[Closed] How far will $50 get me?

Week 1 Update

My plan wasn't fully formed at the start of the week when I first deposited my $50. In an attempt to stick to proper BRM, I started off 4-tabling $1.50 STTs, and proceeded to lose $10 in my first night back in just 10 games. I almost cashed out and gave up, but decided to sleep on it and figure out a new plan...

Tuesday started with a bankroll of barely $40, so I decided to just have fun with it and play the games I enjoy the most, so I registered for the $2.20 $8k guaranteed and $2.75 $10 guaranteed MTTs, and play $2.50 180s alongside them to maintain 4 tables at a time. I final tabled 2 of the 180s, and was 5th out of 10 remaining and above average chips in the $8K when Pokerstars decided to give up for the night and reboot their servers, resulting in payouts based on my current chip stack in the two I was running well in, which was frustrating, especially in the 180 because I was in a good position to go for a win in that one after a 3rd place and 7th place earlier in the session. On the plus side, I'd finished up $70 for the session, which left my bankroll at ~$110.

Having doubled my bankroll on Tuesday, I was hoping for a repeat performance on Wednesday, so registered fr the same tournies as the night before. I had a deep run in the $10K, and ended up finishing 130th for ~$10. That deep run meant my session was much longer than I originally planned, and totalled 11 hours in the end! I did get through 32 180s in that time though, finishing 2nd in 2 of them, and final tabling another and picking up a couple more min-cashes. On the downside, I played for 5 hours in the $10K for just a $7 profit, and I wasn't in the best of moods when I woke up on Thursday morning after only 4 hours sleep. So although it was a good session, adding another $120 to the bankroll, I decided not to play any more MTTs for a while unless I know I'll be able to have a long lie in the next day. It should also help to reduce my variance as well.

I started Thursday with a balance of ~$240, but a stinking headache that felt like a hangover after being up so late the night before. I never should have played in that state, but I felt untouchable after the previous couple of days, and couldn't resist trying to double my bankroll for the third day in a row. Of course it didn't work out that way, and I managed to play 20 180s without a single cash finish, which blew a $50 hole in bankroll, and put me back below $200.

Which leads me to yesterday. I decided to play the $3.50 45s alongside the $2.50 180s, playing 2 or 3 of each at a time. I'm adding the 45s to the mix in an attempt to reduce my variance. I know from experience last summer that it's perfectly possible, and indeed likely, that I'll go 20, 30, 50 consecutive 180s without a win, and while I'm still playing with only 80 buyins in my bankroll that's a pretty big risk. It paid off almost straight away, as I won one of the first 45s I played, adding $45 to the bankroll and covering the previous days losses straight away. This also gave me a much needed confidence boost after the previous day, which helped with the 180s. I cashed in a couple of them too, and also managed to pick up my first win in the 180s since last year.

Week 1 Graph

Overall, I couldn't be happier with how this first week has gone. I'd hoped to be around $100 by this point, so to be more than double that is a great early boost, especially when I started with only 20 buyins. I know I could have just as easily started on a downswing and gone bust almost immediately. I even had runs of 20+ games without a cash during this small sample size, I've just been very lucky that they came after a couple of good results.

I won't get much play in for the next few days now, I've got my kids with me this weekend, it's the Champions League final tonight and I'm off to Manchester tomorrow to watch the mighty Posh in the League 1 play-off final. But I'll hopefully try to continue my hot streak when I get back into it on Monday, and I'll keep you up to date with how I get on.

Kevin

Session 2 Update

This update actually spans two sessions, I played for a couple of hours on Saturday night after the Champions League final which wasn't included above, and then again today.

I attempted to 6-table on Saturday for a couple of hours to try and get my volume up. I used to 6-table when I played cash games, but I'd never done it successfully in tournaments. My session on Saturday kept that run going! I played 6 180s, and didn't cash in any of them, and 7 45s, picking up a 2nd place in one of them, but missing the money on the rest. That left me down just short of $10 for the session, and I gave up after less than 2 hours to go to bed.

