1Million hands and +1000 Buy In's in one month for science

Chiren · 01-20-2011, 06:49 PM

With the current state of the poker legislation in the US and with the threatening misconception around poker being gambling instead of a skill game, I wondered what I could do to raise awareness around these issues that could have severe consequences for all pokerplayers.

In order to poke the attention of a mainstream audience that doesn't care about poker I needed to do something spectacular. Since i already promised to do one million hands in one month, I thought it would be a good option, but wanted to do something extra in order to highlight the skill aspect of the game. So i picked the microstakes and aimed to make more then 1000 Buy In's in one month. I didn't want to turn it into some kind of personalized promostunt and therefore chose not to livestream it.

Since I have been very focussed on my scientific research last year and will keep pursuing this the coming year, combined with poker being legalized in belgium, I will inevitably be a lot less active as a pokerplayer and likely not be able to maintain my duties as an active online pro for pokerstars. I placed a video online where I explain most of it ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zff2lXomyfE ), together with the record as I hope people will get more involved in getting poker legalized in a correct way. I myself will send a report of the challenge, to the responsible department in the US and President Obama, where I explain how winning at a steady rate involves more then just luck.

I'm aware that 2nl doesn't require as much skill as higher stakes, but I only did it to make a statement.

Some extra data for those who are interested:

I had a very strict workflow, sleeping 8 hours a day, showering when I woke up and make sure I ate very well. If it wasn't for Tania bringing me food and taking care of all the other stuff I wouldn't have been able to do it. I played 40k hand sessions at the start, then 31k sessions but had to change it at the end due to ev downswings and an unimaginable high amount of bad beats as I wanted to make sure i had no losing sessions. I didn't take any drugs to maintain the high volume, and kept a healthy pacing to keep myself from going insane.

I had 31 winning sessions, made more then 1000 buy ins while being 100buy in's below ev and payed around 1800$ rake (18000vpp's). Many people experience similar ev-downswings in the same amount of hands but in a year time instead of a few days when starting poker and never get to know that they were actually winning players. I hope to inspire thoose people and also show how making a living from 2nl if you'd go hardcore is actually possible, although mixing it up with flipping burgers at mac d's might be a nice strategy to avoid getting bored.

I made at 2nl more then what the top winners on 25nl make a month and close to what the top 50nl winners make. In total i won 2000Buy In's or 4000$ from players including the rake paid with the average stack at the tables being 2$ and got three royal flushes in the process.

If you have any questions i'll be checking the thread now and again to answer them.