When you're not used to NOT making the final table

2008-07-02T17:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday July 2 was very uneventful. I spent about $80 in tournament buyins, and made zero final tables. To my surprise, I still managed to be up $20 mostly out of ITM cashes close to the final table. Today July 3 was very uneventful. Again zero final tables. I probably spent about $120 in tournament buyins today.

Now this is bothering me. Occasionally, I get into cold streaks. My longest cold streak in Fulltilt was 100 tournaments before I made my next final table. Since last month, my longest losing streak was probably just around 20 games, maybe less. Today, I was probably about 25 tournaments downstream.

I'm so not used to not winning anymore. Not making a final table when you have done it with regular frequency raises bells that there's something wrong. I think I might need a break and get a slightly different outlook.

Anyway, that's a 2 day setback. I'll see if I can get back on track tomorrow. I still have $4,100 to grind.

Bankroll building for a living: $22,000

2008-07-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

After playing poker for 3 years, mostly tournaments, my skills on the table has finally matured. The past 6 months have been marked by a consistent turn of profit out of playing Multi-table Tournaments for me. So I guess it will be just a matter of time before I can finally build a sizeable bankroll to finally do this for a living. He he...

Optimally, to be able to play regularly at the highest stakes online at pokerstars and Fulltilt, I will need a proper sized bankroll of about 100 buyins. Since games of $109-$216 are abundant on both sites on a daily basis, this will be my target base buyin. This means I will be needing around $22,000.

Last month (June 2008) was a particularly good month for me. I made a net profit of about $4,100++ out of playing MTTs. My biggest win was at $1,592 from 1500 player $5.50 6-max tourney last June 30 followed by my $800 seat for the Filipino poker tour which I won via $92+8 ($100) buyin 3-seat guarantee tourney at pokerstars. By the way, I exchanged the $800 seat for a full T$800 at pokerstars (better than the $500-$550 spot cash offered to me by fellow Pinoy players). The rest which is about $1600 came from my regular bread and butter -- the $4.40 180 sngs. Almost everyday, I came with a target of at least 1 final table. And I made at least 1 final table everyday, sometimes 2 even 3 final tables. Here is a link to my latest tourney performance courtesy of Official Poker Rankings:
http://officialpokerrankings.com/pokerstars/ak97b/poker/results/A6A58677F74349C9A615160390BF5272.html?t=2

One thing I did notice however that my living expenses have gone up substantially. Last month I cashed out a total of $1300 to cover for living expenses (not to mention doctor's fees, medicines... perhaps poker players should get a health insurance plan?...). I think this burn rate is above normal in the Philippines. I did remember buying my girlfriend, Kaye, a new Nokia N73 for P14,000, so that's a big chunk of it (that was on top of the Asus EEE PC 900 I bought her for P23,000 last May).

Perhaps have I bought her a china-made Nokia N73 clone instead, it would only cost me less than P5,000. But she chose that phone. And she's very happy. So I'm happy.

The past 6 months, after my cashouts, I usually have my $400-$500 left in my bankroll and it hasn't grown much. This was when I was playing MTTs and 180 sng's at Fulltiltpoker. But since I started playing at pokerstars again, the rate at which I can win at tourneys has increased tremendously. From the 4-5 tourneys at Fulltilt, I'm able to play 20-25 tourneys a day at pokerstars, mostly 6-tabling at the early stages of tourneys. Since, I played more tourneys, my win rate has increased dramatically.

Currently my Bankroll as of July 1, 2008 stands at $2,661.07. That means, with strict bankroll management, I should be able to play as much as a $26 buyin. Right now, I'm playing $2.20, $4.40, $5.50, $8.80, $11, and $16.50 tourneys and some $3.30 rebuy tourneys. I don't think I would be able to play $11 180 sngs as much as I play $4.40's simply because they don't fill up as fast. Sometimes, it takes a whole hour to get 180 players to sign up in $11 180's whereas 4-5 $4.40 tourneys start in one hour.

My target by July 31, 2008 is to accumulate at least $4,000 in tourney profits where another $1300 is schedule for cashout on or before the end of the month. Perhaps by the end of the year, I'll reach my $22,000 bankroll target. That's yet to be seen. :)

The Microstakes Tourney Player

When you're not used to NOT making the final table

Bankroll building for a living: $22,000