A forum member rambles about his tournament bankroll strategy: Time to get back in the online game. I backed off when I started back up in school, but now that I realize how easy even upper division business stuff is, I think I can get to work. The key for me is to remain sharp mentally. I have fared well playing small stakes limit cash and then got into tournaments and did well with the $4 180s on Stars.

I need to keep poker a small part of my life, and deal with the downswings. I remember the last time I played a lot online and I was whoring through PSO, I went absolutely nuts at Paradise playing .5/1 limit to clear that Bonus. It was unreal, I would sit down with $20 at 3 tables and almost immediately would have about $40 at each table. And this lasted a couple of weeks, and I decided that it was an indicator of my true talent level. Well, it stopped of course, and I didn't keep it in perspective. I am an unusually calm individual in every aspect of my life, except for during bad runs in poker it would seem. And even though I have turned a nice little profit from the online experience, I always end up cashing out during a bad run out of frustration and swearing it off.

So I am gonna take one more stab at being a well rounded and focused poker player who is prepared to deal with the good and the bad equally well. I have some things working in my favor to give me the best chance I have ever had of being successful at this.

My parameters/goals for myself:

-One tournament a night. I am going to be mixing it up between $4 180s, $5 45 man SNGs, and just regular old $5 FOs. If I have had 3 short lived runs in a row, on the fourth night when I bust out in the first orbit when aces get cracked, I am not going to fire up another one that night.

-My goal is to build my roll up to $600 so I can transfer it over to Full Tilt and grind away that Bonus at limit cash, then spread money around to play tournaments/grind bonuses elsewhere. In the interests of keeping it simple, I am going to just focus on building to the $600 first. One other flaw I have is impatience to reach my goals, so I don't want to look too far ahead to something which might be more than a year away.

-No cashing out. I don't know until when, but that time is far enough away that for now I am just not cashing out, period.

-Just play good poker.

-No playing poker in the evening if I neglect something else during the day. If I decide to pass on my jog, no poker. If I decide my homework can wait for another day, no poker.

-Take my time during a hand. I'm in a hurry to do things too often. Especially post flop, I want to stop, think about the action thus far, put opponents on a range, etc., before making my move.

I may think of more stuff between now and when I can start playing again, in which case I will add to this post. I can't play until next weekend, as my funds won't be available from epassporte until Friday afternoon (the money is out of my bank account, I don't suppose there is any chance of convincing them to release it?). Saturday morning will be my first possible opportunity, and that may not work either. I am going to use this time to think more about how I want to go about this and will jot down any more ideas if they come to me. Suggestions welcome, naturally.

FOs are freezeouts, tourneys with no rebuys. At least I think that is what I have picked up as the terminology on this board.

The one tourney/day thing may be something which can be looked at later as I progress. I want to make money at this, but I also want to enjoy it, or at least not resent it. If I can come to the point where I get sucked out on or kings run into aces early in a tournament and then register for another one without feeling my blood temperature rise, then this can be amended. For now, I think setting this limit is a good idea. I want to experience getting knocked out, closing the program and getting on with my life a few times first.

Someone, or something, does not want me to play poker. My funds are to be available at epassporte this evening, but I can not play tonight. So Saturday was going to be my grand return to the tables, then my mom goes to the emergency room on Wednesday night with severe stomach pain. The doctors take out her gall bladder and find out that it isn't the problem and do tests and biopsies Thursday. At this point I'm thinking my mom has cancer or something so I make plans to go see her Saturday. Turns out she just has a nasty ulcer, but I'm already pot committed to a Saturday visit, I can't fold now. Sunday, maybe? Pretty please? Well, with 4 hours to spare and a 45 man tourney taking two hours, I went for a run, showered and sat down for some action.

PokerStars Tournament #56005704, No Limit Hold'em
Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50
45 players
Total Prize Pool: $225.00
Tournament started - 2007/07/20 - 18:14:13 (ET)

Dear jte87,

You finished the tournament in 2nd place.
A $48.38 award has been credited to your Real Money account.

You earned 81.59 tournament leader points in this tournament.
For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at
http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html


Congratulations!
Thank you for participating.

Nothing really spectacular to say about this one. I barely got anything playable early rounds, but the two that I did get were AA and QQ and I got heavy action both times to give me some chips. Then I mostly was dead again but was able to stay in the background while everyone knocked each other off. Short stack at the final table but I can dodge bullets baby and I dodged them to second place. The big stack kept getting his money in against others with the worst of it and drew out on them on the turn invariably. By the time it was him and I left, he had 50K to my 6 or so. I went all in first hand with 65o and he called and his rags beat my rags. A quick and painless death.

Boy, this Full Tilt Bonus is gonna take some time to clear, especially if their software fucks up every night like it has so far since I deposited. When able to I've been 4 tabling some .5/1 LHE, just about breaking even with the earned Bonus included in that calculation. But that result is ok since I haven't really had any hands to pay me off. I don't think I've done any better than three of a kind, and none of those was a set. Well, I take that back, I keep flopping sets when I have aces, kings, or queens and don't really want the help. Give me some straights, flushes, or boats and then maybe things will pick up.

I did play one $5 tourney there with 257 entrants and finished 16th. No real payday, but I'm still playing solid, so I can take comfort in that. Went out when AK didn't improve vs. JJ. Just finished up a $5 45 man SNG on Stars and took 5th for an extra $15 on my buy-in. So, still running good overall, just hope Full Tilt gets their shit together.

There really isn't any point in continuing to try and clear this Bonus at Full Tilt. I stink at LHE now, I lose money faster than the Bonus accrues. Obviously I haven't played a significant number of hands, but I can tell where I am making mistakes. LHE is where I broke into online poker, and I was much more a student of it back then and was once profitable, but those skills have eroded as I have transitioned to NL tourneys and SNGs. I enjoy those games so much more, and this Bonus at Full Tilt will take me so long to clear and probably cost me money anyway, so I am going to move everything back to Stars. I'm not real fond of Full Tilt's software, the only thing I like better compared to Stars is that you can see your notes on a player by just hovering the mouse over the player.

Anyway, I'm not sure what my next goal should be for this operation. I suppose just to simply reach a certain bankroll, but I don't know what a good number would be. I'm at about $550 right now, so $1,000, $2,000, $5,000? For the time being, while I work this out in my mind, this will just become sort of a blog about my poker playing.