Hello guys,
I`m back! Starting this week I will play SNGs + MTTs on stars plus some games on other platforms. I will play the early morning session so I need more platforms to open enough games.

BTW, I`m broke and motivated.

Motivated to get up from the hole I got myself in, like 0 reserves and 0 bankroll. As a reserve I got my mother where I can borrow fast 2-3k (already borrowed 1k), another 3k in a 401k like pension fund, or sell my car. I don`t like any of these options, but it`s a good thing I got them, because even if I run realy bad, I have some safety nets. So, I have cash to live for 1 month before I have to activate a safety net. Let`s hope I will make some splits fast on any of the platforms I will play.


The challenge: Take the power back!
Fix my financial life. I will do that with baby steps and grind myself out of this.

Part 1:
-make enough money to live for 1 month, than 3 months
-create a 3k bankroll for pokerstars and play on my own here
-create reserves to live for 4-6 months
-bankroll on stars of 5k
-buy a new computer(5kish) and maybe restart twitch for a couple of hours/day
-10k reserves put into bonds for fast acces, in case of need(this will include a big part of the 4-6months reserves)

Part 2:
-buy a one room apartment and rent it
-buy the second one
-buy the 3rd one
-now I can buy a normal apartment/house to live in it with a credit from the bank. The credit will be paid with the rents from those 3 “garsoniere”(one room apartament).
-after that, sky is the limit

During this challenge I will enjoy life. In my last challenges I was separating the poker challenge from the life challenge, but there are inseparable. In case I will do this again here, it`s only in writting.

Short summary of what happened to me this 3 years:
In october 2019 my son was born. Best thing ever, but to be honest, I wasn`t thinking like this at that moment. I was focused on making money, wanting to buy a house, providing (the manly thing ) and I wasn`t enjoying that much my time spent with him or my girlfriend, because I was a man on a mission: make money. I was stupid! But with time, I learned to be empathic again, to love, to learn, to be more flexible (I still need a lot of work in this areas, but I`m on the right track) wich helped me understand some things better, but that was to late for my relationship so we broke up. Now we are raising our son as coparents and we both moved to Bucharest. The breakout wasn`t that bad for me, but I still decided to go to teraphy. If I will be the lawmaker, teraphy will be mandatory and free for everyone because it`s a super power.
Other points:
-I`m dating someone for 3-4 months and it`s great. She is smart, supportive and looks like we can build a nourishing relationship. Did I mentioned she`s ****ing hot?!
-I lost 11kg in a year, from 88 to 77. To be safe I should go down to 73Kg even though I`m sexy enough right now. For the moment I just want to keep that in check and focus on poker for a couple of months.
-I started walking a lot, like 250-300km/month. It helps with the kilos and it relaxes me. I also got a subscription to Blinklist and I can listen to short blinks while walking
-I also stopped falling asleep with a movie and just read 2-6 pages before sleep. Looks like nothing but at he end of the year I will have a few books “under my belt”.
-I have a small leg injury so I can`t play football for a while. Let`s hope I will be fit to do this in the autumn.
-I remember now I stopped smoking when I was doing the old challenges and now It`s like 4 years or so since
-I restarted meditation for 10 minutes before the session. This should also be mandatory for everyone, another super power

Things I want to do in the near future:
-do some full contact sport to get the tension out and to get in shape.
-take some improvisation lessons. I hear it`s therapeutic and fun.
-try some ecstatic dance
-twitch
-expand my social life a little. Reconnect with some old friends and make new ones.

See you at the tables! GL!

GL with the journey subbed

Looks like a nice plan, good luck!

vey nice story my borther! you found that power to come back again, this is insane and i see you unstopable for now!

Hey guys,

I feel eager to play and I`m a man on a mission.

Just got a little help from Stars with a matching deposit of 600$. I wrote to them about the challenges being too big from the pandemic era and they gave me this deposit bonus. Not bad, I`ll take any help I can get. Maybe in the future they will change the weekly challenges and make them smaller and doable .