Today's session was an exercise in frustration and persistance! I started off 6-tabling again for the first 3 hours or so, again splitting half and half between the 45s and the 180s. Not a lot was going my way, I wasn't winning any coin flips and I got sucked out on a few times. For some reason, my brain decided that this was all the fault of the 45s! I played 12 today, and cashed in a couple of them, but still finished nearly $30 down on them, which isn't a disaster - I've had far worse days in the 180s before. But for some reason, I just started to really resent them! I just don't enjoy the 45s, I think it affected my game, both in the 45s themselves and in the 180s I was playing alongside them. I got so frustrated that I ended up having to take a break for a few hours to practice some ICM, because I started to completely lose confidence in my entire game. I even blinded out in my last couple of 180s, something I never let myself do, because I just lost the confidence to make the decision to push at the right time.

Looking back now, I should have called a stop to that session as soon as I started to get annoyed, because by letting it go on for too long, I lost far more money than I should have.

Anyway, after a couple of hours break, and some ICM training, I felt confident in my game again, so I fired Pokerstars back up. I decided to drop the 45s because I just don't like them and focus on only the 180s from now on. I also dropped back down to 4-tabling, because it was more important to be able to really focus and start making good decisions again. There's no use doing a load of volume if I'm losing every game.

This session seemed to pick up where I'd left off earlier in the day though. I was still losing every coin flip, and nothing seemed to be coming off for me. After a couple of hours, I again cut the session short because it just didn't seem to be my day, and started to wind down the tables I had open.

Once I was down to just one table, my fortune started to change. I don't know if it was just variance coming back in my favour, or if it was a sign that I should stop the multi-tabling whilst I'm still learning the game, but I started to accumulate chips in my last game of the day. In the end I went into the final table as a solid chip leader, and held that position all the way through to the finish. By the time there were four left, I had more than half the chips in play, and things just kept running well for me. Throughout the entire final table, my chips only went in when I had the best of it, and all my hands held. It was vindication for the previous 7 hours of frustration, and I won the tournament with my only 180 cash of the day!

All in all, it was a bizarre session which included a near 40-game cashless streak, but at least it came good in the end. I've decided to forget about the 45s for a while, and concentrate just on the 180s, and hopefully I can get another long session in on them tomorrow, hopefully without the losing streak!

I only played a short session today, broke even over 8 games, so I'll save the stats and graph for tomorrows update. It could have been a much more profitable session if this hadn't happened 5-handed at the final table of my last game:

PokerStars - $2.28+$0.22|1500/3000 NL (9 max) - Holdem - 5 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

BTN: 69,015.00
Hero (SB): 41,938.00
BB: 50,097.00
UTG: 59,572.00
CO: 49,378.00

BTN posts ante 300.00, Hero posts ante 300.00, BB posts ante 300.00, UTG posts ante 300.00, CO posts ante 300.00, Hero posts SB 1,500.00, BB posts BB 3,000.00

Pre Flop: (6000.00) Hero has A♦ A♥

fold, fold, BTN raises to 68,715.00 and is all-in, Hero calls 40,138.00 and is all-in, fold

Flop: (87776.00, 2 players) 5♠ 6♠ 3♠

Turn: (87776.00, 2 players) 7♠

River: (87776.00, 2 players) 8♦

Hero shows A♦ A♥ (One Pair, Aces) (Pre 80%, Flop 93%, Turn 80%)
BTN shows J♦ 9♦ (Straight, Nine High) (Pre 20%, Flop 7%, Turn 20%)
BTN wins 87,776.00

I thought I was in a great position to win the entire tournament after the flop, but I guess sometimes things aren't meant to be...

Did I play this hand badly? Or was I just unlucky? I'm in the middle of one of those sessions where nothing seems to be coming off, I'm hoping it's just bad luck and I'm not asking for it with my bet sizing. I've been drawn out on a lot today...

