How Mantelo won almost $100k starting at freerolls

We chat to the Bankroll Challenge legend about study, setting challenges, big wins, and buying art.

Congrats on the very big win. What does a $65k score mean to you in your regular life and poker career? 

mantelo: Hello PokerStrategy readers and thanks Barry for having a couple of minutes with me. This score is my 2nd biggest overall and my Top win online. However, this won’t change my life too much, I am not into fancy things and I don’t need much to live a happy and enjoyable life. The only thing that could change is I could use this bankroll for live event satellites that are offered by GG. On the other hand, it could be a perfect way to add another continent to my travel map. 

Is it bittersweet when such a big score is a 2nd place result?

mantelo: It would have been nice to win just for the bragging rights and avatar update, but the monetary difference between 1st and 2nd wasn’t that big. So no harsh feelings for finishing second as it was enough to complete my bankroll challenge.

"I was prepared for a steady marathon"

It took 72 weeks to reach your BR challenge goal. How long did you think it would take? 

mantelo: 72 weeks for a bankroll challenge might sound like a long period of time, but I was prepared for a steady marathon. The toughest point in this challenge is the start itself because I had to leap from zero by winning one of the rare freerolls at GG. I got $2 and had to play as low stakes as NL2 cash games not to burn it instantly.

You were behind your study goal hours this year but you put in a significant shift more recently, how crucial was this to the big result?

mantelo: Little by little my bankroll increased and when I reached $100 buy-in tournaments, I started to question myself if this is the ceiling for my game level. Even on my blog one of the readers made a slightly mocking comment about my progress. Not sure if he really wanted to insult me, but I turned those words into extra fuel for motivation and studying. I was behind my yearly goal for studying hours, but recently that I am catching those numbers. Not only in quantity but in quality itself, as I feel my efforts are producing better results than before.

"I need to put challenges on myself"

I didn’t realise you started at freerolls. Why did you do this when you were already an established poker player?

mantelo: Poker might be monotonic at times, so I need to put some kind of challenges on myself. And starting from freeroll is the best challenge for me. Plus, whenever I join a new poker site, I first want to test the software itself and look at the graphics and overall impression. Sometimes I still hear people saying that it is impossible to beat micro stakes due to high rake, but my instance proves it wrong.

Generally speaking, what is your game selection and volume like? 

mantelo: Tuesdays and Thursdays are reserved for studying only and not playing. That leaves three days to play for me. Tuesday and Friday are for morning sessions while Sunday evening is like a Grand Finale of the week. Not only there are prestigious tournaments on the line, but it is the best day for live event satellites. Combined with PokerStars, I can run a reasonable session as I don’t play more than eight tables at once anyway. The only drawback is that there are no tournaments on mornings that give more than $5k for the first place and that’s exactly one of my goals for the year.

It's interesting that you play MTTs mostly in the morning. Do you think that it's softer because less good regulars do that?

mantelo: You probably won’t see too many world-class regulars in the morning games, but there are still plenty of talented players. Because the player pool is much smaller, I have to battle with the same players that I respect a lot. For instance, the highest game on PokerStars in the morning is the $162 Pacific Rim Special tournament which attracts only around 30 players, and usually 20 players are the same good regulars. I wouldn’t say that the games are much softer in the mornings, but because of fewer entrants, you can decrease the variance. Also, the length of the sessions doesn’t take more than six hours in the mornings, so I still have enough time and energy later in the day.

Why did you set the goal to buy more art, and have you got something special lined up after this win?

mantelo: I love art, my wife enjoys painting herself so I thought it would be a great motivational tool to run a Sunday session as it is very easy for the human brain to pick Sunday as the Rest for the end of the week.

"Maybe it's time for a WSOP event"

What countries do you have left on your travel goal list? Do you just base that on where you win satellites?

mantelo: Sadly most of their Live stops are in Asia and not so much in Europe. I still remember my first poker trip to Nice, France, a majestic location that paid a huge part of my satellite hunting for the future. I tend to have around eight travels a year and usually only one of them is not poker related.

What form of study does your study take?

mantelo: Tuesdays and Thursdays are reserved for studying only and not playing. That includes updating my blog, watching PokerStrategy videos (Yes, I’m still doing it), reviewing my tournaments and checking some spots at PioSolver. On Tuesday evening before sleep, I turn on the GG Masters 10k event Final Table which is commentated by Jeff Gross and a guest while on Thursday evening I pick one of the Live Final tables. Works perfectly as a motivation and practical lesson for me.

Last question – what are your next goals that you have not shared yet, maybe for 2024?

mantelo: Maybe it is time for WSOP Main Event entrance?  I saw that WSOP Europe is taking place this year in Rozvadov, so it is still possible I will make an entrance here. If not for the Main, at least for some lower events.

What is the Bankroll Challenge?

In the Bankroll Challenge we encourage our members to get better by blogging about their poker journey and setting some ambitious goals.

Our members found that having a blog kept them accountable to their goals and it's a great way to help them get to know their fellow PokerStrategists. As the saying goes 'what gets measured, gets managed' and simply having a blog keeps you on your A-Game.

To help you on your journey and with a little bit of luck you can win $100 that we will raffle once a month among our active bloggers, regardless of where they play, accompanied by a special badge for their forum avatar for anyone succeeding in their first Bankroll Challenge.

How to join the Bankroll Challenge

The challenge is open to all PokerStrategists and you do not need to be tracked to us to participate. All you need to do is:

• Start a blog in our forum.
• State your starting bankroll, your regular stakes/games and your poker room in the first post.
• Set a long term bankroll goal of at least $500 and/or a minimum of five times your starting bankroll.
• Sign-up to the Bankroll Challenge in our registration thread, with a link to your personal blog, your initial bankroll and your goal.
• Post at least once a week in your blog.

Once a month we will raffle $100 among all eligble PokerStrategists participating in the Bankroll Challenge regardless of where you play.

Double Dip with the Blogger Raffle

After running our community raffle in familiar fashion for years, with one or two special editions sprinkled in, we're now switching things up permanently!

There are brand-new weekly prizes to be won that you can get your hands on and a whole range of new tasks that go along with the new Blogger Raffle.

As the name suggests, there are now way more ways available for active contributors in our forum to win one of the weekly prizes, alongside weekly StrategyPoints milestones and various other tasks. Commenting news, watching videos, or most of the other old website tasks won't result in weekly raffle tickets any longer, though.

We're also mixing things up when it comes to the weekly prizes, making sure all our weekly winners will be able to cash out their prize right away through our Tell-a-Friend account system, whichever way they prefer.

Check out the latest winners right away

There's a total prize pool of $375 up for grabs every single week, with the following tasks available for you to complete every week or once as a one-time boost in order to earn tickets for the new raffle.

After the official first run of the raffle, we've slightly adjusted the amount of tickets collectable through earning StrategyPoints or posting in a member's blog, with the former now bringing less and the latter more tickets than before.

Do you set big goals for yourself like Mantelo does? Let us know in the comments: