Weekly Bankroll Update 1/20 - 1/26

Last week began the slow and painful process of rebuilding after two rough weeks of downswings. I was able to make back a good portion of it despite continuing to take horrible river beats. Most of the profit came from a deep Sunday cash in the Weekly Bonanza, and a Saturday night $3 sit n go win. I wasn't able to profit on my Sunday Scrimmage gift since my KK couldn't hold up against 8-5 offsuit, but it was still fun to be able to play that tourney and I really appreciate Global Poker giving me the opportunity. Here's where I ended last week:

Gold Coins (Play Money): 17,769,000 Up 163,000

$weeps Cash (Real Money): $1,368.95 Up $26.17

Target for next MTT level: $1,650 ($33)

Target for next Cash Game level: $2,000 ($100)

Target for next SnG level: $2,200 ($110)

So I consider myself to be extremely fortunate to make back 25% of my losses in the first week of rebuilding. This week I'm going to try something a little different. I'll play the Daily Bonanzas every night as well as $1.10 27-person tourneys to stay conservative. This means I will spend a little over $8 for those, but I'm going to play 9-person SnGs in a "step" format. This worked very well for me when I did it on Full Tilt back in the day. Here's how it works. I start by playing a $3.30 9-person on Sunday. If I lose or come in 2nd or 3rd, I'll play again the next night. If I win, the next night I'll play a $6.60 SnG. If I lose that, I'll move back down to the $3.30 the following night. If I come in 2nd or 3rd however, I'll play that level again the next night. If I win, I'll move up to the $11 SnG the next night and so on. On Saturday night, it ends regardless of what "step" or "level" I'm on and starts over on Sunday. In other words, say I play an $11 SnG and win on a Saturday, Sunday night it's back to the $3.30. So it's win to move up, 2nd or 3rd to stay at that level, and a loss means I move down one. So if I play an $11 and don't cash, I'll play a $6.60 the next night. I'm curious to see how this goes. The hope is I can put together a little win streak and turn a big profit without incurring too much risk. I'll post nightly results on Twitter (@BenRagusa if you want to follow along) and will refer to the "steps" by number. They'll be as follows:

Step 1 - $3.30. Win to move up to Step 2. 2nd, 3rd or a loss to replay Step 1.

Step 2 - $6.60. Win to move up to Step 3. 2nd or 3rd to replay Step 2. Lose and go back to Step 1.

Step 3 - $11.00. Win to move up to Step 4. 2nd or 3rd to replay Step 3. Lose and go back to Step 2.

Step 4 - $33.00. Win to move up to Step 5. 2nd or 3rd to replay Step 4. Lose and go back to Step 3.

Step 5 - $55.00. Win to move up to Step 6. 2nd or 3rd to replay Step 5. Lose and go back to Step 4.

Step 6 - $110.00. Win to celebrate. 2nd or 3rd to replay Step 6. Lose and go back to Step 5.

It's highly unlikely I'll make it to Step 6 since I'm starting each week at Step 1, but if I'm able to generate some healthy profits from it I won't waste my time starting over every Sunday. I really just want to try this out for a week or two and see what happens. Worst case scenario is I just play a $3.30 SnG every night which is what I was planning to do anyway. Let's see how this goes! Stay tuned!

Weekly Bankroll Update 1/13 - 1/19

Last week sucked. There's no other way to say it. It sucked. It was my biggest down week since I started this blog and certainly the most frustrating. I lost everything I played until Friday night when I cashed the Daily Bonanza for a whopping $.90. Then last night I broke out of my slump a little by profiting $3. For all intents and purposes I was done playing. I was gonna take a break. Poker just wasn't fun. I kept getting rivered over and over by one and two outers, and maniacs on straight and flush draws. I felt like a shipwrecked man wandering a deserted island with no food or water and only the clothes on my back... okay maybe I'm going a little too far here, but you get the point. It sucked. Until today. I just found out minutes before posting this that I was awarded a $218 ticket, via Instagram, into Global Poker's Sunday Scrimmage tournament. It's the biggest tournament Global offers. A $50,000 guarantee with close to $10,000 up top and around $300 for a min cash. My hands are still shaking from the adrenaline rush. I'm seriously in disbelief right now. There's still work to be done of course. I have to at least cash the damn thing, but there is potential here for things to substantially change. Anyhow, here's where I landed after falling on face:

Play Money: 17,606,000 Up 1,162,000

Real Money: $1,342.78 Down $74.62

Target for next MTT level: $1,650 ($33)

Target for next Cash Game level: $2,000 ($100)

Target for next SnG level: $2,200 ($110)

Well, here we go folks. My main goal today is to just have fun regardless of the result. I really appreciate Global for doing these giveaways and I'll try and make the most of this opportunity. I'm fortunate to be in this position and I have to try and not forget that or take it for granted. Even though I ran terribly last week, my bankroll is still intact. I started this thing with just $2 and the fact that I'm here every week blogging about it and getting to play every night is the real gift. No matter what happens tonight, I'm truly happy and blessed. For those of you who read this blog every week or even every once in a while, thank you. You give me the inspiration to play well and keep going even when things get tough. I feel I have an obligation now that I actually have folks reading this to move forward and update my results, no matter how frustrating things get from time to time. I'm here, and I ain't going anywhere. Let's effing go! Oh yeah and Go Pats!!!

