Hello Everyone!

Hope you're all pumped for your Sunday Grind today - best of luck. I have a new thread for you all - which is also my introduction to the forums as I literally set up an account last night.

Quick intro about myself and poker background...

I'm 23 years old, from Ireland and I've just finished my studies at University where I graduated after five years with an Honours Degree in Management and a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Journalism. I have not set plans yet (which I'm comfortable with) but I certainly would prefer to keep myself motivated/aiming for progress over these next summer months whilst I plan my next move.

In terms of poker I played my first online hand in September 2010. Since then it has been an interesting experience. I had a spell for about six-nine months in 2012 where I would say I took the game on for income/a career and I worked out well for me. I built up a roll from $250 to ~$10,000 and was playing in a large number of mid stakes MTTs with some solid success.

However, with the higher roll came leaks in my game that were being exploited - and that I refused to fix. Over time I pretty much went busto. No surprises bankroll management was a key influence on the downfall but I seriously struggled to manage my life with 6-10 hours of poker a day and University (as quite a few people do). Chucking $250-500 at a high variance filled weekend was at times quite entertaining but in hindsight I was just burning cash.

So without getting into things much further and writing an article or document on my life (apologies, it's in the nature of a young and aspiring journalist, I guess) I will just cut to the chase and briefly outline what the point of this thread is all about.

I am lucky enough to have some solid investments behind me and I saved up some cash from my part-time job at Uni, so I'm prepared to fire $150/200 at this and maybe reload if it goes completely off track. I basically want to build up a roll to pay off the remainder of my student fees & overdraft. That's approximately $15,000. Not a fan of chucking such a big number around but hey-ho I guess it'll look impressive when I hit it.

I've reset my SharkScope today and now that this thread is up and going I have my motivation and medium for improvement/discussion with all you knowledgeable folks out there!

Lastly, I obviously haven't touched on some things here and it might all seem a little vague but as I said I don't want the first post to be an essay (which it nearly already is). I'll happily answer your questions throughout this journey and hopefully we can all take something from it by the end.

Let's go get it.

ForTheWatch

Going to play in a golf competition this afternoon then maybe hop into my first session. Simply trying to ease myself back into playing regular sessions of some consistency so I'll be starting off playing the following games then adding in $2.50 180s when I reach $250 B/R.


Bankroll Management, as I've already noted, was one of my severe weak points in previous years as a poker player. I've always been tossing and turning with what works for ME, and although I've found some success in the past, my discipline in the long run has let me down.

There are multitudes of articles, posts and threads on bankroll management, so I'm not going to ask for advice on that front, but I'd be interested to hear from previous posters in the PG&C forum what their thoughts were.

Rigid structure based on buy-ins and B/R?

What about volume vs game selection and how that affects how your manage your roll?

I personally think it is open for debate and obviously there are variables which will impact how one's B/R may be managed, however, for me I'm going to start out with between 150 and 100 buy-ins for the above games and then add in $2.50 180s, followed by $3.40 45s until I have somewhere in the region of $750. That's effectively my first major milestone.

Won't post again probably until I've got a session under my belt but in the mean time I hope you can take a read and subscribe for the support
Thanks

ForTheWatch

As expected been pretty busy this week so I only managed to get around to a quick session. Already discovered that 90-man $1 Turbos simply don't run enough for them to be worthwhile so i'll be cutting those out. Overall it was nice to be playing 8-10 tables consistently for a few hours. Happy with my HUD setup and although I'm not used to the $1.50 45-man games I quite like them so far. Kind of pointless adding in a graph for <100 games so I just put the results instead.



I'll be out of town until Monday pretty much so I will review a few marked hands now and then get back to it next week.

Have a good weekend, PG&C

ForTheWatch

Hey guys,

Hope all is well. Got a decent session or two in over the last few days. Been great weather here in Ireland (rare) so had to take advantage of it!

Just going post a graph for the sake of it despite still not really having enough tournaments to merit it.

Profit/Loss: +$24.90
Games Played: 184



Bit frustrating how sharkscope tracks the rebuy/add-ons but it's not biggie. I started messing around with other small games to see what works for me along side my core games and I think I'm going to ditch the 180 $1 Hypers. I think it would probably be more beneficial, and potentially decrease variance if I were simply to play the $2.50 180s instead. I gave them a spin today and found some minor success but it was nice to have a little more time towards the FT to pick spots and not have to sit with 2-5 BBs for the majority of it.