Played 2 days with a lot of combined formats: 6--9-18man+, normal/KO/prog-KO/fifty, hypers/turbos/regulars, MTTs.


The actual challenges I`m getting that aren`t douable anymore on Stars with this traffic:


See you at the tables. GL!

Hey guys,

I`m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Managed to start on my own on stars with 2k bankroll, after some winnings here and on other platforms. Things look good!


See you at the tables. GL!

Hey,

I`m starting to build a bankroll on Stars. I`m around 3k with the rakeback.
Had some swings here because I`m playing hypers and some mtts, besides turbos.
I took some shots this year at 50$ Sngs but had to get back in line. Now with 3k bankroll I`ll try it again. It will work eventually and I will stabilize at this level.
I`ll add some 44-55$ MTTs when I`m at 5k bankroll.
I still have some money to live for a month or so (borrowed 2k from my mom).
So, things look good and I`m also improving my game, schedule and along with this comes the drive to play more quality poker.



Gl and see you at the tables!

Always nice to see a thread from someone who plays the same games. SNG threads are a rare breed these days. Good luck with the IRL goals. I also became a dad this year for the first time at the ripe old age of 35 and found my volume suffered a lot as I found my balance, it's certainly not easy. Glgl

Congrats! You will find the balance, but it`s not easy, for sure.

Hey,

Still broke and motivated.

After 70 days, I`m back at 2.2k bankroll.
I`m winning just the rakeback, for now.
I have 3 weeks untill I have to acces some safety nets, in case I still run bad on stars and the other platforms. Let`s hope we can witraw some winnings until then and we will not use the safety nets.

General graph:



Single table:



Multi table:


Looks like I have to cut most of the MTTs because I don`t need the variance right now. I`ll be back.

GL and see you at the tables!

Hey guys,

Almost 3 months into the challenge and I`m BE on stars pre-rakeback. Also not going great on other platforms. Looks like I`m only playing for rakeback wich helps me stay alive until this **** show is over.



6max hypers


STT turbo. The only format I`m not under EV


18man


MTT including 18man


GL and see you at the tables!

looking at your graphs, i'd drop MTT's for now and focus on STT. Higher volume grinding more rakeback + you seem to be winning/running better at them. At least until you hit some of your $ goals then you can add MTT's back, but you would be up w/o MTT's for now. Just saying. Steady and grind it out.

Yeah! 2K downs in MTTs. I will not open the tournament tab until I`m back on my feet. The 18man is still profitable to play for now, but when I have enough tables opened, I`ll pick 6-9mans instead of 18mans.



Let`s crush!

Hey guys,
I`m gonna do monthly updates from now on. Helps me get a grip on what`s going on.

October:
4000 games
3300$ profit (2000 from rakeback)


I`m proud I kept grinding even with that long downswing. I improved my game a lot in the last months and now its time to crush. Let`s say in the future I`ll embrace the downswing because they are a learning oportunity and I hope they will be shorter.
Pokerstars is increasing the challenges every month. Let`s hope they stop and I`ll be able to get 65% keback for a long period of time. In case they don`t stop, there are some other options so I`ll think of this when necessary.

Let`s crush!

Keep up the hard work and continue to crush the tables!

Hey guys,

Still struggling here mostly with the hypers.

This month 6max hypers **** show:



This year 6max hypers **** show:



I stopped playing MTT (except 18man) because I ran bad. I stopped playing 50$+ because I ran bad. Can`t stop playing hypers because I will not have enough tables and I`m doing good in terms of expected value. Unfortunately I can`t pay rent with expected value.
I don`t even want to run good, just normal. I haven`t seen normal running in a long time.

Even with this swing I still have 3000$ in stars cashier and I`m doing volume. I hope things will change soon for the better and when they do, I`ll be there to reap the rewards.

Let`s win!

