here's how it's going and what I've done so far (don't try this at home, it is not good bankroll management but it seems to work for me)...

Friday, Aug 2

I played 420 hands of micro cash. I started at a 2NL full ring table (.01/.02) and ran that $1.42 up to about $7. That table went cold and I moved to a 5NL capped 6 max table and made another $3. Bankroll at the end of Friday $10.15.

Saturday, Aug 3

I played a $.50 rebuy step satellite to the $50K gtd. Total invested $2.00. I finished 4th, 3 seats paid, for $7. Bankroll at the end of Saturday $15.15
Sunday, Aug 4

I played the $5.50 $3.5K gtd and finished in 5th (719 runners) for $174. Bankroll at the end of Sunday $185.75

Monday, Aug 5

I played a re-entry satellite to the $27.50 $10K gtd - 2 entries = $6.60. I didn't win a seat or cash.
I bought directly into the $10K and finished in 46th for $45. Bankroll at the end of Monday $195.25

I'll keep updating this with my progress. I just thought it would be fun to share this bankroll building journey.

If anyone has any comments or idea for doing this please let me know.