So I’m planning on changing one of my bankroll-management-rules:
Instead of only being allowed a maximum buyin of 5% of the total bankroll, I’ll double it to 10%.

So I can now buyin for a total of 50$. This would mean 100BB’s on a 0.25c/0.50c table, or 50 at the 0.50c/1$ stakes. Though decision, but I’m choosing the first and (more importantly) safer option. Taking one step at a time.

So, for all of you who’re playing on Fullt Tilt: hope to see you at the 0.25c/0.50c tables!

Anyway, the famous Blackdeuces Bankroll Chart (BBC) now looks like this:

PS: Sorry ’bout the slow updates, I’ve been abroad and too busy the last weeks. But I’ll be back with regular updates from now on. Promise.

I played 3 of them and never managed to get in the money. Why? Quite simply: because I suck at multi-table tournament play. I just do. Judge for yourself in this “wonderful” hand:

Although I think he played it even worse than me, this hand illustrates perfectly why I’m just not ready for tournaments with a 26$ buy-in. I’m motivated though to get better at it, but first I’ll try to stabilize my bankroll around 300$ again (by playing cashgames), then maybe I’ll give it shot again at some lower limits.

(BTW: feel free to berate me about the above hand.)

For example, this a hand I played a couple of days ago in a weekly live cashgame. I left the cards closed untill the river for cheer amusant value and for you all to guess what cards we were holding. The key players are ofcourse myself (me - cutoff) and Harry (button).

That’s right. I called with J high. Pretty sick huh? I’m not going to analyze the whole hand, but there are two reasons I made this call.

First there is his betting pattern. His call on the turn tells me he either has a T or slowplaying an A, I don’t put him on a flushdraw ‘caus the board is paired. But he seemed VERY uncomfortable when he made that called. The river being a blank I decided to take one more shot at it, hoping to make him laydown a T (he’s a good player, so he’s certainly capable of laying a T down in that spot). I made a bet like I was value betting my Ax. But then, he reraised me! My first thoughts were: “Damn, I ran into an A here.” But then I noticed his body language: he was leaning back in his chair, looking VERY tense. So that’s the second reason I made the call: his demeanour convinced me he didn’t have an A. So that got me to thinking: if he had a T he wouldn’t reraise me even if he thinks I have air. Same works with K en Q high. So I figured he must think I have nothing (which he later told me, so his read was right), but if HIS nothing was better then my nothing, he would have just called me and hoped his T, K or Q high was good. He would only reraise me if he had J high or worse.

And so I said: “I’m gonna make a sick call here” and called his raise. He said “Good call” and turned over his missed 9 high flussed. He was stunned when I turned over my missed J high flush.

It’s good being right in poker, especially when you’re only holding J high.

While playing this week I noticed how much money some players loose by simply not thinking! Poker is a game about skill, it’s a “thinking sport”. You can’t make the right play without thinking it over for a second. Don’t just call ‘caus you feel you have the best hand, call ‘caus you think your is probably good.

A good example about a player just playing and not thinking is Bob Safai in the following hand. Watch it first:

Bob clearly doesn’t have a clue where he’s at in this hand. And it looks like he doesn’t even want to make an effort to figure it out. Check, instant call. Check. Check, instant call. Think man! Why would a player like Harman check that turn, but then bet the river? Maybe if he took more then half a nanosecond to make a decision he would have figured it out… But hey, at least Bob knows he played bad, I’ve seen players who would call themselfsunlucky in that spot.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is: if you don’t feel like thinking about the game, don’t play the game.

I choose a 6 handed game because I find a low stack has a bigger chance to double up quickly in a shorthanded game then in a full ring. People tend to call quicker with weaker hands, especially if the bet is relatively small compared to their stack.

And I was right. After just 2 rounds I pushed on the button with AK suited and got called by KQ off-suit (lol btw). Doubled up, quit the table and went back in. With only a few more BBs at my disposal I tried to tactic again: pushed again on the button with QQ and got called by 99. Again doubled up and quit the table.

