My name is Evan. I'm a Canadian, living in Thailand. This is my first time playing poker with real money.

My goal is to build a bankroll from $0 up to $2000 without making a deposit. 888 Poker lends you $2 when you sign up. I’m using that $2 to start out.

Critique on my play and comments are very welcome!

I plan to post a video and results each week. Here's the Day 1 video:

http://youtu.be/XHOkFyduvIM

Here are the Day 1 results:

Hey, Its nice that you can learn playing poker with whatever poker room give you but to be honest it would not work as you expect it to be.
I will tell you what will most likely to happen -> you will loose your initial 2$
And then you will have to deposit more.
I wouldn't start poker career as a cash player as it is one of the most hardest poker types. I'd rather start with 180man SNGs or any other multi table SNGs, but 180 man is the best for beginners from my viewpoint.

Also start with watching poker videos and listen to comments.

P.S. 277 hands that you have shown in screenshot is too small of a sample, you cannot rely on that data to plan future of your poker career. Believe me I did this mistake myself long time ago and now I can clearly see it...

GL

Good advice. Thanks!

Yeah, I think it's definitely possible to lose that $2 right away. That's my main concern, just starting off with only $2, there's not much room for error.

I have done a lot of reading and practicing and will continue to do so. If I play super tight at first, I think I can do this. We'll find out soon enough

BTW I'm two weeks into the challenge now, still with my head above water. The Day 1 stuff shown above was almost too weeks ago. Making the video delayed my posting. Will catch up posting results over the next few days.

If u dont tilt and play as u do. It is very possible. But its very much an option to switch to sng/mtt once u have around $40 Unless cash is really ur game ofcourse.

Good luck. Really hope to see a success here.

Thanks for the support guys!

Day 2 and 3 were great. Ran good against some bad players. Some funny moments. Check out my 10 minute video review of these two sessions:

http://youtu.be/1ztK06QJUx8

As usual, critique and comments welcome.

Turns out the deal with 888 is they take that "free $2" back after a week. It looks like they actually took a bit more than $2 back, but my records could be wrong.

$11.59 - Profit from Day 02 & 03

$11.78 - Balance to date

0.6% - Progress so far

Here are results from Day 02 and 03:

Congrats for your earnings!!!

Hehe, they want some ROI as well ofcourse for staking u for 2 bucks.

I think that 180p are more hard to start with then the cash games ( For beginers ofcourse).
One bad variance of these at the begining will make you quit poker
My opinion is that 9 max sng or 6 max sng turbo are the best way for some one who is new at the game.

Week 2 is done, and I'm still here. I made a few ugly mistakes this week, like spewing off a 3 buy-in stack. But still managed to make significant progress at a rate of about 19 big blinds per 100 hands.

The Week 2 Video below is about 13 minutes. Checkout the monster hand served to me on a silver platter, as two opponents shovel their stacks at me like they hate money. It's at 10:01.

http://youtu.be/1DTmjMXqN8w

As usual, critique and comments welcome. Please admonish me for the $6 lose with AK.

$36.11 - Profit from Week 2

$48.22 - Balance to date

2.4% - Progress so far

Here are results from Week 2:

Had a really rough start to Week 3. I was running bad, made some mistakes. Lost 5 buy-ins in one day. But I made a great recovery the next day. Still, I'm really not happy with the 13 bb/100 win rate this week. I'll do much better next week.

Checkout the video below. There's a few funny hands where you gotta wonder if the opponent can even see the board. Any critique and feedback is more than welcome.

http://youtu.be/INOdJGnrqJM

Some leaks I need to work on:
- Calling big river bets because "they must be bluffing here"
- Cbetting too wide multi-way

Some things I've improved on:
- Getting more thin value
- Shoving turns when I think they'll call with draws
- Peeing in a bottle

+$18.93 - Profit from Week 3

12.8 bb/100 - Win Rate

$64.00 - Balance to date

3.2% - Progress so far

Goal for next week: 20 bb/100

Here are results from Week 3:

You're doing MUCH better than I am, considering Im almost 100k hands in and still not hitting $100 lol (im a tiltly little fish)

subbed and gl

It looks like you've had a great start, keep it up may the run good be with you

Thanks for the support geekybratt and Purple0wnz!

I almost hit my 20 bb/100 goal this week. Just short at 19.6 bb/100.

Do you guys shove wet boards with a strong hand against bad players, in hopes that they'll call with draws or top pair? Maybe it's more profitable than betting 2/3 or 3/4 pot 3 streets. At NL2 at least.

That's what I was wondering last week, so I did a bit of an experiment. Checkout the Week 4 video, linked below, if you want to see how it turned out. It's just under 10 minutes.

http://youtu.be/4hc-lvTmKMI

I would love to hear what you guys think about the hands in the video, and the going all-in idea. Is it more profitable than betting 3 streets?

+$32.70 - Profit from Week 4

19.6 bb/100 - Win Rate

$96.70 - Balance to date

4.8% - Progress so far

I don't know why I'm still playing at 1¢/2¢. I need to move up faster if I'm going to hit this $2000 in a reasonable amount of time. I'm sure I can beat those stakes, probably with a lower win rate. But if it's anything over 50% of my current win rate, it will be more profitable.

