Finishing this challenge successfully feels amazing, to say I'm happy is a big understatement. The main reason for this is all the replies posted on this thread. They are very special to me and mean more than the money, particularly those made since completion. I simply cannot thank-you all enough, you guys have made the effort more than worthwhile. The same also applies to all the opponents who wished me good luck in chatboxes during the year, many of whom I didn't recognise from the forum.
At times I felt I was running badly. Maybe I was for short periods, as I should have expected. But clearly that was just an illusion. Looking at the graphs below I can see that progress was better I possibly could have expected. The final two weeks were a non-stop heater that more than made-up for any earlier downswings. I daren't even look back at the negative diary entries I made when I found myself the wrong side of variance in September. They probably make me look like a total fool; moaning and whinging when I had absolutely no reason to do so.
So how did I do it? It was simple really; by making less mistakes than my opponents. I have no secrets, no tricks up my sleeve that nobody else knows about. I just took it hand-by-hand, street-by-street, always trying to make the best decisions, losing small pots and winning big pots whenever possible. Strict bankroll discipline and patience were also essential ingredients. Once my balance had reached the relative safety of say £30 I think the eventual outcome wasn't really in doubt just as long as I stuck rigidly to my bankroll rules. Whenever I felt things weren't going my way and I was starting to tilt I simply stopped playing. Not once did I get all hot-headed and put at risk a silly amount of my money at any one time. Had I done so I could have ruined the whole thing very quickly.
There were three main phases;
1. kick-starting a small balance in freerolls 2. growing it further in micro-stakes heads-up STT 3. switching to multi-table tournaments when sufficiently rolled
As you'll see below nearly all of the £1,089.01 profit came from the MTTs, and the best part of that from just a small number of big wins. There wasn't much strategy discussion in this thread, however I feel my overall approach to MTTs bore fruit and may be useful to others;
To make a good profit from MTTs you must have the ability to win them. All the money is at the top. A massive 81% of the profit I made in this challenge came from just the top ten wins (see below). You need have the killer instinct and gamble inside you that gives you a chance to go all the way and take down these crucial first place finishes. A min-cash should never be considered a success, nor something to aim for. It is merely a small consolation for a near miss. Don't bother checking the lobby continously looking at pay-jumps, stack sizes at other tables, or any other stuff like that. It's a bad habit, just focus as hard as you can on your own table and do your best to play for the win. There's a fine line between carefully calculated risk taking and reckless gambling, you must aim to stay just the right side of that line. When the risk/reward ratio is in your favour don't back down from big confrontations, that includes flips. I'll donk myself out of a tournament on a bubble looking like an idiot far more often than many of my opponents. However I'll also win the tournaments more often than them. I'll make more money than them in the long run too. In MTTs 'he who dares wins' definitely applies.
I'm just an average middle-aged working guy with no particular skills or qualifications. I didn't even learn how to play poker until 2007 when I was 41yo. There are probably hundreds of poker players on Sky who are far better at the game than me. If I can run up £1,000 from Poker Points then just about anybody can. That includes you.
Thanks for reading, good luck to you all at the tables.
Gary
Stats, graphs, trivia, etc.
(all as accurate as possible)
How the money was won; Freerolls.......................................... £18.05 (51 games)MTTs with an entry fee.................... £991.16 (584 games)HU STTs...........................................£81.11 (582 games)DYMs..............................................-£28.09 lost (96 games)Cash poker........................................£ nilRewards Bonuses................................£26.78Competition wins/freebies/giveaways......£ nil Accurate graph of daily closing balances; http://imageshack.us/a/img542/2217/kpv1.jpg
Grea post, and the whole thread was a gold mine of advice andinspriration for new and micro players. Going for the win seems obvious but its hard when youve been grinding a tournament for a whole night not to look at cashing, the wrong mindset no doubt.
Did you think when you started that it would be over in the calendar year? In the middle of the big downswing you barely played and even played the rpulette tables, did you ever come close to giving up? And what was the hardest part of the challenge?
Grea post, and the whole thread was a gold mine of advice andinspriration for new and micro players. Going for the win seems obvious but its hard when youve been grinding a tournament for a whole night not to look at cashing, the wrong mindset no doubt. Did you think when you started that it would be over in the calendar year? In the middle of the big downswing you barely played and even played the rpulette tables, did you ever come close to giving up? And what was the hardest part of the challenge? Posted by TeddyBloat
Thanks. This challange was totally aimed at newbies and improving players. I never expected this diary to appeal to established grinders, wannabe pros, or anybody playing at higher stakes and/or volume than me.
Clearly I got myself into a mental rut during that downswing. I went off poker for a while and would insta-quit sessions for silly little reasons. However I was always still determined to see this thing through to the end and never even considered quitting.
It was a temporary blip, when I talked myself out of my own irrational behaviour results quickly improved, after that I never looked back.
The hardest parts were making the first £20 (unsurprisingly). The freerolls were a minefield with very fast structures, plus I was up against opponents taking rebuys and add-ons. Also keeping motivated to making a post here every single day through thick and thin. It's hard to think of things to say when not much has happened for days on end. Most MTT diaries fall silent when the author goes on a downswing, often never to be seen again.
In Response to Re: 1,000 Poker Points ----- /> £1,000 Can it be done? Latest balance £0.00 : Thank-you very much for this generous offer, I'll be delighted to accept the entry to the BIG freeroll. However I feel accepting the £11 Tourney Entry would go against the spirit of this challenge. If I were to bink even so much as a min-cash it would give a much easier starting balance than having to build from nothing. I tell you what; I'll happily accept the tourney entry when this challenge is over, whether I succeed or fail. Cheeky I know, but if you don't ask you don't get! Posted by GaryQQQ
A deal is a deal.
Tell me what Tourney, & when, & I'll get it sorted.
Never was it more deserved.
This whole thing has been one of THE most extraordinary threads, & achievements I've ever seen on any Poker Forum or Community. I'm doing a little one of my own at present, & you've shamed me, I might just quit now!
Congratulations Gary on a fantastic achievement. Probably have read this thread more than any other on the site and the thread motivated me to play again after a break a few months back.
If Total Player comes back to our screens then I think you're a worthy contestant.
Great work Gary, and once again well done on completing this challenge.
What is next for you now mate?
Also this comment you made is very true, I use to tilt a lot, but felt leaving tables (sometimes for days) refresh mind and my game.
"Whenever I felt things weren't going my way and I was starting to tilt I simply stopped playing."
Keep up the great work you do here in the forum, everyone here i am sure is in ore with what you do, and most importantly, you do all this of your own back.
Congratulations Gary on a fantastic achievement. Probably have read this thread more than any other on the site and the thread motivated me to play again after a break a few months back. If Total Player comes back to our screens then I think you're a worthy contestant. Enjoy the winnings :-) Ross Posted by rossjb14
Thanks very much Ross.
It's highly unlikely I'd have the desire or the time to participate in Total Player, or anything like that due to the demands of my small business (self-employed milkman).
Great work Gary, and once again well done on completing this challenge. What is next for you now mate? Also this comment you made is very true, I use to tilt a lot, but felt leaving tables (sometimes for days) refresh mind and my game. "Whenever I felt things weren't going my way and I was starting to tilt I simply stopped playing." Keep up the great work you do here in the forum, everyone here i am sure is in ore with what you do, and most importantly, you do all this of your own back. Gl at the tables. Posted by ms-tree
Thanks very much.
I'm looking forward to a break from challenges and diaries for now. I'm not saying I won't ever do one again, but I have no ideas or anything planned at the moment. If I do another one I'd want it to be something original again.
'Off my own back'. Yes, thats correct. In case anybody is wondering this diary was 100% my own idea. Nobody at Sky Poker knew anything about it until I launched it on the forum back on January 2nd. Late last year I ran the idea past my partner first (she plays here as Lea116311), then my Team51 team-mates in our private Facebook group. They all thought it was a good idea, then over the Christmas break I decided I'd go for it. Sky didn't reset my Poker Points total or anything like that, I had to carefully manipulate my play for a few days to get it to exactly 1,000.
Amazing stuff Gary, again I always read just tend not to post, great acheievement.
