TRB1965's Freeroll Challenge

Well I've certainly seen several players set various goals and track them here. Most of these have been related to ring play and a few to general bankroll building.

I'm an average at best poker player. I play mainly for the enjoyment of playing. I have several reason that I would never deposit on a poker room. I won't go in to all of that here as the reasons aren't all the relevant to this challenge.

As I played through my low-stakes poker adventure, I made the following observations and decided on the following challenge for myself.

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Originally published July 19,2009 on my blogspot blog
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As many of you know, Chris Ferguson undertook a challenge were he started his Full Tilt Poker bankroll at zero and built it up to $10,000. He started off playing only Full Tilt Poker freerolls (no private freerolls) and moved on to playing buy-in tournaments as he accumulated bankroll through freerolls.

Well, I'm not Chris Ferguson. I've tried to build my bankroll through playing freeroll tournaments first and then moving on to playing buy-in tournaments, but I've inevitably went broke and had to start over.

In my most recent cycle, I went broke approximately June 25, 2008 (well I went down to 88 cents and couldn't afford to buy-in to a SNG with that). Since I was concentrating on qualifying for the Full Tilt Poker Iron Man One-A-Day Freeroll, I decided to not play any buy-in tournaments and play only freerolls (mainly private freerolls) to build as much bankroll as possible through the end of July and then try to profit enough in the $1.25 SNGs to play one every day in August.


In doing this I built my bankroll from $0.88 to $8.26 as of July 19 through playing in freerolls and only freerolls. That is $7.38 won in freerolls in about 3 and 1/2 weeks.

During this process of building my bankroll, I made several observations and decided to use by Full Tilt Poker account and bankroll to experiment with a "fun" project.


PROJECT : FREEROLL

BASICS

• This project will apply to my Full Tilt Poker account and my Full Tilt Poker account only.
  The basics are that using freerolls only (defined as any tournament or table that does not require a real money buy-in), I will spend 1 year building my bankroll without ever putting any of my bankroll at risk.
• All freerolls I play in must be easily accessible to the general playing public. I will not participate in freerolls that have elaborate requirements that would take a significant amount of time to qualify for.
• I will play in private freerolls on Full Tilt Poker (freerolls hosted by various web sites, forums, etc.) as long as those freerolls would be generally available to anyone with minimal effort. So if the site requires a certain minimal number of post to get the private freeroll passwords, then that is permissible. Also sites that simply require registration, filling out a form, answering a poker quiz, etc. are permissible. I will also participate in "rewards" freerolls from these same sites. For example if site X holds private freerolls on Full Tilt Poker and has a monthly scoring system where the top 100 for the month are invited to a freeroll at the end of the month, then I will participate in that freeroll. So basically anything that requires minimal effort or comes directly from my play in this project.
• I will allow myself to participate in up to 2 forums that have more significant requirements. I feel that almost anyone can put in the effort to make a couple of post on a regular basis.

METHODOLOGY

• First I will zero out all the aspects of my Full Tilt Poker account. This will include my money account, my play chip account, and my FTP points account.
• I will then start playing play chip tournaments and freerolls in an effort to build my account.
• I will use the play chips to buy into the nightly 500,000 play chip tournament that is has $40 prize pool.
• I will play in private freerolls as described above.
• I will play in the Full Tilt Poker freerolls (these are the 2,700 and 2,400 person freerolls that pay the top 27 and some that pay the top 3). I may not play these very often and instead spend the time playing for play chips to build that account.
• I will include any tournament dollar winnings and "real money" in calculate my bankroll.

Please let me know if you have any questions about the details of this project and I will do my best to answer them.


Below I will post a month-by-month recap and get this up to speed until I have it caught up to the present. From there I will try to keep this updates on at least a weekly basis.

JULY

The early stages where all about getting started. I need to build up my play chip bankroll so that I could start thinking about playing the 500K $40 tournament.

I also need to identify all the various forums that hosted private freerolls and their various requirements.

Early on I struggled in the private freerolls. As of the end of July 30th I has only cashed three times for $.099. Then on July 31st, I finished 2nd in a private freeroll and added $4.13 to my bankroll.

Over the course of the 13 days I played in July I managed to build by play chips up to 257,600. I’m playing the 10,000 play chips SNGs at this point in time.

Details at the end of July:
Real Money: $5.12
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 257,650



AUGUST
More grinding it out in August. While this certainly seems to be going slowly, the fact of the matter is that my bankroll in mid-August is higher than Chris Ferguson had his bankroll after more than 6 months of his challenge.

Still only 10 cashes for the month of August, with 2 final tables thrown in to the mix, adding $12.17 to the bankroll.

I made big progress on the play chip bankroll adding almost 1.2 million play chips to my balance. I am now playing the 100K play chip SNGs. I want to get the balance a little higher before playing the 500K $40 tournament as I want this to be sustainable.

Details at the end of August
Real Money: $17.29
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,436,800




SEPTEMBER
September saw another 10 cashes, with 3 final tables, for a total of $11.25 cents.

