Combuboom's Bankroll thread

Upon venturing back to cash games, I decided I finally want to attempt to keep track of my earnings, losses, ups, downs, and monitor my bankroll growth (well, hopefully growth). My bankroll has been stuck in a rut for quite some time. I hope this might motivate me and focus me a bit more, knowing that if I tilt or play really badly, the shame will be documented (but so will the glory). It's the beginning of a brand new year, so I guess I have these lofty hopes for myself and my poker progress. It's the year 2007; anything can happen. NL Hold 'em is my game of choice. I expect to play a mixture of cash games, SnGs and MTTs.

And so it begins...

January 5th, 2007
Started with: $1109.25
Ended with: $1236.80 (+$127.55)
Time played: 45 minutes

session notes: two-tabled $0.50/$1 9-handed NL for a short session. got myself in a mess with TPGK + nut flush draw. guy flopped a set but i got very lucky and made the nuts with a river spade. thought i played alright outside of that hand, but i don't feel great about my play. first time i've played a cash game for about a month, and i was never experienced in them to begin with, so i have plenty of room for learning and improvement. good start, and i think i learned a thing or two.

don't play 100nl, you're not bankrolled enough for it.

Upon further consideration, you're probably right. A bad enough downswing could potentially wreck me. What about 50nl?

the general rule is try to have 20+ BIs

Heh, your totally under-rolled for $100NL. If you feel that you need experience above anything, id suggest multi-tabling $25NL for a set amount of hands before moving to $50NL. Which is really kinda ideal for your roll.

Best of luck with it, I hope youve invested some of that bankroll in pokertracker ?

the absolute minimum you can play with is 10x the max buy in at NL but 20x is sugggested. In limit its 300X the big bet.

I honestly say go with the 20x though and only take small shots at 10x.

January 8th, 2007
Started with: $1236.80
Ended with: $1282.80 (+$46.00)
Time played: 1 hour 30 minutes

session notes: played two $20 SnGs; took 5th in the first one and won the second. probably won't play anymore tonight, as we have friends over to watch the ohio state-florida game. GO GATORS!

January 10th, 2007
Started with: $1282.80
Ended with: $1283.00 (+$0.20)
Time played: 30 minutes

session notes: two-tabled at $50 NL for a short session before class. MADE 20 CENTS!!!! didn't get dealt a premium hand once on either table... best hand was TT which i had to fold after a pre-flop raise and sizeable re-raise. hit only one flop, where i bottom two-paired rags from the big blind for a rather small pot (i play bottom two-pair pretty aggressively 'cause i think it's a dangerous hand to get cute with). still managed to beat the blinds and rake mostly through late position raises and c-bets. can't complain about that. will hopefully get in some good playing time tomorrow once i'm done with classes for the week.

You know what I've realized. I need to make some more money, or spend less of it somehow, lol. I seem to have a pretty small bankroll compared to most people playing online poker.

my thoughts EXACTLY!!!

January 11th, 2007
Started with: $1283.00
Ended with: $1307.00 (+$24.00)
Time played: 1 hour 15 minutes

session notes: i played three $20+$2 9-man SnGs. results were: 8th, 4th, 1st. the 8th place spawned from an ill-advised semi-bluff attempt that was part stupid, part unlucky. i raised pre-flop with a suited connector and the guy just called from the SB... he led out on a nine-high draw heavy board where i made middle pair and a gutshot draw. i chose not to believe his bet, but he ended up having JJ and it held up. i couldn't put him on that hand cause he didn't reraise me pre-flop. the 4th place was kind of frustrating. AQs lost to KTs when other guy made a backdoor flush and i'm out on the bubble. the 1st place saved the day and kept my profit streak going. ended up getting heads up, made a full house and baited the guy into pushing all-in on the river with Q high . got class but i might play more tonight afterwards. we will see.

Your aim should be not to deposit large amounts, but to put in a small amount and let it grow organically... with proper bankroll management in theory it's impossible for it to ever shrink to zero...