So next week I plan to move up to 2¢/4¢. I'm wondering how differently the opponents will play at those stakes, and if I can adjust. What do you guys think about the skill of 4NL players compared to 2NL?

Or I might move my winnings over to Pokerstars. 888's buggy, stone-age software is getting on my nerves. And i want to play 6-max 100bb deep. Can't do that on 888.

Here are results from Week 4:

Good thread dude.

Your posting style, discipline, lingo and use of HUD tells me that you are not a newbie. But watevs.

glgl

Move the winnings over to Pokerstars. The games will be just as soft and the software is much much better.

Some insightful observations there. And great compliments, thanks! I played play money on Pokerstars and studied for way too long IMO, turning 1000 play chips into 7.5 Billion. But this is my first time with real money. So depends how you define "newbie".

Yeah I think you are right. And I can play more than 6 tables at Stars, so hourly profit could be higher even if it was with a lower win rate. The software at Stars is such a pleasure to use.

$17.70 How's that for a big pot at NL2? Not a terribly interesting hand. Just had to share because it's the biggest pot I've seen so far.

MP1 = huge maniac 89/44 shoving around 50% post flop
BTN = huge station 70/8 with fold to cbet of 22
MP2 = massive tag-fish 15/10

I was happy to get it in here against these guys here. Feel kinda bad for the station, tho, he got squeezed 3 times in this hand, but just couldn't lay the garbage down.

I played terrible last week. Made some big bad river calls and just generally played poorly. I was tired, tilted, hot and sweaty because the air conditioner was broken and this is Thailand. Somehow still had a win rate of 19.8 bb/100 though. Kinda confused about that, but I'll take it.

Below is the 10 minute video for Week 5. There were a couple of spots there I wasn't sure about, if anyone wants to share thoughts, I'd love to here them!



Some figures:

+$23.09 - Profit from Week 5

19.8bb/100 - Win Rate

$119.39 - Balance to date

6.0% - Progress so far

Goal for next week: Move up to NL4. I'm ready for it. I'm making about $1 an hour now. I want poker to be a more significant part of my income than that. And I need bigger profits or it's gonna take forever to hit the $2000 goal. I think I'm moving up too slowly, and I'll learn more if I push it a bit.

Here are results from Week 5:

GL OP. i did something similar but without a clear goal, i just wanted to see if it was possible to build a roll w/o depositing (it is).

the one piece of advice i have is consider playing games other than NLH/PLO. Triple Draw (2-7 and Ace-5, PL or Limit) and Badugi are a lot of fun, and once you have an understanding of the game edges seem to be a lot bigger.

How did you not deposit?

Def worth considering other games, especially if the other players aren't very proficient in them.

Do you fold or shove here?

Here is a vid of the hand if you prefer watching over deciphering the HH code below:

http://youtu.be/BLExCZD4GFA?t=1m20s

I folded a KK overpair on a dry flop. Normally I would never do that, but villain's stats had me putting him on AA or a set. Wondering what you guys think. Is it a fold or a shove?

About 70 hands later, his PF 3bet stat was 3 instead of 1. So maybe the small sample size mislead me, and it could have been AQ.



888 Poker - $0.02 NL - Holdem - 8 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

MP+1: 103.5 BB
CO: 100 BB
Hero (BTN): 100 BB
SB: 100 BB
BB: 103.5 BB
UTG: 103.5 BB (VPIP: 17.02, PFR: 8.65, 3Bet Preflop: 1.45, Hands: 294)
UTG+1: 79.5 BB
MP: 110 BB

SB posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K K

UTG raises to 2 BB, fold, fold, fold, fold, Hero raises to 6 BB, fold, fold, UTG raises to 19.5 BB, Hero calls 13.5 BB

Flop: (pot: 40.5 BB, 2 players) T Q 6
UTG bets 40.5 BB, fold

UTG wins 38 BB

I'm not sure why but only the 1c2c 6max tables are 50bb max on 888, 4nl onwards lets you buy in for 100bb.

Good work on this challenge sofar

Yeah you are right! That's weird.

hey nice thread, ive just moved up frm 2nl to 5nl (big acknowledgment i know) so heres my 2cent on your hands,

KK-always gii pre ull get AA vs KK and vice versa an equal amount in the long run so ull breakeven there and u have to make profit against other big hands that 2nlers are unable to fold or think are the nuts.

QQ chk flop-coz by betting u are making vil play "correctly"-folding when they dont have k and calling wen they have it by chking u can induce a bluff or get value later frm smaller pairs than urs on later strts. u can bet it if the flop is wet and vil cally

TT-raise more otf-again coz by making smaller u give the vil good odds and the guy with kjs is playing "correctly"-that is our main word-he is getting the right price to draw and hit even take ur money wen he hits, u have to make them call an incorrect or at leas breakeven call -making it at least 3to3.5 x heads up and 4-4.5x multiway shud do it.

JTs take ur own advice dont slow play too much-the guy is raising QJo utg he there to draw he'll pay anything for it

GL for the challenge