Hey everyone long time MTT enthusiast and American who somehow ended up in the UK and now gets to grind Pokerstars MTTs in his free time. As someone who came into the game post Black Friday, this is a really cool opportunity and here we are with a bankroll challenge.

I have played on and off on sites like Carbon Poker, Bovada, and ACR, but never really liked depositing on those sites as I did not trust them being offshore poker sites that catered to Americans.

Current goals
- Grow the bankroll
- Gym 5-6 times per week
- Post at least 5 times per week
- Continue solver work in Deepsolver
- Contribute in MTT hands forum and be a member of this community
- Continue to be a good family member / husband / friend
- No drinking

Quick about me
- American - Husband with very poker supportive wife - Data Analyst by profession (Made redundant 2 weeks ago - New Job already starts June 1) - Loves Poker, Outdoors, Kayaking, Photography, Good Food, yada yada.
- London, UK based

Current MTT plan
- $2500 bankroll and only one account on Pokerstars. Might open up a PartyPoker / 888, but Stars seems to have a solid lineup for my current bankroll strategy and simplifies everything
- So I don't have to worry about re-depositing, we will keep the ABI at around .2% of bankroll (500 BI strategy) which will scale up as necessary. This is $5 right now.
- Play series of MTT ranging from $1-$7.50.
- Post hands on MTT forum here for all forms of criticism
- Play the occasional good value tourney in London with big prizepool and under 200GBP
- Study Solver and all free MTT content on youtube


Old Graph (2017 - 2023)


- Obviously not any meaningful volume. Based on graph I went on a big heater for the stakes I was playing ($5-$10ABI) then proceeded to massively shot take with $22-$50 Buy Ins like an idiot hence the massive immediate downswing. All of that happened in 2017 then afterwards I took a little break since I moved to NYC. Played average BI $2 tournaments just for fun whenever I had the time. My bankroll management skills are night and day compared to how I was 7 years ago as is my financial situation.

Been primarily playing cash games for my poker fix over the last few years (Atlantic City, Vegas, Cherokee, ACR Blitz). I feel my conceptual understanding of the game is miles ahead of how it was in the past. Now I am in London where the cash games are much stronger, so MTTs I believe are the most +EV game for the meantime. Just need to re-tune my improved understanding back towards MTTs and that's what this blog is all about.

Either way, that's it. Let's get it. Heading to the gym and will be grinding today.

Starting Bankroll: $2500

Also forgot to mention i will be looking at keeping field sizes under 300 for about 90% of my BIs

GL subbed

Will follow glgl! Ipoker is also a good option for soft mostly <500 field sizes

GLGL

Thank you! Should be fun.

Thanks for the recommendation. Now that I think about it, I need another account so I can play more than 4 MTT at once. Looking to play around 15-20 / day

Thank you! Been following yours as well lets get that $

Good luck on the grind.

Thanks swerbs! Update coming tonight

Stats so far

Tournaments played - 35
Cashes - 5
Bankroll - $2475 (-$25)

Last 2 days have been okay. Getting some run good in the middling/bubble stages, but seem to cool off by the end of the tournaments. Got to the last 2 tables 4 times which is a good / lucky sign, but haven't one that flip that gets me comfortably into the final table. ABI much lower than I expected. Eliminating the $1BI and going to keep the tournaments between $2.2 and $5.5 for the first few hundred tourneys.

That said, I feel pretty good about my play, but definitely some areas I need to work on...primarily 3betting since the dynamic is night and day with different stack sizes, antes, and icm. Also need to continue to dig into the solver to adjust my opening ranges. Coming from 6 max cash it gets slightly confusing, but should be an easy thing to tighten up.

Main focus for the week is going to be solver work and seeing what is approved as far as light 3 bets and light flop raises + barrel opportunities for various stack sizes on different boards and formations. I am also very confused about what I should be calling off my stack with when I'm put all in for ...lets say 13bbs as BB Caller on a QT4r board as CO puts me in when I have 8Ts. I feel I may be overfolding in these situations.

All other things are good...gym routine on point...eating well...

Going to be entering a 200GBP tourney at The Vic tomorrow - 100k GTD lots of fish I'm sure lets bink this

Not much to see in these graphs, but how its going so far...



Preflop stats - should continue in this range

Typo in previous post - 7 cashes in 35 tournaments not that it matters

Skipping the live tourney for online - felt it was the right move



First final table of the blog...Just placed 5th in this tourney for ~$30. Was 2nd in chips until this hand I got into trapping the small stack. Played well felt pretty good about post flop play in this tourney as well as others.

PokerStars, $2.94 + $0.36 - Hold'em No Limit - 3,000/6,000 (900 ante) - 5 players
Hand delivered by CardsChat

UTG: 236,934 (39 bb)
CO: 139,966 (23 bb)
BU: 241,581 (40 bb)
SB: 149,316 (25 bb)
BB (Hero): 197,203 (33 bb)

Pre-Flop: (13,500) Hero is BB with A♦ A♣
1 fold, CO raises to 12,600, 2 players fold, Hero calls 6,600

Flop: (32,700) 8♥ 2♥ 3♣ (2 players)
Hero checks, CO bets 9,000, Hero raises to 36,000, CO raises to 126,466 (all-in), Hero calls 90,466

Turn (285632) J♣ (2 players, 1 all-in)

River (285632) K♥ (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: 285632

Showdown
Player 4 (CO): 285632 +145666 [9♥ Q♥]
Player 7 (BB): 57237 -139966 [A♦ A♣]

Quick update - Spent Easter not playing at all and spend time with the wife and her family. Lots of fun. Tons of junk food though.


Played an additional 20 tournaments since last update at exactly breakeven. Still down $25. Lots of grinding in the upcoming week

Going to add a few more topics into this blog including:

-Matched Betting - seems to be a decent way to make a extra few hundred every month or two and the process seems pretty straight forward. UK seems to be the best location for this so why not take advantage.

-Daily Fantasy Sports- Found out that the UK has draftkings and I being in the UK, I don't get my sports fix as much as I want to since the NBA is always played at really late hours. I have deposited $250 US and am going to be playing $1 H2H and .1/.25 Contests w/ GTD $. Focusing on MLB and Late NBA. I have a NBA API but need an MLB api so I can code up a starter model.

-Extra income on the internet - going to be experimenting with a bunch of ideas bounced off in a subreddit I found. Will post results.

That said - new week lets get it. Gym then tourney grind in a few hours.