2011 SNG Challenge

Happy New Years everyone! I'm writing this to officially launch into a personal challenge my brother and I are partaking in for the entire year of 2011. It's going to be a long and bumpy road, but with perseverance and determination we will see ourselves through it.

Challenge: Turn $20 into $100K
The challenge is quite lofty, but with hard work and dedication I feel as though it is definitely attainable. Our strategy will revolve around a ton of volume, a lot of self and team review of our play, and a very aggressive bankroll strategy at the early stages of the challenge.

We will be playing exclusively on PokerStars, and will both be beginning with a bankroll of $10.00. At the onset of our challenge, our VIP level will be Bronze and we hope to quickly rise through the VIP ranks so that our effective rakeback % increases quickly.

Our $20 bankroll will be split between the two of us at the onset of the challenge. So as to reduce variance we will be sharing our rolls and moving through the SNG stakes according to our combined roll and not just our individual roll. This will serve the purpose of allowing us to be very aggressive, but also reduce some variance as we're able to level each other out a bit.

Poker Background
I began playing poker in March of 2010 after returning from a trip to Vegas with some friends where I spent a night at the Luxor at a $1/$2 cash table. Since then I've dabbled in various SNG structures along with cash games. Additionally I've had (in the past) subscriptions to Card Runners, DeucesCracked, and was a part of Nick Rainey's RainmanPoker training site for a few months. I currently have no subscriptions to any training sites.

My brother began dabbling in poker in May of 2010 and didn't take it very seriously until more recently. He played around 100 HUSNGs on a different poker room before we decided to take on this challenge in 2011. Since then he has been practicing his MTT-SNG game at the PokerStars Play Money tables. I'm happy to say that he's grown quite frustrated only being able to 3 table the SNGs, as volume will be one of the most critical factors to completing this challenge successfully. As of the beginning of this challenge my brother has played no real money games at PokerStars.

Here is my lifetime PokerStars graph to date.



Full Time Jobs
One of our major obstacles to completing this challenge is going to be that we both have full time jobs. This will be a direct hindrance on our daily volume along with study time. One perk, however, is that we are not dependent on the money made from poker; and as a result we will be able to use very aggressive bankroll management to help grow our bankrolls very quickly at the beginning of the challenge.

Progress Updates
I'll be updating my personal blog regularly throughout the challenge. Additionally I will keep my twoplustwo thread updated regularly with our overall BR progress. Please see my profile for a direct link to my blog.

Let's Do This
We'll be starting this challenge at 12:00AM EST on 1/1/11. I'll be playing under the screen name “yomatta”; I won't out my brother's screen name but rather will let him do so if he chooses.

Best of luck at the tables in 2011.

Good luck guys! I'm bookmarking this and will be following it throughout the year.

Thanks, appreciate the support.

gl to both of yous

Good Luck boys I will be following you

We haven't discussed a reload point yet, but if we drop below a combined BR amount, such as like $3 or $5, we'll likely just top off back up to $20.

And, thanks for all of the continued support, we've both been biting our nails for a few weeks in anticipation of getting this thing going.

Goodluck guys, why not start out with $50 though

I probably don't need to post this, because I'm sure you know better already but...

Make sure you guys aren't playing the same tables. I take it you may be transferring funds fairly often between accounts. This will look a whole lot like multiaccounting or collusion if you're also playing at the same games.

EDIT: BTW, nice losing streak between games 60 and 105ish. Looking at the graph after that streak, I have no doubt you have the emotional stability to destroy these SNGs.

We've already discussed how well handle being loaded on the same tables or even getting to heads up. I'll email stars support just to make sure we handle it how they'd like us to.

The huge downswing you're talking about was actually expected. I had been experimenting with both using an xbox controller and 20+ tabling for the first time. At this point if I'm playing less than 10 tables I'm prone to tilting just because I'm actually seeing results of hands; other than that my main holdup has been volume, not tilt.

Minimum deposit for any random donk is $10, so that's what we wanted to start with (each, obviously).

good luck

Urge to troll, rising....

Hello, I'm the other half to this challenge. Thank y'all for the support.

happy new years eve everyone. Need to clear out some funds before starting this challenge.

Doing a $3.73 free roll to the person who gets post #25. Will ship the funds on PokerStars.

edit: if not enough posts by later on tonight I'll be shipping it to a friend. a $13.73 -> $50K challenge is too easymode, gotta get down to $10.

Happy new years! Are you guys partying tonight or do you plan on beginning right after midnight? :P

Not even waiting until midnight my time. I'll be starting the grind at 10pm my time (in Arizona, 12am EST). I'm giving up alcohol for the month of January anyways, so I will be remaining sober tonight

5 hours to go, going to get a screenshot of the bankroll soon as I dump these few bucks.

shipping the $3.xx to a buddy, not enough activity here and I want to get it off my hands so I can be good to go tonight

edit: also heard back from pokerstars support and will be making some slight alterations to our game plan to avoid any behavior that could be construed as suspicious; nothing too big though.

Good luck Matt! Best wishes into 2011.

Obligatory Cashier Post. Had FPPs wiped, down to $10.00, starting at Bronze VIP status.

Time to make some dinner and in 3 and half short hours time to start the grind.

Best of luck to everyone and have a happy and safe New Years Eve.

GLGLGLGl

Less than 10 minutes away, best of luck at the tables. happy new years.

Decent first session, bout to start the second. Already had to make some adjustments but should be cruise controlling from this point.


yomatta 105 $0 $0 25% $7 - N/A PokerStars 1/1/2011 1/31/2011 SNG Only x

BR: 16.41

Blog updated. Slightly displeased with my volume so far, hoping to put in a solid session tomorrow night after the day grind.

BR: $16.01


yomatta 210 $0 $0 22% $6 Super Tilt N/A PokerStars 1/1/2011 1/31/2011 SNG Only x

Update: Bro has had similar results though he's been a bit less swingy as he's a rockstar. I'll let him update on his own results though.

yomatta thanks for the heads up on your thread. I've subscribed, hopefully I can get some inspiration from you for my own personal challenge. GL both.

thanks man, you need to get more volume in. 2-3 game sessions will get you nowhere fast.

try upping the tables you play as much as possible up to 10 or so so you can actually play a session with a decent amount of games.