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My 10,000 hand challenge
I've been waiting months to start this thread, but now that I'm at the keyboard I'm struggling to know where to start.
I signed up with Sky Poker last year and was starting to enjoy a small return in the 10p 5p master cash games I was taking part in.
Then I had to empty my account.
I suddently needed every penny to my name - for legal fees.
My partner and I bought a flat together.
It was a very exciting time for us, and something we had been trying to do together for years.
The only downside was that poker - in all its forms - was put on hold for the summer.
Let's be honest, a summer without poker is a fair trade for a home to call your own.
But it's the longest I've gone without playing the game since I first started playing 12 years ago.
The time away gave me a chance to evaluate my poker, and I came to realise I didn't really have any direction.
I also turned 30 during my self-impossed shutdown. And that made me REALLY think!
I wanted to be good, but I wasn't really doing anything about it.
While I've played poker for over a decade, most of that has been fairly aimless fun.
I've made many friends (and some enemies) playing the game we all love, travelled the country, played in some of the biggest casinos in the world, and taken down some decent prizes.
But I haven't kept track of my win rate, paid attention to my leaks, or focused on getting volume in.
Hence this thread.
I'm setting myself a modest challenge - play 10,000 hands in two months and turn a profit.
"So what" boom the poker forum trolls.
Indeed - it's not exactly Phil Laak's long-hour challenge, or heads up with Jungleman.
It may not be the most exciting challenge, but it's what I need.
I have never given poker enough time to see where I'm at or get to where I want to be.
I have deposited £200 into my account and reckon I'll do it if I playing around 80 hours over two months.
I'm starting at 5p 10p blinds and will be documenting my successes and failures over the two months.
I am hoping this challenge will help me to focus, improve my game, and lead to a profit.
But if it all ends in tears and ruin, I'll print that too.
Comments
Hand # 818433082
Good luck with this Special K - liking the username too.
How do you keep track of number of hands btw?
Good luck SpecialK, and I'm, sure you'll be a cereal winner.
That "hyper-motivated" thing (first night back) is something that affects me, too. So excited to be playing, I get a little too "pushy". You'll soon settle down & get back on track.
Good luck.
Good luck with your challenge SpecialK, things can (hopefully) only get better after day 1! Am guessing we'll likely end up at the same table a few times over the next couple of months, fingers crossed I don't donk off too much money to help you get through the 10k hands.
Fingers crossed...
Hands played in session - 171
Total hands played - 736
Result - £6.38+
Total balance - £167.92 (-£32.08)
After a painful start, I've enjoyed my first winning session!
It wasn't a long session, and it wasn't a massive return, but it gave me a much-needed confidence boost!
I dropped down to 4p-8p to give myself a bit of a warm-up, and after picking up 20 blinds I decided to move back up.
I'm staying off the 200 big blind 5p-10p tables for now and happy to play 100 big blind poker.
I didn't do anything too clever or too stupid - just standard stuff that paid off.
I did spend a bit of time setting up a colour-coding system for players.
So there's a chance that if you sit at my table there'll be a big red/yellow or blue ring around your face!
Red = dangerous
Blue = solid and unlikely to hand over much cash
Yellow = weak
Purple = maniac
Green = calling station
Orange = strange
Obviously a system like this will only work if it's accompanied with detailed notes too, and constantly reviewed as I encounter players more.
One thing I find very interesting about Sky Poker is that the small pool of players you see mean that you can spend more time working them out.
And obviously it cuts both ways...
I sometimes wonder what sort of notes people have on me - and what colour of ring is around my neck!
Anyway, finally on the board and on my way to meeting my first target - 1250 hands in a week.
My first two sessions have brought 716 hands - so I'm more than half way to my first target.
Now if I could only get back into the black...
No great turning-point hand for this session.
But since I won my session and just found out how to post hands, I'll celebrate with my biggest pot of the night.
Hands played in session - 265
Total hands played - 981
Result - £28.30+
Total balance - £196.22 (-£3.78)
If my first week has taught me anything, it's that losing money is much easier to do than winning it!
It is going to take me more than two sessions to make up for the first one (which cost me nearly £40).
And that's with me running well!
I've just had my best session so far, and the first one really worth writing about.
A £28.30 profit - but I'm still nearly £4 short of my starting bank roll.
This session was all about the run-good though.
Stacked a guy with quad fives against his flopped top-top pair button vs big blind, and picked up aces twice.
A big motivation for me doing this is to try to cancel out the variance and look at my return over a reasonable sample size.
I know that it takes around 200,00 hands to trully do this, but it's a start.
However, so far the only sort of luck I have come across has been good luck.
Hopefully I can get into the black before my luck changes.
It will change. But to remind myself of the good times, I'm going to post my biggest pot of the night.
And the easiest I won.
#betterluckythangood
I've played enough hands now to qualify for a small bonus return.
We are talking £1.18 so far!
But it's extra cash I hadn't considered.
I think I'll have to keep that separate, but also include it.
I don't want the rakeback to be the margin between profit and loss.
That would be rubbish!
Still, nice to get a wee boost.
Shame the month is nearly up!
A8o hand - I probably bet bigger on the turn, you've gone less than half pot when we have TP + NFD, otherwise, nh, wp.
55 hand - I think it's a fold preflop unless you have good reads on opponent and some plans to make moves postflop. If we're just calling to setmine then we shouldnt really setmine to 3bets when 100xBB deep imo. Once you have though, nh.
*Jac35, Placebo are an English indie/rock band, formed in the mid 90's. 7 albums and 10 million+ sales later and they are still going strong.
Best of luck with this challenge Sp3cialK!