dont prove me wrong and mess this up a poll life is the balance

Thanks for your support!

I won't, don't worry. Good brm and I simply can't fail, it just might take me a while to get there!

Finally there. These last $50 have been the hardest of the lot, with downswings in Holdem and getting to grips with Omaha, but I have to say I'm chuffed with the end results.



Here's how I did it (some of these are repeat images, apologies to those who've read the whole thread):

NLHE Tourneys:



NLHE FR (2NL up to approx 11k hands, then 5NL)



A brief spell of OM8 at 2PL level



And the latest punch at 5PLO that got me the over last milestone hurdle




As I now have 25 buyins for 10NL and 10PLO I will be playing these games from now on (focusing mostly on PLO I think, as although I'm a semi-rookie the games are so much softer and simply more interesting). If I drop below $200 I'll go back to 5NL and 5PLO to minimise the risk of catastrophic downswings etc. Lets hope and pray that I don't have to worry about that!

Lastly thanks to all who have posted encouragement and advice on here, seriously wouldn't have got this far without this thread.

Current bankroll: $250.49

Current outlook: Feeling gooooood

Current worries: PLO is swwiiiinggy... can my bankroll take it or will I see 5PLO again very soon?

Milestone 1: $100 - reached ($5 buyin freedom)
Milestone 2: $250 - reached ($10 buyin freedom)

FINAL Milestone: $600 - PENDING

been trying to cash in freerolls for a while lol. Idk. seems like i get close to the money than get knocked out. anyway, i will be watching and trying to learn more. any help is welcome.

Just read your whole thread. Good luck man It's deff a hard feat to beat.

Btw TID get that 600!

I was fortunate enough that some larger regional freerolls were going on when I started this challenge, and I managed to cash in a couple on my first day. If you're struggling in large MTTs try the MTT forum, but the variance is so high in these that you're hard-pushed to cash at the best of times. I'd recommend reading all you can to give yourself the best chance, but you might do better to wait for larger regional freerolls which will come around every now and then (every 3 or 4 months in my experience). At least with these if you min-cash you have $1 rather than $0.02 to start your bankroll with.

Ty, ty, I'm going for it!

Been playing exclusively 10PLO. Playing awesome and running good (56bb/100), but mostly these games are juuiiicy.

Current bankroll: $321.91

Current thoughts: The doomswitch has gotta come sooner or later, but have I done enough to not see 5PLO again?

I'm back from holidays, playing a bit here and there. A few coolers had me down about 3 buyins at 10PLO but a few hours grind has me up at a new highest total this morning. Hoping to play a lot over the next couple of days and grind to my next VIP bonus. I'm finding it's MUCH easier to get VPPs at 10PLO, but I am getting raped by the rake (~$100 so far at PLO in 10,000 hands, so 1c per hand, 10bb/100 lost in rake alone).

Current bankroll: $326.76

Mini-goal: Trying to get the 5th VIP bonus (5000 VPPs) as it's worth $50 before December 31st when it all resets. Havn't worked out volume or anything, on 2200 at the moment. Hoping this won't be too hard at current stakes, just gotta make sure I play enough.

A quick graph of all Omaha hands played (including some O8 at the beginning) now that I've hit 10k hands.



On personal news I have finally got a full time job, starting mid-November. Means less free time to play but some real-life income finally!

Nice job grinding the BR up, will you use funds from work to increase your br?

Thanks, and no, if I can let poker pay for itself thats great. This is a challenge of not depositing as much as anything else!

Can't flop anything. Can't turn anything. Can't river anything. When I do I lose, no matter what the odds. People call my bluffs down with a bare AA on a 4 to a straight and 3 to a flush board.

Current bankroll: $276.33

Current thoughts: Not long til 5PLO again - joy.

A few more hours play. Swings up to $300 and back down again.

Current bankroll: $273.86

Taking a break for a few days because, to be honest, I'm playing absolutely terrible, and I'm lucky I'm not down around the $220 mark. Confidence taken a big hit, thought about giving up but gonna stick with it, for a while at least.

