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Not exactly... So during this time I was at 25NL ($0.10-$0.25 blinds) and came with 2 major swings that almost erased my previous gains. I would probably have been up another $200 if I was able to stop myself from tilting. That's what happens when you let running bad, coupled with a series of bad beats get mixed up with bad play.
The next time, I got above $500 bankroll, I did take a shot at 50NL ($0.25-$0.50 blinds) knowing fully well that with the current roll I have, I can easily get myself broke with a string of bad luck, and worse if mixed with its twin brother bad play. BR went up to a little over $700 briefly, and had its lows at around $450 all in 8000 hands. This time around though, during those brief few thousand hands that I was running bad, I kept checking myself to see if I was tilting and playing bad... not there anymore. Still I have to make conscious effort preparing for unlucky streaks that come in cycles and making sure that I still have my head.
A week of roller coaster action, and I'm up to $672.69, got to Goldstar VIP Level in the process, cleared a $50 milestone credit and 6,253 VIP points. Well at least when things start to go really bad, I'll be able to cash in my points for $75 + $50 = $125. That would be enough to start a beautiful new beginning in case I go broke.
I'm hoping to break the $1000 bankroll, by next week. Cheers.
What excites me most is that this time around I am building my bankroll from $0. I've never done it this way before and it might come in handy in case another improbable catastrophic event sends me to the rail. Before this, bankroll building came down to a formula that I learned how to skip the ugly parts and go straight to the easy part. Basically, whenever I return to poker, I just start with a $400 deposit through my BPI mastercard at pokerstars and start grinding $4.40 180-mans with $3.30, $4.40 and $5.50 MTTs until I get to $1000. It almost never fails. Then work my way from there.
This time, I came back broke (online) as I somehow managed to go broke with the $500 I initially deposited. My real life finances and ventures prevented me from redepositing again soon, perhaps I could have at the end of December soonest. I guess this was a blessing in disguise, as I learned a great way to start a beautiful new beginning. Plus I got the opportunity to work on my cash games strategy which has always bored me in the past.
With the busy life I'm living between business, family and financial obligations, cash games might be the way to go for me in the future for a very good reason -- I can quit whenever I quit. Take for example my adorable 5-year old autistic little girl who like to bother me in the middle of my play time. For me this means I need to quit playing as in NOW to attend to her needs. If I was in the middle of a tournament, this would be disastrous, as it can last from 5 to 9 hours. But with cash games, thankfully I'm done as soon as I sit out.
I'll post a screenshot of my online bankroll as soon as I get a copy of a photoediting software as my new Acer Aspire Core i3/Geforce GT630m laptop doesn't have any when I installed the Windows 8 release preview last August.
More to come...
and here i am. I can't believe it's been 4 years since I last wrote in this blog. So what went on during that time you say? Well, Life happened. Among others, my little girl now turned 5, built a small business in Caticlan, I was in a brink of death with my gallbladder about to explode (had a surgery to remove it) and of course my share of highs and lows of poker.
Mind you I didn't quit in poker. Or maybe I did, then came back, and quit again and came back. It's more of breaks from poker rather than throwing the towel for good. It's a love-hate relationship, but I always returned. I've had streaks of losing months, but I never had losing years since 2008.
Part time poker has also contributed about 1/3 of my total income yearly. Sometimes a little bit higher or lower but it enabled me to afford a few frivolous things for my long time girl friend, Kaye.
So what's new? This past couple of weeks I came back with zero dollars, and 900 FPPs @ pokerstars. This year I took several financial hits and unexpected expenses in life, so I can't afford to deposit a proper starting bankroll of $500 for me to start with the $4.40 that I always crush. I played a few FPP turbos and turbo rebuy tourneys, unregistered in target tournaments and ended up with $17 Tourney dollars and about 30 FPPs left. Over the past week, I played mostly $1.50 90-man knockouts, $2.50 90-mans, $1.10 MTTs and ended up with $107.79.
It's so fucking boring to start over again from scratch. But that's how I keep doing it when building bankrolls. I'll probably keep doing this until I have about $400 or I get bored. Next stop will be the $3.30, $4.40 and $5.50 MTTs. One of these days, I'll sit down and focus for a few months to build a more real bankroll so I can finally graduate from the microstakes and move to the mid-high stakes tourneys. The height of my career was probably close to $10k roll before life took its share of the spoils.
Stay tuned for more on my comeback...
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.
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. :)