PokerStars - $2.28+$0.22|50/100 NL (9 max) - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

BTN: 2,960.00
Hero (SB): 2,175.00
BB: 1,500.00
UTG: 3,300.00
UTG+1: 320.00
MP: 1,750.00
MP+1: 1,880.00
CO: 1,745.00

Hero posts SB 50.00, BB posts BB 100.00

Pre Flop: (150.00) Hero has A♥ Q♣

fold, fold, MP raises to 200.00, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 700.00, fold, MP calls 500.00

Flop: (1500.00, 2 players) Q♠ 4♥ 6♠
Hero bets 750.00, MP calls 750.00

Turn: (3000.00, 2 players) A♣
Hero bets 725.00 and is all-in, MP calls 300.00 and is all-in

River: (3600.00, 2 players) 3♦

Hero shows A♥ Q♣ (Two Pair, Aces and Queens) (Pre 61%, Flop 64%, Turn 82%)
MP shows 7♥ 5♥ (Straight, Seven High) (Pre 39%, Flop 36%, Turn 18%)
MP wins 3,600.00

just unlucky, he will loose money int eh long run going all in to straight draws with 1 card remaining. the odds were in your favour so it was just unlucky

Originally posted by plebpl
just unlucky, he will loose money int eh long run going all in to straight draws with 1 card remaining. the odds were in your favour so it was just unlucky

Thanks for your feedback.

This hand has really got to me! I've had to stop playing while I work it through in my head! Was I right to play it in the first place there do you think? He'd been raising around a third of the hands up to this point, so I was fairly confident that he didn't have much of a hand, but should I have just called to try and keep the pot small considering I was still in the early stages of the tournament? Or was I right to try and get as much money in the pot as possible to try and stack him?

weather you called or raised dousnt matter, the outcome of that hand would have been the same, personally i would have called to see a flop and if i missed let it go

Seems like your doing well. But these tournaments have really high variance. i've seen people's graph with 100+ BI swings in the 180s. Your getting near to proper bankroll management. But still i think you were begging to go busto by playing them with 15-20 buyins.

I'd start by being really honest about how good you are in poker skill-wise, study a lot and follow proper bankroll management. Because i really don't want to be saying "told you so" when you bust cause you think you can play tournaments with 50bi brm.

If you actually want to improve then post real questionable hands and not hands that are clearly bad beats.

Originally posted by plebpl
just unlucky, he will loose money int eh long run going all in to straight draws with 1 card remaining.

Villain was getting 11:1 on the all-in call, he would have been correct to do that with a gutshot (but then his flop call would have been incorrect).

Originally posted by plebpl
weather you called or raised dousnt matter, the outcome of that hand would have been the same, personally i would have called to see a flop and if i missed let it go

I'm leaning towards calling rather than raising now I think. I think the raise probably commited too many of my chips, and didn't really give me a lot of room to back away from the hand.

Originally posted by Hahaownedlolz
Seems like your doing well. But these tournaments have really high variance. i've seen people's graph with 100+ BI swings in the 180s. Your getting near to proper bankroll management. But still i think you were begging to go busto by playing them with 15-20 buyins.

I'd start by being really honest about how good you are in poker skill-wise, study a lot and follow proper bankroll management. Because i really don't want to be saying "told you so" when you bust cause you think you can play tournaments with 50bi brm.

If you actually want to improve then post real questionable hands and not hands that are clearly bad beats.

I plan on following proper bankroll management once I've got the balance to allow me to. The problem I've got is that the only games I've ever been able to beat are these 180s, and the $2.50s are the cheapest ones to play. I don't plan on moving up to the $8 180s until my bankroll is at $1000, so hopefully that should avoid me busting any big money.

My view on it at the moment is if I bust playing the $2.50s, I've only lost $50 so I'll just reload and start again. Can't really take that attitude into the bigger games though...

As far as posting hands go, I was genuinely doubting my play on this hand - I'd had about 4 or 5 bad beats in the previous couple of hours, and wasn't sure if it had caused me to tilt and affected my judgement. I'm hoping now that I can chalk this one up as another bad beat and sit and wait for variance to pay me back!

