Hey Everyone,

I'm satellite84 on both Stars and FTP, though I almost never play on FTP anymore.

Long time lurker, very occasional poster here. I have decided to get back to the MTT grind in a serious way this year and I am starting literally from the bottom with the intention of moving through the limits to a solid mid-stakes level by year's end.

Brief History:

I began during the boom at college in Niagara and started playing a little online and live. Eventually I settled on live NLHE as my main game and quickly became successful at it. I was beating 1/2 during the week and 2/5 on the weekends for a solid $1k/week average putting in good volume by the end of my first year. I did this for about 18 months incorporating a little bit of MTTs online for a change of pace and because I enjoyed the adrenaline of the deep run. But after I broke up with my girlfriend and lost that stability in my personal life, I fell into the familiar poker trap of overspending and partying too much and leaving myself short all the time bankroll wise and instead of going bust entirely, I left Niagara and moved to Bangkok where my family had relocated and got involved in some businesses over there (a restaurant and some internet cafes for those curious). I bummed around there for about 4 years playing only sporadically. I did during this time have some decent results online including an outright win of a Big 16.50 and some other Big final tables, but my volume was incredibly low and it was entirely part time fun with little to no studying.

I returned to Canada in 2012 and made my first attempt to run up a bankroll that summer. I was quite successful initially turning my $500 into about $9k after 2 months of medium grinding. My notable scores included a 1st place chop in the $22 Saturday 6max and FT in that event again two weeks later as well as a few other decent 4-figure FTs. Unfortunately, some real life things came up and I was forced to put poker on the back burner again.

But I am back now and determined to make a proper run at it. I am starting extremely low, even lower than last time to ensure the money is not of any importance to me for quite a while so I can reinvest all my profit for the next several months into bankroll growth and moving up limits. Also, given my nearly 3 years absence from consistent play, I figure it makes sense to establish that I can beat each level, even if I move relatively quickly through the lowest ones.

The Plan:

I am starting with 100 buy-ins at a mix of $1 180 mans and $2.50 90 mans. I will employ a pretty aggressive bankroll strategy in the first few stages to move up quicker. I can reload the initial 100 buy-ins if needed, but I doubt it will be a problem as those games are extremely soft. My move up strategy will be to take shots at the "next level" each time I have a full day's worth of buy-ins (approximately 30 tourneys) above 100 BIs at my current level.

For example: If I start with $120 at my current level and after my first week I have $260, then I have enough to play 30 $4.50 180 mans and I will take a shot at them, as long as I remain above that level I will stay at the $4.50s, if I drop back down to my initial $120, I will drop down accordingly until I can take my next shot.

I will stick with this strategy until I have built my bankroll up to $2500 at which point I will take a less aggressive approach and employ my standard BR management strategies. I'll outline that when I get there.

The levels I intend to move between until $2500 are:

$1 180 mans & $2.50 90 mans (ABI: $1.20)
$4.50 180 mans exclusive (ABI: $4.50)
$4.50 180 mans/$2.20-$8.80 MTTs mix (ABI: $6.00)
$2.20-$13.50 MTTs (ABI: $9.00)

Then I'd reach my $2500 goal and play with 200 BIs at approximately $12.50 ABI going forward and reset my goals and plan as well as begin to cash out some profits.

I'm doing this to stay motivated and have a history of my growth as a player and perhaps meet some cool people along the way.

Thanks for reading this far if you have and hope this is valuable as motivation or just a place to congregate for peeps. Also, my stats are hidden right now on third party sites for Stars, but should be available for viewing soon enough. Though they are nothing special, they at least back up the online portion of the story above.

K, enough rambling. I have already put in 38 events with 10 cashes and 5 final tables to get started (graph below) and should be up to full sessions by tomorrow and away we go...

Just in case my two potential day savers don't pan out today and I book a horribad session, I figured the least I could do is post a thread saver for you guys, so enjoy!

Rough day. 1/26 cashes. Just running absolutely atrocious. 2 and 3 outers weren't even bad beats today.

Had two potential day savers going, busted one in 30th just before the money when I flopped a set w/ 99 on 1097dd board. Got it in against AAd and 56dd... they both got there and the 56 took it. And then lost a flip (AKs < JJ) for a top 4 stack with 15 to go. I feel like I played well and got it in good a lot.

I was happy I was applying a lot of good, thin edges which I feel is important in these type of events. Hopefully tomorrow I run better!

After a lot of review tonight and reading other challenges and goal threads, I've decided to switch things up a bit. I really want to get more volume in, 25 tourneys per day is just not cutting it especially when the last couple of hours is spent 3-4 tabling $1 180 man deep runs before ending my day. So I am going to open things up a bit to include all MTTs from $0.25 to $1.50 and include turbo and hypers as well as the usual SNG schedule and bump my tables from 12 capped up to 16 if necessary at peak times. This should help me get closer to 50/day or more even and increase the speed with which I get through these lower limits. Off to bed!

Edit: Also resetting my PT4 for tomorrow to start fresh with this "new" plan. Will post a daily graph and a weekly graph as well.

Gl with your games!

Thanks!

----

So, apparently I had set my limits to turn off the MTTs a while back and didn't realize it until it was too late to unfreeze them for today's session. Sigh. So today will be another SNG sesh, but I will add in the $0.50c 180 mans to increase the volume at least and likely add an extra hour of buy-ins as well.

If anything needed a thread saver, it's that news... so enjoy some Candy...

