Running with Spades

Current Bankroll: $0 - 300K Play Chips

For low buy-in tournaments Full Tilt only has two options. Either the $2 + $0.25 180-Player multi-table tournaments or the nightly $1 Chris Ferguson Tournament. The latter sounds like the logical choice for someone trying to build up a small bankroll with the least amount of risk, but I decided to take a shot at the $2 tourney instead because I would be able to play 4 of them back-to-back as opposed to having to wait an entire day between tournaments with the Chris Ferguson even though it would have given me more than double the opportunities. In the past I've had trouble adjusting to the different styles of play at the different limits and especially when moving from the play money tables to the real money ones.

Thinking back on it now, I don't think the opportunity to play several tournaments back-to-back justified lowering my margin of error. In fact I think that playing several back-to-back actually hurt me because I found myself starting to fall back into the lack-of-patience that has been hurting me at the play chip tables lately.

I played really well in the first one before starting to bleed chips away as we neared the money, just not being able to hit anything. Then I lost my first double-up attempt and busted out in 30th of 180 (top 18 cashed). After that I found myself pushing way too soon and busted out in worse than 100th in the next three tourneys quickly zeroing out my bankroll once again.

From here on out I'm going to stick it out and only play one $1 Chris Ferguson tournament a day (as there is only one a day) whenever I get back in the money. While I'm going to have to focus on getting used to the style of play each time, I think that will actually play into my strategy of patience well as it will force me to be even more patient at the beginning of each tournament so that I can gauge the tables better. Hopefully by focusing on one tournament a day I will be able to take it more seriously as well and that will enable me to really focus on my game and my strategies.

Current Bankroll: $0 - 1M Play Chips

I took another shot at the real money tables tonight a bit earlier than scheduled. I haven't been able to work the nightly 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll at Full Tilt into my schedule lately and was getting a bit antsy at the long wait. Things didn't go nearly as well as I hoped and I ended up busting out after 64 hands without winning a single showdown or pot larger than 5BB. I started out a bit too aggressive and lost some chips to stronger hands, but even after tightening up I couldn't seem to avoid some nasty situations that just ate up my bankroll. The final nail in the coffin was a J7o that had called my preflop raise and hit two-pair on the flop. I was too low in chips at that point to have much of a chance of getting away from my KJo especially with such a weak looking flop (J74 rainbow).

I can't say that I'm terribly frustrated with my play since it was mostly bad hits that took me out, but I am definitely disappointed with myself for not sticking to the original plan of waiting until I had a full buy-in before hitting the cash tables again. That combined with the fact that my play chip bankroll is not in a very good position either put me in a pretty nasty position right now. I'm basically back at square one with a long way to go to get back into things. I guess this is one of those critical times when you find out just how dedicated you are. Hopefully I can have the strength to force myself to return to the original discipline that I started this project with and which has carried me so far already. That's what I'll be focusing on for the next couple days anyway.

Current Bankroll: $2 - 1.9M Play Chips

I've been real busy over the last week and haven't had much time to play. I managed to get in some quality time on the weekend to build my play chip stack back up at Full Tilt, but didn't have a chance to take part in the nightly 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll until tonight. Despite being up for a solid 32 hours when the tournament started I managed to stay awake and play some solid poker. Continued my streak of cashes in this tournament to 5, giving me 6 out of 8 since I started recording my finishes at the end of October. Not bad stats at all for a freeroll when you consider the other options out there. I still have yet to cash in any other freerolls, despite getting some good shots. The big ones just seem to have way too much luck involved with the extremely loose-aggressive style of play, so I'm perfectly happy eking it out in the $40 Play Chip Freeroll.

I'm going to wait until I've got a full table buy-in at the $.05/$.10 tables at Full Tilt before taking another stab at the real money side. I think I really need to give myself more time to adjust to the other side before busting out each time, so hopefully if I limit myself to only buying in with the table max each time I should be able to withstand any nasty swings and finally pull out of these murky depths.

Current Bankroll: $0 - 1.1M Play Chips

So much for staying up. Picked up another session later this evening, and despite playing real solid through several tough hands I managed to run myself into a wall and bust out again in one hand:



Now I probably overplayed my AJo here, but up until my over-bet on the turn I actually think I played it pretty well. I was pretty confident my AJ was the best hand after I paired my ace on the flop so I attempted to set a trap by checking. After the raise I figured a reraise would tell me best where I was at because if he had hit a set he would push back pretty strong. He only called so I figured I could safely put him on an ace with a poor kicker because he would have folded with nothing and reraised with anything stronger.