BTW Combuboom, give Blogger a try - it's really easy to set up.

the problem with depositing a small amount of money and making it grow is that it takes way too long for most people. I'm a victim myself of taking shots at limits which I'm in no way properly bankrolled. I guess it takes a lot of discipline or a lot of money to spend from the get go.

Not really. So long as you're a winning player, it increases exponentially. If you're a losing player, why would you want to play higher limits and lose more?

Well, if you're following proper bankroll management then I think it is. Like if I deposit say 100 dollars.. I should really be playing the 5 cent BB tables where the max buy in is 5 bucks and i'd have 20 buyin's for it. And it would take forever to bring that 100 bucks to 200 for the .10 BB tables. And so on and so forth.

forgot to add, most people don't believe themselves to be a bad poker player. So when you're underrolled or just hit a downswing, it's usually normal mentality to chase your losses and make it all back.

And the easiest way to do that, is to move up to the higher limits and try to win it all back in an all-in.

I know, that's pretty much been my approach.

I considered the idea of setting this up on a blog or something, but I honestly feel I'm much more likely to stick with it if I just post it on CC, since I visit daily. I don't want to clutter the boards or anything, but if it's not a problem I'd really like to keep this here. In fact, it seems to be bringing me good luck:

January 12th, 2007
Started with: $1307.00
Ended with: $1399.00 (+$92.00)
Time played: 2 hours 30 minutes

session notes: another winning session! played four $20 9-man SnGs with the results: 6th, 5th, 1st, 1st. what i'm most excited about is that i really think i'm improving my shorthanded and heads up play. the last four times i've made the money have all been 1st place finishes, and in two of those i began three-handed play with the shortstack. been mostly satisfied with my overall play of late. i feel like i'm reducing my mistakes. no more mistakes is the goal!

January 13th, 2007
Started with: $1399.00
Ended with: $1357.00 (-$42.00)
Time played: 3 hours

session notes: well, a losing session was bound to happen eventually. it's early, but i'm done for the day. friend's birthday bash tonight anyway... should be fun. as for the poker... i might have jinxed myself a bit talking about my good luck. i ran quite bad today. six $20 9-man SnGs, and the results weren't so pretty: 6th, 8th, 7th, 5th, 5th, 1st. things just weren't going so well. KK vs AK, A hits flop; AQ on a KJT rainbow flop... 2 players push, i insta-call... i'm vs. JT and AA, and ~70% to triple up for massive stackage--JT rivers a FH; ran into AA with KK; ran into KK with QQ; AKs < A9o etc. etc..

that being said, i'm proud of myself because i didn't tilt at all. i made what i thought was the best play at all times, and was finally rewarded with a 1st place finish in my last attempt. in the past, i would have needed hours or a day to cool down before i'd have a chance of getting a 1st because i'd be too tilty from previous beats, so, that's a big stride for me. i'm also still smacking people upside the head when it gets to heads up play... 5 for my last 5. there is loads of weak-tight HU play at full tilt, i'll tell you that. that's it for now. bye bye

Good to see you're goin steady and out of that rut you were in a while back.

p.s. Next time you play 50NL look me up; I've been playing the rings a whole lot lately. Just don't sit behind me, cause I'll steal your blind

Sure thing Chuck : ) I will probably play some more 50NL soon. I think after my next really good SnG-day I'll take a break and go back to cash games for a bit.

January 15th, 2007
Started with: $1357.00
Ended with: $1357.00 (+-$0.00!!!!11)
Time played: 2 hours 30 minutes

session notes: well, technically i'm down 12 bucks on the day as far as poker, but strangely enough, i accumulated $12 in rakeback and just received it the other day, keeping my bankroll at even. played three more $20 SnGs, with results: 7th, 6th, 2nd. didn't run so good. couldn't get dealt a hand and i lost the all of the matches on coinflips, the first two of which i had every right to get all the money in and my opponent did not (for example AKs vs 33).

