Into the Fray

Beginning Bankroll: $1.20

Well I finally got around to working on my PokerStars bankroll. I confess that I've been unfaithful and playing on Full Tilt a few times this week, and my cosmic punishment has been pretty much nothing but being card-dead most of the time. So it's time to give Full Tilt a rest and see what I can do about making something from nothing.

This evening I sat down to a 6-handed No-Limit Texas Hold-Em table to see what the cards would give me. It was the smallest stakes available, with blinds of one and two cents. I admittedly did a no-no: I brought my entire $1.20 bankroll to the table. But with so little to work with, I pretty much had to.

I did another no-no, too: I quit while I was winning. I only sat in for a few hands--less than 20 for sure--but got amazingly good results. I haven't seen such a run of good hands in quite a while. In that short span I won 31 cents, increasing my bankroll by 25 percent! It has been my experience that when I start out hot like that, if I don't leave the table I'll either go card dead or keep running up against the nuts, and my buy-in shrivels away. So with that in mind, along with my recent unpleasant experiences on Full Tilt, I decided to walk away while I was ahead. Besides, I'll be happy with any session in which I increase my bankroll by ten percent or more. As this was just the beginning of this challenge, a 25 percent increase was just fine.

Now on to replies to comments from readers of this blog.
"mrmiggle" asked what my screen name is. I think for now I'll not reveal that to the general public; I don't need everyone out there gunning for me, making this quest even harder than it's going to be. I'm pretty sure I know who mrmiggle is, anyway, so I'll just send him an e-mail with that info. But mrmiggle, please tell us how your session against one of the FT name pros went. Who was it? Did you clean his/her clock? (Or vice versa?) Was it a tourney or ring game?

And to reader "sitngotraining.com": Thanks for your well-wishes. I'll take a good long look at your blogs when I have some free time, but I took a quick glance today. I, too, like to focus on sit-n-gos, and have been playing them almost exclusively (and mostly 6-handed ones) on Full Tilt lately, but with disappointing results, mainly from bad beats and long stretches of being card-dead. I'll avail myself of your training to see if I can improve those results.

That's today's report. I promise it won't be a week before I get back to this mission and report on it for you. Thanks for keeping track, and good luck at the tables.

Ending Bankroll: $1.51