Down, Then Up

Beginning Bankroll: $6.59

I finally had an entire day free to devote to growing my bankroll in this experiment. I didn't spend the whole day on it, but I worked at it for several hours. Here's how it went.

I played five "sessions" on PokerStars today, all no-limit Texas Hold 'Em (NLHE):
- Two multi-table tournaments (with entry fees of $1.10 and $2.20),
- Two NLHE sit-n-go tournaments ($1.20 to enter each), and
- One NLHE cash game, with $.01 and $.02 blinds. I bought into that game for $1.00

Things went very badly during my first 3 sessions, which were the two multi-table tourneys and one sit-n-go. When I wasn't card-dead, I would get a moderately big hand only when someone else had a monster. Or else they would suck out on me when I'd go all-in with the best hand. You know, the usual. So I didn't make the money in any of those.

Then I took a break from this project and played a tournament on FullTilt with my other bankroll. My luck hadn't changed yet and I crashed and burned out of the money again. Man, I haven't been able to get anything going in any multi-table tourneys lately. Anyway, after that fiasco I took a break for lunch.

Newly nourished, I sat down at a 6-player "Fast" cash game on PokerStars. (In a fast game, they give you less time to make your decisions when it's your turn to act.) Things definitely went a whole lot better there, as I was able to turn my $1 buy-in into $2.87 fairly quickly (somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes--I didn't keep track of the time). It's awfully nice when you get pocket aces twice in a row. That certainly helped. I know a player is supposed to keep playing when s/he's winning, but that hasn't ever worked for me. When I'm up big in cash games and stick around, my luck always changes and my chip stack withers. So I took my haul and left while I still had it.

Following that success, I took another break to check my e-mail and do some other web surfing before I returned to PokerStars to try my hand at one more sit-n-go. It was a struggle as I started out well, then languished through more dead cards. I spent most of the time watching my stack shrink as the blinds increased. I did manage to keep afloat long enough to reach the top 3 and the money. Then things go interesting.

One of the final three had taken a lead early in the tourney, then apparently got up and left, his avatar at the table labelled, "Sitting Out". So it was a matter of waiting for his stack to get blinded off before I could make much of a move (because I was not the big stack, who had me covered by about 2-to-1). I did play my normal game during that period, betting strong hands, calling decent ones in the small blind, and folding losers on the button. But I didn't push any by going all-in or making big bets. Fortunately, the big stack played straight, too, not pushing every hand. Finally, the absent one's stack went dry, and we were down to heads-up, with me trailing by a good margin.

My opponent turned out to be the type to push all-in with just about any hand, though not every time. As soon as I caught on to that, I started looking for good hands with which to call him. One was a suited ace-rag (diamonds), and he turned over Q-10. The flop didn't help either of us, except one was a diamond. The turn and river came Q and 10, and I was sure I was a goner to my opponent's 2-pair. Then I looked again; the last two cards were diamonds, so my nut flush doubled me up. But I was still trailing.

Not very long after that hand, I called his all-in with another suited hand (I forget which cards I had, but they were clubs, and I think he had something like Q-8 offsuit), and I hit my flush to take the lead. Then I went on to win the whole thing and the $4.50 first prize. (I don't remember what cards were in the final hand--it all happened too fast.) So that triumph, along with my cash game success, turned the day into a slightly profitable one, and my bankroll grew by a whopping 67 cents. Well, that is slightly better than a 10% increase for the day, so that's not all bad.

It was a challenging day at the virtual felt, but still wound up a positive for this experiment. Thanks for checking in, and good luck at the tables.

Ending Bankroll: $7.26