The Pro Poker Challenge
Anyone who knows me or reads my blog will already be aware that I am very fond of challenges. My main problem in the past has always been following them through. Having the dedication and the discipline of a Chris Ferguson has not been high on my list of qualities. But things have been different recently as I have been putting a tremendous amount of work into developing a system of play that will earn money multi-tabling NL50 games online.
Many people on this site will no doubt be thinking… “what’s the big deal….$0.25-$0.50 is really easy to beat”. That much is true but it isn’t easy to beat for millions of poker players out there and it sure hasn’t been easy for me to treat games with a buy-in of $50 with respect either. But the aim of my challenge is to show that a player can actually make not just a living from playing low-stakes poker but also by starting out with little bankroll.
One of the primary aims of the system that I have/am developing is that it is a low variance system. This entire project is aimed at unsophisticated players for who variance is a serious obstacle as millions of people who play poker are strangely risk averse individuals.
A major part of my system of play involves sacrificing EV in certain situations for lower variance. This in turn leads to far smaller swings and with it comes less heartache, stress and grief. Many novice poker players have simply not had the relevant experience with regards variance and are basically ill prepared for bad negative runs.
This can lead to all sorts of problems like moving up in stakes trying to recoup losses and getting blown out or altering your methodology to attempt to correct things that are not even wrong to begin with. Since the 1st of December last year I have not dropped more than three buy-ins which I think is pretty remarkable! Also in that time I have amassed $2000 playing these games but I have spewed a massive amount of money in that time tinkering with the system and trying to replicate the process while playing eight tables.
But the process is almost complete now and I am having one final intensive month to prepare for my challenge proper which starts on the 1st May. More importantly I am ahead by about $1100 or so over the past three weeks and over $500 so far this month as the fine tuning is almost complete. The real acid test will come over the next couple of months where I should hopefully get a very meaningful sample size playing the finalised system.
While Chris Ferguson turned thin air into $10,000, I personally feel that the vast majority of players would never attain the proper discipline levels to replicate what Chris did. I believe that my challenge would not only be far more attainable but that it would also create a possible situation in which players at any level could suddenly become winning poker players.
Not just that, but winning amounts of money that provided them with either a powerful second income or in some cases….their sole income. This is why I have decided to call it the Pro Poker Challenge as I think that title fits the bill perfectly. If I am successful then I obviously aim to tell everyone the dynamics of the system in its entirety.
I think poker should be stimulating as well as fun and that is something that I have been seriously lacking from my game recently. But if Chris Ferguson can be successful after playing for a few cents over several months then that sends out a message to anyone that perseverance can conquer all. The next few months will be very interesting for me and I will be undertaking this challenge on Cake Poker. Anyone who is interested in seeing how I get on can follow my progress by tuning into my blog at www.pokersharkpool.com …… wish me luck.