So I think for the near future I'll stick to the below games until I've hit $750~ B/R when I'll add $7 45s and $5 PKOs. May also add in some $3.50 45s around the $300 mark but I will see.



Overall it has been good so far. I really enjoy coming onto 2p2 and writing my little update every now and then, it's quite relaxing! I've certainly picked up on some leaks/weaknesses in the games I'm playing and I'm confident it'll only be a matter of time before I build that roll some more.

I've had 4/5 near misses, coming 3-5th in 180s over the last two sessions, but regardless I've been happy with my game.

I'm about to hit Silverstar and I unlocked a $10 bonus but I didn't add that to my B/R on the statistics above. Hoping to get a strong session in on Saturday evening and then again on Sunday - always nice when there are plenty of games running, saves the wait!

Good luck,

ForTheWatch

Been a week since my last post, but I got quite a decent amount of games in during that time. Managed to build it up to ~$300 at one point but I'm currently on a ~80 Av. BI downswing. As annoying as this is I had some pretty sweet run good in life/outside of poker which has enabled me to make an added investment to my bankroll.

To cut a long story short, I enjoy sports betting in my spare time, purely for fun, have never been interested in making money from it but funnily enough I'm up a small amount over my lifetime betting (~5 years). I bet on various sports but predominantly football (soccer) and golf.

A good friend of mine bets on horses. Yes, I know, virtually throwing money away in my opinion, however, he seems to enjoy it and has certainly done well over the past 12-18 months. He spoke to me on Friday and said that over the weekend he has a coupon for 4 races where each horse is a "cert". As always I laughed and said ok whatever, but he persuaded me to put £10 each way (£20 stake) on the four-fold bet at 212/1. I just so happened I had been given a free £10 bet by the site I use so I wasn't too fussed about risking a tenner for a bit of fun/possible luck.

Come 4:30 on Sunday I'd all but forgotten about the horse racing bet, but got a call from my friend saying the last race is about to start. I laughed again and said I have no interest in watching my money burn etc etc. But, as you probably guess from the spoilers above, the horse won, along with the three previous horses... ~£2500!

My initial thought was. Why can't I get this fortunate elsewhere but then I realised how much £2500 is ($3900). I paid off my student loan from the bank (£1750) and then decided to buy two new golf clubs, a 54 degree and a 60 degree wedge. Both badly needed as my current wedges are worn beyond use.

I then thought about boosting my bankroll. Although it seemed like a great idea at first I then felt kind of dirty/bad. I've setup this thread and so far I had been pretty committed, and enjoyed it. Was it the 80BI downswing telling me to invest more money? Or was it the sensible thing to do?

I know from experience that I am more than comfortable playing low stakes MTTs and that when I have built up bankrolls in the past, or tried to, the sticking point has been the $250-$1000 range.

After considering it for a few days I decided I would invest another £400 into my online roll. That puts me at ~$750 and allows me to play up to $5.50 MTTs, a few higher Buy-In SnGs, and take the occasional shot at $8.80 MTTs or $1.10 rebuys. It's a huge difference, and I am honestly glad I went ahead and did it.

The goal of the thread is to reach $15,000 and pay off my student debts. Thanks to a stroke of luck I have already paid of ~$2500 of that, AND I've been able to invest more into my working capital, as it were, to attempt to pay off the rest. Rather than a shortcut out, I see this as more of a longer term investment in myself, but I'm sure there is argument for both.

What would you guys do? Stay to the original plan and keep the money for other things?

Invest in your roll and play some higher games?

I don't expect many people to take notice of this thread since I'm a newbie to the forums but hopefully over time it might interest other players who are doing a similar thing, or have done in the past.

Big shout out to Chilin_dude - read your entire $300 - $50k thread. Truly amazing and so inspiring. Also to Jaime Staples (pokerstaples) - Just subscribed to your Twitch channel and you've brought a fresh breath of air to how I approach the game.

Thanks guys,

ForTheWatch

First of all, nice read!

I'm more a fan of cashgames to be honest, but I like the way you write. Has probably something to do with the fact that I work in Communications but whatever. Never been a fan of the huge amount of topics including only hands and graphs.

And for an answer on your question? I guess you have to answer this one by yourself.
Do you think it's more important to play bigger games, or to build up a roll a little slower and take the extra experience? If you have played midstakes games I can see why you did this, but personally I'm more a fan of building. But these are my 2 cents.

Wish you good luck on your journey and keep it up with the writing. It's something I used to do too.
My journey

Thanks, man! Appreciate it I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head when you sum it up. If I hadn't previously played at $11-33 games on a very regular basis I doubt I'd be so ok with it. With that in mind I still think it's a little dirty but meh, I ain't complaining either! hah good luck with your journey

Hey everyone, sorry for lack of updates, been a busy week or so as I'm trying to sort out a job for August/September time and I also managed to get some freelancing work to keep the bills ticking over nicely. I actually applied for a job with the Rational Group (company which runs Pokerstars/Full Tilt) ... no luck though! I'll stick to being a client rather than an employee.

For what it is worth I guess now might be a good time to give a little bit more background on what I'm up too currently and where I hope to be in the next few months. I officially got my final results back for my postgraduate diploma course and I passed with Merit. Thanks to that I'm now in a pretty decent position to search for some positions in the Digital Marketing or Digital Media industries (ideally). Fingers crossed I get something so I can get back to the city lifestyle!

Anyhow, on the poker front it has been tough to get in many hours, but in saying that I've probably studied more in the past 3 days than I have this year. Between airports and bus journeys I got loads of time to look over hand histories (particularly from the 180s) so I'm happy enough.

Bankroll is down a little to $600.66 - Doesn't really affect the games I'm playing though:

$2.50 180s, $3.50 45s, Reg Speed MTTs up to $8.80, Turbo Speed MTTs up to $5.50 and I also play the big $1.10 3x Turbo Rebuy as a 4R1A.

$8.80 might sound quite high but in reality there are only two, usually just the one MTT I play in my normal schedule of that buy-in so it's more like $4.40 normal speed MTTs.

Still hanging around this greasy ~80 BI downswing but to be quite frank it doesn't bother me as I know I'm decently rolled for the games I'm playing and I am quite confident within a few sessions I will have added that FT score.

On that note I think it might be quite cool if I post up when I hit an MTT FT ... not that many will be interested but hey, gets me on here more than a few times a few hopefully!

Subbed, best of luck

Subbed as well, glgl

sounds like a walk. get it.

Hopefully Thanks!

Thanks, I appreciate the support!

Thanks for the support, update coming soon

Hey Folks, I can only blame 'life' for my lack of input to both my poker game and this blog recently. As I mentioned before I don't intend to pursue poker as a career, rather more as a short term project in which I hope to pay off my remainder student debt.

With that in mind I have been continuously searching, applying for, and well ... being rejected from jobs. I suggested in my last post that I was looking for a career in the digital media / marketing industry but in reality I'm not. In fact until about a week ago I was getting pretty beaten up about this job search and had driven myself into a hole simply because I had no idea what I actually wanted to do, or even what I was genuinely good at.

It's funny because I would have always considered myself a confident and resilient person with a clear sense of what it is I wanted for the short term future and longer term future. However, as it became apparent, I clearly wasn't sure. After weeks of deliberating and de-constructing my head (sometimes by literally giving myself a good old smack on the temple) I figured out that in reality my heart, and my brain, rests within the golf industry.

In the poker community we hear regularly about players having edges over one another and to put it bluntly I believe my greatest edge over other people is within golf. So, the past few days I've been taking the necessary steps to get myself into the most preferable sectors within golf that suit my so called skills the most. It is really exciting times, and I find myself bouncing out of bed in the morning as opposed to rolling out dreading what interviews/phone calls/emails the day my hold.

Interestingly, and not to my surprise, I got my first nice score of the project the night after I realised where I wanted to go in my career (at least in the next 3-5 years) when I final tabled a reg speed $11 MTT - got 6th for $500 after being crippled when I missed by opened ended straight & flush draw against villains top pair. It brought the B/R up to $900 at that time and although it currently sits at $758.74 after I miss-click reg'd the Big $109 (do'h) I am more than happy with how things have been going given my lack of play between 10th - 24th July.

Given my performance in the games so far I've decided to change what I'm playing to the following:

$2.50 180s
Up to $11 Reg Speed MTTs
Up to $5.50 Turbo MTTs

In all honesty my Turbo MTT game is pretty weak (in the bigger fields) so I really don't play that many. I added in the $11 freezeouts because to be quite frank, I was getting sick of not playing them as they hold huge value compared to the $8.80 reg speed MTTs.

So all in all it has been a very busy month for me. I'd hope the next time I post on here I will have secured my job for September/October and who knows, might even be rolled for the Sunday Million :P

Thanks guys,

ForTheWatch