I'm pretty new to the forum, have basically lurked for a little bit but not really participated.

I wanted to stop lurking and have proposed a challenge to myself to take care of that.

If anyone has heard of the OIC (Open Internet Challenge) Sponsered by The Gaming Club, I am basically going to do that only in NL.

My Rules.
Start with 2 buy-ins at a level and advance to the next level when I have 2 buy-ins for it. (sounds very video gamish).
Start with $50 at the 25NL (i'm doing this on Empire)
When I reach $100 I go to the 50NL games, all the way to having $2000 for the 1000NL games.

I will also be moving down if I drop a full buy-in at the current level. For instance, I start NL50 with $100. If i lose $50 of that I drop down to 25NL with 2 buy-ins.

I will be playing only 1 table on empire while doing this, and hopefully will be posting some hands that I found interesting or gave me trouble during the sessions.

Other than acquainting myself with the forum, I have a small hope to beable to earn a little bit of money with the initial $50 investment and put that all twoards my move to Vegas this coming march.

grouch

grouchie - welcome to the forum.

I don't play at GC, but do you really think you can play your best wtih only 1 extra buyin as a 'backup'? A small roll can cause you to make calls (or more likely, not make calls) with the fear of busting in the back of your mind. You can't let that influence your decision making process. Granted, you could get lucky the first time and build up your roll rather quickly, but what if you don't? Believe me, I have lost enough pots where I was a huge favorite to know how a decent roll is a critical factor in becoming a good player.

Good luck!

Grouchie welcome to the forum. I would be carefull with this stratagy, 2 buyins is not very much and you are leading yourself to playing in bigger and bigger games with a very very short bankroll. The idea in general is a good one but maybe try to make it 10 buyins. I dont think that some of the besy players I know would be sucessfull with that stratagy, so this is not an insult to your poker skills.

Best of luck whatever you choose to do.

If you think of it as a tournament, it makes sense. You are risking $50 trying to win, say, $1000. You won't succeed very often, but by trying you may learn something even if you don't win.

I may try something similar myself. I'm going to get a bonus this weekend of $20. Maybe I'll try to parlay it into $200 or $400, say. Double up and then move up. If it works, hey, I'm golden. If I go broke, it was free money anyway. In either case, I hopefully learn something about higher levels of play.

grouchie... I couldn't agree w/ Rhound more... what happens when, when you double up 3 times and make it to the NL400 tables, you get QQ UTG, raise 5xBB, and get pushed allin...? You fold, playing tight and kind of weak, and he shows you JJ... You're gonna end up playing too weak w/ such little BR to back you up...

What happens when in back to back hands you get a guy all in holding 99 on a KK9 flop and lose to AK when he rivers an ace......and then you have 55 and get a guy all in on a A858 board and lose to his AJ when the river is another 8?

Notice that i didnt say what happens IF...I said what happens WHEN.....because it WILL happen sooner or later.

I placed 4th in the OIC a few winters ago, it was a lot of fun. On the whole a progressive system is flawed, but a lot of fun to play. You can't let anyone fault you for playing your money the way you want too, but you can't complain when you bust either.

All that said, I play like this when running bad... I drop down a bunch of levels and play quadruple or triple up move up depending on my patience level that day. The difference is that generally I would be funded for the bigger game anyways, and would be attempting to iron out leaks on the cheap or ride out some bad luck for smaller stacks. The best I've done in one day is .10/.20 to enough to play 2/4 on the triple up plan before stopping because I was tired. This was a lot of fun, but also had played up to 5/10 in that month taking stabs at it from the 2/4 3/6 when the junk Ice was talking about DID happen. I will be playing like this tonight as I encountered a bunch of marginal situations that I couldn't fold last night, until my discipline is straight enough to play in the bigger game again.

I would say if you are going to do this, take that money someplace where you can play the micros and start with a reasonable $10 buy in for your $50, and restart at the bottom everyday until you have at least 5 buys ins for the next stakes, if you lose more than 2 buyins for any given level you drop down. If you get your roll to over $1.5k, start treating it as a normal roll and play the $50 $100 games with a more standard approach to bankroll management. Usually the more aggressive a bankroll building strategy is, the likely you are to bust. Good luck!

Edit: Note that I'm not advocating a progressive style of bankroll building, but attempting to give a better strategy for approaching one if he is bent on doing it.

rdale, when you placed 4th what was your br at? And if i'm not mistaken the risk or ruin has to be over 70%, or making bad beats even more frustrating

I would bet that any risky bankroll building like this is going to fail.

You go to the NL50 tables with $100, put in $50 and while you're waiting for a good hand can't reload, so you limit how much you can win when you get a good hand. You get AA and you might only have $30 left to double up with. That can't be a good plan.

Even at the NL25 you need a bankroll, there's no guarantee that with 2 buyins you will always get cards good enough to build it to $100 and move up. You will inevitably have bad luck, be outdrawn. Everyone has swings of 3-4 buyins. You WILL go broke given that your bankroll cannot afford that, question is how fast.

The only way he can bust is by losing two buy-ins in a row at the $25 level.

When he's at the $200 level he's actually got 5 buy-ins, not 2. He can lose once at 200, once at 100, once at 50 and once at 25 before being down to his last buy-in.

The answer to "What will you do when X happens" was already stated, he will drop down a level.


Now I am not sure this is a very good way to build your bankroll. I did it with the same rules but instead of 2 buy-ins I wanted at least 10+1 per table before moving up a level. This basically makes me "unbustable" because once I drop below the magic number I just go down a level.

Say I have $1500. I'm playing at the $100. I lose 5 buy-ins, I go down to $50, I lose 10 buy-ins I go down to $20, I lose 15 buy-ins I go down to $10, I still have 20 buy-ins. So I have to lose 50 buy-ins in a row in order to bust (and trust me, then I will quit playing and probably punch someone).

I appreciate all of the replies of warning, nice to see poeple looking out for eachother.

I posted this before I jaunted off to work for the day and now re-reading what I wrote I realize that important details were not included, so on with those.

I will not actually be playing at gaming club. They are just the ones that came up with this OIC thingie which I thought was kind of a cool idea.

I mainly play on Party and Skins like everyone else in the online poker world and currently play in the NL50 games with more than a proper bankroll. (I've recently withdrew a couple thousand to give to my parents so that they could make some necessary upgrades on their house and left myself enough to continue at the NL50 level).

So, my normal game is still going to be the NL50's and this other "challenge" is to experience higher levels of play (if i don't bust before hand) and if all works out well a chunk of change to set aside for moving expenses.

I apoligize for the lack of important information, but that mistake was definately a positive one based alone on the out pooring of concern from all of you.

PS, k3nt, I really liked your way of thinking about it. That's pretty much the mindset I had for the challenge, but more articulated.

I picked this hand to post just because I wanted to get feedback on what people think about playing draws like this?
Before anyone complains that I limped too early, this was during the day time on Empire and the table was very passive. Most pots were going unraised.


Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (9 handed)

SB ($16.1)
BB ($24.75)
UTG ($19.5)
UTG+1 ($57.9)
MP1 ($26.85)
Hero ($27.1)
MP3 ($31.85)
CO ($35.65)
Button ($18.5)

Preflop: Hero is MP2 with , . SB posts a blind of $0.1.
3 folds, Hero calls $0.25, 2 folds, Button calls $0.25, SB (poster) completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($1) , , (4 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $2, Button folds, SB folds, BB calls $2.

Turn: ($5) (2 players)
BB bets $1, Hero raises to $5, BB folds.

Final Pot: $11