How High Can You Get?

Originally Posted by Jason

Y I was able to bank my best month since I started playing poker. In fact, my total poker profit bankroll is higher than it's ever been as I was able to make-up the heavy losses I sustained the past two months

nh dude!

Originally Posted by Jason

I may or may not pop back into Stars to try to redeem enough VIP's to get bonus, milestone, and stockpile FPP cash. Part of me wants to get my milestone and $4k cash and part of me just doesn't want to worry with it. I'll sleep on it some more.

i'm going through the same dilemma, like, i'm only 98k vpps short of nova and it seems a waste not to spend a few weeks earning those bonus $$

Here's a separate entry to reflect on my trip to Vegas last month, which was my FIRST trip to the city sin. I had a FABULOUS time. Because it was my first trip to Vegas and also because I had my girlfriend and one of her friends, I didn't just play poker. But, I put in several hours each day for 4 days and was fortunate to play decent and capitalize on a few opportunities and have some decent luck, too.

My hotel was @ Bally's which was great BTW so I started there. It started on a bad note as I raised QQ in early position and a short-stacked lady re-raised all-in for ~$50 and an older Asian gentlemen 4bet all-in. He wasn't fully stacked, but it was still like $140 more or so. In hindsight, I should have folded since I know there's a stereotype that older men only push with the nuts, but I rationalized that there was a lot of money out there and he might do it with TT, JJ, or AK. The AK was probably optimistic and he DID have KK and it held up against my QQ and the lady's AK. But, I was afforded a gift later when a guy gave me his stack and I just had one card to make a straight. I guess he didn't see it. I was expecting at least a chop and was a little afraid that he might have the two cards to beat me. That QQ hand was the only one of the weekend I thought I played badly. This session started me up with $219 profit.

The next day I went to MGM which I think was my favorite because it was just really nice, lots of tables, and the monorail took me straight from my hotel to there in one stop. I only won 3 pots that session but one of them was the biggest pot I've ever had in a live game @ ~$900. With pocket 9's I flop AA9 and slow played it in position with a calling station and an aggressive player who had played KK like the nuts in a JJ2 pot earlier and lost to a Jack. Long story short, I was able to get my stack in against both of them and it held up against trip aces from the aggressive player and against who knows what from the calling station who mucked but called the rest of his stack off because there was "just too much money out there". I suspect he was drawing dead for a flush or straight. This session gave me $536 profit total.

I went to the Venetian the next day and I probably would have played there the entire time if it was as close to my hotel. I liked it because there were a LOT of games running so you have that feeling that you can find a better table if you need to. I still didn't win many pots this day either, but was fortunate to cooler someone when my JJ flopped J4x versus pocket 4's. The case 4 didn't come and I doubled up a $300 stack. After this session, I had $319 profit.

The last day I played was @ the MGM and grinded out just $5 profit which I was happy with.

In about 12 hours of play, I made ~$1100 total playing $1/$2 which is more than fine with me. I toyed with the idea of playing $2/$5 at the Rio where the WSOP was being played, but I've only logged 40 hours live in casinos and don't even have the bankroll to really be playing $1/$2 by my 30 buy-in rule. So, I'm going to just keep grinding $1/$2 live for a while until I have a lot more hours under my belt and I'd say at least $10k or so before I take a shot @ $2/$5. As expected, the play wasn't very good overall @ $1/$2, but even still, there's a learning curve to anything even with bad players and the variance with poker can get a little crazy, so I don't want to risk moving up to $2/$5 until I'm ready as you could easily and quickly lose a few grand if bad luck or a few bad plays go against you.

I'm going back to Vegas in December to run the 1/2 marathon. I'm really looking forward to going back to play again.

Other things I did in Vegas: ate @ the Stratosphere, saw Beatles Love, saw Showgirls Jubilee, went on a 5 mile run down the strip, viewed the Titanic exhibit, took in the Fremont Street experience, tasted Cokes from around the world, and lots of sight seeing.

It's an amazing town and so much fun, but to be honest, just like NYC, I would have trouble imagining living there. It seems more like a place I'd want to visit at least once a year.

The hotel cost $296.27, plane ticket $360.40, nice dinner with the girls $95.00, $120 for Jubilee tickets, and ~$100 for other incidentals. I made $1079 @ the tables, so that leaves me with $107.33 profit THIS trip at least ... but in all actuality, I keep those bankrolls separate. I knew I was spending about a grand for a vacation and the grand I made @ the tables goes into the banrkoll.