My mistake was getting way too aggressive on the turn and trying to push him off his hand there. This was a bad play regardless of the outcome because I figure I've already got him beat so I should have been betting small to draw more money out of him rather than pushing him out of the pot. A large bet meant that he would fold any hand that I had beat and call only with a hand that would beat me. Considering I was putting him on weak ace, I should have considered the 4 kicker which gave him a straight. Unfortunately I played way too fast and didn't even see the straight possibility.

Of course it's easy to analyze this in hindsight and the straight is much more obvious now that it ever could have been during the hand, but regardless of what he ended up having, I think I should have played the turn much more slowly giving him a chance to push back if he had a strong hand. Never push with a medium hand to the point where only a better hand can call you. It's a lesson learned that I won't soon forget.

Now it's back to square one, building back up my play chip stack and taking on the freeroll. I just hope that I am learning enough from all these mistakes I'm making to keep improving my game so that I'll eventually get past the bust-out-zone. It's pretty frustrating to keep ending back up on the bottom regardless of how well I do for a period in between.

On the bright side, I finally found the poker hand replay site I had been looking for, so I'll be posting more hand replays in the future...

Current Bankroll: $8.20 - 1.1M Play Chips

Apparently the lowest limit games at Full Tilt are $.25/$.50 so needless to say I was forced to continue playing at the lower limit $.05/$.10 no-limit tables. I picked up another $2 in last night's 500K Play Chip $40 freeroll, but didn't have time to put it into use last night. Today seemed to be the perfect time though. I played some really solid poker for 4 hours and managed to quadruple my bankroll to just over $8. I managed to avoid getting into any tricky situations, but I was still able to make some good steals and really didn't take any big hits all night. I'm sure the variance is bound to even out over the next couple of sessions, but hopefully I've built up a big enough stack to avoid busting out again.

I really felt on top of things today and hopefully my new confidence will continue to bring me good results. I took some hits at the play chip tables last night so my play chip stack is seriously lacking if I'm going to have to make another stab at the nightly freeroll. But I'm sitting at the highest point in my bankroll since I won that $1 tourney back in mid October, and I feel like I'm finally on an upswing that I can sustain. I know that I'm still low enough to lose it all quickly if I'm not careful, but hopefully I've learned enough about that to avoid it this time around. We'll have to see how the next few days go...

Current Bankroll: $0 - 1.75M Play Chips

Well due to the disappearance of the $1 tourneys at Full Tilt Poker I've been trying my hand at the $.05/$.10 table games. I thought I had finally gotten the hang of it when a series of bad beats stripped me of my limited bankroll way too fast. I'm still not sure if I made some mistakes or if I was just unlucky, but needless to say I was back to square one with an empty bankroll.

Soon enough I got myself another $2 in tonight's 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll at Full Tilt Poker, but I just couldn't make it happen at the cash tables. I hit a terrible streak with the cards and just wasn't ready to risk my bankroll with junk, so I ended up folding my way down to $1.05 before getting it all in with AQo against 88. I hit my ace on the turn but busted to a completed straight on the river.

I'll have to consider if maybe I should wait until I have a larger bankroll built up from the freerolls before hitting the cash tables, but I actually felt like taking a hit-or-miss stab at it with a small bankroll isn't that bad of a strategy considering I am bound to double up eventually, and as long as I can play it smart enough once that starts happening I should be able to get a more consistent uptick. It's just really tough to play at a table where you feel completely short-stacked and holding on to every penny but I guess that's just something I'll have to overcome now that the $1 tourneys are gone...

I have quickly learned that one of the toughest things in poker is overcoming the bad times. Since poker is a game of odds you will inevitably face times when things just aren't going in your favor and no matter how well you play you will struggle just to break even. And the tougher things get the harder it becomes to play well. Sometimes you can lose a lot of money fast and if you don't have the discipline to step away and reassess things you can drown many hours of hard work in a few minutes.

Phil Hellmuth wrote an excellent article back in May about dealing with the worst loss of his life and how he managed to turn it around into something positive rather than letting it destroy him. I've never really been a fan of Hellmuth because he always seems like such an arrogant asshole on TV, but you can't help but respect the guy. I always knew that I had to respect him for his unbelievable record, but after reading this article I can see just how smart and disciplined he is, and exactly why he has been able to be so successful for so long.

