Weekly Bankroll Update 2/10 - 2/16

Well, still no Grizzly Bear trophy in my collection yet, but had a pretty good week. I was sick for a couple of days so I got a chance to play a little more than normal and it seemed to pay off. I had another deep run in the Weekly Bonanza and have now cashed four times in a row in that tournament. Also did pretty well in SnGs. Here's where I stand:

Play Money: 20,107,000 Up 698,000

Real Money: $1,473.71 Up $47.52

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)

This week I have just one goal which is to win a Grizzly. The bankroll is sitting on a record high so I'm happy with that. I just need that damn trophy. There won't be much change in my strategy this week as I just want to try and add to the roll.

Weekly Bankroll Update 2/3 - 2/9

Well, the Grizzly Games are underway and I'm off to a pretty good start, but no trophy yet. I had a couple of close calls finishing 3rd in one tourney and 4th in another. I'm also 6/12 cashing the Gold Coin tourneys overall. I haven't played any real money ones yet, but for the next $3.30 buy-in I plan to throw my hat in the ring. The next one will be Wednesday night, a $3.30 6-handed rebuy. I had a very good week playing in the Steps as well. I started Sunday night winning Step 1, and Monday night I won Step 2. No cash in Step 3 on Tuesday so I dropped back down to Step 2 and cashed three straight times finishing 2nd, 3rd and 3rd. Saturday night I failed to cash Step 2, but it's fine. I'm starting Step 1 again tonight anyway. I even had a deep run again in the Weekly Bonanza and have cashed three in a row there. All in all, a pretty good week. Here are my digits:

Play Money: 19,409,000 Up 92,000

Real Money: $1,426.29 Up $35.75

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)

This week I'll do the Steps again obviously, and play that Grizzly tourney on Wednesday. I'll also try and play all the Gold Coin tourneys too, but school work is starting to amp up so I might have to sit some out. I'm just $20 and change off my peak and I'll be trying desperately to break that before this week is up. Hoping for some good news to report. Stay tuned...

Weekly Bankroll Update 1/27 - 2/2

I think sometimes the poker gods just love to mess with me. Every time I think I'm dead in the water going into Saturday, I pull some sort of miracle out of my butt. Last week started off well with another deep run in the Weekly Bonanza, but then started to go downhill from there. I kept getting ridiculous beats where my opponent would flop straights, flushes and full houses on me, or I would get crushed in key situations by two and three-outers on the river. I even bubbled a satellite tourney finishing 7th with six paid. For three days this happened until I finally broke through with a second place finish in Step 1 ($3.30 SnG), and a couple of good runs in the $1.10 27-man tourneys. Then I reverted back to getting crushed for a couple more days until last night. I was hovering around even for the week, maybe even down a little and then went on a nice run cashing in the Daily Bonanza, getting a 2nd place finish in the 27-man, and winning a Step 1 SnG. Unfortunately the win came on a Saturday so no Step 2 tonight as we start over on Sundays. That's ok though. I'll take it. Here are some numbers:

Play Money: 19,317,000 Up 1,548,000

Real Money: $1,390.54 Up $21.59

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 super excited for this week as the Grizzly Games are back on Global Poker. There will be trophies given out to the winners, as well as hats and T-shirts, and they can be played for play money and real money. There are a couple of real money ones I want to play, but mostly I'll be grinding the play money ones trying to get a trophy. The trophy will be nice to have, but more importantly I'll be eligible to participate in the Hometown Heroes promo. You can get money for taking photos and videos of yourself around your hometown and home casino. It's usually worth about $60 for me so even though I'll be playing play money tourneys, there will be real money potential on the line. I also have a horse in the race for the Super Bowl tonight (Go Pats!) as I bought four squares ($5 each) through work. It's $75 for the 1st and 3rd quarters, $150 for halftime, and $250 for the end so, go me! I'm just $57 off my peak now and the past two weeks have been, um, ok. It'd be nice to make some profit early in the week for once so I'm not sweating going into Saturday. Today I'll be playing the Weekly Bonanza as well as the $5,000 freeroll that kicks off the Grizzly Games. I need to figure out what my nightly schedule is going to be this week since there is so much going on. I normally don't like to play more than three at one time, but I guess if I have to I will. The first Grizzly Games tourney starts at 8:15 and the second one at 9:15. I may sit out the Daily Bonanzas which start at 9:00, but I will continue to play the $0.50 satties into the Grizzly Games Main Event which start at 10:20. Somewhere in there I need to fit in my Step tourney, but I may also sit out the $1.10 27-man tourneys, unless I bust everything early. Oh yeah, I also have school work to keep up on too. Goodbye sleep!

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.