Final post

Officially i end this blog and consider the challenge a failure.

In my opinion it is impossible to play poker as a recreational player and be a winner in the long run. Maybe (and i’m not sure) you can beat the small stakes if you start playing now and play a big volume of hands with good tight ranges and huge patience.

There are players who have beaten the small stakes and went up in stakes by having a short time good run and after they built a bankroll they remained high.

Right now i am beaten by the rake and i don’t even find playing like that entertainment. I am happy that i have other things to do with my time that bring me a lot more happiness than just sucking out bad beats. I would have to play much more like a robot in order just to have a small 1-2 bb/100 win rate and i just won’t do that.

In my opinion, if the online poker doesn’t receive a bump by allowing more players, especially US, it would shrink so much that would become unprofitable even for regulars to just play between them.

If it is one good thing that i learned from this is that in life as in poker there is always variance and you have to do what you can to get value from your good opportunities and minimize your losses. Right now i would do just that, minimize my loss by not playing poker anymore and get value from my free time in other ways.

Hope that my experience would give an answer on how and if you can start with a small bankroll and climb up the ladder in poker stakes.

Week 15

No cash just MTT and SNG.

I needed a break from cash and because the opportunity of micro millions appeared on Stars i decided to give it a try on this series of tournaments.

This resulted in a total loss of 61.30$, which is natural. I only wanted to have some fun at the MTT so i didn’t expected any profit (just hopped for a lucky result).

Bankroll=222.20-61.30=160.9

Starting with next week i’ll return on cash at 5 NL and if i can i will make an add on.

Week 14

This week was a little bit different.

At cash i continued the bad run and lost another 65.39$ but this time at normal tables mostly (i decided to quit zoom).

Also because of the 9th anniversary of Sunday Million, i played some satellites to this tournament. I managed to get in and play the tournament by a 50 FPP satellite for silver star+ players. Unfortunately i had a very bad run at the tournament and got busted out only after 1.5 h of play. In total i played one 27$, two 11$ satellites and two 50 FPP for VIP silver star.

Also i played a 1.5 sit and go, which i lost, one 3.5 sit and go with a profit of 12.2 $ and my favorite tournament of 2.2$ zoom (16th place out of 2000 players) only with a profit of 14 $.

Bankroll=311.89-65.39-27-11-11-1.5+12.2+14=222.20 (22 buy in at 10 nl / 44 buy in at 5 nl).

As a conclusion, i realized that i am a clear looser at 10 nl cash. I am turning back to 5 nl (i’ll use the option from poker stars to limit my buy in at 5 nl for cash). I will play some tournament also this week on a maximum total buy in of 25 $.

Hopefully this actions will stop my loosing strike and who knows maybe i can return to 10 nl someday.

Week 13

Also this week i am on the negative side, but smaller than the last one.

I’m beginning to understand that my post flop game is far from good and although by now I’ve improved a lot my pre flop tactics i will have to work a lot on my post flop tactics in order to become profitable.

The results are -24.76$.

I also made an add on of 100$ in order to be able to keep playing 10 NL and lost some 6 $ at a few sng.

Bankroll=242.65-24.76+100-6=311.89 (31 buy in)Hours played=10 with 3k hands. Apparently this is the number of hours i am able to play and it makes no sense in dreaming about 6-7k hands and 20h of play unless i am building a more strict schedule. So i decided to play such that i can keep silver star for now and established a target of 20 vpp per day which is comfortable.

As a conclusion for these last 13 weeks with ups and downs, i have a total loss of 94$ on 40k hands with -4.4 bb/100 and a rake of 220$. Apparently i am being beaten by the rake which is not good but not really bad neither. Also tacking into account that hopefully my level has increased in this time (i really feel it) and that i started playing without any strategy, i hope that after another 40k hands i can turn the page and come back with a positive result since my skills can only go up.

Week 12

Disaster. A week like no other in loses.

I simply lost with every good hand and wasn’t able to recover with nothing. The irony is that i had a lot of good spots but i wasn’t able to get value from none.

Without any comments, the results at cash are -83.58$ and -11$ at Sunday storm which i played in order to relax from all the bad spots at cash.

Bankroll=337.23-83.58-11=242.65 $ (24 buy ins at 10 NL).

I also played some 5 NL in order to recover and i could win just a little bit there. I don’t know what i will do next week if to stay at 10 NL another 3-4 buy in or just go down the limits to 5 NL.