Thanks a lot my Greek friend! I believe you are doing really well, creating a completable challenge, and fully competing at it. You look to be well on track from the looks of things. I believe partypoker will be a tad bit more difficult than unibet, however they do have a better rakeback system, so the average 25nl/50nl winner at around 2-5BB/100 may find themselves either table selecting, or grinding out more time breaking even at these stakes (especially 25NL seeing how much it is raked on party). My advice is that if you switch sites, be aware you may have to switch your model/profit strategy in terms of where your money is generated. It is like every other pool, the fish are easy money (and quite abundant) and the regs are exploitable once you learn their tendencies. Be self-aware of your leaks and how to counter someone exploiting you, and you will be fine brother!

Thanks for the kind wishes and I hope the new year brings you everything you can hope for! Stay safe my friend.

Update:

Here we go guys! I have been feeling the cost payed onto my body from the last month of grinding many hours, especially the couple marathons I played in succession including that one 19 hour marathon. As a result my body hasn't been up for much poker, and I've been focusing more on health. I really wanted to complete this challenge so I though, "how can I make this still happen?" Things were looking quite grim especially seeing the deficit I had to make up. So I decided the solution would be to take shots at 500NL and see how things went; it is safe to say it has been very successful. Running about $900 under EV (which is nothing at 500NL), and by playing really well, we have seen the bankroll climb well past the 10K mark. Moving forward I have roughly 15/16 days to make the final $8.7K which is extremely possible. Assuming I make $480 Rakeback each week for the next 2 weeks, that is only $500/day which is 1 Buyin and very doable.

Now it's in the bag... let's close out these final couple of weeks and get this one done!

Sick challenge man, super inspiring. GL for the last 16 days

Very inspiring!

GL at the tables.

What was your roll at when you took the 500NL shots?

A losing day will probably be inevitable but hopefully the winning ones will be more than losing days, variance is inevitable really. GL

Thanks dude, lets take this one down!

Thanks! Cheers.

I would say around $7K - Yes definitely on the shaky side of BRM, but to my credit I made sure to table select up to 10K. Currently got a foothold amongst the regs (many of them being the same in 200NL), and I can say with confidence if I put in the volume I'll get it done.

However, you make a very good point and I completely agree that a losing day is inevitable and you said it perfectly, let's hope the winning days make up for it. Thanks!

Hey man just went a couple of days without checking 2p2 cause of traveling, and really happy to see how you doing since ure a really nice and inspiring guy, I also just went back to the poker streets yday for the 215 blowout and got my first profit of the year for 900$ up as a nice itm, ofc wanted the 600k up top but better days will come, hope to see you hitting that 20k mark asap as sure I believe you can do that.

Your BRM approach is what I would do playing live 1/2 and definitely not online NL200/500!
You basically need to run very good to not go broke. Most people would and should go broke with 15 BRM.
Just use a better BRM once you finish your challenge, otherwise you will go broke at some point.
Anything below 100 buyins BRM is an insult to variance and believe me you dont want variance to punish you!

this is less impressive than people make it out to be given that op was a winning 200 reg before this challenge and had the ability to masstable on partypoker for heavy rakeback and winnings

He's got more than 15 buy-ins because he can always move down in stakes. And honestly if you're a very strong winning player the chance that you have a 15 buy-in downswing is actually really low.

Do you coach?

Don't want to be rude, but are you mainly a live player? Anyone with a very strong winrate of 5-10bb/100 and reasonable amount of volume experience 15BI downswings all the time.

No offense taken. I'm actually mainly an online player. I've played I don't know how many millions of hands online. I've been playing online poker since 2004.

15BI downswing all the time with a 10BB/100 winrate? According to primedope that just isn't very likely at all. 10BB winrate with 90BB/100 standard deviation which is average for 6max you might see one or two 15BI downswings over a million hands. If it's full ring it's even less variance and more printing. You only need 12BI to have less than 5% risk of ruin.

10BB/100 is just printing money basically.

https://www.primedope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

Really enjoying the read! Good luck with the back end of your challenge. I plan on doing something similar and streaming it. Why haven't you turned your stream on for this yet? Would be really fun to watch!
glgl

Yeah I've played around in primedope too. It will be more rare in the upper end of a 10bb/100 winrate (which realistically almost no one has playing 200nl+), but if we pick a number in between 5-10bb, like 7bb/100, our risk of ruin goes above 5% and we will be in a 15BI downswing quite a lot if we play decent volume.