See some select pictures below and click for larger resolution:

As I alluded to two posts back, it's been about a month and a half since I said good-bye to Stars and their rathole heaven for greener pastures @ Full Tilt. I didn't have the bankroll there to step right back into 200NL so I played 100NL looking to win at least 30 buy-ins and build up a bankroll of at least $6k before I could play 200NL again. During that time, I feel fortunate to have made a little over 30 buy-ins as planned plus almost $600 total rakeback, paid weekly, added to the bankroll I already had when I started puts me over the $6k mark. My win-rate was ~8bb/100 or 4ptBB/100 over ~36k hands which was better than when I first played @ Stars. I hope that is partly indicative of better play on my part, but with a small sample size, one can never know for sure. I definitely feel my game and especially my mental game has come a LONG way since I started 100NL on Stars.

It's hard to quantify how the player pool @ Tilt compares to the player pool of Stars during that time. 100NL @ Stars under the old cash game structure was my definitive favorite level and there were some very fishy players. On Tilt, there are still a lot of fish and honestly, some of the BIGGEST fish I've ever seen have probably been at Tilt. I've seen some players do some of the craziest things I don't ever remember seeing @ Stars. I think by and large the ratio of fish to regs is better on Tilt, but because Stars has historically had better numbers of players, they may have more raw fish but also tougher regs, too.

The bottom line though is that I am just LOVING playing without pro-shortstackers angle shooters and ratholers. Ironically one day there was a shortstack player in one of my games. I don't even remember him shoving that much but what caught my eye was a full stacked player berating him for not having more money. I remember thinking, 'Wow, dude, you wouldn't last one day @ Stars because this is basically a rathole free zone'.

I actually prefer more than 30 buy-ins for playing upper small stakes or mid-stakes games. I'm allowing myself to pick up @ 200NL on Tilt with only 30 buy-ins because I was a winning player @ 200NL before Stars introduced their new structure. If I'm ever close to moving up again, I'll probably want to have a full 40 buy-ins for 400NL of which at least 30 were earned @ the 200NL tables.

$200 times 40 equals $8,000 (profit)
$2,000 DEFICIT needs to be earned via rakeback, 100NL, and 200NL
$8,000 (profit) plus $6,000 (my current bankroll) + 2,000 DEFICIT equals $16,000 (amount I need)
$400 (next level) times 40 (required buy-ins per my Bankroll Management rules) equals $16,000 (amount I need)

As always, everything will take care of itself eventually IF I'm able to consistently win.

Here's my $100NL Full Tilt graph from HEM:


I plan to start playing $200NL until I drop down to $4,000 (20 $200NL buy-ins) at which point I'll drop back down to $100NL exclusively or until I rise up to $16,000 at which point I may move up to $400NL. I will continue to play a combination of $200NL and $100NL depending on table selection.


How High Can You Get?
Level 1 ($ 2 NL PS) - 12/13/2008 @ $100 -> Winrate for level: 24bb/100 or 12ptBB/100 over 11k hands (As of 01/22/2009)
Level 2 ($ 5 NL PS) - 01/22/2009 @ $150 -> Winrate for level: 36bb/100 or 18ptBB/100 over 8k hands (As of 03/03/2009)
Level 3 ($10 NL PS) - 03/03/2009 @ $300 -> Winrate for level: 24bb/100 or 12ptBB/100 over 20k hands (As of 06/18/2009)
Level 4 ($25 NL PS) - 06/18/2009 @ $750 -> Winrate for level: 15bb/100 or 7.5ptBB/100 over 18k hands (As of 07/18/2009)
Level 5 ($50 NL PS) - 07/18/2009 @ $1,500 -> Winrate for level: 5.62bb/100 or 2.81ptBB/100 over 71k hands (As of 11/24/2009)
Level 6 ($100 NL PS) - 11/24/2009 @ $4,000 -> Winrate for level: 6.86bb/100 or 3.43ptBB/100 over 57k hands (As of 02/04/2010)
_____REVISITED @ TILT - 05/19/2010 @ $3,000 -> Winrate for level: 8.27bb/100 or 4.14ptBB/100 over 36k hands (As of 06/29/2010)
Level 7 ($200 NL PS) - 02/04/2010 @ $8,000 - ABORTED 05/19/2010 DUE TO POKERSTARS NEW CASH GAME STRUCTURE
_____REVISITED @ TILT - 06/30/2010 @ $6,000
Level 8 ($400 NL) - ??? @ $16,000