Veteran Player Attempting Comeback After Black Friday

qattack · Enthusiast Joined: 05 Apr 2011 Posts: 61

I was inspired by brokerstar's $50-$10k challenge and deposited $50 through his link about ten weeks ago. I haven't played much on betonline since then until yesterday when I started my Seven Month Challenge.

I tried live poker for a few weeks, but was on an extremely short bankroll and had one ultra-bad day (basically two huge pots where Villain called huge allins on the turn with flush draws and hit and another hand with QQ<JT on Q98). 200NL was the smallest NL game available and I knew the risks. I made a bad call with KQ on a KQJ board as well.

Anyway, back to online poker where I feel safer!

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My poker history:
I started playing limit poker in 1996 and quickly moved from 3/6 to 15/30. I started playing on the Internet on Planet Poker in 1999, moved around sites a few times, and found PokerStars in 2003, where I settled in for the next eight years until Black Friday.

I earned half of living most years from 1996 to 2005 from poker (online exclusively after 2002), and 100% of my living from 2005-2011. I had the privilege of spending three and a half years playing online in the Philippines (the first and only time I'd been out of the country). I loved it so much that it has been my goal to move back there.

Since Black Friday, I kicked around a few ideas for making money with no success. The fact is, I really have no marketable skills in today's economy and little motivation to get a "normal" job working for someone else. I also want a job I can do from anywhere (so I can move back to the Philippines).

I tried Internet marketing, writing articles for websites, with a small amount of success. My articles were first-class, but I'm very slow at writing, as I am a perfectionist.

I also missed poker, so I decided to try to take a stab at playing live. I spent about six weeks slowly building my bankroll from $300 to $1100 at 4/8 fixed limit. I was spending every day, all day, at the casino and had to take out daily expenses. It was definitely better than a real job, but it was time to take my shot at 200NL, even on the short bankroll. As detailed above, it didn't work out.

Internet poker is much more enjoyable, as I don't need to worry about travelling, waiting, smoke (YUK!), and other people.
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My Seven Month Bankroll Challenge

I need $20,000 to confidently move back to the Philippines. $8K is for savings/living expenses/moving; $8K-$10K is for a 50NL bankroll; and $2K-$4K is for travelling to five or six places where I may want to live so I can select the place I like best.

I will be using a semi-aggressive bankroll strategy. Anything over 40 buyins at my current stakes I will use to buyin to tables at the next higher stakes. For 25NL, I will require 50 buyins before advancing to 50NL and at 50NL I will require 80 buyins before moving to 100NL. I will not advance beyond 100NL.

I have spent the last three weeks studying my game from the ground up. I still have a long ways to go with my learning, but I've learned a ton these last few weeks.

I've also played quite a bit recently on Carbon Poker, where I won some freerolls. I was surprised at how aggro the smallest stakes were. One of my previous flaws was handling aggro players. I am starting feel very comfortable against them now, though.

The only aggro players on betonline are REALLY bad aggros. Light 3-betting seems non-existent (except the bad aggros). Players are mostly either very passive or horrible-aggressive.

I will be playing five to six hours on average per day. Below 25NL, I will be playing a lot of fullring, as there aren't enough 6max games going. 6max is my specialty. I should hit 25NL around Day 15 into my challenge.

I played about six hours yesterday and made a little over $29. My goal for Day 1 was $23.64, so I was happy.

I'm not doing quite as well today. I have played for 1 1/2 hours and I'm up $2.88. It's been very uneventful. But that's the short-term luck factor. Of course, this whole year will be the short-term luck factor, as seven months is nothing in poker terms. But I still expect to be successful.
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I am eight-tabling and it presents some huge problems, because this software is so crappy. But the bad players are worth the struggle against the software. It's hard to tell what tables require action and the bet box does not accept a decimal point ("."), so you cannot enter bets with cents amounts without using the bet slider (which is also a horrible pain in the a**!).

Does anyone have any suggestions for any betonline-compatible software? At least a HH convertor and/or a win rate tracker/grapher?

ThanX!
John

qattack · Enthusiast Joined: 05 Apr 2011 Posts: 61

Day 2 goal: I came up 30 minutes short on my play time, but made $35.52 at 2NL and 6NL. My $$$ goal was $23.64.

Meeting my play time is actually more important than meeting my $$$ goal from day to day, as I can control that. So I guess I'm a 1/2 hour in debt.

Tomorrow, I can only play a couple hours. I'm busy much of the day. I'll need to make up my time on the weekend.

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Day 2
Bankroll Goal: $147.28
Actual Bankroll: $171.75

Two days down, 212 to go!

BetMagicMoney · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 5:09 pm Post subject:

GLGL

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Brokerstar · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 6:09 pm Post subject:

Yes very best of luck.

I posted in another thread about you having issues using decimals in the bet box and it worked fine for me unless it's something else that I'm not getting??

Broker
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qattack · Enthusiast Joined: 05 Apr 2011 Posts: 61

Apparently, the problem with the decimals is relatively new, since the last update is what players have been telling me. I only really started playing more on the site a couple weeks ago and started playing mass volume three or four days ago.

qattack · Enthusiast Joined: 05 Apr 2011 Posts: 61

Today was a short day...I only played for one hour. I actually calculate my time from when I get six or seven tables going and there can be quite a wait sometimes for some of the tables.

I've been making somewhere well over 20BB per table per hour at 2NL and 6NL in my small sample size.

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Day 3 Goal: I didn't meet play time or $$$ goals, but it's OK. I owe some time over the weekend, but some days will be lighter volume. I hope to make up the lighter days in advance from now on.

Day 3 Bankroll Goal: $170.92
Actual Bankroll: $179.49

Day 3 Daily Goal: $23.64
Actual Daily $$$: $7.74

Day 3 Play Time Goal: 5.0 hours
Actual Play Time: 1.0 hours
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I'll need to adjust my daily goals to fall in line with what I'm able to do; Mondays and Fridays will be lighter volume days. I play volleyball both those days and visit my Grandmother on Fridays.

Overall, I'm very happy with my first three days!
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3 days down, 211 to go!

Reseal · Posted: Fri Feb 03, 2012 9:20 pm Post subject:

Good luck with this.

You're playing with a seemingly rather deep bankroll, and have no plans to go higher than 100nl. Any reason for these? The player pool on this site doesn't get much tougher as you move up, so I think you might find yourself reconsidering these decisions in future Wink

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GreenEyez826 · Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 4:04 am Post subject:

sandman369 · Posted: Sat Feb 04, 2012 5:14 am Post subject:

qattack · Enthusiast Joined: 05 Apr 2011 Posts: 61

LOL, well I very well may reconsider in the future. However, my most important goal is the climb to $20,000 by September 1st.

From what I've seen and my hypothetical spreadsheet calculations, I don't think it will be any problem.

I've watched some of the play all the way up to 1000NL, and it seems so soft. I've always been a bankroll nit, though, and my "aggressive" bankroll strategy I'm using here probably seems normal or overly conservative to many.

I am restructuring and refining my goal a little bit to ensure I attain $20k in the time allotted. I'm increasing my play time to an average of six hours per day, calculated from the time I get six or seven tables going until I start quitting the tables.

I have generally been playing in one hour or one-and-a-half hour blocks, taking a thirty minute break, and resuming. In the past, on PokerStars, I have put in sessions as long as five hours. On betonline it's harder to keep focus so long due to their software.

It's great to hear others saying that the competition doesn't get much tougher as you go higher. I will definitely keep my options open.

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