Session 11

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go

Place: 45 / 90 [50%]

Profit: -$0.25

Bankroll: $19.87

UPDATE #1: Bankroll Progress for November '09

Profit for the month: +$10.12
Overall profit so far: +$10.12
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Bankroll: $20.12
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By hitting the 20$ mark, I can now play in $0.50 MTTs, which I will probably play once / week. I will continue to play the $0.25 Sit & Gos most frequently. The next target is to reach 30$, at which point I will start mixing in 1$ Sit & Go's, until I reach 41$, when I will play 1$ Sit & Go's most frequently (and perhaps 1$ MTTs on occassion). What a nice boost that will be!

So far I am very satisfied with my progress. Playing these $0.25 games is, at times, very tedious, and progress seems slow, especially after a negative profit session. What keeps me going is that target for the next level, where I will (hopefully) see more rapid progress and higher stakes.

Also, these were the first times I have ever multi-tabled. For those following, I do NOT recommend multi-tabling unless you are in specific circumstances that make it manageable. First of all, your bankroll should be able to support multi-tabling. Next, I would recommend only multi-tabling in ONE type of tournament. For example, I do simuls in which all of the tournaments are 90 player Sit & go's and the blind levels are close. That way my playing style should stay about the same across all of the games. If you multi-table in a MTT tournament, and then in a high stakes cash game, and then in other various games, you could get confused. Finally, and most importantly, you ought to be confident that you can CONTINUE to reach payouts consistently when doing a simul. (e.g., don't multi-table if you're not even profiting when playing the tournament as 1 game) When I move up to the next level, I will start out playing the tournaments individually, until I am confident that I can consistently reach payouts as well as I have in the $0.25 games. I had been playing $0.25 90 Player Sit & Gos on a 1-by-1 basis for a long time before I was confident enough to do simuls (multi-tables). But once you're able to, they can be MUCH more efficient, as my progress indicates.

Hopefully by the end of December I am well on my way to 90$, where I can move to $2.00 tournaments and almost start playing a few cash games.

Session 10

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go (simul of 13)

Best Finish: 4 / 90 [4%]
Worst Finish: 48 / 90 [53%]
Average Finish: 20.8 / 90 [23%]
Payouts: 7 / 13 [54%]

Profit: +$2.81 [$0.21 per game average]

Bankroll: $20.12

Session 9

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go (simul of 4)

Best Finish: 14 / 90 [16%]
Worst Finish: 28 / 90 [31%]
Average Finish: 22.5 / 90 [25%]
Payouts: 0 / 4 [0%]

Profit: -$1.00

Bankroll: $17.31

Session 8

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go (simul of 5)

Best Finish: 3 / 90 [3%]
Worst Finish: 65 / 90 [72%]
Average Finish: 26 / 90 [29%]
Payouts: 2 / 5 [40%]

Profit: $3.08 ($0.61 per game average)

Bankroll: $18.31

Session 7

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go (simul of 6)

Best Finish: 3 / 90 [3.33%]
Worst Finish: 21 / 90 [23.33%]
Average Finish: 12.3 / 90 [13.70%]
Payout Finishes: 2 / 6 [33.3%]

Profit: +$2.83 (+$0.47 per game average)

Bankroll: $15.23

Session 6

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go

Place: 13 / 90 [14.44%]

Profit: -$0.25

Bankroll: $12.40

Session 5

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go (simul of 7)

Best Finish: 4 / 90 [4.44%]
Worst Finish: ~28/90 [31.11%]
Average Finish: 15.0 / 90 [16.67%]
Payout Finishes: 4 / 7 [57.14%]

Profit: +$2.43 (+$0.35 per game average)

Bankroll: $12.65

Session 4

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go

Place: 13 / 90 [14.44%]

Profit: -$0.25

Bankroll: $10.22

Session 3

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go

Place: 11 / 90 [12.22%]

Profit: +$0.30

Bankroll: $10.47

Session 2

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go

Place: 9 / 90 [10.00%]

Profit: +$0.42

Bankroll: $10.17

Session 1

$0.25 90 Player Sit & Go

Place: 21 / 90 [23.33%]

Profit: -$0.25

Bankroll: $9.75

Motivation and Initial Management Outline

I have lost a lot of money playing on poker sites. After adding up the debits, the losses reached a staggering $1,650 in a span of 7 months. At least half of that was simply lost through a casino. The rest was lost on account of terrible bankroll management.

For example, one of my largest deposits was 200$. I figured I could make a steady hourly rate with 200$ through putting it all on 1$ / 2$ cash games. As it turns out, putting your entire bankroll on the table is the best way to lose it all. If you survive a bad beat, you will likely lose the rest of it due to tilt. This happened to me - not once, not twice, but LOADS of times. My ego was simply to high for me to learn my lesson. In fact, I didn't stop losing money until my actual bank account went into the negative and I was forced to take a break from poker! Fortunately, over those days, I read ALOT about bankroll management. Maybe that is the hole in my game.

I hope now to mend my ways by making my FINAL deposit of 10$ on Pokerstars and, through patience and discipline, construct a poker bankroll of 20,000$, hopefully in less than 4 years. I will use conservative bankroll management techniques and will avoid ever putting my entire bankroll in 1 table (or on the roulette wheel, for the matter!). This will take place on Pokerstars. My username is Platitudipus.

I will update this blog almost daily with every single session that will model how exactly I am going about this.