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congrats on getting to that magic mark and completing your challange.
......Well done Gary, brilliant achievement and tremendous dedication......brm at it's finest and a lesson to us all how to do it......really pleased for you and ty ty ty.
Closing balance £1,073.74
*****QUEST COMPLETED*****
(up £73.32 today)
As usual I kicked-off with the two morning £3.30 Bounty Hunters. A harsh beat saw me exit the 9-45 after an hour of play; an UTG limper with Q8o called my 4x raise and open-jammed at an 8-high flop. My pocket AA was cracked when he rivered two pairs.
I enjoyed a flying start in the 10-45, in level 1 my turned nut-straight was paid in full by slow-played pocket AA and a lower straight for an early treble-up and head prize. Unfortunately it was all downhill from there. I couldn’t make a hand to save my life and donked off chips with a couple of bluffs that didn’t work out. Before busting I had a rollercoaster ride due a wild run of cards. First my 20BB squeeze-shove with AK was called by a crazy UTG limp/caller who hit with T8o for their entire stack. I was left with just 85 chips with blinds at 75/150. I threw them in with 23o and quadrupled up, then trebled up in the next hand, then doubled, then doubled again! My stack recovered from 85 to 5,300, but I couldn’t quite pull off a ‘chip and a chair’ miracle, my exit coming when I jammed 55 into TT.
Next I bought into the 1-30 £200 gtd for £5.75 Bounty Hunter which went off with 66 runners. It destined to be the final game of this quest. I got myself deep with an average stack by playing my normal game, then one big hand close to the bubble propelled me near the lead for the first time. My pocket TT made a full-house to bust two players drawing dead with flushes, all the chips going in with AKTK on the board and one card to come. Another monster pot went my way soon after that when my A6 busted two inferior holdings on an AK6 flop and I found myself chipleader.
I was rather tense at the final table because I knew a victory would take me over the line. However I didn’t let the nerves get the better of me and I feel I played as well as possible, also the deck was kind to me too, giving me plenty of good cards to work with. After a long final table battle my opponent in heads-up play was Bear_Proof, I already knew him to be a talented player and was well aware that victory wouldn’t come easy. Unfortunately for him the cards and the luck were on my side this time; to my relief Bear_Proof folded when I ran a 3 streets bluff, the times I really did have it I got calls.
The final hand was a dream. I’d been opening nearly every button and found myself with pocket AA on the small blind. Bear_Proof had grown quite short by now and quite rightly wasn’t in the mood to go away with AT, neither would I in his seat. It was a great moment for me as the all chips went in pre-flop and my pair held-up.
I’m going to make another post on this thread later tonight or tomorrow with some final thoughts, analysis and statistics.
Thank-you very much to everybody in this wonderful community who has posted support during this quest, I can assure you it has meant the world to me and helped immensely.
September poker points 233
6867148 12-Sep-12 16:32 NL Holdem £51/66£78.796864976 12-Sep-12 14:51 NL Holdem £0116/243£06866929 12-Sep-12 13:28 NL Holdem £317/72-£2.176866662 12-Sep-12 12:39 NL Holdem £327/74-£3.306864620 12-Sep-12 12:16 NL Holdem £0122/150£0
The hand that did it
PlayerActionCardsAmountPotBalanceGaryQQQ Small blind 1250.00 1250.00 87217.00 Bear_Proof Big blind 2500.00 3750.00 41033.00 Your hole cards A A GaryQQQ Raise 3750.00 7500.00 83467.00 Bear_Proof Raise 7500.00 15000.00 33533.00 GaryQQQ Raise 15000.00 30000.00 68467.00 Bear_Proof All-in 33533.00 63533.00 0.00 GaryQQQ Call 23533.00 87066.00 44934.00 GaryQQQ Show A A Bear_Proof Show A 10 Flop 10 3 A Turn 3 River 4 GaryQQQ Win Full House, Aces and 3s 87066.00 132000.00
Surely you now have got to go for £1,051 to £10,510
Congratulations Gary VWD
(* *)
^
dev
looking forward to meeting up with you & getting you that pint that you thoroughly deserve.
From one author of one completed target dairy to another - I salute you sir )
You started this on the 3rd January 2012 - best part of 8 months -
It took me about the same amount of time- cmon Devon your letting us down - j/k
Question is now, what are going to do.
Any future challenges coming up or are you gonna have a short brk before you start again?
WD (One of Team 51,s finest)
MP
Very well played Gary, it may not always be the exciting rollercoaster of other threads, but good BRM and a slow and steady progression will always be more impressive to me, than shot taking and going bust.
Q. What are you going to do now?
A. I'd already been planning a short break from poker from tomorrow as I'm going away for a long weekend, I've now decided to start the break early and won't be playing tonight.
After I've made another post or two on this thread with my final thoughts and anaylsis of results it will be retired. For the time being I'll be resting from poker diaries, though of course I will continue to play on Sky Poker for fun most days.
As I've mentioned here before I do have a possible idea for a future bankroll challenge. I'll run it past a few people and depending on feedback possibly launch it in a month or two.
Q. What are you going to do with the money?
A. Vegas Baby!
My partner Lea116311 has a special birthday in March next year (her 21st obv). Several months ago we decided to celebrate the occasion in Vegas. I've never been to the City of Sin before and I'm very much looking forward to the holiday. The profit from this quest and other online poker successes mean the Vegas trip will be a freeroll. £500 has already been withdrawn, I'll leave the rest on deposit as my working bankroll.
Well, it had its highs and its lows, but I got there in the end!
Turning £51 into £1,073 while having a whole load of fun in your spare time, what can possibly be better than that? Admittedly there were times it felt like I was running terribly and it seemed this quest would last forever. But clearly that wasn’t the case, playing good poker consistently will always bring success in the long run, that’s exactly what happened here.
I’m just a middle-aged milkman who'd never played a hand of poker 5 years ago. If I can do this, trust me, anybody can do it. I only started playing poker for play-chips when I noticed a friend had installed the app on Facebook, I really was one of those guys who was playing without knowing whether a flush beat a straight. It would be another two years before I finally built up the courage to make a deposit here on Sky Poker and start playing real money poker for the first time.
The toughest times were a 6 week spell between days 21 and 62 during which my balance got bogged down and I made no profit at all. Then came the month long downswing between days 160 and 192 during which I dropped £145. However I stayed patient and kept my cool through the tough times and eventually the results turned themselves around. By far the most exciting period came in the final 11 days when I went on a thrilling heater; I was in a very confident mood, playing well, and running well, a lethal combination at the poker tables. During those 11 days I gained over £300 playing only small buy-ins.
My hope is that diary will stand as an example of what can be achieved in low-stakes online poker games by those who are prepared to exercise discipline and prudent bankroll practices. Not once did I play outside of my bankroll rules, nor did I ever tilt, spew off chips recklessly or visit Sky Vegas. Those times when I felt ‘doomswitched’ and unable to win no matter what, and believe me there were many of them, I simply logged off and walked away, always returning to the tables the next day totally calm, relaxed and ready to try my luck again.
I'm sure you've all heard the saying 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'. Well, I knew this diary was a success when other diaries started to spring up using a similar format soon after mine got underway. Most of them eventually fell by the wayside, though some have gone on to become forum favourites. At one point so many were being launched that GPC was starting to get a bit overwhelmed, there were even calls for a new section in the forum. There were many good diaries here before mine, I'm certainly not claiming to be the first or the best, however I do hope that mine has inspired others to try something similar. If so it is very pleasing to me. Even if I don't post replies on them too often I follow all the diaries here, they're a great read and I wish all the authors the very best of luck.
Numbers etc.
Winning days 121, losing days 111, days off 16
Best 3 days; day 159 £116.61 profit, day 244 £113.00 profit, day 248 £73.32 profit
Worst 3 days; day 177 down £30.79, day 115 down £28.77, day 165 down £25.22
Where the money was made
MTTs £960 profit over 892 games
(Sharkscope data adjusted downwards by £114.40 to account for rebuy expenses)
HU STTs £10 lost over 892 games
DYMs broke even over 33 games
Other STTs £21 profit over 116 games
C4P bonuses £43.43
Net rake paid £344 (£387 total rake paid of which £43 was returned in bonuses)
Sharkscope data
(please note that while the Sharkscope visually represents progress very well their numbers aren’t 100% accurate as it doesn’t account for rebuy expenses or C4P bonuses)
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/832/questsharkscope.png/
I consider myself to be an MTT specialist, and indeed 95% of the profit came from the MTTs. Here are the numbers filtered for MTTs, they need to be adjusted downwards by £114.40 to account for rebuy expenses.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/853/questmttsharkscope.png/
well done again mate,
enjoy a couple of days rest.
if you still fancy going for a pint sometime that would be nice,even if it's just the 1.
i'm no great drinker but i'm sure i could manage 1.send me a pm if you do.
have you celebrated with that bottle of champagne yet?
best wishes
ian, aka dev