Originally posted by Vempele
Villain was getting 11:1 on the all-in call, he would have been correct to do that with a gutshot (but then his flop call would have been incorrect).

That's an interesting point - do you think should have bet bigger (all-in most likely) on the flop, to ensure he was never in a position to make a correct decision?

Session 3 Update

I guess that was a fairly standard session in the 180s. Long periods without cashing, with a couple of wins thrown in to rescue the session and make the stats look good! What it really tells me is that I need to push on and increase my multi-tabling. I struggle to play more than 4 games at a time at the moment, so over a 12 hour session I only played 56 games.

I don't want to force the multi-tabling before I'm ready for it, especially as I'm still operating with a small bankroll and don't want to go bust pushing myself too far, but at the same time I can't wait until I get to the point where I can get through that volume of games in 3 or 4 hours, because it'll then offer a decent hourly rate (assuming my win rate doesn't reduce too much).

Over the course of this session, I managed one first place, one second, and a few smaller cashes, including a 210th place finish in the $10K guaranteed. I can't decide whether it's worth continuing to play the large field MTTs, because it only paid $7.50 for 5 hours of play, but there's always the possibility of picking up a $1000 score, so I suppose as long as I don't lose money in them, and I continue to play the 180s alongside them, they're not doing me any harm.

The grind continues tomorrow, another day without my kids, so hoping to get another 12 hours in because they're then with me for the weekend, so I won't get much play in then.

Session 4 Update

Today's session was really disrupted because of the issues with Pokerstars all afternoon. 180s weren't registering properly, and were only appearing in the lobby every 5 minutes or so, and filling up very quickly. After an hour so, they stopped appearing altogether, and I started to wind down my session with a plan to try again later, having only played 5 games at this point.

Just as I got down to the final table on the only game I had open, a new table popped up on my screen. I've never panicked so much in my life - it was a $200 18-man SNG. I hadn't registered for it, and obviously had no desire at all to see half my bankroll disappear in one game, let alone in a game type that I'd never played before! The panic of that game appearing, being terrified to play a hand, and sending loads of messages to Pokerstars, means I can't remember the 180 final table at all now. Looking at Pokertracker, it seems I finished 7th, but I can't remember it at all! I also bubbled the $200 SNG. At this point, I was fuming, because not only had Pokerstars helped themselves to half my bankroll, but they'd cost me a potential win in a 180 as well.

At least I now know what tilt feels like! I left poker alone completely for a good 3 or so hours, doing nothing but messaging Pokerstars support and checking my cashier.

By around 6pm I'd calmed myself down, and the Pokerstars software problems were finally sorted, so I started firing up 180s again. About an hour into this second part of the session, I finally got my $200 back from Pokerstars, and got to 2 final tables all within about 10 minutes! I picked up a second place and a 6th place, and suddenly my bankroll had gone up by $300 in a few minutes! People warned me that variance was big in the 180s, but I wasn't prepared for an afternoon like that!

From then on, it was a fairly uneventful session, I felt I was playing pretty well, but the cards weren't really running for me, I got fairly deep in quite a few games, but nothing came off when it got to the push/fold stage around the bubble, and I kept losing races. Somehow I still managed to finish up for the day!

I probably won't get a lot of play in over the weekend because I've got my kids with me, I might get a couple of hours in in the evenings once they've gone to bed, but there'll be no daytime or late night play, so not a lot of volume. Unless something particularly interesting happens, I won't post again until Sunday night/Monday morning so that there's a decent sample of games to look at.

I've also been having a think about bankroll management as I'm nearing the point where I'll be looking to move up in stakes, and want to do it properly after starting in the $2.50s with only 20 buyins. My plan at this point is to move up to the $4.50s once I hit $600, with a stop loss of $450 to bring me back down to the $2.50s. I'll then move up to the $8s when I get to $1000 (stop loss $800), the $15s at $2000 (stop loss $1500) and the $35s at $4500 (stop loss $3500). The general idea being to move up at 125 buyins, and move back down again if I fall below 100 buyins.

