Hello,

Just starting this thread to track a prop challenge I'm having with some friends.

I need to try grind $10 up to $1000. I can redeposit/topup as many times as I need to but only ever allowed to be back to $10. There are three of us doing it.

We can play any ring game that's holdem or omaha. So NLHE, LHE, PLO, PLO8, LO8 and NLO8 are all fine either 6max or FR. We need to be able to verify via HEM/PT. We all have capabilities to track these games so no stud or draw games allowed.

Now comes the TLDR part about my background
I used to grind FR NLHE up to NL50 a few years back. Was never a serious grinder but through winnings and rakeback made decent beer money while at uni. After a while I was spending more and more time playing, reviewing, reading forums etc (I used to have an acct here once upon a time). It had a fairly big impact on my studies and my relationship with the GF of the time. This was 2009 and after failing a couple of units I decided to cash out and give up poker.

So since mid 2009 I've played zero hands of online poker, maybe half a dozen live games at casinos and pretty much just stuck with the monthly private game me and my mates have, which is just small stuff and an excuse to get together and drink beer.

I've recently moved into an old friends house and everyone here plays poker, hence the renewed interest.


My Competition
I'm not putting names in here so let's just call opponent 1.
He is a long time friend of mine and current housemate. He plays midstakes PLO fulltime and is by far the most talented player involved. His commitment to this challenge will be questionable at best. He plans on mixing in some micro games on a secondary site while grinding his reg game. I doubt he will stick this out and will hopefully try and buy his way out at some stage.

Opponent 2. Another housemate, winning NL100 6 max player and HUSNG fish. Is incredibly lazy and puts in weak volume for weeks on end followed by extended drunken grudge battles usually against the same Dutchman who rapes him HU for his months 6 max winnings.

Payment and other Stipulations
We're not talking big money here but there's actually a sliding scale of payment. Everyone will need to complete this challenge. The first person who wins is able to put their feet up and wait. they receive an immediate prize of $500 ($250 each). After that they get $50 a week from each remaining player until they finish. Once second place finishes, the remaining player will pay first palce $50 a week and second place $20 a week until he finishes.

So if I can't win, I'm potentially paying $70 a week to these jerks for the rest of my life.

So conditions as follows

• Any Holdem or Omaha variant in either 6 max or FR
• A minimum of 10,000 hands per level before moving up (this is to avoid Opponent 1 from shortstack martingaling his way to victory in 2 days). However if you bust and reload the $10 you can shottake all you like back to your current stake.

Stakes progression
0.01/0.02
0.02/0.04 or 0.02/0.05 (depending on site used)
0.05/0.10
0.10/0.25
0.25/0.50
0.50/0.1
etc. but can't see it getting higher

It starts tomorrow at midday. I'll be starting with my trusty old 0.01/0.02 FR just to work the rust out and see if I still remeber anything before switching to 6 max. If I start lagging behind I may go nits and start playing PLO. I think I have played maybe 1,000 hands of PLO online lifetime but after this probably what I want to switch to anyway, so maybe a good learning opportunity along the way.

I am currently studying but have a light load this year and fill in the gaps tutoring music. I'm not going to let poker interfere with either of these as they are very important to me. I'll probably just post graphs and race updates periodically for the purpose of tracking. Maybe an interesting HH or two but not really wanting to start a badbeat journal.

oh yeah, no ZOOM either

gl, cool prop

Just had a discussion with the other guys and we're changing one of the rules. The required hands at each level is being dropped to 3000.

We're only starting this challenge with 5 buyins which is making grinding out 10,000 hands a fairly significant time commitment due to only being able to load a max of 5 100bb tables or more only if shortstacking. Due to some early losses one of he guys found himself two tabling at one point.

I was going for 5000 hands per level as I'm already there but the other two lazy s***s ganged up on me and we've gone with 3000.

I'll be starting to mix in some 2c/4c now. However BR is only at $21 so need to be careful. Will post graphs when I get some decent volume in.