There are a lot of guys out there who can play good poker and win some big games, but the ones who are able to brush off the losses and get back up stronger than before are the ones who will be the most successful in the long run. But knowing this and actually sticking to it when the times get tough are two different things. Here's to hoping I can be like Phil and have the strength and discipline to overcome those times with such fortitude.

Current Bankroll: $0 - 1.9M Play Chips

This post outlines my rules for my version of the Chris Ferguson Challenge. To skip directly to the rules, click here.

I've been on a mission over the last couple weeks. Some call it the Chris Ferguson Challenge, but for me it's simply chasing a dream. Namely, the dream of becoming a Poker Pro. Since I don't have a large enough bank account to start my own poker bankroll, and I'm definitely not good enough yet to do it with a tiny bankroll like Chris did a while back starting with just $1, without busting out a hundred times first, I've decided that the only way to do it without risking any of my own hard-earned money is to do Chris Ferguson style and start with nothing.

But how do you turn $0 into a real bankroll? Many poker rooms have multiple daily freerolls in which you can go up against hundreds of other players for a chance to cash in a couple dollars. While I do try to take part in these freerolls as often as I can, I have decided to put my main focus instead on a different route.

Due to the crazy nature of these freerolls, it is really quite difficult to place anywhere near the bubble without a good amount of luck. My highest finish is 185th in a 2700 player tourney where the top 27 cash in. Fortunately FullTiltPoker has another freeroll option that has a much better game pace. Every night at 8:40PM EST, FTP hosts a 500k Play Chip No-Limit Hold Em tournament with a $40 real money cash pool, with the top 18 cashing in. There are usually around 35 players every night, and while the play is quite tight, it's not too tough to make the top 18 pretty consistently.

While it can take some time to build up your play chip stack from the 1K that you start with to the 500K needed to enter this tourney, once you get up into higher limits, it's not too hard to consistenly make 500K in play chips daily to keep up with your entry fees for this tourney.

It took me about a week to build my play chip stack up to 1M before I decided to take a shot at this 500K tourney. I've actually cashed in on it quite a few times already, but I still haven't managed to maintain my real money bankroll once on the other side.

As such I've decided to lay out the rules for myself in much more concrete terms to maximize my chances of moving out of bankruptcy danger, and to avoid getting back into danger once out.

Rules

1. Can't buy-in to the 500K Play Chip $40 Freeroll at Full Tilt Poker unless I have at least 2M in the bank so that I'll still have 1.5M left to build it back up before the next night without risking dropping below the 1M mark which would force me down a level from the 1K/2K tables which are the perfect limit for making back my 500K quickly.


2. Only buy-in to cash games for 1/5th or less of my total bankroll (buy-in is 100 times BB), and tournaments for %5 or less.


3. If I haven't played a specific tournament level in more than 3 days, don't buy-in to that level until I've got enough for 5 tournaments in a row without being forced to level down. This makes it easier to overcome the variations in play when moving up in levels and to avoid losing unnecessary buy-ins by playing levels I'm not comfortable with yet without a chance to adjust to those levels before being forced to level down.


4. Never break any of these rules under any circumstance. This may sound a little silly at first, but it is actually the most important one. Having the rules set out makes it much easier to maintain good discipline since it is so clear-cut what you have to do, but they are still worthless if they aren't followed to the teeth.

This basically means that whenever I reach the cash side I will be playing the $1 tourneys until I build up to $50. Last time I went bankrupt it was because I was losing more money at the cash tables than my tourney winnings could sustain, and despite doing quite well at the $1 45-player tourneys, even reaching up to $17.85 at one point, my poor cash-game play bankrupted me after two days in the green.

Now I'm back to zero with 1.9M play chips so I'm going to be focusing on building up my play chip stack and getting ready for tomorrow night's 500K freeroll. Hopefully I'll be taking another shot at the real money side after that.

I'll be posting updates whenever I play, which is almost every day, so stay tuned to follow along. I'll also be discussing different strategies in the games that I play, as I work out the intracacies of this complex game. I am far from being an expert yet, but hopefully by sharing my experiences on this blog, other people can learn from them as much as I can, and who knows, maybe one day I'll be staring Chris down after building a bankroll with his methods.