Then it hit me how stupid playing like that really is. I don’t like idiots who throw all their chips in pre-flop (in a cash game), yet I was doing the exact same thing I hate about other donkeys. Pre-flop commitment is so uninspired and uncreative. I don’t do uncreative. Good players have to beaten post-flop and won’t push it all-in unless to have kings or aces. And it’s those players I want to beat.

So I took my 22BBs and went back to a 9-handed game. Grinded it out for a couple of sessions and days and got my bankroll to stabilize at $140.

Huray!

The grinding went smooth the last couple of days, although friday I had my first losing session when I lost 2 buy-ins and dropped from $86 to $80. The good thing is I had the discipline to quit a loser that day and didn’t jeopardize my whole bankroll to win the $6 back. That’s new for me!

Anyway, the graph looks like this:

Nice!

Now that I’m getting very close to $100 I got a decision to make:

- do I continue to play at the 0.05/0.10 stakes with a 50BB buy-in?

- do I move up to the 0.10/0.25 stakes with a 20BB buy-in?

Both options have their advantages: the 0.05/0.10 games are VERY soft and I can make easy money there, but at the bigger stakes I can make more money faster. The skilllevel at the 0.10/0.25 stakes will probably be higher, but nothing I can’t handle. On the other hand, I do prefer playing a 50BB stack over a short one. So…

Hmmm, got to think this through before I make that last buck. Any insights?

(BTW: I’m leaving in a couple of hours on a trip to Italy ’till saturday, so don’t expect any updates ’till then. )

But what I really wanted to talk about is something I noticed playing the micro-stakes. Many players make the same mistake over and over again, which costs them a lot of money in the long run. I’m talking about betting their medium-weak hands on the river. These bets serve no purpose at all: they’ll only get called when their hand is beat! Why not check it, especially when your last to act?

After some googling I found out that I’m not the only one who noticed this extremely bad play. Guess who wrote an article about it? Right. Jesus himself! An excellent article infact! You can read it at his website, right  here.

To all you micro-stakes players out there: read & learn!

The chart:

I’m happy. But I realise that things won’t be going this smooth for the whole ride. So, fingers crossed!

Well.. let’s say I didn’t quite follow that guideline. I kept playing. And struggling. Around 20 minutes further in the session I was again down to $3.75. But then the miracle hit: my AA vs. KK. A pokerplayer’s wet dream. I doubled up to $7 and left the table immediatly.

So I made more profit then I should have made in the session, but I could have easily lost my whole stack if it was me who picked up the KK in that last hand. A good lesson.

And to quote my mentor on this matter:

First, you should never play in a game that is beyond your bankroll simply because the game seems to be soft that day. It’s never soft enough to risk money that puts your bankroll in jeopardy.

Yes. Sir.

Anyway, as it turned out I made $5 today. Which means I’m up to $55! In a graph that would look something like this.

Very impressive indeed.

Since this challenge all started of with Chris Ferguson, I’m going to follow his guidelines. He pulled it off, so I guess he knows best. His key rules are:

To ensure that I keep my bankroll intact, I’ve adopted some key rules:

* I’ll never buy into a cash game or a Sit & Go with more than 5 percent of my total bankroll (there is an exception for the lowest limits: I’m allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in of $2.50 or less).
* I won’t buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2 percent of my total bankroll and I’m allowed to buy into any multi-table tournament that costs $1.
* If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 10 percent of my total bankroll, I must leave the game when the blinds reach me.

This means I’ll have to start off at the lowest stakes $0.05/$0.10 with a stack of $2.50 or 25 BB. When I get it to $5.50 I must leave the table. This also means I won’t be hitting the $0.10/$0.25 stakes untill I doubled my bankroll! Damn…

Well, no time to waste I guess. Let’s hit the tables!

Oh yeah, any more feedback on bankroll management is more then welcome these days!