September also saw my play chip bankroll cross the 2.5 million chip mark and my first entry into the 500K $40 tournament. A couple of entries into this tournament and I had a net loss on the play money, but I am accomplishing my goals (to some extent) with it.


Details at the end of September
Real Money: $28.45
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 976,414



OCTOBER
A lot more cashes in October, but not a lot more cash to go with it. A lot of cashes in smaller prize poll tournaments. A total of 17 cashes for $10.97.

On the play chip front I was able to build the play chips back up and enter the 500K $40 a few times.

Details at the end of October
Real Money: $39.42
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 2,172,867



NOVEMBER
Another month of grinding. 15 cashes for a total of $12.85.

On the play chip front, I’ve used my balance to play the 500k $40 a little too much and also ran really bad and the play chips are back on life support.

Details at the end of November
Real Money: $52.27
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 345,617


DECEMBER
A bit of slow month with Christmas responsibilities. Still 16 cashes for $9.73.

My major accomplishment was the worm turning in the play chip SNGs. The bad beats and outdraws on November turned into the good beats and redraws of December. The play chips increased by almost 8.5 million. I am poised to play the 500K $40 tournament frequently in January.

Detials at the end of December
Real Money: $62.00
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 8,833,467



JANUARY
As anticipated, frequent entries into the 500K $40 tournament led to a banner month. A total of 27 cashes this in January for a total of $29.24.

The play money balance has been drained down, but in doing so I put a lot of real dollars in the account.

Details at the end of January
Real Money: $91.24
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,300,000


FEBRUARY
With the play chip balance down, it was back to more of a grind in February. Still 21 cashes for $16.32 has my balance over the $100 mark.

February was a lot like November on the play chips. I just can’t seem to get a hand to hold up. I will need to put a more emphasis on the play chips soon in hopes of another big run on the 500K $40 tournaments.

Details at the end of February
Real Money: $107.56
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 955,500


That brings this up-to-date. I will now try to update this once a week with my cashes and progress for the week.

Best of luck TRB- sticking exclusively to freerolls must be driving you mad!

On the other hand you cant lose so why not!

Pretty amazed you've done so well from the tournaments played- keep it up!

My wife would argue that the freerolls have little to do with my madness! lol

It is a challenge to keep the discipline and that is one of the reason for posts like this. This helps me stay focused and on target.

I believe that you are a little modest TRB. Where ever I have played you I have found you to be a very good opponent. I might put you a little above average.

Keep on plugging and goodluck on your quest.

average at best? ......as if I don't know any better lol. You are far too modest.

Nice challenge you got going for yourself!! Keep it up

Update for the week ending Sunday 3/8.

Freeroll Cashes This Week

• Fri 21:00 - $100 private freeroll – 4th of 157 for $10.00.
• Sun 13:00 - $100 private freeroll – 4th of 1800 for $8.13.
• Sun 14:00 - $150 private freeroll – 27th of 1245 for $0.55.
• Sun 21:00 - $25 private freeroll – 15th of 107 for $0.31.

Ending Balances
Real Money: $126.55
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,105,500

I had to comment on this.What you are doing is phenomal.Building your BR like that is very hard.I applaud you for what you are doing.I hope you reach your goal and someday I look foward to bumping into you.

wow that's pretty interesting. looks liks lots of hard work and time but must be fun to know you're succeeding, good job.

just curious.. after the one year of BR building, are you gonna leave all the money in the accont and try to build it up to a bigger BR? I think the one year's hard work you put into these freerolls would be awesome motivation to help keep you from losing this BR, but you'll probably forget what it's like not to have someone all in first hand :P

If nothing else I respect your patience for sure. I'd rather just put in my 50 and use good br management. If I had the patience maybe I'd try something like that, but hey I do fine my way . GL sir!

there's no way you can lose with this strategy....except your time.

nice thread ...i'm sure it will change a few minds but most will continue to seek out the big payday

just curious how much time you spend playing (be honest now)

It really depends on how well I do. On week days it is unusual 2 hours or so, but of course that I can go up (and cost me sleep) if I go deep in a tournament.

If you see me playing recklessly after I cash in a tournament after about 23:00 ET, then you'll know I past my bedtime!

On the weekends it could be anywhere from 4-6 hours up to 12 or more. It just depends on when the private freerolls are.

I would guess that in an average week I play somewhere around 30 hours of on-line poker (there are some days I barely play and others where I'm at the computer all day long.)

One I get to July 19, 2009, then I will start playing buy-in tournaments. I will probably establish a set of bankroll management rules and track them in a similar fashion to this.

My blogspot blog is called "Project: Freeroll". On July 19, 2009, I'll draw a line through the "Freeroll" and make it "Bankroll".

In general I'd like to thank everyone for the compliments and well wishes. They are appreciated and they help keep me motivated.

I knew you were here Tony but I somehow missed this thread This is so much easier. As always gl gl gl

wow , its tough i have not made a deposit on any siye in 2 1/2 years i just crashed starting over. good luck

Well it isn't the end of the week, but you are getting this update anyway!

