If you don't like self-absorbed rants, look away now.
In April, I emptied my Full Tilt account out of spite, because they don't give rakeback deals to existing members. I used the cash to pay of my visa bill and am now happily debt free (well, except for my mortgage). I took a short break from poker then a couple of weeks ago I decided to re-invest. So I put £200 on blonde to try the site out and decided to have a complete punt. I had $400 and popped the lot on a $2 - $4 six seater cash game. My comfort zone on Fulltilt was $0.50 - $1 six seater cash and I have been grinding out a small but consisted profit.
I'm a bit too impatient to spend ages building my bankroll back up so I took my decision to gamble. If I lost my $400 on the first hand then so be it. I could always have another go next month. Anyway, I played well and, far more importantly, I got lucky. 3 hours later I had doubled my roll.
The next day, a complete maniac was at my table. He was sitting with $2,400 and had achieved that by raising stupid amounts every hand then going all in no matter what. I made a few very brave calls against him, some stupidly brave, this hand was the one I cacked myself most with (don't try this at home kiddies):
GAME #559038923: Texas Hold'em NL $2.00/$4.00 2007-05-24 23:47:17
Table Olivos
Seat 1: blondeswordpoker ($599.73 in chips)
Seat 3: gooche ($416.74 in chips)
Seat 5: UnaVitaConTe ($807.90 in chips)
Seat 6: thehabs ($400.00 in chips)
Seat 8: cZecZe ($409.19 in chips)
Seat 10: FengWang ($1,985.11 in chips) DEALER
blondeswordpoker: Post SB $2.00
gooche: Post BB $4.00
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to blondeswordpoker
UnaVitaConTe: Fold
cZecZe: Fold
FengWang: Raise $16.00
blondeswordpoker: Raise $55.00
gooche: Fold
FengWang: Call $41.00
*** FLOP ***
blondeswordpoker: Bet $70.00
FengWang: Raise $1,928.11
blondeswordpoker: Allin $472.73
*** TURN ***
*** RIVER ***
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $2,585.84 Rake $3.00
blondeswordpoker: wins $1,200.46
FengWang: wins $1,385.38
He had
My profit from that session was $1,120.00 giving me a roll of just under $2K. I stuck with the $2 - $4 tables and by day 5 of my punt, I was up to $3K.
Now I got scared. Suddenly I had something to lose. Everything had been going fantastically well but I knew if I kept playing at these stakes, I risked losing the lot just as fast as I'd gained it. I really was enjoying the high stakes and I was able to play a good LAG style, fearless because I didn't care if I lost. Now that fear had set in, there was no way that I could stay at those stakes. But I didn't fancy dropping right back to $0.5 - $1, that would be incredibly boring by comparison. So I compromised on playing $1 -$2 and continuing with my LAG style. I hoped to continue spinning it up to get to $5K, at which point I would have 25 buy-ins and just be able to afford to play in the games I was already playing in. Make sense? It did to me at the time, self-delusion is great.
Anyway, today I hit the target. 14 days after I started, 58 hours of poker, my bankroll is over $5K and I have even withdrawn my original £200
investment punt.
The thing is......I've been looking back over my hand histories today. I'm satisfied that I have been playing well. But the chances of me being able to achieve what I did just don't look good. I always seemed to have a better flush, or a better full house than the other guy and I won several huge pots on the river. I reckon there are about 14 coin flip moments where I could easily have taken a huge hit, if not gone bust. So, if I've done the equivalent of winning 14 coin flips in a row, is it something I would ever do again?
Probably, because I'm stupid enough. However, I'm able to see in hindsight just how lucky I was. So this bankroll is for keeps. I hope to build it up much higher before I even consider withdrawing from it, or playing in expensive tourneys.
Would I recommend anyone else to try this approach? No, not if you are serious about building a roll. Possible to do? Yes, of course. Likely? Absolutely not. Play hundreds of nice and safe sngs to build your roll and avoid ever having to reload. In short, do as I say, not as I do
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