Curious what people think of my jam here on the flop? No history with him. 3/12 at that point. I ended up busting in 11th when my 77 < 33 a few hands later. I'm curious if getting it in here was correct or if perhaps I should have flatted the min-check raise and call a small turn bet or fold to a big bet and save the chips?

Well another meh day. But volume was better. Got in 46 events today.

9 cashes and 3 final tables, but nothing higher than 4th.

Daily Graph:



To-Date Graph:



Current Stats:

Events: 110
Cashes: 20
Final Tables: 8

Sadly no binks yet, one second where I missed a big draw against middle pair. Running well behind EV the last two days especially. But keep plugging away and confident things will come around. I'm not losing much money at least due to a high cash rate.

Day off tomorrow as I can't play Mondays, and probably a half day Tuesday before back to the full grind Wednesday through Sunday.

Back to it today. Adding in MTT Turbos up to $1 and maybe 5-6 $1.10 and $2.20 Reg. Speed MTTs. Also, will play some of the FPP Freerolls just because they are starting during my buy-in hours. Expecting 30 or so tourneys today volume wise.

Let's go!

Another horrendous day of running like complete ass. Played 26 tourneys, cashed in 7 and still found a losing day. Had a bit of a run going in the $0.55 1.5k Turbo, but busted in 136th when my QQ < 66. Hopefully can catch a bit of heat the rest of this week and get up in limits a bit.

Daily Graph:

Will be keeping eyes open for you in the micro MTT's tomorrow, hopefully with a big stack. Also just started rebuilding after a few years sporadic play. No luck yet!!

Sweet! Is your screen name the same on Stars as it is on 2+2? Hope to see you at a FT or three tomorrow!

Time for another session. Hoping to catch some heat and ride it out the rest of the week! I am going to do something I've never done as I typically consider myself better the deeper the stacks and slower the speeds, but at these limits it seems my edge is much bigger in the turbos as the play there is very weak. It also makes volume easier too as the tourneys roll over quicker.

Anyway, I'll probably do 4-5 hours of BIs today and hope for a solid winning day at the end of it!

Good luck to anyone else grinding today!

I figured I'd post a pic of my setup, it's nothing special, but it does the job for now. I have a pretty sick setup planned and I almost bought it all to start this, but I decided I wanted to buy it with profits and sort of "earn it" from poker. So when I get back to that level and (hopefully) can afford it from profits, I'll post a pic of that setup.

Another rough day. Had a run going in the $0.82 2k, but busted around 65th. Running bad. Not exciting. Just keep grinding. These limits are hard because so many hands end up all-in, and if you can't win those pots, there is only so many non-showdown hands to be won. So I'll just keep grinding along and waiting for a little heat and try to keep playing well.

GL to everyone else out there grinding it out.

Also, booked part of my trip to Vegas this summer, who else is going?

Boomswitch engaged today! Climbed out of the red with a pretty big day for the limits. Played 32 $1 180 mans and won two of them as well as a 2nd place finish and two other FTs to go along with my 8 cashes (stone bubbled one as well).

Daily Graph:

Been slow updating with the holiday weekend, but I have continued to play everyday except for yesterday. I have played a mix of most available variants at the micros and seem to have my highest winrate (small samples in everything of course) at the 180 and 90 man reg speed events. So in the interest of building the bankroll up to a level where I can play MTTs again full time, I am going to stick to those and get as much volume in as possible for the next few weeks. I will start at $1 180s and $2.50 90s, should be there for about another week assuming I can stick around expectation and then move up to the $4.50 180s and the $4.40/$5.50 1000-cap tourneys. Again, assuming expectation is met, by the end of April I should be rolled enough to be back full time at micro stakes MTTs with some $4.50 180s thrown in each day to ease the variance a bit. I will grind Tuesday to Sunday each week and take Mondays off.

Hope everyone had a good weekend and see you at the tables!

Graph to Date:



Thread Saver:

Just read the thread, it almost sounds like me results wise.

I'm routing for you buddy, hope you get to build that set up and have some left over.

I'm curious as to how you create a bankroll strategy? I'm not an experienced player, fish if anything but looking to get better.

Thanks for the encouragement, it's appreciated! As for BR strategy, I've read a fair amount on the various methods out there. At the stakes I chose to start at, the bankroll is quite small and therefore easily replaced so I am basically just looking for the micro-games that I feel I can beat for the biggest ROI to get out of them fastest. My concern for going broke, given I can simply add another $100 as frequently as necessary until I finally start earning and moving up again, is basically zero. As I move up though and get into MTTs again, I typically keep a couple hundred buy-ins for the level I am at if I am not planning to take any profit out and 300-500 BIs for the levels where I am intending to use the profit as some or all of my life income.

Hope that helps! And good luck to you!

Had a decent day today. Grabbed a win and a 4th in the 180s and a couple cashes for a little profit. Got lucky HU in the one where I got caught bluffing on the turn and spiked a 4 outer on the river to cripple the villain. Though I got unlucky a bit 4 handed as I went from 1st to out in two hands running 88 into QQ and A10 into AJ. So you know, no worries... back at it tomorrow!

Daily Graph:

Nice keep it up starting a thread too similar keep grinding

subbed, gl. BR updates?

It also makes volume easier too as the tourneys roll over quicker.[img]http://*************.com/4ce15.jpg[/img]

Awesome! I'll keep my eyes open for it and give you a sub!

Yah, it's true. Though I will be adding about 10 MTTs to the schedule today as well as the usual $1 and $2.50 SNGs I've been playing.