I finished 3rd in tonight's cardschat freeroll on Full Tilt adding $28 to the bankroll. Biggest previous cash was for $10!

My Full Tilt bankroll is now $154.55.

Freeroll Cashes This Week

• Tue 20:00 - $200 cardschat.com freeroll – 3rd of 97 for $28.00.
• Wed 21:00 - $150 railbirds.com freeroll – 39th of 1130 for $0.42.

Ending Balances
Real Money: $154.97
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 905,500

A little late updating this week (been really busy - hate it when life interferes with poker!)

Freeroll Cashes This Week

• Mon 11:00 - $50 private freeroll – 66 of 566 for $0.16.
• Mon 14:00 - $25 private freeroll – 28 of 412 for $0.10.
• Mon 21:00 - $25 private freeroll – 6 of 174 for $1.38.
• Sun 13:00 - $100 private turbo freeroll – 90 of 1800 for $0.15.

Ending Balances
Real Money: $156.76
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,075,500

Freeroll Cashes This Week

• Sat 14:00 - $25 private freeroll – 57th of 900 for $0.06
• Sun 14:00 - $25 private freeroll – 49th of 900 for $0.07

Starting Balances
Real Money: $156.76
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,075,500

Ending Balances
Real Money: $156.89
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,015,500

Freeroll Cashes This Week

• Sat 13:00 - $200 cardschat.com freeroll – 17th of 121 for $2.00
• Sat 14:00 - $25 private freeroll – 15th of 900 for $0.18
• Sun 13:00 - $100 private freeroll – 142nd of 2428 for $0.12
• Sun 15:00 - $5,000 FullTiltPokerAcademy Sit N Learn Freeroll – 335th of 1426 for $7.50

Starting Balances
Real Money: $156.89
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,015,500

Ending Balances
Real Money: $166.69
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,377,720

Freeroll Cashes This Week

• Fri 22:00 – private $25 freeroll – 27th of 368 for $0.14.
• Sat 15:00 – private $25 freeroll – 39th of 505 for $0.08.
• Sun 14:00 – private $50 freeroll – 9th of 126 for $1.13.

Starting Balances
Real Money: $166.69
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,377,720

Ending Balances
Real Money: $168.04
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,905,600

Well done man, definetly something i could never do.

Staying in the freerolls until july has to be -ev though, you clearly have half a poker brain to get as far as you have, move over to real money now and start seeing much better profits imo

Good luck

As many have already said, this is a very tough challenge and I too applaud you! I don't think I could do this myself but I wish you the best of luck!

Yeah definitely been trying to do the same, but as soon as i go up to as much as $3.00 I always lose everything. Patience is a big problem.....

One of my reasons for doing this challenge was to demonstrate the difference between this and the traditional "Ferguson" method.

I really believe in solid bankroll management rules. And I think most people over reach their bankrolls at the lowest levels.

Stay in the freerolls until you 30 buy-ins at the lowest level.

I wish I had set this challenge up differently allowing myself an out when I reached $150 or $200 or whatever. But I committed to playing freerolls for 1 year and I'm going to stick to that.

you definetly have the most important quality of a winner - self control

there are so many freerolls - dont you play the ps or ub ones or bodog?

i've read about your inttentions before, hehehe. like i said before i know you can do it.
gogogo good luck hehehehe. besides i think you have more patience then me, lol. peace

I have played freerols on PS, and UB before, but they aren't the focus of this particular project.

Slow week this past week due to being out of town chaperoning a high school choir trip all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Freeroll Cashes This Week

• Thu 14:00 - $150 private freeroll – 72nd of 1031 for $0.31

Starting Balances
Real Money: $168.04
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,905,600

Ending Balances
Real Money: $168.35
Tournament Dollars: $0.00
Full Tilt Points: 00.00
Play Money: 1,782,475

On one hand I admire your discipline and dedication.

On the other hand, i'm pretty sure the BRM strategy you follow is incredibly sub-optimal. Playing freerolls when you have over $150 in your account is .

I probably should have set this up differently and given myself an out at a certain dollar amount, but I didn't set it up that way so I'll stick within the rules I established.

Plus, I'd like to give a shot at bypassing the lowest level SNGs (and stay within solid bankroll management in doing so.)

I'd like to be playing the $10+1 SNGs and that will require a bankroll of $220 (using a BRM rule of 20 buy-ins for SNGs.)

I'm cool with it now, but really looking forward to July 19th.

i think the one mistake you're making is thinking you absolutely have to follow these rules you set for yourself.
obviously it was a good guide to make sure you build up a decent BR first, but you're already accomplished that before the 1 year, so there's really no point in continuing the freerolls imo
poker's about making money, not completing challenges

This is absouletly incredible.
The discipline you have, the skills you have to cash so frequently, is all incredibly admired. You are a great poker player, and I know that even after this project is done, you will succeed greatly in the real money world. I wish I had what you have, very very admirable.

I wish you the best luck, and I will stay subscribed to your thread and to your constant building.

p.s.: at least your bankroll can never go down now, only up!