H
HodCohen
Enthusiast
Silver Level
I've wanted to pursue the Chris Ferguson challenge since I first saw his videos on Full Tilt ten years ago. After black Friday, I figured I'd never get the chance. After I moved to ireland, I figured it was time to give it a go. The first question is where to start?
Pokerstars
After cashing in a half dozen freerolls on pokerstars, I hit my first hurdle. Cashing in freerolls on Pokerstars will typically start you with less than $1. That means cash games are right out. Pokerstars does not offer single table SnGs for stakes that small, so you're mostly looking at either hyper or turbo MTT SnGs. That's a lot of volatility to navigate. There are only a handful of bounty builder tournaments under $1, but several satellites.
888 poker
888 poker has a half dozen freerolls, many of which have broad prize pools. Cashing in a few of these, I started playing their SnGs. They offer a good variety of microstake SnGs, but their version of high roller SnGs caps at $10 buyin. This make growing a $10,000 stake in 3 months not just daunting, but seemingly impossible. While the cash game on 888 seemed extremely soft to me, stakes and volume are again a problem.
This being the case, it seems that growing the stake on 888 is easier at the lower levels, but once the initial stake is developed on Pokerstars, moving up will be much easier.
Is there a better site for this kind of challenge? Am I missing something on Pokerstars or 888 that would solve the above problems? Has anyone else freerolled to build a playable bankroll? If so, how and where did you start?
Pokerstars
After cashing in a half dozen freerolls on pokerstars, I hit my first hurdle. Cashing in freerolls on Pokerstars will typically start you with less than $1. That means cash games are right out. Pokerstars does not offer single table SnGs for stakes that small, so you're mostly looking at either hyper or turbo MTT SnGs. That's a lot of volatility to navigate. There are only a handful of bounty builder tournaments under $1, but several satellites.
888 poker
888 poker has a half dozen freerolls, many of which have broad prize pools. Cashing in a few of these, I started playing their SnGs. They offer a good variety of microstake SnGs, but their version of high roller SnGs caps at $10 buyin. This make growing a $10,000 stake in 3 months not just daunting, but seemingly impossible. While the cash game on 888 seemed extremely soft to me, stakes and volume are again a problem.
This being the case, it seems that growing the stake on 888 is easier at the lower levels, but once the initial stake is developed on Pokerstars, moving up will be much easier.
Is there a better site for this kind of challenge? Am I missing something on Pokerstars or 888 that would solve the above problems? Has anyone else freerolled to build a playable bankroll? If so, how and where did you start?