Subbed. GL, have a feeling you will be a winner here if your friends are as lazy as you say! Could be costly though if heat a cooler.

In an airport (the movie) stylee, "looks like I chose the wrong thread if I wanted regular updates". Any news on the prop?

Sounds entertaining. gl, subbed

yeah sorry, was wanting to get some hands under my belt before posting too much. Probably hoping to update at least a couple times a week from here on in.

Running well, playing well (I think) and have made some decent profits so far. I'm way ahead in the prop

My BR $69.86
Opponent1: approx $40 (3 reloads)
Opponent 2: approx $25 (1 reload)

The other guys are really struggling with motivation to get any volume in and I'm up to just over 15k hands now. I have to say it was initially a fairly horrible grind. I was lucky enough to run really well intially with only 5 buyins and at least get to a point where I could comfortably multitable FR1c/2c. Once I had some hands in I took shots way underrolled at 6max2c/4c. Have gone on a decent heater there up to my current BR an have now dropped nl2 (hopefully for good).

There was some interesting differences in approach from the three of us. I played it safe trying to lower initial variance with FR.

Opponent 1 played PLO and with his 5 buyins just went monkey**** aggro trying to hit a heater. He reloaded 3 times and then ran it up to about $40. He's only just cleared his 3k hands at the stake so can prob move up now. on't think he's played at all lately as he's been on the grind in his usual games.

Opponent 2: short-stacked 6m 1c/2c and prertty much hovered at break even for 3000 hands. He's since moved up to 2c/4c bought into 3 tables and ran it up to about $25. Also hasn't played the last few days.


My Graph

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My thoughts on these stakes are obviously that the general standard of play is terrible. I find the guys who 3bet shove or even open shove 100bb particularly funny.

There are players I see who look like they're trying to do the right things but not quite bringing it together. They have decent preflop stats for VPIP/PFR/3bet etc but then have amazingly low agg factors. cbet>give up seems to be a fairly standard play. At 6 max I've pretty much just taken to floating flops a huge % when headsup and taking it away with a 50% pot bet on the turn.

The areas I'm struggling with are probably my preflop ranges. I'm taking some pretty passive lines in position, ie. limping along with a pretty wide range, flatting in position and purely 3beting for value when I think I can isolate. Far too many 3bets getting called by 3 or 4 players so I'm tightening that up. I suspect I'm playing far from ideal however these gamesa are so splashy and so badly played on later streets I'm happy to go with it.

I'm resisting the temptation to shottake nl10 at the moment. I'm pretty sure while still soft it should be a significant jump in skill. Plan to grind nl4 until $100 and reevaluate.

In other news, I have a busy week ahead of me.

One of my students has offered me some extra work mentoring the band he's just formed. They're just a bunch of high-school kids starting a garage rock band. I went to watch them practice last night. They're actually quite decent but have some definite technique and exp issues on guitar and vocals that I should be able to help them with. I'm taking the night off poker to get together some resources and draw up some set lists for them before I go back tomorrow night. On top of this they might be looking to purchase some of my old gear which woul be great.

edit. if the sale of gear happens i think i'll use some of it to add to BR after prop ends an give this poker thing another serious shot.

just realised my thread title says $20 instead of $10. Oh well too bad

So........I have bronchitis. Not been playing much as computer giving me headaches for the las 4 days or so. Will post upate soon. Midtsakes opponent asked me about buying out conditions yesteray. Still thinking about conditions....

This thread is basically finished. Unfortunately the prop turned out to be a fizzer. I've been quite ill lately, the other guys have hardly played.

We ended up coming to an agreement and the other two bought out for $300 each. I also sold quite a bit of equipment recently for about 2k.

I'm trying to figure out how much money to deposit and what to play as I definitely want to get back into poker in an ongoing basis.

I'm considering depositing $700 and giving plo25 a shot as I really want to learn the game. If I do I might start another thread. Maybe mix in some NL here and there.

For the few who were follwing this, sorry it didn't run the full course as I think it would have been interesting to see how the three of us fared as it progressed.