Hey Gab, hope your travels went well and that you're feeling rejuvenated - may be evident that you are seeing as you got a sweet cash in that tourney, well done! Thanks for the positivity as always, let's hit this goal.

You're right to a certain extent. I have faced some pretty bad variance so far in 500NL, but still doing quite well over a short sample size. I believe most of the regs here don't want to play in reg filled matches and use table selecting. The ones who are properly rolled for it generally don't like to play short handed either. That being said, I believe I have an edge on the field but even with that edge I am taking precautions to avoid high variance spots, and I believe even with these precautions that I still have an edge. I believe it will come down to how well I can manage my roll, by playing favourable games and avoiding high variance at all costs. Of course I can do this until I am "properly" rolled for these games, but it really depends how soft the tables are.

A lot of truth to this, yet I believe if (or when) I make it, it will still be pretty impressive haha. Plus to add when I came back I was probably at a break even level at 25NL, until I read the player tendencies and remembered a lot of strategy I had previously forgotten. That being said playing poker is like riding a bike, once you learn the skills, it is very difficult to forget.

I rate this comment highly. Well spoken.

Not currently, but I may be open to the idea in the near future.

Thanks a lot my man! Yeah I need to get around to that, I've been throwing it off for a while now, let me take a couple days to get something set up for this last week and we will see how that goes.

I believe when being short rolled the best thing you can do is table select until you're confident your risk of ruin is quite low. It depends on the individual to gage their WR at the level they're playing versus their probability of going broke/being forced to drop down. In the end it's a tight wire that I have to walk in order to balance these things out, but not as risky as one may think upon first glance.

Disclaimer: I want to say proper BRM is extremely important in poker and the best route for success practices safe BRM. I don't want any novice/intermediate poker player to use my thread as an outline of how to move up the stakes, because if it is your first time you will inevitably go bust. However, with the experience I've previously gained moving up the stakes and differences in strategy/skill, I've found that I am a winning player at each of the stakes being played (albeit 500NL with limited hands) and that there are favorable games at every level. My profit strategy changed whilst moving up the levels (ie. Microstakes - mass tabling for profit, Midstakes - mass tabling for profit with some table selection, Mid/Highstakes - weak regs/table selection). I respect all the posts about BRM because it is an innate skill that needs to be practiced and drilled for every poker player, especially novice ones.

Good post man. Was never worried about you though, and this is obviously a cool challenge. Just wanted to point out that most good players go on 15BI swings often. Obviously it's different if you actually have a winrate over 10bb/100, but I have yet to see someone with such numbers over good samples. Just talked to a friend who absolutely crushes 20nl on a soft site for 12bb/100. Last year he played over 500k hands and had something like a 10BI downswing max. So it gets different if you are in the top .00 something of pool and get over 10bbs.

GL

Can you upload pokertracker graph of this challenge so far?

Updates?

Thanks Ship, I always knew there were good intentions behind your message; I prefer to read the context over the content itself and was never in doubt you were only looking out for a fellow grinder. Your friend is a perfect example, even if he is playing his B game of 6BB/100 over a couple thousand hands (of course with an AVG WR of 12BB/100) then he won't lose too many BI's to variance as you pointed out. Of course you would need to game select very carefully over an extended period of time to have a WR close to this in 500NL+.

Thanks again

Unfortunately my PT4 only goes as high as 50NL currently and I need to purchase the newest one. I will look into it after this challenge and positing graphs of my gameplay throughout this challenge.

UPDATE:

Ahh this is the dreaded update I was anxious to post these last couple of weeks, but I must stay true to myself and this thread in by doing so. Soon after my previous post I stuck around the $10K mark, playing 500NL normally. I managed to peak at around $14K a few days later before suffering a bit of a downswing taking me to around $9K at about the 9th of January. To keep this challenge alive I would hop on 1000NL games looking to find any fish in the waters whom I could prey upon. I found a couple good spots, but unfortunately I was coolered by a 2 outer w/ AA vs. Q8s on 1010h5h8 for close to 200BBs. Shortly after the fish left (I think to 2500NL) and to this day the challenge rues this player (of which I remembered his name haha). Anyway we fluctuated around the 5.5K-11K mark for the last week and that takes us to where we are now - 9.3K with 4 Days to go...



