With luck, from India

Hi autheking, glad to see you blogging!

I think your story will be an interesting one so I'll be a follower.

I don't think you can blame yourself for the whole FT thing, as much as we try to see into the future it is quite hard to do! I just hope your bankroll didn't suffer too much, as some have.

Oh, nice job turning the 50 into 500 bye the way! ♠_cool:

Regards and have fun,

Mal.

so do you have a bankroll now?
what did u play on FTP?

@stripofbacon: stay tuned!

#2

So I got my $50 deposit on FullTilt. My plan was to grind micro stakes sngs to begin with.By then I had read all 3 volumes of Harrington on Hold'em( which I highly recommend to any new sng or mtt player), so I was pretty confident in my tournament game.

But when I saw the games , the lowest stakes were $1+.2, so clearly the rake was higher that I expected. So I decided to stay away from STTs and play NL2 FR instead. I clearly had no idea how to play cash games and ended up losing 4 buyins in my first 50 hands. So I decided that I was done with Cash games and started looking for other games, the one that really caught my eye was $1+.1 single table hyperturbos, the structure was very fast, you start with 30bb and the blinds go up every 2 minutes. Initially I ran very good at those but after about 100 of those I was pretty much break even. Also the games were just push or fold games and not really "poker".

So I decided to switch to $1+.1 45 man sngs. They were alot of fun and I ended up taking down the very second tourney I played. That really boosted my bankroll. So there I was grinding 45 mans , mostly 3 tabling, as I didn't have HM back then.

I think I played 45 mans till my bankroll was $75, but the only problem with them was that they lasted for a very long time, about 1.5 to 2 hrs if you got deep. Begin a student I also needed time to study and it would be very frustrating to play for 1.5 hrs and then bubble. Also I had read some articles by coaches and most of them recommended to play cash over sngs as they are lower variance. So I decided it was time to switch. Cash games here I come.

Full tilt?

@liguolong: Yes, this was before the black friday.

what happened after black friday?

@dwyt84: keep reading to find out!

#3

So when I decided to play cash my first task was to select which strategy to play. For some reason I decided to play MSS instead of BSS. I honestly don't remember why, I think it was because that way I would risk a lower part of my bankroll to play at higher stakes.

For those who don't know about MSS, its a 40bb full ring strategy. You sit down with 40bb and play your hands strictly according to a starting hands chart and stand up once you hit 50bb. Coming from a tournament background, it was easy for me to play a 40bb stack. But MSS has its drawbacks, it is difficult to bluff with a 40bb stack, and also it is high variance as you find yourself flipping alot pre flop and most of your decisions post flop are for your entire stack. Also you don't learn any post flop skills as you rarely go to turns and rivers.

So I started playing MSS at NL5 and had alot of success with it initially. I ran my bankroll up to $100 and was feeling really confident. Then I played a 1.5k hands session on rush( 2 tabling on rush you can hit that number in a couple of hours), and lost about $30. I was having my first downswing! I did not know how to deal with it and so I saw a ton of mss videos and started posting my hands on forums.

But that did not help and soon I was down to my starting capital of $50. I decided to continue playing hoping that the downswing will end soon if I keep playing the right strategy. But soon I was down to $22 and feeling very depressed , I had lost all confidence in my game. I thought my dream of playing poker would be over soon once I lose my last 22 bucks. It felt like the end of the world...