How I lost 2500$ in 5 days playing 12.8$ average buyin SNGs


My game improved, I started to bee cocky and I didn`t do table selection anymore. So I ended up playing reg infested games with high variance. It`s true I feel I hit the worst run ever. Even poker variance calculator has the worst run at -2200$. Calculated this with a roi of 1%.


It feels like ****, like I`m cursed or something.

So, I still have 1800$ in my account and have to change tactics. TABLE SELECTION at every game! If needed, open less from stars and add some other platform with lower buyins.

See you at the tables!

what bb/100 is the equivalent of a 1% ROI?

ur graphs look insane, hope the wind turns for you buddy

I mean u cant really look at it like that when icm is a huge deal, you can crush ev bb wise but if ur terrible w icm you wont do great anyways. (Just an example).

I had a stretch earlier this year where i ran a few thousand bb under ev for a few months (mtts) and i was laser focused on how bad i was running, missing how meaningless it is and once i got my **** together and started working a bit harder/smarter i soon had back to back record-ish months, so my advice would be double down on studying and try not to focus on losing every all in because there is literally nothing that can be done about it, we dont get to pick which ones we win unfortunately Also, during my best sample i am also under ev (not by alot, but under), so its not really a perfect stat to look at for how u should be doing $ wise, obviously sngs are different than mtts but icm is icm. GL turning it around!

Yeah, you can`t looks at ROI in SNG as cash or spins, where chip ev is pure.

Thanks man! Looks like I have some entitlement issues here and I`m going to work on them. Just because I ran bad for a long time, I`m studying, I`m putting the hours, I expect everything to run smootly or to start winning because I lost enough. But it doesn`t go like this.

I did some calculation and even if I run bad but I`m not tilting, putting the hours, doing table selection and stuff, I can still have a decent life with the income that comes from poker. I just have to accept that some things are not fair or perfect.
I`ll just focus on that for the moment.

GL!

Yeah i think thats a very self aware and good answer. Especially good reminder that just because you study or do "your part" doesnt mean variance will see that and go oh, he studied lets not run like garbage now! Long term though you increase ur ev, which in turn makes variance more managable and the worst downswings are far more rare etc.

Would just add (not tryna nitpick) that running bad or good isnt about fairness. It isnt unfair to run bad, its unlucky/unlikely perhaps, but i think removing any idea of poker being fair/unfair variance wise, id argue poker is about as fair as it gets. Everyone plays by the same rules! Focus on what u can control and youll turn it around in no time. Ill be here to say i told u so when the graph is going straight up again

Glgl

Hey guys,

Played 2-3 sessions.
Bankroll is at 1350 plus some almost completed bonuses/chests of 200-400$.

I`m just trying not to go crazy and it`s realy hard. I get easily triggered with bad beats and as you can see, I have a lot of them.
I`ll not change too much in my game, just keep it in check. As I said, I already improved and I can see that in EV, so I don`t want to go crazy and start changing things that are winning plays. Just have to survive this **** storm.
I`m going to play a few hours every day and I realized that long sessions are not for me at this moment.




GLGL!

Played 2 more session with -400ish
It`s simply amazing how can this happen everyday.
I will stop playing 25$ because I don`t have the bankroll and I see no point of donating to this **** show.

Hey guys,

Played a session of 5-10$ SNGs. Only lost 220$....
Bankroll 980$ + future 220$ from challenge.



I`m trying to find a logical explanation but I can`t find any. I can`t stop thinking that Pokerstars could have rigged the challenges somehow, just to keep players from not reaching the goals and this way they will keep the whole rake. Stars and their love for rake. Long shot, but with this **** show I can`t think of anything else.

Looks like I`m going to grind the 5-10$ until I get over this. And I have to do more improvements to my game and lifestyle. Atleast do everything that`s in my power to play well. After this I can complain, quit, sue Stars and so on. ��

GL!

The logical explanation would be variance.