Wednesday 2/15/2006

I used to read a lot of discussions about bankroll management. The area that particularly interested me was how many buy ins was enough to ensure a solid transition to the next level of sngs, with little chance to crap out. I have heard as low as 30 buy ins and as many as 100. Considering I am more of a gambler than many poker players, I tend to me much more conservative here. I figure if I can get 100 buy ins, my Risk of Ruin is very low. I believe once I read 100 buy ins, I will never have to ever step down, even when I have a few bad runs, i will never have to drop down a buy in and win back my money at half the pace I lost it at. I think it is very important to for me to have that comfort level.

When I decided to plays more sngs @ the $55 level, I deviated from my plan. I had about 60 buy ins and felt that a 30 buy in downswing is probable, but 60 is highly, highly unlikely. So, I "Gambled." I felt underbankrolled for the $55s when I had about $3k in my poker account. Well, today I hit my 100 buy ins for the $55s, so that is great news!! I believe I am a solid winner on the $55s and have my sights set on the $109s. I need to build my roll another $2500 bucks to get me to around $8000. Then, i will allow myself to play a few to start getting my feet wet.

The thought of 4-tabling the $109s is very tempting and after running some numbers, it could prove to be very, very profitable. Just as exciting is that at that level, I could start to enter some of the bigger buy in tourneys. Those are some big paydays. I have found some decent success in MTTs and want to get a lucky run in a bigger buy in tourney...$10k in one lump sum would be sweet...so far, my biggest tourney cash was just over $2500, after subtracting the buy in, it still netted me over $2500.

UPDATE:

Played 7 sngs so far. 2 2nds and a 1st...so a good start. Trying to keep this great momentum going. But I am going to relax and call it a night...have to be happy winning $165 in about 2 hours. Up almost a grand the past 3 nights!!!

Last night I read some Harrington on Hold 'Em. Read about the first 75 pages in the first sitting, which is amazing for me. I am not a big reader...I do not read for pleasure. I read for information and to learn. I found this book to be pretty amazing so far...hopefully will learn a lot. For me, because I have been playing a while, I am confident in my ability. But, it was often an unstructured game we played, so it is hard for me to gauge how my game stacks up to the good online and tourney players. I seem to do well online at sngs...seem to be profitable at the $55s and am enjoying playing. I am sooo excited to move to the $109s...My game seems to be coming together and my confidence couldnt be higher...cosmic forces are aligning.

I have always been someone that would like to track his progress. So, last April when I decided that I was going to try to make playing poker a real second job, I started to document my progress. When my spreadsheet was in about the 8th month, I was surprised I was still tracking my results. I was still going at it months later. Usually, I would have crapped out or lost discipline and blew my roll. I admit I lost some discipline early on in my playing, but I tighten things up and started to go about this in a very serious manner. When I mentally committed to giving sngs a shot...or playing a high enough volume where great money can be made, I decided to start this blog. Hopefully, like my spreadsheet, my blog will be around in 8 months and I will be reflecting on how far I have come. For the time being, I am going to enjoy my 3rd month of blogging and hoping for more favorable results.

I'm counting down...$2300 bucks short of my next jump in buy ins...