Intro
Hey what's up PG&C. I'm a poker hobbyist who's a big fan of the game and a good winning microstakes player. I played a good bit before black friday and made a comeback challenge several weeks ago on ignition, but I didn't like their software or mtt selection so I'm starting anew on Chico Network's BetOnline skin. They have lots of good freerolls and micro mtts so it looks like I won't even have to deposit to start a roll.

Challenge
-Start strictly with freerolls - no deposits
-MTTs only
-Follow 100 buy-in rule
-Reach account balance of $1,000

Goals
-Get rolled for $10 mtts
-Win a tournament
-Stick to mtts (I have an unhealthy relationship with grinding sngs and cash games)
-Only play when I'm clear-headed and committed to focus
-Put life's responsibilities before poker
-Show that you don't have to multi-table and grind to build a roll
-Show that tournament variance isn't that crazy if you have a significant skill advantage and pay attention to your table

Getting Started
I've staked out and played a few freerolls already and they're the best value I've seen on any site. If you divide the prize pool by the # of entries they average out to anywhere between 1 cent and 20 cent buy-ins straight up, which is better than I remember on fulltilt and a lot better than stars' old ticket system. It should allow for a smooth transition to some of the 10, 20, and 50 cent micro tournies that run daily. Of course I can always continue to play freerolls since they're free value, but I'd like to try to limit myself to 1-2 tournies a day and really focus so it makes sense to play the biggest buy-in my bankroll allows to make it more meaningful.

So that's my plan, we'll see how it goes. It's certainly no "move up to high stakes and make $1,000,000" challenge, but I'm sure there are some fellow micro players out there trying to start a roll who may be interested and I'll be around checking out other people's challenges as well. I'll record the result of every mtt I play and update at the end of each week or anytime I have a significant score. I'll also be posting screenshots of key hands, finishes, and account balance milestones to spice things up.

Here we go...

Update 1 - Close, but no Cigar

I went into the weekend really excited about getting started and had some deep runs but just couldn't put enough hands together in a single tourney to cash. I got pretty close in a couple of them though. Here's the results:

2/11 $0 321/895 $50 Freeroll
2/11 $0 551/2301 $300 Nooner Freeroll
2/11 $0 728/1431 $50 Freeroll
2/11 $0 1340/1341 $25 Freeroll
2/11 $0 119/1455 $50 Freeroll
2/12 $0 59/697 $25 Freeroll
2/12 $0 144/461 $10 Turbo Freeroll
2/12 $0 46/941 $10 Turbo Freeroll
2/12 $0 1228/1403 $25 Freeroll

In the three bold I finished in the top 8% twice and 5% once. Not bad, though you need to finish about top 2.5% to cash in most of them. The games are super soft obviously but I've been surprised by how many people are playing like they actually care. You still get your typical freeroll antics: the guy who goes all in every hand, a couple sitters, and just generally very poor play. I did lay down JJ once though to a cold 4-bet and the guy ended up having kings. I felt pretty good about that one. Here's a hand where I wasn't so fortunate:



The guy w/TT opened for 7x and I moved in for 21bbs. Dream spot for bb obv. That was the biggest pot I've played so far at 32x starting stack. You only start with 1k chips in these freerolls, which I'm still getting used to. I'll start feeling like I'm having trouble getting a hold of chips then I'll have to remind myself that 3-4k is like 3-4x starting stack. I'd like if there was some more play esp. in the bigger freerolls like the $300 Nooner, but oh well. There's also a $200 "Euro Nooner" that runs at 5:05 am my time which is right when I'm getting off work so that's definitely on my daily schedule. Here are my goals for this week:

-Play the $200 Euro Nooner after work each day
-Focus & gather reads
-Don't play freerolls all day during the week
-Accomplish some life stuff like replacing my burnt out headlights
-Don't talk about poker at work until my roll is up in the hundreds. I don't want to embarass myself saying "I don't have any money in teh account" or "I'm up $30!" But I feel like once I have $200+ I'm home free. Like I could get stuck at 1k for a year but as long as I can say "My account's still at 1,000" it sounds impressive.
-Also, track every tourney (I missed a few for this first update )

That's all for now. I'll probably update again after the Euro Nooner Saturday morning, which is my last work day for the week. I'm thinking 2 updates/week: 1 for weekdays and 1 for weekends when I'll be grinding more of the smaller $10-$50 freerolls. Til then I'll be hanging around PG&C and hopefully finding some more smaller challenges like this one. I look around and it's like "Oh, there's Brandon Shack-Harris grinding a high stakes mixed game at Commerce. Well I guess that's a worthwhile challenge "

Thats actually a pretty interesting challenge, I hope you can make it and be a source of inspiration for the small stakes recreational players like me I personally tend to start playing 10-20$ BI MTTs when I pass the 200$ bankroll which is idiotic I know... That is why I'm impressed by your discipline to play only freerolls. Good luck and don't give up

Thanks Vivici! Will do!