Felt better about my game today to played for a bit and tried a different tack. I seemed to get a bit fortunate hitting some hands, but most of my extra earnings came from playing a lot tighter.

I did have one frustrating table with a huge aggrodonk fish who was on $99 when I sat down, and proceeded to bet pot on (almost) every street of (almost) every hand. He was taking down a lot of small pots but losing big ones when people called him down. Unfortunately having taken $25 or so off him already, I hit a massive hand (16 card nut straight wrap with flush outs) and got allin against him otf. I was happy until he showed the same wrap and the nut flush draw, hitting the flush on the turn for my stack - just my luck he turned up with a hand when it was my turn to try to call him down. He ended up losing the lot btw, and I made $1.34 off him in 90 minutes. Shameful.

Feeling a lot more confident than yesterday, new tighter strategy appears to be working better, although I'm struggling to tell good strategy from plain old variance in PLO at the moment - inexperience with the game showing through a bit. My PT3 PLO graph is laughable. Posting it at 15 or 20k hands, whichever I get around to.

10PLO observations: I made the same mistake as many people, playing too many hands. I figured as it was 6max with a higher blind pressure I'd be forced to play more hands. But as the size of the pot is much greater on average than, say, HE, I can afford to wait for better hands as they offer bigger payoffs. I'm also realising that although PLO hands are generally more similar to each other in preflop strength, tighter preflop hand selection allows MUCH easier postflop decision-making. I believe this is mainly due to superior starting hands leading to more nut than non-nut draws, increasing then number of nut outs available and hence the willingness to continue with the hand. Most importantly I've relearned the importance of position, and have found postflop decisions infinitely more manageable as a result.

Current bankroll: $323.12

Current thoughts: Feeling as though I need to develop a thicker skin for PLO games as the variance is so much higher and swings of 10+ buyins is more than standard.

Current strategy still appears to be working. Play tight, break even against the regs/tight players and stack the fish.

Current Bankroll: $345

great thread man keep it up

its gonna feel great when you reach your goal from $0

Yeah I can't wait! However I'm over halfway to the finish line and (hopefully) the hardest part should be over, and I'm beginning to wonder what I'll do when I hit $600. It seems a bit boring to just cash out and back in for the signup bonus like I said in the OP - I might try to think up a different challenge. I think half the reason I've got this far without tilting it away is that I know I'd look a right tit when I admitted it on here - I don't want to lose that ego-boosting part, and I think a new challenge may be the way to go... I'll give it some thought over the next month or so that it (again, hopefully!) takes me to complete the original challenge.

On a separate point, looking at my Stellar awards, VPPs and FPPs, I think I should hit 5k VPPs by December 31st without too much trouble. This will give me another 2 x $10 VIP bonuses and a $50 bonus at the 5k VPP milestone. By then I will also have the 4.5k FPPs for the $50 bonus from the VIP store. That gives me $120 in bonuses in the next 20k hands or so (shot in the dark estimate btw) - finally rakeback!

Poker sucks sometimes.

Current bankroll: $279

Can't seem to catch a break. Every river flushes or pairs. Every time I raise with AAxx and c-bet I get raised. When I figure they can't have it every time and re-pop they show me the nuts. When i flop a straight it's invariably on a suited board. I just can't seem to flop a good hand / draw and have it hold up / complete by the river. I even went on a shortstacking session, raising aggressively preflop with premium hands, and getting the money in on the flop if I'm committed. Since then I'm running another $30 under EV, making $85 below EV total. Thanks PS.

Current bankroll: $246.18

Actually looking forward to moving back to 5PLO when (not if) I hit $200. I've totally reached the end of my tether and will need a break for a while before I can play again.

On a happier note pokerstars have made $150 out of me in rake. Superb - well done boys.

On review of the last few fairly morbid posts I think I may have been a little on tilt...

