The journey of a full time tournament poker player. Currently an online tournament player preparing for a permanent Las Vegas move in January 2016. The roads are not often smooth, but come along and enjoy the ride.

Estimated Bankroll for Las Vegas will be approximately $500 from savings and whatever bankroll I have on Bovada on December 27th. Began with a deposit of $100 on Bovada and day 1 of 200, June 11th-December 27th began. After the first 14 days my stats were as follows.

Bankroll: $169.83

Bonuses Earned: $10

ITM: 26/70 37%
Entries: $198.80
Cashes: $245.63
KOs: $13.00
Earnings: $59.83
ROI: 30%
FTs: 7
Top 3: 4
Wins: 0

I am permanently disabled due to a leg injury and circulation issue therein that if I continued to work in the retail field would have led to eventual amputation. I am getting $822 a month from that. Beginning on August 3rd I will will be attempting to save $300 a month so I leave with $2k not counting the Bovada balance. After travel and move in expenses I should have a minimum of $500 left over and add that to the bankroll on Bovada will be used for playing small buy-in live tournaments in Vegas, $40 and $50 buy-ins to start off with, 3-4 a day, 5 days a week, weekends off. The amount I will have on Bovada is unknown as the estimated progression or pace I am setting will fluctuate daily as I start having the ability to play higher buyin tournaments online. The $100 deposit I made will be followed by an additional $200 deposit in approximately 8 days. As of earnings over the last 14 days I am setting a pace of having an online bankroll of $1154, but again this will fluctuate. Even if that remained the same that would be over a $1600 poker bankroll which would be 30+ buy-ins, not great, but would be doable since most of these tournaments only have 30 or 40 runners according to what information I saw on Poker Atlas.

At an average buy-in of $50 playing an average of 75 tournaments a month depending on exact ROI the possible earnings should be $1000-$2000 per month plus my disability which will cover living expenses all poker earnings will be able to be used socially, for savings, and building the live bankroll more and more. One thing I will have to do is consult an accountant about what options there will be for tax filing at the end of 2016 and also an attorney who can tell me whether disability will consider my "gambling" winnings each month as earnings. Below is my current daily tournament schedule on Bovada and this will change as soon as I make that $200 deposit on the 3rd of July.

805am $2.20 PLO SS

$1.10 or $2.20 Sat to a $5.50 or $11 MTT

9:50 a.m. $1.10 NLH

10:50 a.m. $2.20 NLH KO

250pm $2.20 NLH

3:45 p.m. $5.50 NLH $2k Gtd SS

5:00 p.m. $3.30 NLH $1k Gtd DS

5:45 p.m. $2.20 NLH $500 Gtd DS

7:25 p.m. $2.20 NLH $1k Gtd DS


That's all for now. I keep my blog on Blogspot so I will simply copy and paste my blog entries I make from here on in right here in this thread. Take care, one and all, thanks to any readers that may want to follow along, and I'll see you at the tables.



Every Little Savings Every Little Profit


I started off today paying close attention to the 2% bankroll management approach utilizing my 50 buyin approach with the exception of still playing the $5.50 NLH $2k Gtd and the $3.30 NLH $1k Gtd. Those are my only daily exceptions. However, as I was getting started this morning waiting for the $2.20 PLO to get started, yes I actually woke up with the alarm lol, I decided to check the box in the lobby that says satellite. No, I'm not looking to satellite my way to the WPT or something crazy, but I was interested to see if they had any extremely low buyin satellites to some of the higher priced tournaments, figuring if I can find something that cost $1.10 or $2.20 that will allow me to play something a little larger why not go for it. The cost would be within bankroll management stipulations. Well they had a satellite that cost $1.10 that was good for any $5.50 tournament. The satellite only had about 16 or 17 players so 3 tickets were being given away and 4th place got $0.50 back and I was one of the top 3. So the $5.50 NLH $2K guaranteed today actually ended up only costing me $1.10 so a $4.40 savings and like the title of this entry says every little savings helps.

I busted out of the $2.20 PLO tournament this morning due to the fact that I made an error and did not play my usual style. However, anyone that plays PLO would tell you that my style is extremely unorthodox and they would definitely say I was absolutely wrong in my approach, but all I can say is, at least in the low buyin PLO tournaments that I have played online, my style works. I do not raise preflop in PLO tournaments unless I'm at a point where I'm ready to go all in. If I flop the absolutely nuts but I know it is in jeopardy I will call down to the river until I'm certain it is still the absolute nuts. Many will say, and probably not wrongfully so, that this is not the standard approach to PLO, but yet I have two final table appearances both 3rd place finishes in fields of 70 + and 90 + and a 15th place finish in a $3.30 PLO rebuy which also had 70 + players out of maybe 8 or of these played so it may not be a traditional approach, it may be very unorthodox, but for me it works. Unfortunately today I made the mistake with 17 players left and me flopping the nut straight to try to make a pot size bet to protect my hand, but my opponent reraised me all in and he had flopped a set. Maybe in a higher priced buyin that makes a difference or perhaps maybe in live PLO tournaments it makes a difference, but these low buyins they will not let go of draw no matter how much it costs them. I should have checked called down and when the board paired would have been able to reassess and probably known what my opponent had by his bet sizing, but I did not do this, I got off my normal game plan, and it cost me a final table and cashing opportunity. I follow this with a final table that place finish in a 1 dollar in 10 cents and LH which only paid $3.75, but every dollar helps and then finish 23rd and the $2.20 NLH ko which return me a dollar sixty four plus $1.00 for a KO, but the whole take was a 44 cent profit on that one. at this point my next tournament was in until 2:50 p.m. so I took a two hour break, had some lunch, grabbed a shower, and relaxed until I got back on the tables.

Didn't last long in the $2.20 NLH as I got knocked out when I limped when I really meant to go all in myself with pocket nines, but the player next to act after me went allin so I naturally called. He had pocket sevens and hit a 2 outer on the turn and I was knocked out. This left four tournaments remaining in the day, my four most favorites of the day as they are all guaranteed prize pools and are either deepstacks which is $3000 in starting chips or a super stack which is $5000 and starting chips. The only problem with these tournaments is it's more difficult to cash because they have hundreds of players usually a minimum of 300 and sometimes more than that, but the advantage is if you do cash you get something more substantial if you make the final table. Finished out of the money in the $3.30 NLH $1k Gtd. and also out of the money in the $2.20 NLH $500 Gtd. I did finish 27th $5.50 $2k Gtd for a return of a little over $15. That one had 569 runners so 27th place was pretty damn good and I was quite happy with my play in it. The tournament entry also only cost me $1.10 because of winning the ticket in the satellite this morning so that made it even a bigger profit then it ordinarily would have been. I also finish 23rd in the $2.20 NLH $1k Gtd.

The late registration on Bovada tournaments are a bit long as the $2k Gtd as an example has a late registration for 200 minutes, that's over 3 hours ladies and gentleman. However, the one thing I really like about these tournaments is that they are not reentry tournaments if it's not a scheduled rebuy. The tournaments over at Carbon Poker you can reenter as many times as you want if you bust out until their long late registrations end, but here at Bovada once you're out you're out and even though they have a long late registration I like that fact about these tournaments.

Well after several days of grinding 14 to 16 hours a day I am taking tomorrow off. I'm going to sleep late, I'm not going to play any tournaments, and I am taking the entire day off and with that I will say goodnight to one and all and I'll see you at the tables.