Update 2 - Just Like That



That thing was a freaking grind. Almost 4 hours of freeroll madness. The bubble is real in these things. Only 1 in 25 people cash, but it's not the $2 really, it's the fact that you played so long and accumulated all of these chips just to risk walking away with nothing to show for it. Nevertheless I was at risk with Q6o near the bubble because I was making a play on a guy I saw opening a lot of pots with his better hands and limp/folding weaker hands. Even with that tell he seemed like the most competent player at the table, so accordingly he correctly limp/called my 13bb Q6o shove w/KTs, but alas, 6 on the river. My brother won a $3 mtt with 333 entries on ignition for $210 before I left for work, so maybe the apartment's just running hot



Other highlights included winning a 3 way all in with 88 vs QQ and two overs (8 hi flop thank you). It was insanity, but I guess it always is when you go this deep in a 1000 player field regardless of the buy-in.

When we got heads-up I could tell right away the guy was weak. He was folding too easily to minraises and 1/2 pot cbets, and in the only hand I think we showed down he quickly checked back mpgk twice after I called his cbet on a non-threatening board. But then this hand came up:



He opened 3x like he had been doing. I'd shoved over it a few times so I feel like he was loosening up at this point. He binked the A for all the chips, but I can't complain cause I ran amazing the rest of the tournament.

So that wraps up the redux of the first cash, and final table, and heads up battle, whoop! Here's the summary of results since last update for the sake of completion:

2/13 $0 167/995 $200 Euro Nooner
2/13 $0 678/2103 $300 Nooner Freeroll
2/14 $22 2/1011 $200 Euro Nooner

Now I have to find a good tourney to play moving forward with my newfound wealth. It occurred to me the other day that this $200 Euro Nooner is effectively a $0.20 tourney since it gets about 1000 entries and it wouldn't make sense to play a real $0.20 tourney when I can play one with no losses. It actually probably doesn't make sense to play anything less than a $1 tourney when you factor that in. There happens to be a $1 buy-in $25 guarantee 5 minutes before this tourney which would make sense to play, especially since it only gets 30-40 people, thus reducing variance on a short roll. I really wanted this challenge to be about bankroll management and building a roll playing larger fields, but I'm in a little bit of a no man's land. It only makes sense to play what's essentially a multi-table sng on a shorter roll, especially considering I can always fall back on a free $0.20 tourney if I go broke.

So that'll be my plan moving forward: play the $1 buy-in $25 guarantee after work until I'm busto or properly rolled for a larger field tourney that's at least $1 buy-in. Let's go!

Is your goal to be a full time professional at some point??

Nah definitely not full time. For now I view poker as a hobby with no pressure to put in volume or study other than what I do purely b/c I enjoy it. But I can see that approach becoming a nice little source of extra income if I'm able to move up to $20+ mtts with the occasional bigger buy-in live mtt at my local casino mixed in (Horseshoe Indiana)

Update 3 - Now with Garphs!

2/15 -$1.10 21/25 $1 NL Freezeout $25 GT
2/16 -$1.10 22/56 $1 NL Freezeout $25 GT
2/16 -$1.10 17/36 $1 NL [4-Max] $25 GT
2/18 -$1.32 22/131 $0.20 NL [R+A] $20 GT

Bankroll: $17.38

Nothing much to report since last update, just 4 bricks. I'm reeling a little from the last one because it was the bubble and I made what was probably a pretty bad call off:



The action was hero opens for 2.5x (2500), sb calls, bb calls.
Pot (8300) sb bets 2500, bb folds, hero calls.

I used my time bank and went back to look at a hand I remember him playing w/A2 where he got it in on the flop w/bottom pair. That was enough for me to rationalize the call. I'm disappointed because I didn't even consider that it was the bubble or try to visualize how the hand developed in his shoes. He called an early position raise then donked into 2 people and shoved turn after getting called otf. If he was overplaying middle/bottom pair again he would have to be scared of my call and I doubt he's instashoving turn. There's also a lot of Kx in his range flatting the sb, though I did think he was playing tight enough that he wouldn't reach as far as K4o (which he had), but maybe he's just really loose from the blinds.

Other than that I really enjoyed playing a rebuy and that's gonna be my game of choice moving forward. For bankroll's sake I'll count them as 5 buy-ins, so a $0.20 rebuy = $1 freezeout, which is my max right now in the early gambling stage. There's a $0.10 rebuy that runs at 5:30 am and I intend to make that my new default daily tourney moving forward. I just love how you're guaranteed 1 hour of play during the rebuy period plus a 5,000 add-on when the next blind level is only 75/150.

Challenge to date: