Weekly Bankroll Update 4/22-4/28

It was a pretty good week for me considering I didn't play much. I didn't have much luck in the live tourney, but a couple of really good cash game sessions online and my home game winnings from last time contributed to a highly profitable week as the bankroll hits a new high. Take a look:

Play Money: 6,280,000 Up 230,000

Real Money: $670.23 Up $80.86

Target for next Cash Game level: $1,000 ($50)

Target for next SnG level: $1,100 ($55)

Target for next MTT level: $1,100 ($22)

Today the Rattlesnake Open begins on Global Poker with a $5,000 guaranteed freeroll and another $2,000 guaranteed freeroll on Tuesday night which I've already qualified for and will be playing in. Then tomorrow begins a 3-week series of play and real money tourneys complete with leaderboards and a trophy to tournament winners. My goals are to win a trophy and finish higher than 9th on the play money leaderboard. There are a couple of real money tourneys I might try as well. My game is sharp right now, and I feel poised for a big boost. Hopefully this Wednesday we can get enough players for another home game too. It's gonna be a very exciting three weeks of poker and as always I will be posting any nightly news on my Twitter feed so stay tuned!

Weekly Bankroll Update 4/15-4/21

For those of you who follow my Twitter feed, you probably know that I was up in the home game last week, but I will not be including those winnings in the weekly tally because it takes about a week for me to get the funds into my account. So, I basically had a slow week online, but I really didn't play that much as I focused on homework. Here are some numbers:

Play Money: 6,050,000 Up 114,000

Real Money: $589.37 Up $1.11

Target for next Cash Game level: $1,000 ($50)

Target for next SnG level: $1,100 ($55)

Target for next MTT level: $1,100 ($22)

There are some exciting, and potentially profitable, poker events coming up over the next couple of weeks. The home game is at my house now, and I put out the invitation for it to be a weekly game instead of a bi-weekly game. We'll see if that catches on, but either way, it's nice to be able to play in my own home. Today I will be playing in a local tournament that is put on by Berkshire Poker, and will benefit the Cheshire Lions Club. Stay tuned to my Twitter and Instagram feeds as I will be live tweeting throughout the day. I will post the payouts, my chip counts at each break, and my results. Finally, Global Poker is running another tournament series starting on April 29th with a $5,000 guarantee. The tourney is free to enter, and the series, lasting three weeks,  will have a few $3.30 and $5.50 tourneys worth playing. I will be playing all the play money tourneys too as I try and improve on my two previous 9th place finishes on the leaderboard. They are calling the series "The Rattlesnake Open." It's going to be an exciting few weeks so stay tuned!

Weekly Bankroll Update 4/8-4/14

Things went fairly slow for me on Global last week as I tried to continue climbing out of the losses I incurred. I played the daily Bonanza six times cashing in two of them. I also kept my game sharp in play money actually taking down the 500k guarantee on Friday following it up with a 4th place finish on Saturday. I feel like I'm on top of my game right now and will be using the home game this week to try and capitalize on my good frame of mind. Here's where I'm livin':

Play Money: 5,936,000 Up 480,000

Real Money: $588.26 Up $2.54

Target for next Cash Game level: $1,000 ($50)

Target for next SnG level: $1,100 ($55)

Target for next MTT level: $1,100 ($22)

There are a couple of cool events coming up this week for my poker bankroll. For starters, I will try and play in the Weekly Bonanza tonight. We switched our home game from Sunday nights to Wednesday nights, and the game is at my place for the foreseeable future so I get a little "home felt advantage" there. Then, next Sunday the 22nd, I plan to play in Berkshire Poker's charity tournament, so there will be a good shot at some money there too. Until then, I will stay on the conservative path as school work begins to mount its ugly head once again. I know I may catch some heat from poker players that think I'm playing way too conservatively considering how much I have in the bankroll, but I don't have a lot of options, and I'm not really in much of a hurry. Global really doesn't run any quality $1 and $2 tourneys in my time slot which is the level at which I'd prefer to be playing. The only viable $3 tournament is a 6-handed re-buy which I've had little to no success in. I'm geared more for 9-handed single bullet tourneys, and there just aren't many of those running on Global these days. I'm counting more on my live success to help me build right now, and with the home game being at my actual home, I might try and see if I can make it a weekly thing. If I can pull that off, it's game on.

