I have set myself a challenge for 2015 to see how far I can make $200 go throughout the year. Ideally I want to GRIND this amount up to $10,000. A bullish target but I think it is important to retain ambition in life. I aim to do this by playing within very strict rules that I will set out later in this article. Bankroll Management (click this text to read Tru Grinderz article on this), is the single most important success factor to master for an online player to master. In many cases it is the downfall of potentially great players, and blocks their progress and overrides any success with inevitable failure.
A close friend of mine who we'll call Ad (you know who you are and I know you won't mind me saying this), fell from glory in a very nasty way due to forgetting about this platinum rule. When I first met Ad he was a moderately good tournament player at best. He payed a small amount of poker on 888 poker, mainly small stake sit 'n' go's. I was a mid stake regular on Full Tilt at the time. I was playing $50 and $100 sit 'n' go's, and $200 nl with a bankroll beyond $10k.
I was a strong advocate of the use of Pokertracker (3 at the time), I had used this to enhance my own game and also develop very extensive notes and reads on regular opponents. Pokertracker for those of you who don't know is one of the two leading HUD products available. The other one is Holdem Manager. PT and HEM are a bit like the Xbox and Playstation of the online poker world. Personally, I have felt that Pokertracker has served it's purpose for me. I will go into the importance of HUD's in my next post. AD had never heard of HUD's and when I explained that they record every detail of every hand you play against any opponent you play against, he was quite dismissive of the value of that information. In fact he actually said he viewed it as cheating.
I used to meet AD at a local weekly tournament and cash game at one of the local pubs. As the weeks went by, he was asking me more and more about how Pokertracker worked and how it displays the information on the screen. Eventually, he asked me to show him how to install it and how to set up HUD profiles to suit him. I went round, installed it for him. Showed him the key basic functions and some advanced ones and the rest was history. AD developed his own HUD profiles, concentrated on establishing who he viewed as strong regs and where the loose money was. He grinded his Bankroll from $160 up to $5,500 within a year.
I have to commend this achievement, we're talking about someone that I viewed as a tight highly exploitable live player making some highly impressive progress. Online poker, with his development of using information efficiently simply suited him. The guy was never going to win mega big live, certainly not within the local games. Tight players simply get slapped about too hard. Partly because you know their nature, secondly, it's just so obvious when they have it. But online, the guy turned himself into a beast.
When he explained his process for playing, it was clear that is newfound approach was paying major dividends. Ad would make sure that all conditions suited him to his advantage. If he was pissed off he wouldn't even turn the laptop off. If he had a day off, he would shower, eat , drink a cup of coffee and make sure any errands for the day had been done. This sounds simple, but on my day off all too often I have got out of bed and hit the cash games straight off in my pyjamas. Often forgetting that someone was going to phone me at a time where the bubble in a tournament I had been playing or 4 hours was approaching. I can't explain the importance of removing distractions enough. He was a master.
Once ready he would scout the tables for fish, I had previously showed him Table Tracker, a great function within Pokertracker, that show's you where the losing players you have massacred before are sitting. He would then only take position on the fish, he would even decline if a reg he new was sat to the left of the new seat. Although he was looser online a loose aggressive player 3 and 4 betting him every time he makes a play wasn't part of the plan. Plain and simple he made over $5k from praying on the week at $10, $25 and $50 NL. If he made a couple of buyins for the day that was enough, turn the machine off, again a skill that is wasted on most of us, myself included.
So why am I still talking about this, and how did it go wrong. Ad was in between jobs and decided to ramp up to $100NL. Fair shout bearing in mind that he had a Roll of $5k over 50 buyins. What happened next was so out of character and against every bit of well earned success that had come his way over his long haul grind. Ad called me at the end of a very bad day, it was clear from the tone of his voice that his tail was between his legs. He explained how he had spunked 6 buyins in a session, only $600, but still a 10% hit. He decided to buyin at $1000NL to double up and show a profit. He then explained how he had got it in with top set twice and got sucked out by an open ended straight draw shoving him in on the flop and a flush draw shoving his set in 2 hands later on the turn. Whoops, one $1k buyin had now turned into a $2k mistake,not far off what he makes from work in a month. He was so shell shocked from the insane bad luck that he proceeded to spunk another 1 1/2 buyins on the chase. He stopped with $1700 left, and then had to withdraw $1500 to pay his tax bill a month later.
