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.

Weekly Bankroll Update 11/25 - 12/1

Well it's back to the peak for me. I didn't make as much as I wanted to last week, but I didn't play as much as I wanted to either. A couple of small wins in the $10 cash game and a 3rd place in a $3 SnG was all that went down. I also played in a "home" game last week with 9 players. Buy in was $40 and I was down $10. No harm no foul though because the buy in was made from personal funds not the bankroll. My cards were atrocious. I lost with trip J's to a full house, a full house to a higher full house, and then with just three hands to go, I picked up As Jc and here's how it went down. First let me say that somehow I was actually ahead $6 when this hand came and I was just trying to get the hell outta there with SOME profit so I really didn't want to play this hand. I was on the button and eight players were in the hand. Flop comes all clubs so I'm sitting on a Jack high flush draw. Everyone checked and the turn was a blank. Everyone checked AGAIN and the river brought a club making me a flush. Incredibly, everyone checked around to me and I bet $1.50 into a $4.00 pot. Small blind raised to $10 and it folded around to me. It made no sense. I was very familiar with the small blind's play and I really didn't think he would check-raise the river with a made flush so I called. Sure enough he turns over Ac 10s. I was livid (not at him of course, well ok maybe a little). Dude, you checked the nuts on the river?!? Sorry Benny, he says. I checked and actually forgot what I had so I looked down and was like Oh! I have the Ace! He accidentally made a very good play in my opinion. Checking the nuts on the river is gutsy but can be extremely profitable if someone has the second best hand. Especially in an 8-handed pot. To me it looked like a bluff. Plus they'd been bluffing me all night and I picked them off several times so this seemed like more of the same. Oh well. Here's where I ended last week:

Play Money: 12,758,000 Down 591,000

Real Money: $1,290.38 Up $4.92

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 will be short due to homework for my class that ends Saturday. Just 7 more Saturdays to go until I finish school and I can't wait. The MBA is in my sights now and I'm getting anxious. I'll get some playing time in this week though so I'm hoping to at least break $1,300.

As a side note, I just wanted to talk a bit about poker players that stream their online sessions. I just joined Twitch last week so I could participate in chat rooms of some of the players I like to watch. There are two in particular I follow: thegoldenblazer and SpaceMexican1. If you're on Twitch definitely check them out. A lot of people have asked me if I'll ever stream my sessions, and I just tell them flatly No. I think it would give other players too much insight into my game allowing them to exploit me somewhere down the road. Now this doesn't mean I'm totally against those that do stream, I just think personally it's not really my thing. I think if I were to use Twitch for anything other then following poker players, it would be to live stream myself playing video games. That would be a lot of fun. I actually like to watch other people play games sometimes especially if I'm thinking about buying one and I just want to see what it's like. For now though, I'll just stick to watching poker streams.