Zero To Sixty

Oh my goodness, I haven’t updated this blog in ages, and there is quite a bit of news. Let’s get caught up, shall we? Okay, on Carbon Poker I got in the money on a freeroll. That gave me a bankroll of a little more than $1.00. I took that bankroll and then started playing cash tables (as I said in my plan). Starting with 2/4 penny cash tables, I actually built my bankroll up to around $50.00. Then things went bad.

There were some ups and downs, but three single hands took me from $50 to less than $2! The first was an ace high flush where I went all-in and then lost to a full house. That took me to around $30. Then I went all-in again with an ace high flush and, you guessed it, lost again to a full house. I’m not sure how often that happens, but it just devasted my bankroll.

I was down to about $11 and then went all-in against a loose-aggressive player with 99 preflop. This came shortly after I had lost in the secon full house, and clearly I was making poor decisions and was on tilt. I lost to an overpair draw and that took me all the way down to pretty much exactly where I started–less than 2 dollars.

I had no choice but to start at the 2/4 penny level again, and it didn’t take me long to get to $5. I then switched to nickle/dime blinds cash games, and in three days I find myself back up to $20. Actually, I’m finding the nickle/dime cash games quite lucrative. I don’t win the big $20 pots, but I also lose extremely rarely and can easily make $5-$10/night.

The downside, of course, is that I will never make it to $60K at that pace. So I have a new plan. The first part is that I will only commit one third of my bankroll max at each cash table session. The second is that I will accelerate up the limits much slower. As you can imagine, I previously quickly went up to the 50 cent/1 dollar blinds level and that’s what wiped me out quickly. I believe by taking it more slowly, I’ll be better prepared for the chip and knowledge requirements of a higher level.

The other downside is that I’m not earning enough comp points on Carbon Poker to qualify for high dollar value freerolls. As a player, you receive comp points for playing cash games, and the higher the level, the more comp points you earn. If you earn 2,000 comp points over three days, you qualify for free entry into $1k and $2K tourneys. Part of my plan was to play plenty of $1K and $2K freerolls, but that plan will have to wait until I can handle the cash games that generate the comp points to let me qualify for those.

All in all, I’m in a good spot: Not broke and still learning!

Too Much Is… Too Much

I’ve cut down on my poker play, as I’ve been playing just way too much. I still play quite a bit, and I can see my play continue to improve, but I’m not playing six hours a day. I am going to focus on one freeroll every few days.

Progress

While I still haven’t finished in the money in a cash tournament, I can see evidence of my improved play. In the Carbon Poker Sit’n'go tourneys, I’ve made it to the third round in two of my last three attempts. I also am generally well-placed in tourneys heading into the first break. What knocks me out? Almost always a bad beat. For example, tonight I was kicked out of a freeroll on Absolute Poker when my pocket tens got beat by an under pair that matched with a second pair on the river.

Bummer

Earlier today I made it to the final two in the funstep 3 sit’n'go tourney on Carbon Poker. If I won,  I would have earned a full dollar. Hey, it’s something!

Anyway, I was up 5,000 chips to 1,000 and really was moving in for the kill, when I had to leave to do something with the family. So, I’ll take it as a moral victory, even though I had to forfeit my spot.

I feel pretty good despite the fact that my bankroll is still pathetically low. The reason is that I can see some real growth in my play. All of these grind-it-out tourneys against maniacs and loose players seem to be a pretty good training ground.

On example of progress is in the Carbon Poker Funstep sit’n'go tourneys. These are play money sit’n'gos where when you get past the first two rounds, you actually play for $1 in real money in the third round. In the past I’ve had to play about 4 times or more in round 1 tourneys to win and move on to a round 2 one. Now I’m pretty much a lock to move on to round 2.

One of the differences is that I’m getting better at heads up play. Playing heads up over and over again is grueling, but I’m starting to see some real patterns develop and an underlying key strategy. It’s obvious but not easy: Minimize your losses from middling and poor hands and maximize your profits from big hands.

To my mind this often means folding against early raises. I guess if I think about it, favorable pot odds in heads up are hard, if not impossible. So playing for any kind of draw is dubious unless you have an extraordinary number of outs.

One side effect of this is that if I have a much bigger stack it can be incredibly demoralizing playing against me heads up. I just don’t call a lot of bets unless I have a good hand, and them I’d most likely re-raise. As a result, it takes someone a LONG time to make progress against me. I like that.

Anyway, I feel good. I’m getting better, and it’s starting to show in my results.

Had to take care of some family things with school tonight, so I missed the Bodog freeroll. I played in several of the Carbon Poker “Funstep” sit’n'go tournaments, and got past level 1 to level 2. I got busted in level 2 with a particularly bad beat (opponent hit triple kings when I had two pair As and Ks). So it’s back to the drawing board tomorrow.

I’m particularly proud of how I got to round 2, however. I got hit with two bad beats in a row, which took me down to $250 in chips head-to-head against my opponent, who had $5750 in chips. From that huge hole, I climbed out and won! I’ll take this as a good sign–this time I didn’t lose my head or my optimism when I got knocked to the floor. I came back and won.

Still, the nightly result was the same: Total winnings still sit at $0.00.

Okay, obviously the first thing I need is a bankroll. I can’t start making money at poker if I don’t have any money to start with. That means I have only two options: Freeroll tourneys and earning the $1 via Carbon Poker’s fun tournaments. I’ll be working on both. Once I have some money (even 1 dollar), I’ll start working the small stakes cash tables.

Freeroll tourneys are just that: Free tournaments that actually pay you cash if you win. Usually it is a relatively small amount, but it is something and definitely a start. I’ve looked over about a half dozen poker sites, and only three have a significant number of freerolls: Carbon Poker, Absolute Poker, and Bodog. Absolute Poker and Carbon Poker have $50 freerolls, which award you around $5 if you come in first place. Bodog has a daily freeroll with a $500 prize fund. First place there is actually a decent chunk of change.

So my first plan is to focus my efforts on Bodog’s nightly 8:40 PM (central time) $500 freeroll and finish in the money (ideally in first!).

Another possibility is Carbon Poker’s “fun” sit’n'go tourneys. These are tournaments where you trade play money for a coupon that let’s you participate in level 1. Level 1 is a 6 seat tournament, with the winner receiving a coupon for level 2. Level 2 is another 6 seat tournament, with the winner receiving a coupon for level 3. Level 3 is a 10 seat tournament, and the winner gets (drumroll)… $1.

That’s right, if you can make it through three tournaments against relative new poker players, you can earn a buck. Sounds like nothing, but since I’m starting with zero, and I could use $1 on microstakes tables, I could actually build off of that.

The good news is that Carbon poker is constantly running the fun tourneys, so you can take part at any time. This is ideal for me, since I am focusing my major efforts on a single freeroll tournament, the Bodog $500 one in the evening. I can then play the smaller Carbon Poker fun tournaments whenever I have some free time or am bored.

So here’s my starting strategy: Play as many of the $500 Bodog nightly freeroll tourneys as I can, with the initial goal of finishing in the money. Once I do that I can move onto the next stage of my strategy, which is building my bankroll via cash tables. The same time I am focusing on the Bodog freeroll, I will play in the Carbon Poker “fun” tourneys, with the goal of winning $1 here or there to start another bankroll.

While I gave myself no time limit, I would hope that I have at least $1 within my first week.