I had little sympathy for him, as cold as it sounds. The fact is he stepped up to a level that he hadn't played, if they were regs that chewed him up, they should have rolls of over $20k. The fact is if you compromise your bankroll management and playout of your roll, you have no tolerance to variance. You shove a set against an open ended straight draw on the flop and he will get there 1 time out of 3, thats simple maths. Random Number Generators make no allowances for the fact the the hero had 5 buyins and the villain 20+. If you have 20 buyins at a given level, you have enough scope to laugh that off and keep on getting it in ahead. AD pissed it all up the wall, this was so out of character. He would normally turn his laptop off if he was more then 2 buyins down in a session, I guess a combo of TILT and Ego took its toll, but in one silly evening he undid over a years good work.
Back to the matter in hand, I am going to have a crack at boosting my Pokerstars Bankroll. I start with $201 as at today.
My aim is to grind my Bankroll up to $10,000. That is somewhat bullish, but I feel you need to aim for the stars in life. To help me on my way, I am going to lay down a few ground rules to keep myself in check, they're as follows:
- For Cash game play I require a minimum of 25 full buyins to play a level ($5NL - $125, $10NL - $250, $25 NL - $625, $50 NL - $1250, $100 NL - $2,500)
- For Cash Game play, I have to move up once the minimum requirement is met fr the next stake.
- For Cash Game Play- If I fall to 20 buyins, I have to move to the level below
- I have to leave a table as soon as my profit represents 2 whole buyins.
- I have to leave a table once I have lost 1 buyin.
- For Sit 'n' Go play I have to have at least 20 buyins to play a level
- For Sit 'n' Go play I have to play the next stake as soon as I reach 25 buyins
- For Sit 'n' Go play if My BankRoll falls to 20 buyins at a level, I have to move down.
The cash game rules will prevent me from playing out of my Bank roll. When moving up I have 5 buyins to test the next level. The fact that I move down a level if I reach 20 buyins means that I am protecting my bankroll. To move back up I need to achieve 5 buyins worth of profit. Again the fact that I have to leave the table once my profit reaches 2 buyins skewes things in my favour. I have to leave the table if I bust my first buyin, this prevents me from chasing the big win at the same time as preventing me from tilting and chasing profit.
The S'n'Go conditions mean again, I am giving myself a 5 buyin test margin when moving up a stake. This allows me to scout out the quality of opponents at the next level. If I have to drop down a level to one that I can beat, I already will have valuable tracked information on potential opponents.
I'm going to lay down the following Tournament conditions whilst I'm at it:
- In order to play a tournament, the stake must not represent any more than 2.5% of my bankroll
- If I wish to play a tournament that exceeds that condition, I will allow myself one attempt at satelliting into the tournament as long as I have a minimum of 35 buyins.
I have set out the above to ensure that I do not overchase myself in search of bigwins. Although a final table placing on pokerstars could represent a jump in progress, I have to factor in the fact that they are a rare outcome. Realistically, cashes tend to be between 3-10 buyins. It's simply not prudent to risk more than 2.5% on playing a tournament. That being said, the satellite rule allows me to earn the right to play outside of my bankroll. It is possible for a good 6max sit 'n' go player to qualify for the PokerStars sunday million for $8.80. In this case there is a choice to play the tournament out, or take $215 tournament dollars by unregistering. Either is a good outcome, the $T route allows me to have a separate tournament bankroll, meanwhile even a minimum cash in the Sunday Million is likely to yield around a $300 profit from the $8 investment.
How am I going to Keep you guys updated on my progress?
I am going to set up a completely new database on my HUD system, PokerTracker 4. The reason for this is to allow me to demonstrate how to build a bank of information on opponents, and more importantly how to use and exploit this valuable commodity. I will post a small progress report at the end of each week using data from my new poker tracker database.
Throughout this year I will provide video tutorials on cash game play, sit 'n' go play and also how to configure your own bespoke profiles on Poker Tracker.
If you wish to join me, you can sign up to Pokerstars here and receive a 100% welcome bonus. The above rules would be a great framework for unlocking your bonus and making progress. If you want more Poker Strategy articles visit my site Tru Grinderz. You can also Try Poker Tracker 4 for free.by clicking this link. If you wish to play me, I'll be playing $5NL Cash games and $7 turbo and standard Sit 'n' Go's.
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