The MATelford $2 freeroll project!

Hello again and welcome to my second, and hopefully less hostile thread.

This is a thread keeping a record on my progress with my project.
Basically I played and placed 26th in a Full Tilt freeroll and won $2. So now I gotta go as deep as I can and build my bankroll before I get busted.

I would appreciate if anyone who has attemped a similar task in the past to step forward and declare their story in glory.

Best of luck with this Sir. It can however be extremly difficult to make any meaningful progress to make headway when you are starting on freerolls, the 0-$100 bit being one of the toughest.

Hence I would recommend that you consider making a deposit in the region of $100 and adhere to correct bankroll managment. If not, again good luck.

Agreed. Although I have no money and I know I can do it. Its like the old stories ya hear...

From Rags to Riches!

Im gonna do it!

It's possible. I sold play chips for a whopping $3 towards the end of December and I'm up at $130 as of today. As Tenbob pointed out, it is VERY tough early, as any minor downswing is massive. I think at one point I was down to under a dollar. Just be very, very sensible, and very, very patient and you can manage it. Good luck

It's really hard to start out with 2$ and make it out. But good luck. Either go for the lowest SnG or go for the lowest cash games, whatever you are more comfortable with.

Yes indeed it is difficult. Thankyou for the replies so far.

Any better ideas than playing 50BB deepstack 6 handed NL.01/.02 cash games?

gl too u sir , git past the large fields for so little profit is alot of time making a penny every 5 hours . gl and wish u the best

Play more freerolls. I'm at $5 and I still won't play cash/sng until I hit $10.

I started from $0.47 in freeroll winnings. I'm now playing 200nl with a comfortable bankroll, which means more than 40 buy-ins.

Good luck with your attempt. Try to listen to the advice people around here give. It's hugely +EV.

Best of luck and congrats on the huge improvement in thread quality from the last attempt (no sarcasm intended whatsoever).

Yes, it's hard and will fail most of the time. But it can be done.
I'd say u have a choice between 2nl and $1 sngs, depending on what you're more comfortable with.

Personally I'd try 2nl. It just seems like you'd have more control but progress would be slower.

Good luck.

I started with a $2 freeroll BR.
I am now somewhere in the $50 range (over a year)
I have gotten as high as $100 and as low as $20 again.

Play low stakes games, whatever are comfortable for you.
I started out playing micro stakes cash tables, playing VERY tight and turned the originally $2 into about $8.
Then I moved into $1 SnG's (I know I should have at least waited till I had $20) and got very lucky and went on a hot streak.
Once I was up to $40, I moved over to the $2 SnG's (the rake is less) and sometimes the $1 Ferguson tourney on FT.

It is very hard going but if you play tight, good hands, avoid playing when you are too tired or had to much to drink, you can do it.

I am not trying to 'break the bank' but if does feel good to be playing with the banks money.

GL out there

Leo

Last year i started out on FT with $0, playing the Poker after dark freerolls and any other (public) Ft freeroll i could find. I hate ringgames, love tourneys. So i took my 100 FTP and played the 20 and 50FTP sats, making it to 10.000FTP, played the 90FTP sat to win T$ 11 or 12, also won some cash in the freerolls...
I then entered low stakes tourneys, all MTTs, and started to play sats to bigger tourneys (50-50) building my bankroll up to $180 within 3 months...
DO abide by bankrollmanagement, i managed to blow it all in just three weeks, am rebuilding at the moment and up to $70 again...

Ok people im at $4 now.

Im playing NL 0.01/0.02 6 handed with 40bb ($0.80) 5 Buy- ins.

Have been up to $4 back to $1.60 and worked it back up this morning to $4.

All is well and I would like to ask, are there any players on here currently grinding at NL 0.01/0.02 on Full Tilt Poker

Isn't this an oxymoron?

I THINK ITS VERY HARD WITH 2DOL
I TRY5 TIMES
GOOD LUCK

My best recommendation is to build your bankroll through freerolls before investing your bankroll in buy-ins.

As a recreational player, I decided to play nothing but freerolls for 1 year on Full Tilt (to see where I could get my bankroll). I'm approxiamtely 7 months into this and I have bult my bankroll to $99.79.

I'm sorry, but this is an awfully suboptimal way to build your bankroll.

As soon as your freeroll winnings can afford the lowest buy-in at the lowest available stake, you should take a shot. bankroll management does not apply at the lowest level. It's a major loss of EV to restrict yourself to freerolls while you could be playing buy-in games.

fwiw, when i started this (BRAG: $10k from freeroll winnings (http://www.cardschat.com/f46/brag-10k-freeroll-winnings-143994/)), the site I played on (Everest) had $0.05+0.01 SNGs. I started playing them with $0.47 of freeroll winnings and that was way too much as it turned out my bankroll never got below $0.39.

50BB is the min buyin. Deep is 50-200, regular 20-100.

As soon as I heard of the new micros I started playing 2NL with $10 I had left, but I cashed in the CC freeroll tuesday so I'm playing 5nl 6max deep tables now.

