Hi everyone!

This is my first of what I hope to be many posts in many different areas around the forum.

I have officially become tired of losing money at a game I love to play. I have decided to make a challenge to myself, not about money, not about getting to $X level of cash games or tournaments or $X bankroll.

More than anything, I want to be tilt free. I want to stay the course of proper bankroll management win or lose. I want to stop pissing away money and chasing losses on video poker and slot machines and things like that. I want to be better.

This is part of a whole new lifestyle change for me that I will create in the blog section on here should anyone be interested in the backstory and other goings on.

So my plan is this:

Because of me being a -EV gambler my casino tends to give me a lot of free slot play. I am going to go down and use the free play and turn it into a deposit on Black Chip Poker.

In the meantime I plan on playing a lot of freerolls, at least until I can get up to $5.50 to play the .11 nightly $100 gtd. Eventually I will have enough to make a deposit for the $50 minimum ($55 via WU) allowing me to play some $2 sngs and .55 on demand $25 gtd.

I tilt, a lot. I've tilted thousands of dollars away on just pure stupidity, anger, depression...I've blown up so many rolls. No more.

Some things I am thinking about before starting this challenge:

1. Stay out of cash games. Maybe down the line when I have convinced myself I am calm enough to try a cash game or two. But I don't see that happening anytime soon. I want to keep a schedule of MTTs and have a more or less set playing schedule.

2. Five tournaments every night, no excuses. Since I am starting at $0.00 I will be playing freerolls. Freerolls are annoying and frustrating, I feel this will be a good test of dealing with mental toughness.

3. I wanted to do this in a place where I can be held accountable. Too many times I have said "It's just money, no one cares what I do with it but me." While that's true, I want to have some place where I have to show if/when I backslide and do something incredibly foolish. I think that "fear of embarrassment" for lack of a better phrase.

4. Posting a good amount of hands. The only way I am going to get better is by posting lots of hands and asking lots of questions. Even if I just write down the questions and think about what the answer is, I should improve a little each time.

I hope to start doing the freerolls tonight, and I will be making the 1st slot play run tomorrow of $20 at my local casino.

Stay Tuned!

Starting Bankroll - $0.00 9/16/2016
Days without -EV gambling: 0

Actually in for this. GLGL

Thank you very much. I can use all the luck I can get.

Hi all,

Just wanted to make a quick post before I head out for the day.

So the freerolls have been...yeah. Haven't gotten a hand to hold up, or win flips of any kind. In truth though, haven't been really giving it my A game. I'm not donking it off, just not really into it yet. Playing Hearthstone on the side and being on little sleep probably isn't helping either. I checked my HM2 stats and I think my races I am averaging about 42% equity and have won 24% out of 16 races. Obviously a very small sample size but have just been getting killed no matter what I do.

A big reason for the low(ish) equity is I have run into AA and KK so often when I have had AK/AQ against a super loose player. Annoying but, we're going to get through it with the new positive attitude.

As far as getting a deposit goes, I went down to use my $20 in free play on a random slot to "double or nothing", I've been looking to play different things just to mix it up a bit. The one I picked yesterday was god awful, I was over it about halfway through. Suffice to say, I did not double.

This morning is $10 and unless I hit something gross I won't get to the $55 minimum I need to deposit on BCP. But there is always hope.

I've stuck with my five tournaments a day rule for two days now, so I have played 10 freerolls total. I'll play another five tonight. Hopefully break through, I need to make the top 10 to get .55 and the fields are averaging around 500-600 people on the weekends. I might have a better shot during the overnights on the weeknights where they may be smaller fields.

Anyways, good luck to all!

Starting Bankroll - $0.00 9/16/2016
Current Bankroll - $0.00 9/18/2016
Days without -EV gambling: 2

Last night I drew first blood by cashing in a freeroll for .55!

I have finally caught some breaks and found some good spots (and held!) finally. So I got a little bit of my confidence back.

The day started out really rough, I had my $10 free play at the casino and was going to cash it out if I double. I got it up to $19.50....and then $0. That was discouraging.

But I plodded along into the five freerolls of the night.

So first off the results:
1- 10/617 +$0.55
2- 71/549
3- 198/506
4- 15/470
5- 245/405

Came so close to cashing in a second one which would have made me really happy.

This was the hand that put me in a spot to cash, I think there was about 30 left:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/po...%2F37435264%2F

It is a freeroll and villain was showing typical numbers for such an event 39/23/1.5. I'm not really sure what he thinks he can beat on the turn, I don't think I would ever be bluffing in that spot. I don't really bluff in freerolls I have been playing a very nitty ABC style, I have been running 8/7. I don't feel a need to play too many hands since they are going to stack off so badly. Obviously running 8/7 isn't going to work in the higher buy-in events and plan to change my game as it deems necessary.

Starting Bankroll - $0.00 9/16/2016
Current Bankroll - $0.55 9/19/2016
Highest Bankroll - $0.55 9/19/2016
Days without -EV gambling: 3

Happy Thursday everyone!

