In a world of poker where a $25 cash game is a considered Micro-Stakes,
and you can turn on the TV and see players gambling with $500,000 sat
in front of them, a feeble $50 can seem like nothing more than pennies.
It is not the cash that I sit with in my bankroll at the moment,
though, it is a challenge: a challenge to transform a modest sum of
money in to a respectable amount. With a new year just around the
corner, what better time to start building a bankroll?

I
originally started with a $12 stake from a friend, which failed at the
first instance. After some immediate ring game frolics, my only
PokerStars real money fell even lower. After a break from PokerStars of
several months, I returned to see $4 in my account, meaning that the
only place to start was at the lowest tables of $5 NLHE (0.01/ 0.02).
And so I began waiting for my moments. Before I knew it, I had $50, and
here I am today.

Today is not the definitive start of my aim to
build a bankroll. However, my swings are terrible and just yesterday I
found myself on $15 after hitting some bad beats and then not
practising the discipline required to maintain any form of bankroll. I
am a person to look for the benefit of any negative, though, and one
arrived in my discovery of the $1+.10 45 man SnG. $14 for first, and
$10 for second - that’s all I’m looking at. The players in there are
absolutely awful. I mean justplainshouldnotbeplayingpoker bad. In eight
tournaments, I’ve finished 11th, 4th, 2nd four times, and 1st twice.
It’s definitely a profit maker.

One such tournament I’m yet to
cash in, though, is the legendary $4+.40 180 SnG. I always find myself
going into the second hour with a decent chip stack of 4,000-5,000, but
go on to see my M reach a point where I shove with AJ/ AQ and see
myself come up against AA/ AK. I also consecutively went out on AA, AA,
and then KK, but that’s a complaint for another day. I’m sure with time
I’ll get the jist of the second hour. In abidance with a key post made
on FullContact (FCP), I just need to hone my understanding of other
people’s M, and how that will affect the hands with which they go
all-in. Next time I’m in one, I’ll post key hands in my next blog for
comments and critique.

Now, to the standard session: NLHE’s too
easy at these stakes to skip out, and Omaha Hi-Lo (O8) is too good of a
game to not be playing. Today I tried my hands at all games, for a
taste - Stud, Stud Hi-Lo, Omaha and Razz - but found my preference to
remain with the aforementioned two. I know everyone’s preaching of
playing TAG, but at these stakes I found that being too tight is going
to see your big hands being folded around, and your patience running
thin. With three tables open, though, this burden is addressed, and
stable, sensible hand selection doesn’t test your discipline. I never
limp into a pot, and when I hit the flop, I bet hard. A fair few times
I’ll find I’m beaten by a showdown (all too many times on the river, by
someone calling my continuation bet with absolutely nothing) and I’ll
be down a pretty large amount of my stack, but the amount of times I’ve
won that money the same way counterbalances any losses. At these stakes
you’ll find AK to be a goldmine. So many times you get raises by A5
having a field day with top pair and nothing more. It’s great.

As
I previously mentioned, when I lose money I lose it in big downswings.
My prior blog here is from when I blew my $400 bankroll in one night.
Luckily that’s behind me now, and I’ve learnt all too well from that.
Usually, a bad beat/ bad play on my part, will see me take a 15-20
minute break totally unrelated to poker in the form of a walk, or just
some general, relaxed activity. The minute that I fear my opponent
flipping over a repeat of the KQ that hit two-pair against my AA is the
minute I know that I should be taking a break.

I’m yet to record
a session with the intention of posting hands onto this blog, so I will
leave this post introducing my challenge where it is. I hope you will
keep up with my posts here. I will try to update my blog often, perhaps
ever few days or so, and will let it be known when an update has been
published. If there are any suggestions of what I should include,
please let me know. Until my next post, thanks for reading, have a very
happy new year, and I’ll see you on FCP!

All the best.
Zach.