Funny thing is I didn't realise it, which says a lot about how happy I am generally when playing. After a very encouraging message form statue26 (thanks man) I have realised that what I'm missing is the fun of playing. As such I'm cutting myself down to 1 table and focusing on playing my A*-game and getting reads on my opponents. I need to remember that it's not my money I'm actually playing with, and that it doesn't really matter how long it takes me to complete the challenge so long as I'm enjoying it as a hobby.

I've played one session like this and enjoyed it much more than the previous sessions. I was frustrated when a tight guy 4-bet me, I called with a 6788ds, convinced he had AAxx and I could get paid off if I hit, hit a 68T rainbow flop, went allin and got called by his not-so-obvious 79QAss for a 350bb pot...

But despite losing I still felt much better. So that's the way forward until things balance out again. I might put in some shortstacking sessions amongst it to earn the VPPs I need to get the $50 bonus before the end of December, but don't think I'll struggle too much with that.

Moving house atm, so not much time to play. Will play next week and update as usual.

Current bankroll: $249

Bring on the boomswitch.

This challenge is sorta on hold due to lack of time/motivation/general caring about poker. My new job/girlfriend being home is taking up too much time and I'm honestly just a bit bored of poker. I realised I don't have what it takes to grind every day as I get frustrated and, well, bored. I hope that I'll complete this challenge some day, but I can't promise it will be soon. Not signing off for good, just until I feel like I give a cr*p again.

Just after the last fairly dismal post I looked at my PS account. I realised that although I wasn't in the mood, getting to my next 2 Stellar Awards and taking $60 off PS for all the grief they've caused me over the past 2 months would make me feel much better, especially as I would lose it if I didn't get there by Dec 31st. So I've been playing a fair amount, trying to rack up the VPPs. As PS VPPs are calculated on shared not contributed rake, I decided to play as many tables as possible at once to speed the process up. So I've been 40bb shortstacking the 10PLO tables, around 6-8 at once and actually doing fairly well with it. As I'm only investing $4 in each table and leaving when I hit $6+, it doesn't tilt me nearly as hard when i run bad or get bad-beat, and my bankroll appreciates the smaller swings. As a result I'm much happier playing as a dirty dust-crawling shortstacker. I get some rude comments and some of you out there will probably think me scum for doing it but screw the haters, I can't see anyone else trying to reach $600 from nothing.

I also bought a cash reward of $50 for 4500FPPs. Some people might say this would be better invested in tourneys but I'm just going for money in the bank at the moment as I don't have time to think about what's best value for money. This brings me to what I believe is my highest total yet. So yeah.... Booyah.

Current bankroll: $338

Wow it's been a while since I posted in this thread.

I've taken a fairly extended break from poker for the last 3 months as I realised I just wasn't enjoying it. Also I started a new job in November and got engaged in December so real life has kinda taken priority.

Starting up a poker Home Game for my Uni Poker Society and crushing my uni buddies gave me that sparkle back but still not with the same passion I had before.

I'm going to try playing a bit in the next few weeks at lower stakes just to get back into it. Not setting any goals for now, just gonna play and see what happens.

Current bankroll: $356

The fish keep hitting and I keep calling. Getting frustrated.

Bankroll $310

Been a long time since I posted here - graduated, got a job and got married since I last posted (well, almost, wedding in 2 months). Challenge is still alive (just). Started playing in some downtime in the evenings again. Pokertracker reset with my computer so lost all stats .

Just playing some simple 2c/5c NLHE to get my head around this game again

Current bankroll $308

Back in it again (I know I keep doing this) after getting married, moved house etc. but have started playing again during downtime or when the missus is out and have found my place on the $3.50 Turbo 45-man SnGs. Seem to have a solid cash rate atm although have probably been running fairly good. Managing a decent volume (for me) so just gonna take it easy and see how it goes.

I had a look at cashing out of PS just out of interest (for if/when I eventually reach my goal!) and it appears that if I cash out (even though I've never made a deposit) then I lose the subsequent deposit bonus. WTF is up with that? I understand the rule of "no cashing out during the promotional period" but I didn't think the "promotional period" would start til I deposited...

Anyways back to the good news.

Current bankroll: $360