Weekly Bankroll Update 4/1-4/7

I have officially begun the process of making back my losses. Last week I kept it simple by playing the $0.11 Daily Bonanza. I played seven times and cashed in five in a row with one final table (8th). It was a pretty good run to follow up two dismal weeks of bad beats and bad play. I also played play money to help keep my game sharp, and that went well too. Here are my numbers:

Play Money: 5,456,000 Up 479,000

Real Money: $585.72 Up $14.43

Target for next Cash Game level: $1,000 ($50)

Target for next SnG level: $1,100 ($55)

Target for next MTT level: $1,100 ($22)

Last week was good, but this I think this week could be better. We didn't have a home game last week, but I'm hopeful we'll have one tonight. I will stick with the Daily Bonanza again and try to work back over $600. There's also a charity tournament coming up this month that I'm considering playing. For a $75 buy-in you get 15,000 chips. For an extra $10, they start you with 2,000 more, and if you pre-register online, you get 2,000 more, so 19,000 for $85. During the first hour, you can add-on for $50 and get an additional 15,000 chips. I prefer to pay the $85 and start with 19,000 to see how I run. If I can avoid paying the $50 add-on and save my money, I will, but I usually end up adding on at the break (assuming I stay alive that long). I feel like I need to take advantage of every opportunity to build my roll. Simply playing small online tourneys could take me forever. I'm closing in on one year at Global Poker, and it'd be nice to get a big score to finish off what's been a wildly successful first year.

Weekly Bankroll Update 3/25-3/31

Easy come, easy go as they say. This week I got slaughtered. So much so, that I am taking this week off in order to regroup. It was a week of bad beats, bad breaks, and bad play. There is a tendency to play bad when you've been losing. You start to get gun shy, afraid to enter pots you'd normally not think twice about. To play too tight, or too loose in order to make back losses. There are some positive things to take from this losing streak I'm on though. For one, I didn't go on bankroll tilt. I took a lot of losses, but I didn't up my stakes to try and catch up. I also didn't overplay. If I had a bad day I'd stop. I know when I'm running bad, and I've learned over the years to cut my losses. This run could have been a lot worse, and I'm actually glad I didn't go off the rails. Here's where I fell to:

Play Money: 4,977,000 Up 56,000

Real Money: $571.29 Down $41.99

Target for next Cash Game level: $1,000 ($50)

Target for next SnG level: $1,100 ($55)

Target for next MTT level: $1,100 ($22)

Losses are part of the game. Everyone has them, but the key is to lose as little as possible during a losing streak, and to know when to stop. Even the pros have trouble with this concept. Ego gets in the way and clouds your judgment, and that can be very dangerous. This week I'll be playing for play money primarily, and I may take shots at the $0.11 Daily Bonanza, but that's about it. I'm going back in the tank to slowly make up my losses. Hopefully it won't take too long, but my home game is tonight (hopefully), and that'll be a good opportunity to start climbing again.

Weekly Bankroll Update 3/18-3/24

I ain't gonna sugarcoat it. This week sucked. I played the $5.50 MTT five times going 0/5. That makes 0/7 overall, and the majority of my losses this week were because of that tournament. I have since switched to the $3.30 MTT also with no success. Things did get interesting though as I won my way into a Round 3 satellite tournament to the $540 Madness MTT off a freeroll. I took some horrible beats though in the satellite, and all my hard work amounted to nothing. No worries though as I'm sure there will be many more opportunities to get into big tournaments. Global Poker seems to be growing rapidly, and the fact that they're even running a tourney that big is a very good sign. Global also launched a new poker game, that frankly I've never heard of, called Crazy Pineapple. It's only available in play money cash games right now. Basically, you get three cards to start with. There's a round of betting, then the flop comes. Before the turn, you must discard one of your three cards, then it's pretty much No-Limit Hold Em from there. Another good sign as it appears Global could be preparing to launch some new games like Stud, Razz, or maybe some Omaha Hi-Lo? Come on Global! Bring on some mixed cash games and tourneys! Anyhoo, here are my current numbers:

Play Money: 4,921,000 Up 127,000

Real Money: $613.28 Down $33.20

Target for next Cash Game level: $1,000 ($50)

Target for next SnG level: $1,100 ($55)

Target for next MTT level: $1,100 ($22)



I don't expect another down week this week. My experiment playing the $5.50 MTTs was a disaster, and it's time to shelve that tourney for a little bit until I can get more insurance. Not to say I won't take a shot if I'm having a good week, but playing that tourney every night gets expensive when you're not cashing in it. Now you see why it's so important to have insurance. This week I'll be working to make back my losses, and to facilitate a deep run in the $3.30 MTT. This bankroll challenge is a really tough grind, and being patient is imperative. Hopefully next week I'll have some good news to report.

