Chris Ferguson Challenge

Does anyone really believe that Chris Ferguson really went from 0 to 10,000 dollars on full tilt poker the way he claims? I have been playing for years and it's hard to win freerolls with all the all in pushers and callers...so I wonder if it's just for publicity or if he really did it...is there proof?
I was going to try it myself..and started to on pokerstars but with full time school, full time job and kids, it's kinda hard to dedicate a whole lot of time..I have managed to go from zero to a little more than $5...most of it through the PSO league.
Are there other PSOers on here? If so, give me a shout..on Pokerstars I am xxGiddyupxx

yes, but things have changed alot since ferguson did it.
There weren't 10,000 people in freerolls back then.

Trying to do it today would be mind numbing, really better off just depositing and trying to run it up.

I think there's even a cardschat member that accomplished it.

he already knew how to play poker, which is the hardest part. He just needed to win. One good cash in a freeroll/tourney for him would set him up good.

It actually took him a bit longer than FullTilt claims. About 2 years.
It took him 7 months to get to $6.50
But then again, he only did it on his spare time.

After reaching $10k he continued, and managed to build his bankroll up to a healthy $40k, before taking a nose dive down to around $5k.
But he managed to come back, and now stands at $115k (after 5 years).

He best depo a $10 so he can withdraw.

chuG said:

He best depo a $10 so he can withdraw.

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What does this means???

Anyway, i just came here to say that i came from zero. i started playing FR, and i build my BR to 50/60$ only on frees.

I Then started playing MTT and SNG acording to my BR and today, after 2 years, i have 1.1K$, and i just play for fun and in spare time.

So i actualy believe that you can go from zero to hero, and if you realy invest your time in this sport, im sure you can go from zero to 'a lot' in a few months

he also has the name "chris ferguson" and im sure he gets a lot more respect when playing than the rest of us do

it can be done today, even with the massive freerolls... there are two good freerolls to play... the Nightly Ferguson Freeroll and the Daily Dollar Freeroll... they pay out $1 to the top 100 players or so... but it would take a long time to run that money up from there... I just don't have the patients...

there has to be a formula that calculates your Time versus your Money Won, and Potential Money To Win... in order to figure out if it's even worth it for you to play a freeroll.

chuG said:

He best depo a $10 so he can withdraw.

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pdias666 said:

What does this means???

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I'm pretty sure to make a withdrawal from a poker site, you need to do a deposit first. At least it makes it a lot easier to pull money out if you've already done that.

it is good for the small stakes players to have confidence when grinding out massive freerolls .

Its not that difficult tbh its just time consuming. I went from 0 to $50 on fulltilt in a few months (late 2009 to early 2010).

Made 2 cashes in uk $100 daily freeroll (1700 field with top 27 cash).
Then grinded some sitngo sats for the daily dollar.
Also the 5k sit n learn freeroll is easy to cash.

But anyway I stopped at 50 and deposited.

In response to the OP; I'm pretty sure that Full Tilt wouldn't lie about how Chris Ferguson did it. They seem to be a reputable company and I doubt they'd risk their reputation for such a silly white lie.

If he hadn't done it, I'm sure they'd just have buried the story away and not devoted any marketing to it. Since he did do it, they talk about it all the time and leave it prominent on their site.

As an FTP pro he does not pay rake. Seeing what his results would look like when raked would be interesting.

It's not worth doing anyway as freerolls are such a huge waste of time. There are many sites out there that give away no deposit bankrolls between $50-$150 where you can start grinding out $2NL-$5NL rather than spend a lifetime trying to win a $1000 free roll with 10K people in where your free tournaments value is a mere 10c.

LizaMayra said:

the Nightly Ferguson Freeroll and the Daily Dollar Freeroll... they pay out $1 to the top 100 players or so

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when is the the Nightly Ferguson Freeroll held? ive never seen it in the lobby?

i was also curious if ferguson played any private freerolls that have much smaller fields. does anybody know?

can be done in 2 months

It was done in two months by a player at GR88. It was in a contest that they had 4 or 5 months ago. I was in it. I came in 4th. The player that won it ended the contest with over $10,000. The name of the contest was "build your bankroll." They gave 100+ players $20. After 1 month the top ten got $200 more dollars to play for another month. So we really started with 0, or free $20 +$200 for top 10. They are suppose to have another one of these. I don't know when. I cashed out $600 and still have over $300, some from that contest and some that I won after the contest. My name there is alabamacowboy and the final rankings are still up at GR88 poker. The player that won got a jump start by winning a $4 buyin tournament where he won $1,400.

I think we all believe it can be done or we wouldn't be playing but it requires luck, skill, patience and time. Few of us have all four of these attributes working at once so we do what we can, hoping to improve along the way. I think I'm enjoying it more as I give it less of my time. And I know it means more to my family that poker has become less of a time consumer for me.

LarryT503 said:

I think we all believe it can be done or we wouldn't be playing but it requires luck, skill, patience and time. Few of us have all four of these attributes working at once so we do what we can, hoping to improve along the way. I think I'm enjoying it more as I give it less of my time. And I know it means more to my family that poker has become less of a time consumer for me.

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Yes. Don't let something like poker interfer with family. I like a challenge better than just grinding at cash games or tournaments.

I started from free rolls and got over 200 dollars now by playing low limit rush poker and MTTs with buyin less than 1.11 dollar on full tilt. Not sure what I should play next. I am trying to play SNGs and see whether that gives me profit.

I can't even imagine sitting through a free roll with all those thousands of peeps
and playing for like 5 hours to collect $15 or something, let alone a bunch of them to make a nice bankroll...maybe in Chris's day but not a nowadays

I had 0 a few months ago when I cashed out....decided to try to come back from 0, cashed in a few freerolls then grinded cash games until I got up until about $40, all in less than a month. I decided that I wanted to switch sites and didn't have the time to try to grind up to where I wanted to be in order to start playing for a profit again so I basically just put in all on 2 buy ins at 25NL and eventually went bust.

If I really wanted to make a run at it I would have maintained strict BR management and probably would have several hundred by now, so there's no doubt it's possible.

i'm sure he did it!! probably he played poker a lot of hours a day (on ftp) and of course there were less people that played poker online...i think the problem is to amministrate your bankroll..for example i was able to arrive at 150$ in about 2 months after i've started playing but i lost all my money because i tried to play superturbo sit and go with a buyin of 10$ or more (i think in the superturbo you have to be so luck to win)..now i'm trying to made up a new bankroll and wit a good managment i really think you can arrive to win 10,000$

I'm trying to do the same - got some cashes the last couple of weeks in freerolls. I try to double up early in the tourneys but only if I have a premium hand and are in position against players I know are playing loose aggressive. It's almost too easy. Then you just have to play smart and build your stack from there. I won my first two SNG's too so got a bump in my bankroll too

I've gone from $0 to $950 in the past 2 months. Did not use BRM, but I don't think you can when you have less than $50

He may have but certainly not in this day and age.I would bet the house against it!

It's just a publicity scam. The guy was allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in of $2.50 or less. Which means, HE NEVER STARTED FROM ZERO.
He made $160,000 from April 2006 'til December 2010. That's 4 and 1/2 years. Less than $40,000 a year. Not bad, but he can't live on that.