The end of April is finally here and though I only started my run from $100 to $1000 a few weeks ago, I’m already at $269.05. It was a pretty rocky road. Here’s the graph:
I was having a rough time of it for my first 100 SNGs. Not only was I coming off of the biggest downswing I’ve ever had, but I was also trying to adapt to the players at Full Tilt who are, quite frankly, much more aggressive than I’m used to.
You’ll also see that the graph gets very jagged around the 115 game mark. At this point my bankroll is around $200, but the graph doesn’t show it because that total includes $50 that I got from a tournament I was in when Full Tilt crashed. They paid me based on my chip count when the servers went down. The total also includes a little bonus cash.
I also started to ease my way into the $10 SNGs around the 125 game mark. As you can see it didn’t go well at first, but around the 150 game mark I realized my poker game was changing.
My usual modus operandi is to play tight-aggressive poker. This strategy works well for me and gets me a lot of respect in the late stages of SNGs where I steal a lot. The problem is that the success goes to my head and I start to loosen up. People stop believing my raises and I start bleeding chips. Eventually I get beat into submission and I start playing weak-tight poker. That’s when the downswing starts.
Fortunately I was able to recognize what was happening and return to my usual tight-aggressive game. The result was several really good games.
Moving forward, I’m increasing my $10-SNG-to-$5-SNG ratio until I’m only playing $10 SNGs. I’m also playing some 180-player SNGs and other multi-table tournaments with some success. I’m hoping these tournaments will be real moneymakers for me once I get a few dozen under my belt.
I’m also planning to have a go at the Iron Man Challenge. It shouldn’t be a problem to get 200 point per day as long as I take advantage of at least one happy hour session.
So it’s onward to May. Wish me luck!
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