First big ticket win!

Well, maybe not "Big Ticket", but something I've never done before for sure. I played in a $1 tournament called the "$26 Token Frenzy". It's a tourney that doesn't pay out cash, but instead gives you a free entry into any $24 + $2 game. It's something I would never (not at this point at least) actually spend money on to enter but the stakes can be quite large depending on what you enter.

I think I'm going to look for a game with a high guaranteed cash out at an odd time of day so there won't be too many people playing. I saw one last night that was a $17k guarantee that started at 1am. It paid 90 positions and top money was $4500. Not too bad. A payout in one of these would go a good way into the Ferguson Challenge.

There are also satellites into the FTOPS events that would be awesome if I could pull it off. The FTOPS Main Events can have huge payouts. Like $1.5M guaranteed, and you get to play against people like Phil Gordon and Jennifer Harmon.

Not sure which I'll do first, but I'll definitely play in more $26 Token Frenzy's and see if I can earn more tokens.

Bad beats...

After my awesome start, bad things have started happening. It seems I've changed my style a bit and am more cautious, which is leading me to being short stacked late in the game and having to scramble. Sometimes I manage to pull it out, but more often that not, I don't.

Figuring this out has been very helpful and I've started playing my normal game again. I'm playing great through the game but can 't put anyone away! I'll have 5 times their chips with pocket kings or aces, they'll go all in with a 10-6 offsuit and flop 2 pair and pull a full house on the river! No kidding! This has happened no less than 7 times in the last 2 days. Grrrr...

Anyway, I'm down below my starting amount a bit. Time to turn things around and start winning again. Time to look over "How to Play Poker Like the Pros" by Phil Helmuth and "Phil Gordon's Little Green Book" by, well, Phil Gordon...

Things I've learned So Far

OK...

1. Playing poker while you're watching TV? Bad! If I'm going to do this, I need to focus more on the game than on Survivor or Top Chef. I haven't lost much, but it was stupid loss.

2. Playing when I'm too tired to concentrate is another losing proposition. DON'T DO IT!

3. Play with more confidence and not so much worry about losing a dollar. When I play a 10,000 chip sit and go, I go in knowing my strategy and sticking to it, and I kick some butt. I pussyfoot around and back down off of large bets when I'm playing for real money. I REALLY need to stop doing that. On my first night with real money I won 2 sit 'n go's playing with confidence.

OK. That's it for tonight.

CFC: Started last night

So I started with my $20 last night and played 4 times so far. Here are my results:

1. $1.00 + .20 - 9 person Sit 'N Go, finished 1st, won $4.50
2. $.50 + .10 - Satellite to the 200k Double Deuce, 105 entries -finished 7th, won $5.75
3. $.25 + .04 - Satellite to the Daily Dollar 9 person Sit 'N Go, fell asleep, finished 9th, won $0
4. $.25 + .04 - Super Turbo Satellite to the Daily Dollar (start with 100 chips) 9 person Sit 'N Go, finished 9th, won $0

So far I'm up $8.20 for a total of $28.20.

Chris Ferguson Challenge and the road to $10,000

I really enjoy playing online hold'em and spend some time on Full Tilt. I play all freerolls and play money games and generally do really well. I recently read about how Chris Ferguson started with absolutely nothing and turned it into $10k (link) so I thought I'd give it a try as well.

I am starting with a bit of an advantage because Jen granted me $20 to play with. I will, however, be following Chris's rules for himself. They are thus:

• He never bought into a cash game or a Sit & Go for more than 5 percent of his total bankroll; the only exception was at the lowest limits: he was allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in of $2.50 or less.
• He didn’t buy into any multi-table tournaments for more than 2 percent of his total bankroll; the only exception was $1 MTTs.
• If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represented more than 10 percent of his total bankroll, he had to leave the game when the blinds reached him.

I'm going to blog my progress and we'll see how I do :)