So, what are you going to do now? Keep the £1k in and keep grinding it up? Iv shared a few tables with you recently, your turning into a v good player and a very tricky opponent to play against!
Hope there will be another challenge soon, but for now, enjoy completing it, great job sir.
Just wanted to post a massive well done from the Bromleys...we were getting worried when you went through your mini-wobble around the £700 mark and so glad to see you come out the other end and achieve your target!!
It must have taken such discipline to stick to your strict BRM rules and I love that you went for it with a 22 pounder
and smashed it!
I think the only thing now is to go the opposite way and spend all the money on a UKPC main event seat
Gary, you did it!! I'm delighted for you!! You were the inspiration behind me making my own diary so you've left a legacy - of sorts Posted by peter27
Thanks Peter, Waller02, the Bromleys and Wacko for your very kind replies.
I'm aware I sparked several diaries here last year, plus some personal poker challenges that were attempted away from the glare of the forum. If I've inspired a few more in 2013 then that's great, I couldn't be happier. Good luck to you Peter, and to everybody else who has a go at something similar.
For the record I've made a withdrawal of £689, leaving £400 in my account as a working bankroll. Earlier today I made a donation of £25 each to Children in Need and MacMillan Cancer Support from the withdrawal, two very worthy causes. The rest will be going towards a trip to New York late next year, I'll be there to attend a wedding.
This will be my final post on this thread.
After 10 1/2 months I think it's about time it slipped off page 1. Once again thank-you to every single person who has ever gone to the trouble of posting here.
Comments
Final thoughts
Finishing this challenge successfully feels amazing, to say I'm happy is a big understatement. The main reason for this is all the replies posted on this thread. They are very special to me and mean more than the money, particularly those made since completion. I simply cannot thank-you all enough, you guys have made the effort more than worthwhile. The same also applies to all the opponents who wished me good luck in chatboxes during the year, many of whom I didn't recognise from the forum.
At times I felt I was running badly. Maybe I was for short periods, as I should have expected. But clearly that was just an illusion. Looking at the graphs below I can see that progress was better I possibly could have expected. The final two weeks were a non-stop heater that more than made-up for any earlier downswings. I daren't even look back at the negative diary entries I made when I found myself the wrong side of variance in September. They probably make me look like a total fool; moaning and whinging when I had absolutely no reason to do so.
So how did I do it? It was simple really; by making less mistakes than my opponents. I have no secrets, no tricks up my sleeve that nobody else knows about. I just took it hand-by-hand, street-by-street, always trying to make the best decisions, losing small pots and winning big pots whenever possible. Strict bankroll discipline and patience were also essential ingredients. Once my balance had reached the relative safety of say £30 I think the eventual outcome wasn't really in doubt just as long as I stuck rigidly to my bankroll rules. Whenever I felt things weren't going my way and I was starting to tilt I simply stopped playing. Not once did I get all hot-headed and put at risk a silly amount of my money at any one time. Had I done so I could have ruined the whole thing very quickly.
There were three main phases;
1. kick-starting a small balance in freerolls
2. growing it further in micro-stakes heads-up STT
3. switching to multi-table tournaments when sufficiently rolled
As you'll see below nearly all of the £1,089.01 profit came from the MTTs, and the best part of that from just a small number of big wins. There wasn't much strategy discussion in this thread, however I feel my overall approach to MTTs bore fruit and may be useful to others;
To make a good profit from MTTs you must have the ability to win them. All the money is at the top. A massive 81% of the profit I made in this challenge came from just the top ten wins (see below). You need have the killer instinct and gamble inside you that gives you a chance to go all the way and take down these crucial first place finishes. A min-cash should never be considered a success, nor something to aim for. It is merely a small consolation for a near miss. Don't bother checking the lobby continously looking at pay-jumps, stack sizes at other tables, or any other stuff like that. It's a bad habit, just focus as hard as you can on your own table and do your best to play for the win. There's a fine line between carefully calculated risk taking and reckless gambling, you must aim to stay just the right side of that line. When the risk/reward ratio is in your favour don't back down from big confrontations, that includes flips. I'll donk myself out of a tournament on a bubble looking like an idiot far more often than many of my opponents. However I'll also win the tournaments more often than them. I'll make more money than them in the long run too. In MTTs 'he who dares wins' definitely applies.