The other thing I'm trying to decide is how to proceed with multi-tabling. I'm not sure whether I'm better off staying in the $2.50s until I can play 8-10 tables (I 4-table at the moment), or whether I'd be better off moving up the limits and worrying about volume later. I'd welcome any thoughts or advice on that.

Thanks

Kevin

This may look like a bad beat tale looking for sympathy, but I promise you it's not!

PokerStars - $2.28+$0.22|600/1200 NL (9 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

SB: 12,698.00
Hero (BB): 13,935.00
UTG: 8,517.00
MP: 10,872.00
CO: 11,108.00
BTN: 8,457.00

SB posts ante 125.00, Hero posts ante 125.00, UTG posts ante 125.00, MP posts ante 125.00, CO posts ante 125.00, BTN posts ante 125.00, SB posts SB 600.00, Hero posts BB 1,200.00

Pre Flop: (2550.00) Hero has K♦ A♥

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to 12,573.00 and is all-in, Hero calls 11,373.00

Flop: (25896.00, 2 players) A♣ 4♦ 4♥

Turn: (25896.00, 2 players) T♥

River: (25896.00, 2 players) 3♥

SB shows J♥ 6♥ (Flush, Jack High) (Pre 36%, Flop 4%, Turn 18%)
Hero shows K♦ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours) (Pre 64%, Flop 96%, Turn 82%)
SB wins 25,896.00

This hand was on the bubble of a 180-man SNG. The villain was a reg at the $2.50 180s, so I knew he would have a really wide shoving range in this spot, and I was certain that AKo was well ahead of his range. I got berated in the chatbox for calling on the bubble with AK though. Am I right to call in this spot? As far as I'm concerned, I win in that spot more than 60% of the time, and when I win I'm one of the chip leaders of the tournament with a great shot at winning, but if I lose I bubble or min-cash. If I fold, I stay on about average chips and in the money, and can then carry on make an assault on the final table.

So what's the right play here?

Glad to see you're back and doing well.

Originally posted by lollujo
This may look like a bad beat tale looking for sympathy, but I promise you it's not!

PokerStars - $2.28+$0.22|600/1200 NL (9 max) - Holdem - 6 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 3

SB: 12,698.00
Hero (BB): 13,935.00
UTG: 8,517.00
MP: 10,872.00
CO: 11,108.00
BTN: 8,457.00

SB posts ante 125.00, Hero posts ante 125.00, UTG posts ante 125.00, MP posts ante 125.00, CO posts ante 125.00, BTN posts ante 125.00, SB posts SB 600.00, Hero posts BB 1,200.00

Pre Flop: (2550.00) Hero has K♦ A♥

fold, fold, fold, fold, SB raises to 12,573.00 and is all-in, Hero calls 11,373.00

Flop: (25896.00, 2 players) A♣ 4♦ 4♥

Turn: (25896.00, 2 players) T♥

River: (25896.00, 2 players) 3♥

SB shows J♥ 6♥ (Flush, Jack High) (Pre 36%, Flop 4%, Turn 18%)
Hero shows K♦ A♥ (Two Pair, Aces and Fours) (Pre 64%, Flop 96%, Turn 82%)
SB wins 25,896.00

This hand was on the bubble of a 180-man SNG. The villain was a reg at the $2.50 180s, so I knew he would have a really wide shoving range in this spot, and I was certain that AKo was well ahead of his range. I got berated in the chatbox for calling on the bubble with AK though. Am I right to call in this spot? As far as I'm concerned, I win in that spot more than 60% of the time, and when I win I'm one of the chip leaders of the tournament with a great shot at winning, but if I lose I bubble or min-cash. If I fold, I stay on about average chips and in the money, and can then carry on make an assault on the final table.