the last match went on FOREVER! it went 1 hour 40... we had 6 players left at the 1 hour BREAK; sometimes you don't even get to the break in full tilt SnGs. i stole sooo many blinds with raggedy hands, really because i had no other chances. was exceptionally card dead, and the blinds were huge. 4-handed with 250/500 blinds, all stacks about 3000... a whopping 6 BB for everyone. and of course at this point i get dealt consecutively: K6, 3J, 8T, K2, 37, 82, 52, 23, 73, Q4, 97, 57, 27, 25. fun. began down over 2:1 in chips when we got heads up and having an M of 5, it went from a pushament to a luckament, and i lost a coinflip.

new week of poker after dark starts tonight! it's world champion week... this match will have: jamie gold, chris moneymaker, chris ferguson, carlos mortensen, doyle brunson, and johnny chan. the contrast in personalities is nuts. ought to be interesting.

January 18th-19th
Started with: $1357.00
Ended with: $1331.00 (-$26.00)
Time played: 3 hours 30 minutes

session notes: well i haven't been playing a ton since i have classes tuesday-thursday. anyway, i'm still running kinda bad. it's pretty disappointing, especially since i'm playing really well. the SnG i just bubbled hurt a bit. down to four players, i was dominating the table with the big stack. some goofball with a completely healthy stack decides to get all-in preflop holding AT to my KK. could my KK possibly crack a single A? for the 5th consecutive time, no. then i lost a coinflip with 99 vs AJ that would have also got me in the money, and my goose was cooked. i'm one for my last six coinflips :/ not so good.

i'm still waiting for a breakthrough SnG day so i can take a break from the stupid things on good terms. full tilt seems to realize this and doesn't want to let me leave them. back to ring games soon.

January 20th
Started with: $1331.00
Ended with: $1441.00 (+$110.00)
Time played: 2 hours 45 minutes

session notes: that's more like it. four SnGs today with results reading: 2nd, 9th (ugh, bad beat, don't ask), 1st, 2nd. i'm not too worried with only winning once out of the three times i was heads up; i started with a significant chip disadvantage each time and lost some coinflips (my specialty). i was looking for a breakthrough and got it, so i think i'll next be focusing on ring games again. playing all this pre-flop poker has begun to wear on me. cash games (or deep-stacked tournaments) are a little more interesting as well as educational for me.

January 21st
Started with: $1441.00
Ended with: $1469.20 (+$28.20)
Time played: 4 hours 15 minutes

session notes: only played the cc deepstack tourney today and cashed in 4th place. i felt i played well through most of it. early on i won a lot of hands without showing down, and when i did show down it was generally a very strong hand. i was very fortunate when i flopped a set of Ks vs. a flopped set of Ts and basically doubled up there. went card dead for a while but stayed among the chip leaders for the first few hours. then, in a SB vs BB situation i called a short-ish stacks all-in with KQs. the all-in was kind of an overbet and given the SB vs BB situation, i figured the range to be a small PP, A-rag, or maybe something like KJ or QJs that i'd be dominating. i was roughly in a coinflip situation with A-rag or a small PP, so i decided to gamble a little bit to attempt to build my stack. i had enough chips to where i could take the hit and still be healthy, but i didn't really have to take that risk there. the length of the event may have influenced my decision-making. he ended up having A-rag offsuit, making me a very slight underdog (54%-46%), and i lost the race.

ran into some crummy flops for hands like TT and JJ, which chipped me down a little bit. eventually i was the short stack out of 4 remaining players. i standard-raised T9 with position and got a call from the big stack. flop came 886. the big stack made a 3/4 pot bet into me. hands i figured i could have been up against were just about any pair 9s or under excluding 8s and 6s, since they wouldn't bet that large (i think he'd have re-raised me PF with TT, and maybe with 99 as well)-- or just two high cards. if he had a low pair, i might be able to push him off the hand, and even if i couldn't, with 2 overcards, a gutshot straight draw, and three 6s as outs, i'd be at about a coinflip to beat any small pocket pair except 77. if he had two high cards, i could definitely push him off the hand. so i pushed all-in. lo and behold, he calls and shows 77, the only likely holding that i was really in trouble against. so i missed a T, 9, or 7 and was out of the tournament. some people could criticize me for that move, but i'm happy with it, and overall pretty happy with my play.