I'm just an average middle-aged working guy with no particular skills or qualifications. I didn't even learn how to play poker until 2007 when I was 41yo. There are probably hundreds of poker players on Sky who are far better at the game than me. If I can run up £1,000 from Poker Points then just about anybody can. That includes you.
Thanks for reading, good luck to you all at the tables.
GaryStats, graphs, trivia, etc.
(all as accurate as possible)
How the money was won; Freerolls.......................................... £18.05 (51 games)MTTs with an entry fee.................... £991.16 (584 games)HU STTs...........................................£81.11 (582 games)DYMs..............................................-£28.09 lost (96 games)Cash poker........................................£ nilRewards Bonuses................................£26.78Competition wins/freebies/giveaways......£ nil Accurate graph of daily closing balances; http://imageshack.us/a/img542/2217/kpv1.jpg
Clearly I got myself into a mental rut during that downswing. I went off poker for a while and would insta-quit sessions for silly little reasons. However I was always still determined to see this thing through to the end and never even considered quitting.
It was a temporary blip, when I talked myself out of my own irrational behaviour results quickly improved, after that I never looked back.
The hardest parts were making the first £20 (unsurprisingly). The freerolls were a minefield with very fast structures, plus I was up against opponents taking rebuys and add-ons. Also keeping motivated to making a post here every single day through thick and thin. It's hard to think of things to say when not much has happened for days on end. Most MTT diaries fall silent when the author goes on a downswing, often never to be seen again.
It's a hand I play as if it's the nuts in nearly all circumstances. It works most of the time and wins me lots of chips.
If anybody doesn't know what we're talking about see the Brags, Beats and Variance section of the forum.
Tell me what Tourney, & when, & I'll get it sorted.
Never was it more deserved.
This whole thing has been one of THE most extraordinary threads, & achievements I've ever seen on any Poker Forum or Community. I'm doing a little one of my own at present, & you've shamed me, I might just quit now!
Total respect Gary, many congratulations.
http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/834/lcxl.jpg
Great work Gary, and once again well done on completing this challenge.
What is next for you now mate?
Also this comment you made is very true, I use to tilt a lot, but felt leaving tables (sometimes for days) refresh mind and my game.
"Whenever I felt things weren't going my way and I was starting to tilt I simply stopped playing."
Keep up the great work you do here in the forum, everyone here i am sure is in ore with what you do, and most importantly, you do all this of your own back.
Gl at the tables.
It's highly unlikely I'd have the desire or the time to participate in Total Player, or anything like that due to the demands of my small business (self-employed milkman).
I'm looking forward to a break from challenges and diaries for now. I'm not saying I won't ever do one again, but I have no ideas or anything planned at the moment. If I do another one I'd want it to be something original again.
'Off my own back'. Yes, thats correct. In case anybody is wondering this diary was 100% my own idea. Nobody at Sky Poker knew anything about it until I launched it on the forum back on January 2nd. Late last year I ran the idea past my partner first (she plays here as Lea116311), then my Team51 team-mates in our private Facebook group. They all thought it was a good idea, then over the Christmas break I decided I'd go for it. Sky didn't reset my Poker Points total or anything like that, I had to carefully manipulate my play for a few days to get it to exactly 1,000.
You were the inspiration behind me making my own diary so you've left a legacy - of sorts
I'm aware I sparked several diaries here last year, plus some personal poker challenges that were attempted away from the glare of the forum. If I've inspired a few more in 2013 then that's great, I couldn't be happier. Good luck to you Peter, and to everybody else who has a go at something similar.
For the record I've made a withdrawal of £689, leaving £400 in my account as a working bankroll. Earlier today I made a donation of £25 each to Children in Need and MacMillan Cancer Support from the withdrawal, two very worthy causes. The rest will be going towards a trip to New York late next year, I'll be there to attend a wedding.
This will be my final post on this thread.
After 10 1/2 months I think it's about time it slipped off page 1. Once again thank-you to every single person who has ever gone to the trouble of posting here.
I enjoyed the ride, I hope you did too