Weekly Bankroll Update 1/6 - 1/12

I was down a bit last week, but my results are not indicative of how the week actually went. I had quite a few deep runs and near misses. This could have been a monster week. On Sunday I was one elimination away in the Daily Hundo from $100. Instead I made $10 for finishing 4th. 1-3 got $100. Then on Friday night in the $750 guarantee, I finished 10th but really had a great chance at taking it down for the $234 up top. Here is the hand that crushed me: I'm in the big blind with A-9 of diamonds. Blinds are 1250/2500 and I have 55,000 in chips. Again, 10 left and I'm running 4th. Folds around to the small blind who had been raising my big blind literally every chance he got. I had played back at him once and he backed right down. This time I wanted to trap him. He raised and made it 7500 to go. I called. Flop came 3-5-8 with two diamonds. He led out for 10,000 and again I called. Turn came a 9 giving me top pair with top kicker and a nut flush draw. He goes all in and I snap call. I had him covered by about 5,000 chips. He had 4-9 offsuit. A dream situation until the river which came 4 of spades giving him two pair and leaving me virtually done for the tournament. Had I just gone all in pre-flop or even post-flop, he would have folded and I'd have taken the hand. It was a good learning experience for next time. Aside from that I got crushed in sit n gos going 0/5 which was basically all my losses for the week. MTTs I actually broke even. Here is where I'm at:

Gold Coins: 16,444,000 Up 503,000

Real Money: 1,417.40 Down $30.47

Target for next MTT level: $1,650 ($33)

Target for next Cash Game level: $2,000 ($100)

Target for next SnG level: $2,200 ($110)

I'm still not sure if I should drop my SnG level from $6.60 to $3.30 this week. Something tells me to hold the line and see what happens. I only played five of them and just need to give variance a chance to kick in. I also am thinking of doing a run to MGM on Saturday. If I have similar results this week and lose again, then I'll drop down, but I just don't think I have enough of a sample size yet. I was encouraged by my deep runs in MTTs too and I think I'm really just a favorable river card away from blowing this thing wide open. Let's wait and see...

Weekly Bankroll Update 12/30-1/5

Well, 2019 is finally upon us and my first week of the new year was... drumroll please... meh. I was up but just a tiny bit, but had a lot of fun with the SnG and MTT mix. I need to make one minor adjustment this week which will hopefully result in higher profits (assuming things go well). I did virtually nothing in the MTTs last week, but did take down a couple of 9-man SnGs. In fact, according to Sharkscope, I'm ranked 36th out of 2,530 players in profit at the $3.30 9-man level for 2019 so far. Unfortunately, I probably won't be moving up too much higher since I am increasing the buy in to the $6.60 level this week. I also had a lot of fun watching @thegoldenblazer's epic 24-hour poker stream on Twitch last week. I even got to play him heads up on-stream in a Gold Coin SnG, but he crushed me in like five hands denying me a free T-shirt. If you like poker (which if you're reading this blog I assume you do), then definitely check him out on Twitch. You'll learn a lot and be wildly entertained. Plus, there is a shot at free money at the end of every stream as well as a raffle each Sunday for 5% of his action in Global Poker's Sunday Scrimmage tournament. Anyhoo, my numbers:

Gold Coins: 15,941,000 Up 1,121,000

Real Money: $1,447.87 Up $2.42

Target for next MTT level: $1,650 ($33)

Target for next Cash Game level: $2,000 ($100)

Target for next SnG level: $2,200 ($110)

So here's my strategy for this week: Play the $0.11 Daily Bonanza, the $3.30 rebuy $750 guarantee, and the $1 Daily Hundo. If I bust the $750 before the re-buy period ends, I'm done. If I make it, I'll pay the $3 for the add-on. That means I'm spending a maximum of $7.41 per night on MTTs. If I end up with a loss, I will play a $6.60 9-man SnG. I was playing $3.30, but I feel like that buy in was too low. I needed to win just to turn a profit, and by playing the $6.60, a first OR second place finish turns me a profit. I'll be spending a maximum of $14.01 per day, or $98.07 per week. So that means if I go 0/28 on the week, (which I can PROMISE you will NOT happen), assuming I add on the $3 in the $750 guarantee all seven nights, I would lose less than $100. If I can turn a nice profit over the next couple of weeks, I'll revamp this strategy and up all my buy ins and play bigger MTTs. Let's see how this week goes.