January 22nd-23rd
Started with: $1469.20
Ended with: $1407.20 (-$62.00)
Time played: Probably about 5 hours?

session notes: so even though the plan was to immediately go back to ring games, i ended up still in a tournament kind of mood so i decided i'd stick with SnGs for a little while. if i was being results-oriented i'd say it was a mistake, but really i think i'm still playing quite well. problem is i'm running god-awful. the pattern is, with staggering consistency: card-dead, card-dead, card-dead, good hand-BOOM bad beat. i actually took 2nd and 3rd in the pair of SnGs i played today, which is seriously awesome considering my cards. tried a 90-man $20 SnG today, and the pattern continued. i got my money all-in on the flop as an 85% favorite and some joker makes literally the worst call i have ever seen at these stakes with Q high on an all-rag board. i have JJ and he's dead to a Q... turn blank, river Q. every time i get the motivation to play these multi-table SnGs/tournaments, i play one, take some gross beat to get knocked out, and get really discouraged. i should probably just try to play them with some consistency and see where it gets me. poker is great, but i just wish somehow it punished idiots on a more regular basis than it does. there's always tomorrow.

January 26th-27th
Started with: $1407.20
Ended with: $1467.20 (+$60.00)
Time played: 4 hours 30 minutes

session notes: still trying to get back in the flow of this poker business... haven't played as frequently as in the past but have also been busier than in the past. i keep getting 3rds and 2nds in SnGs and it's hard to know whether to be satisfied that i'm reaching the money so often or disappointed that i've not been getting 1sts. generally i've been getting knocked out by bad beats and coinflips that were really unavoidable. the one i just took 3rd in was kind of bizarre in that the only all-in showdown i won was when i got it in behind (was short-stacked with position and had to push Kx suited). the other three times i got the money in, i was ahead, and i lost all three! including the one that knocked me out (A3o > 77). i know it's the nature of the game, but it can drive you mad sometimes! i want to create poker software and rig it so the best hand holds up more than it should!

January 30th
Started with: $1467.20
Ended with: $1499.20 (+$32.00)
Time played: 3 hours

session notes: played some SnGs and ended up making way less than i should have. the first one, in one of the first hands i see a flop with 98 of hearts in late position with two players. flop comes 6 T Q with two hearts. not too shabby... double gutshot straight draw with a flush draw. one of the players bets about 2/3 pot and i raise three times that, being almost certainly in the lead at this point. he calls. turn's a non-heart A and he checks to me this time. i decide to check behind with my one-million outs. the river is an A of hearts giving me my flush and he immediately over-bets all-in. of course i call, and the guy shows AT for a runner-runner full house. jesus... no getting away from that without a read.

next one sucked plenty more. gets down to 4 players, about even in chips. i see KK on the button and raise. BB pushes all-in with TT and i call. TT obviously wins with a straight on the river. duh.

the one after i actually took 1st, making a pretty big comeback from a minor bad-ish beat (Q8s > AJs) and winning like 7,000 of my chips from pure blind-steals. first SnG i've played in my last ten or so where i didn't take a beat as a 70/30 favorite or better. neato!

p.s. this week of poker after dark looks like it will be pretty fun to watch, so i recommend it (unless you hate phil laak, but i think the guy is pretty entertaining).

So what, you give up on this after that tourney win?

I think he's retired and bought himself a small island....

lol.
He was on a roll...wonder what happened?

Maybe had a shot at $10/20 NL and bad things ensued?

You gotta let us know what you did with the money!!

I can't see him doing anything sensible with it... Combuboom goes high-stakes methinks.

Wow! nice job. I hadn't known...Is the $4700 all you got from winning the 25k free or did you withdraw most of it...?