Variance

I look at this number, $9300 and think multiple things...

First I think is there anything I could've done more, which to I reply YES. These last two weeks especially I really didn't put in enough volume in 500NL, and a lot of the reason had to do with the player pool being too small. Often times games weren't running or they'd break within a few minutes of opening up. I wouldn't want to wait 30mins to find a seat in already opened tables, so I would find something else to do. In hindsight I should have grinded the much softer (but still decent) 200NL FF where I could always find a table and catch a decent return almost every session as the player pool is now booming.

I then think about how I ran, maybe this could have had something to do with how I faired. What I found out was yes, over the small sample size my EV adjusted had been about $3500-$4000, but this doesn't effect my bankroll too negatively as well it isn't the best indicator of how I'm running in terms of cooler spots (maybe I ran well in cooler spots or maybe not). So while it would help my ego to think I should be at $13000 right now, it still likely doesn't effect the overall outcome.





Reflection

Coming down to the closing stages I know I could have completed the challenge with a better approach. In hindsight I'm not even sure if I needed to play 500NL at all to reach this goal and maybe it hindered more than helped me as it reduced my volume and caused for me to waste time table searching ergo losing motivation. Although this is likely a poor excuse and the biggest inhibitor probably was my lack of motivation, stemming from me becoming more interested in other aspects of my life. I believed this stemmed from my poor Challenge management; as I moved closer to my goal I became more complacent.

I will still push ahead and try to complete this challenge, understanding the probability of success being marginally low, likely only possible to a surplus in fish or largely favourable variance (and likely both if it is at all possible). That being said, I really thank and appreciate everyone who has been following me and taken the time to reach out to me. I will continue in poker and I hope to inspire/teach/learn from you all in the future. I will also make sure to update this thread during these final closing stages.

Played a bit over the last couple of days, it has been running smoothly. I've been playing well and seeing the roll rise.



I've also been having a challenge with 2 of my brothers and my good friend, where we play Centrolls on partypoker to pick up "points" for who makes it further in the satellites. The target is either the WPT in Russia, the PartyPoker MILLIONS or WPT Montreal online. We're running a ton of sidebets and I managed to win a $33 side bet which had to be spent on another qualifier. The sats are quite soft and now we're in the $320 sat with a decent stack, continuing on from here will put us in the WPT Montreal Main Event next week, $3200 Entry, $2Million GTD. Just thought I'd include that in here to show you guys what I have been doing as oppose to my challenge haha.

Awesome results again bro, lfgo. I will check it out those satélites you guys are playing and see if I hop in, lmk if u interest in betting too hahaha

Thanks Gab! Haha sure hmu sometime if you want to

FINAL CHALLENGE UPDATE:



Unfortunately we ended the challenge at $14.2K, 5.8K short of our goal. Around 3K can be accredited to us running -EV Allin Adj. however over a small sample size of around 70K hands (14K hands in 500NL) it is hard to judge if we actually were running -EV in cooler spots.

It is difficult to say that I could have done more to complete the challenge, but I am okay with how it turned out, $57 to $14.2K in 60Days is still a decent feat.

I am not sure what my future in poker will hold, if I decide to look into streaming, coaching, or just playing leisurely for the odd bit of income. I will make sure to post graphs on here as promised in the upcoming days, once I can get them onto PokerTracker.

Thanks for following me along the journey!

- PS. we still have the Tourney, a bink would be nice

Great results John, especially considering the starting bankroll. gl!

Nice one, it's still a good amount of money even if you didn't meet your arbitrary goal.

I'd be interested in regular updates about your progress if you decided to maintain a thread.

Thanks a lot Aleksi, I appreciate the support!

Exactly, the number was arbitrary, just a marker to push myself, and it definitely did the trick. Although I didn't reach my marker, the challenge forced me to be motivated day in, day out.

I definitely would like to keep you and others updated on where this poker journey takes me. I will post graphs throughout this challenge in this thread and look to create a new thread to update my progress.

Thanks for the support