Amazing Poker Run

Needless to say this has been a good year so far in poker for me. In 2008, I was incredibly anemic and lost a little bit of my bankroll. At the beginning of the year, I was in the same place. I started with almost $400 and through a series of bad decision dropped my bankroll to $250. It was at that point that I had to get serious about my game and truly consider my game play.

My first step was to be sure that I was playing according to my bank roll. At $250 I would only play SNG’s at 5% of my bankroll. This meant that I could only play SNG’s under $2.50 buyin. The other decision I made was to stop playing turbo SNG’s. I found that at the low levels, the turbos where gambles. By the time I got to 10 big blinds and was push/fold, there were still 7 people in the game and all were playing way too tight. In the regular SNG’s the field would thin to 5 player by the time the blinds go to 50/100.

I also starting playing 3 games at a time. Playing multiple games means that I would not get bored and play hands that I shouldn’t. I was more likely to fold marginal hands because I wasn’t getting the I need to play this rush.

About two month ago, I was able to build my bankroll to $500. I withdrew $100 to celebrate my anniversary and was bankroll building again.

Then everything changed. Full Tilt is celebrating their anniversary and gave me an opportunity to earn a $100 bonus. This was two weeks ago. I’ve always hesitated trying to earn bonuses because you have to play a lot of poker to earn the bonus. Also, you have to play higher limits to earn it fast enough.

I decided to see how my limit skills are today. The last thing I need to do is lose $200 to earn a $100 bonus which is what happened in the past.

I started playing $.50/$1 limit Hold’em and Omaha H/L. I’ve gotten so much better. I started earning on average $20 a session and just earned my first $10 bonus on Monday.

The day to playing limit for me is to fold a lot in early position and stop playing fancy. Quit the hand when you know you’re beat.

Hopefully I haven’t jinxed anything by writing this but now my bankroll is over $500 (would be $600 without the withdrawal).

Two years ago I got my bankroll to $1000 (withdrew half to buy Disneyland annual passes) and have never come close. I hope this year I can repeat.