So last night I was at the tail end of my 5 mandatory tournaments for the night when I cashed again in the freeroll. Sadly it was another 10th place finish lost to a coin flip. This brings the bankroll to $1.10, I will need $4.40 more to get to the 50 buy-in minium for the .11 nightly MTTs

WPN No Limit Hold'em Tournament - t/t Blinds - 9 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

Hero (MP2): t12686 1 BBs - VPIP: 14, PFR: 11, 3B: 5, AF: 2.3, Hands: 6065
CO: t10420 1 BBs - VPIP: 35, PFR: 4, 3B: 11, AF: 0.0, Hands: 23
BTN: t5381 1 BBs - VPIP: 24, PFR: 2, 3B: 0, AF: 9.0, Hands: 58
SB: t9641 1 BBs - VPIP: 3, PFR: 1, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 71
BB: t7297 1 BBs - VPIP: 71, PFR: 7, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 14
UTG: t19397 1 BBs - VPIP: 30, PFR: 10, 3B: 8, AF: 4.5, Hands: 61
UTG+1: t9385 1 BBs - VPIP: 10, PFR: 5, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 21
UTG+2: t1744 1 BBs - VPIP: 41, PFR: 18, 3B: 50, AF: 0.0, Hands: 17
MP1: t285 1 BBs - VPIP: 24, PFR: 7, 3B: 0, AF: 1.3, Hands: 58

Pre Flop: (t0) Hero is MP2 with Q Q
UTG calls t0, 3 folds, Hero raises to t1200, 3 folds, BB calls t1200, UTG raises to t19067, Hero calls t11486 all in, BB calls t6097 all in

Flop: (t32669) 9 8 7 (3 players - 2 are all in)

Turn: (t32669) A (3 players - 2 are all in)

River: (t32669) Q (3 players - 2 are all in)

Got super lucky there and that nice little two outer got me into a top 10 stack with about 30 to go.

This was the KO hand:

Hero (CO): t25314 1 BBs - VPIP: 14, PFR: 11, 3B: 5, AF: 2.3, Hands: 6065
BTN: t60793 1 BBs - VPIP: 53, PFR: 6, 3B: 6, AF: 2.4, Hands: 93
SB: t69862 1 BBs - VPIP: 16, PFR: 4, 3B: 0, AF: 2.5, Hands: 25
BB: t35950 1 BBs - VPIP: 21, PFR: 17, 3B: 13, AF: 0.0, Hands: 48
UTG: t98898 1 BBs - VPIP: 16, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 25

Pre Flop: (t0) Hero is CO with A 9
1 fold, Hero raises to t25064, BTN calls t25064, 2 folds

Flop: (t50128) 3 J J (2 players)

Turn: (t50128) 8 (2 players)

River: (t50128) J (2 players)


Sucks to lose a big flip, but that's tournament poker.

No luck on the free slot play yet but I have $25 minimum tomorrow, $25 on Saturday and $10 on Sunday. Hopefully I will double one and get the deposit onto BCP and move up to at least the .55 MTTs. Progress everyday through!

Starting Bankroll - $0.00 9/16/2016
Current Bankroll - $1.10 9/22/2016
Highest Bankroll - $1.10 9/22/2016
Days without -EV gambling: 6

Good luck op.

I don't write often but you made me do it with your goal.

Try to read some articles about variance, long term mindset and you will be fine.

I'll follow you!

Thanks a lot, I appreciate it! I do have some knowledge about variance and I understand the game can cause huge swings in bankroll, confidence, mental health, etc.

The main thing I struggle with is just riding them out and not looking for the easy way out by either playing bigger or trying for a quick bounce back in the pit at the casino somewhere. So far so good and have seen some brutal beats in the freerolls but things are starting to even out as they should.

Thanks for the follow!

Greetings all!

It's been a while since I updated this and have a couple of things to talk about so this might get a bit lengthy but I'll try to stay on topic.

First item: Getting money to deposit.

I had absolutely the worst free slot play run I have ever had this month. I didn't even come close to doubling in the "double or nothing" rules I set. I've never done that before where I didn't hit anything for a month solid out of at least a dozen free plays. So for the month of October I am trying a different approach.

I will be playing video poker, jacks or better at $1.25 a hand. It will be run through one time, meaning just play the free play and then cash out no matter what. Today was the first day and I had $15 in free play, cashed out $6. I won't make my deposit until the end of the month. I am hoping to make one large deposit by the end of the month instead of just putting the minimum on there.

It also was brought to my attention that technically while I was doing the "double or nothing" challenge I was negative EV gambling after the free play had cycled through. I want to be completely honest and transparent in this thread so for the integrity of this I am resetting my "days without -EV gambling".

Back to poker...

I have played 50 freerolls and cashed twice for a combined $1.10. I thought every 50 tournaments I would post some stats and give my opinions on them.



So obviously I have been playing super nitty overall. I do like to wait out the all-in with any two players while occasionally getting it in super good with JJ+, AQs+, AK. Sometimes it does fizzle me out and I do get more aggressive as my stack starts to shrink up as seen here:



As far as luck and races go...well, it's been a test of patience for sure:



I see my chip difference and EV difference is a pretty big gap, so I assume that means I am getting unlucky in the big pots. I could be wrong but that's what I am drawing from this. I do like that my avg all-in is close to 50%, so I am finding good spots to chip up. Just not hitting/holding as much as I would hope for.



Obviously just playing freerolls the winnings graph is pretty yawn worthy but hopefully it will get a little more colorful as time goes on and I move into buy-in MTTs.

So that's about all I have, I am off to go play some more freerolls and play my $10 free play Sunday morning to add to the end of the month deposit.

Starting Bankroll - $0.00 9/16/2016
Current Bankroll - $1.10 9/22/2016
Highest Bankroll - $1.10 ($6 in pending deposit) 10/1/2016
Days without -EV gambling: 1