Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Tracking my online play

I recently read a blog by Daniel Negreanu at http://fullcontactpoker.com/. A respected and world renowned pro, Daniel has decided to try an experiment by loading $10 onto a Poker Stars account (http://pokerstars.com), and play at the Micro Tables (.01/.02 No limit Hold em') and see if he can begin building a bank roll. His goal is to take that profile to a bank roll of $100,000 in three years, and he's got some unique ideas as to how to do just that.

I found myself intrigued at the notion that a player could begin at a level of poker that I can afford, and run their bank roll to over $100k. I thought to myself, "why can't I do that?"

Well the easy answer is, I'm not Daniel Negreanu. I haven't ever played a live tournament for more than a $200 buy in (one time) and generally don't play for more than $60. On-line, I usually don't spend more than $5 on an entry fee, so my experience is far more limited. But more than that, I'm not even in the same league as a player as Daniel. Needless to say, it's not likely that I'll be seeing myself with one of his 4 shiny bracelets anytime soon.

But it is kind of a goal of mine. I would like to one day compete with some of the best players in the world. While I'm no where in their neighborhood as a player, I think that it would still be fun to give it a go, and see what happens. So with that in mind, I began charting my play in ring games this past week, and here are the results on my Full Tilt account:

Hands : +/-
39 $14.15
82 (-$8.00)
95 (-$4.00)
76 (-$8.00)
49 $7.85
47 $2.85
152 $10.75
102 (-$20.10)
99 $4.85
70 $2.65
139 (-$9.00)
130 (-$11.95)
98 $4.75
88 $7.05
341 $15.45
122 $2.90
196 (-$7.35)

All in all, I've played just under 2000 hands last week (1925 to be exact), and my balance is down $1.15. I've been playing at Full Tilt's lowest limit game which is .10/.20 Hold Em'. My balance would be lower if not for the fact that I've accrued enough FTP's to gather $15 in bonuses, and I also transferred $6 to play in last week's Twitter Poker Tour on Stars. So it's more like an all in all loss of $10.15 on the tables. Not so good.

It's kind of interesting to see if I can make something more of my bank roll, and if nothing else, I've had a lot of fun just playing poker. I have much smaller goals (like reaching $100), and I'll see about re-evaluating them if I'm able to get there. Anyway, I'll update this a little bit on www.pablosplace.com from time to time. Maybe with some luck, I'll get to $100k before Daniel does.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a terrific post. I am starting a tracking spreadsheet as well. In fact, it is recommended that you do so and that you include the name of the card room manager as part of your notes for each session in the event you may have to report your income. Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

That is interesting , If anyone can do it, that would be Daniel Negreneu. I am going to keep track to see how he does.