Good luck MATelford, keep us posted of how you are getting on

I can say that is is hard as well. I just had 2.66 that I had in my Bank roll, 3 placings in freerolls built it up from 0. I tried a 2 + .25 micro tourny on Full tilt and got beat over the head really hard. Pockets 5's beat my Pocket Kings when the cards came out 2 3 4 A 8. Be careful, and best of luck. Let's hope I can get some more cash in my BR as well!

I never made a deposit yet, and won some small amounts on different rooms. My biggest win on a freeroll is 25$ at Mansion Poker (before it went on the iPoker network).
I have a total of more 100$ all rooms included.

I already could transfer that money on my Moneybookers account, so now if I want, I can make a deposit of 100$ on a room and get the bonus.
But I have not enough time to play by these days, so I wait because I know that to get the bonus, we only have 1 month to unlock it, and need to play a lot.

By the way, in your opinion, what is the best room to make a 100$ deposit, play small stakes CG or SnG, and unlock the bonus quickly?
Good luck for your 2$ contest

When trying to build a bankroll from nothing there is no reason to apply the rules of bankroll management because there are no tournies or tables to apply this too when you only have $2.Also, I have a problem with everyone saying to forget the project and just make a deposit. Does everyone work for FT??? Play what you want and how you want. If you lose it all than start over again.I tried this project before and had a bankroll of about $25 before I went broke. It was fun but without the funds to keep going it was hard to manage. The bankroll management theories only really work once you have a bankroll over $200 or more and evern than I think that it only works for those with an even larger bankroll say in the $1,000 range.Good luck.

In my own personal opinion I think Full Tilt would be the best for a first deposit because when you play cash games there, you get "Ring Game Happy Hours", giving you double the rewards points you should be recieving.

This should increase the rate at which your bonus is unlocked.

I disagree. I have been doing my own version of the Ferguson with a $10 bankroll (built up from freerolls) on 4 different sites, using his BRM rules and am making (with the boost of a few good FR cashes) slow, but steady progress. Yes the micros and mini-micros are a long grind, but progress is progress. However, I would add that, being a math/science kinda guy, I first worked out a spreadsheet to give me a "roadmap" to follow and follow it I do.

Just my opinion, but I'm sticking to it.

Contrary to this advice, I think people should be aware that 'bonus' FTP's like those gained in happy hours do NOT count towards unlocking bonuses.

Thats Bull***! how you know this?

absolutely true

experience

very useful information "DaFrench" gd man

At the moment I have spiralled out of control at micro stakes.

I had managed to spin my two buyin bankroll to 5 buyins, a total of $4.

Last night I had the urge to play when I was too drunk and managed to lose $3.20. I constrained myself to not using my final buyin until I could be given a fairer "trial" this evening.

I played the single buyin at Full Tilt and some idiot called me down with KQo on a completely bluff-able board. I had a pair on the turn, an ace rolls off the river so I check behind on the river. He hit broadway with that ace and took .66 from my grasp, leaving me with $0.14.

Before I even realised it, I found myself stuck at a table with no option to leave and slowly realising there was something not quite right.

I pick up 66 on BB evryone folds, SB limps and I know im gonna shove $0.12 straight in there. Suddenly im bemused. I cant go all in!!!!!!
Im actually seated at a pot limit holdem table and because I was playing tight I didnt notice.

So, there I am stuck on a pot limit holdem 6 seated cash game with $0.12..... after I checked and had to fold my 66 because of the pot limit..... slowly becoming less and less.

To be continued.......

I freerolled something like $2 on UB, ran it up to around $125 playing mostly sng's and a few tourneys
Then went through an extended patch of bad luck (or bad play?) and lost it all.
Ah, easy come.......

Full Tilt also rakes their micro games a lot higher than other sites *cough Stars cough*.

^ this. Definitely this.

Anywho... back on the OP. My bankroll started with a $1.56 cash in a CardsChat freeroll on Full Tilt. Back then the lowest game they offered was $1.25 SnGs - you're in a much better position now that they offer $2NL.

Sorry to hear your starting roll crashed and burned, learn from the mistakes and better luck next time. It took three freeroll cashes for me to get my roll off the ground.

I have now managed after sitting for over one and a half hours to rebuild into a bankroll of $0.80 from $0.12.

I am going to attempt a further rebuild later tonight as my schedule is full of freerolls.

I shall make a post concerning the state of my finance tommorow evening.

Faithfully,
MATelford

Actualy when they added the .01-.02 and 0.02-0.05 games they also maked rake adjustments.
Droping the 10NL rake for example from 10% to 6,5%(opposed to PS 5%) and some other changes on how rake is taken.

Good point - maybe disregard the "a lot" in my post on the subject then. It's still more though.

i am doing a similar project not depositing any money and seeing how much i can make in 2 months off freeroll money i get. hope you see some good results yourself. gl

I have failed. I am drunk again and lost to KK with JJ like a loser when he re-raised me for the third time in a row on my left. The hardstyle fuelled my rage to shove and I did. After 3 weeks of moving up and down around $0.80, I can do more, microstakes are a mine field of inconsiderate assholes.

MATelford $2 Freeroll Project Final Result - DEFEAT