So what's the right play here?

easy call, this mtt r top heavy so realy doent matter if u bust on buble or like 7, so in order to get top 3 u need to have chips which makes this trivial easy call

u should download The ICM Trainer and practice + download SNG wizard u have free trial 15 or 30 days and u can figure out in which spots to shove/call is +EV with what ranges vs diferend kind of villains(calling/shoving tight, loose etc) when u manipulate with calling ranges... so first practice with ICM trainer -> then download free trial of sng wizard

also u should learn to MT 6+ tables before u move up and grind,

and u got to have solid bankrool management cos this 180 r very swingy and when u r multitabeling them u had to have at least 100 buy ins to play them comfortably

gl

GL from another Brit with mouths to feed!

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Glad to see you're back and doing well.

Thanks. Have you been down to Dusk Till Dawn lately? I never did make it over there last summer, but I'm hoping to get over there at some point next weekend for my live debut. Any tips?

Originally posted by bonebt
easy call, this mtt r top heavy so realy doent matter if u bust on buble or like 7, so in order to get top 3 u need to have chips which makes this trivial easy call

X X X

u should download The ICM Trainer and practice + download SNG wizard u have free trial 15 or 30 days and u can figure out in which spots to shove/call is +EV with what ranges vs diferend kind of villains(calling/shoving tight, loose etc) when u manipulate with calling ranges... so first practice with ICM trainer -> then download free trial of sng wizard

also u should learn to MT 6+ tables before u move up and grind,

and u got to have solid bankrool management cos this 180 r very swingy and when u r multitabeling them u had to have at least 100 buy ins to play them comfortably

gl

Thanks. The call made more sense to me, like you say because of the top heavy structure, I'm always more concerned with putting myself in a position to win rather than just making the money.

As for all the software stuff, I have the ICM Trainer, and use it before every session for a couple of hundred hands as a warm up. I've found I disagree with it sometimes and don't understand why though, so ICM in general is something I want to explore a bit further to try and understand the theory behind it. I tried to assess that hand using it last night, but from what I could tell there was no way to tell it that I was on the bubble, and I assumed that would have a big impact on an ICM decision, unless I'm misunderstanding what ICM is.

I have SNG Wizard already, but I've never really got on with it. Do you really think it'll help with the 180s?

Originally posted by Tim64
GL from another Brit with mouths to feed!

Thanks. If I could feed some mouths using poker, that'll stop me having to sell a kidney come mid-August! Regardless of what my bankroll is at the time, I need to cash out about £350 (which I guess is about $500) to tide me over until my next batch of student finance in September. The risk averse side of me thinks I should just cash out the whole lot once I hit $500 and give up poker again until September, whilst the degenerate side is telling me if I keep up my current volume and ROI I could have over $1000 by then and cashout without it hurting my bankroll too much.

Originally posted by lollujo

Originally posted by jbpatzer
Glad to see you're back and doing well.

Thanks. Have you been down to Dusk Till Dawn lately? I never did make it over there last summer, but I'm hoping to get over there at some point next weekend for my live debut. Any tips?

I've not been back after my first visit. I want to go back when my bankroll is big enough that when I bust out of the MTT I can go and play cash. That way I don't need to be scared money in the MTT.

Tips? It's all about keeping track of those bloody chips. So easy online. So confusing live. Good luck. Full report please.

Originally posted by jbpatzer
I've not been back after my first visit. I want to go back when my bankroll is big enough that when I bust out of the MTT I can go and play cash. That way I don't need to be scared money in the MTT.

Tips? It's all about keeping track of those bloody chips. So easy online. So confusing live. Good luck. Full report please.

I fully expect to be unable to keep track of the chips, not helped by being colour blind! Expect my report to be one of two options:

1. Pushed all in with A4o with 25 big blinds from mid position because I thought I only had 3 big blinds left and panicked.

2. Thought I was doing fine until they took my last chips away from me to post a big blind.

Either way I expect to make a fool of myself and get nowhere near the money, but hopefully it'll be good fun.