Weekly Bankroll Update 3/11-3/17

Last week was my most profitable since I began this blog back in August of last year. Most of my winnings came from a monster session in my home game and was capped off by some online winnings. There were seven of us in the home game and we play a cash game with $0.25/$0.50 blinds. I started with $40 and walked out with $137 for a $97 profit. I wanted to go over a couple of hands that came up that night that I thought would be interesting to talk about here. There were three really big hands that I won to get most of my profit.

The first one came about two hours into the session. I picked up 6-7 of spades in middle position. There was a pre-flop raise from early position to $1.50 and I called as did the big blind. The flop came K-8-9 with two spades (the 8 and 9). I had flopped an open-ended straight flush draw. Big blind checked and pre-flop raiser bet $2.50. I called and the BB folded. Turn was a blank. Pre-flop raiser bet $5 and I called. There was now $19.75 in the middle. The river was a spade giving me a flush. Pre-flop raiser checked and I bet $8.50. After some thought, the pre-flop raiser called. I turned over my flush and beat his two pair. The river bet was just enough to get him to call. Any more than that would have chased him out I figured and I was right. A lot of players have the tendency to bet too much when they hit their hand on the river costing them a lot of potential profit.

A few hands later I picked up Q-10 off on the button. There were a few limpers so I popped it to $1.50 and got four callers. Flop came K-J-4. There was a $2.00 bet and a re-raise all-in for around $7. One player folded, and I called as did the other player. The turn was a 7. The other player bet $5, and I called. The river came A. I rivered broadway! The other player bet $6.50 and I raised to $15. He called and turned over a set of 4s. The all in player had a weak King, and my straight took a pretty good sized pot. Again, I made a small enough raise on the river to keep the guy with the set of 4s in the pot. "I didn't even see the straight possibility," he said.

Finally, late in the session, I picked up A-K in early position. Under the gun player raised to $1.50. I re-raised him to $4.50 and he called. Flop came A-Q-6. With $9.75 in the middle, UTG bet $5 and I raised to $10. He called and the turn came a K. I had top two pair now. UTG bet $15 and now I was a bit concerned. What could he have here? A weak ace? A set of 6s? Did he turn a straight? I casually threw my $15 in the middle trying my best to look unphased. The river came a 10 and now I was like "Oh shit!" in my head. A jack would make a straight. Amazingly, he checked and I immediately checked behind him. He flipped over A-Q. My two pair beat his and I finally exhaled.

One other hand that came up I wanted to talk about. It didn't involve me, but I registered it in my memory because I think it shows the glaring difference between casual amateur players, and the big-time every day pros. The button, with around $60 in front of him, raises pre-flop to $1.50. UTG player, who had limped in, called with about $75 in front of him. Flop came J-J-10. UTG bets $2.50 and button calls. Turn is a 10. UTG bets again, this time for $5 and button calls. River was a 8 or 9. Can't remember exactly, but UTG bets $20 and button calls. "Well, I think we are chopping unless you have two 10s", said the UTG player turning over K-J for a full house. "I have two 10s", said the button player. After some ooohs and aaaaahs, I looked over at the button player and said, "Dude, you should have been able to double up there." Why did the button not raise the river bet with quad 10s??? I'm positive the UTG player would have called anything. "I don't know", he said. "I just figured... I don't know."  The guy who had quad 10s eventually busted losing his $40. The UTG player ended the session down just $20. And that, my friends, is why I love my home game so much. Easy pickins!

Anyway, I have been getting some requests to make this blog a little more interesting so I thought sharing those hands would liven things up a bit. Here's where I'm at right now:

Play Money: 4,794,000 Up 432,000

Real Money: $646.48 Up $108.22

Target for next Cash Game level: $1,000 ($50)

Target for next SnG level: $1,100 ($55)

Target for next MTT level: $1,100 ($22)

This week, I will be playing the $5.50 rebuy tourney every night starting at 8pm. It's a $5,000 guarantee, and I treat it like a regular $5.50. I don't re-buy and I don't add on. I played it twice last week with no luck. First place normally pays between $1,200 and 1,500. I have also been playing the $3.30 SnGs, but may abandon those soon for the $10 cash game. I still haven't decided, but it's certainly nice to have some insurance to work with above $550. $1,000 is the next target and there's a long way to go to get there.