2nd update: WBCOOP

Events -4 and -6

I played two more events and again cashed in both!

The first one was Event-4:NLHE/PLO (Turbo) with 314 entrants.
Because of the turbo structure this tournament was more like a donkament but at least I could get ITM and busted in 95th place. Therefore I received another $5,50 SCOOP ticket.

The second MTT was Event-6:8-Game with 256 entrants.
This was my first 8-Game MTT I played and it was a lot of fun to play and a good alternation.
I like especially playing Limit Razz, maybe I will try to play some more Razz in the near future.
We startet with a pretty deep 5000 chip stack so you needed more skill to succeed. I felt quite comfortable in this game and it was no problem to come ITM. My aim was to reach the top 18 places but unfortunately I busted in 51st place when I got sucked out by playing PLO.
Nevertheless I am happy to receive a $11 SCOOP ticket.

Furthermore I saw that you can use the tickets for the SCOOP as well as the MicroMillions which will beginn in two weeks!

Cookie :)

1st update: WBCOOP

 Events -2 and -3

Yesterday the WBCOOP started and I played my first two events.
Everyone who successful qualified could find 10 tickets in his account. I used two of the ten tickets to play "Event-2 Pot Limit Omaha 6max" and "Event-3 Fixed Limit Badugi"
I have chosen these two events because if you look up the number of entrants of the first three events you can see the difference:

Every event has the same prizepool around $1500 with a fixed pay-out structure (first 108 -96 came ITM). In conclusion its more +EV to play the events with a lower number of entrants. Though I have hardly any experience playing badugi I have a good chance to finish in the money because 96 of 202 entrants got payed out, thats like a double or nothing!

Review: 
Event -2:PLO, 6Max: I finished in 36th place = $16,50 SCOOP ticket

Event -3:FL Badugi: I finished in 95th place = $5,50 SCOOP ticket

All in all it is really fun to play with all these other bloggers because you can read their blogs and can chat with them while on a dinner break. I would say that a lot of them are pretty solid poker players so it will be tough to reach a final table.Another thing that catched my eye was the high number of russian players/bloggers that participate.I was surprised that these players have their own blogs, (I am wondering if they blog about their impressive runner-runner suck outs every day) :P

Next:
Today I plan to play Event-4:NLHE/PLO (Turbo) and maybe Event-5:NLHE Shootout as well.
Tomorrow I will play only Event-8: NLHE.

PS: leave a comment if you have a own blog and participate in the WBCOOP

Cookie ;)

WBCOOP 2013

My best moments on PokerStars

From march the 1st to 11th the World Blogger Championship Of Online Poker (WBCOOP) 2013 is running on PokerStars. In order to get myself 10 tickets for these events I have to blog a post about the topic “My best moments on PokerStars”. I think that the WBCOOP is a great opportunity for me to build my bankroll. You can win SCOOP tickets as well as T$. I will post during the WBCOOP so you know if I won something ;)

Best moments:

I can’t really decide for one best moment, there are too many good memories. But I guess that my first big MTT win in a 3,50$ rebuy (180 player) was one of the best moments. I can remember that this happened the day before my 19^th birthday so I had even more reasons to celebrate.  I just started to try out some different MTT’s and ended up playing two of these 180 player rebuy MTT’s at the same time without even making a rebuy. At first I was really shocked how loose people shoved their stacks during the rebuy period. But to my advantage I could just wait for good cards and got paid of. The first one I busted before the bubble but at the same time I managed being in the other MTT one of the top three when we reached the bubble. Shortly before the bubble you could feel how everyone was extremely tenses to get in the money and the dynamic changed from loose to tight.  I remember exactly how I doubled up with KK when we were 23 players left. This was the perfect time to find a premium hand and even more perfect to get paid of the full stack. And a little bit later I got lucky to double up again with the same hand KK when we were only eight players left. After that I was overall chip leader and in good shape to grab a good chunk of the prize pool. From there on nothing stopped me until we were in the heads up. The last hand was AJ versus A8 on a 10,7,A flop and I got about 500$ for first place after snap calling for the win! That was a great feeling and gave me the opportunity to try out some higher stakes where I could gain new experience.

Another good moment was when I finished 66^th in a Sunday Storm with more than 36000 entrants. I played circa seven hours and the deeper I got the more I was excited. Every time when I play tournaments with such big fields it’s a nice feeling. It is funny to imagine all these people from all over the world participating in one big tournament sitting in front of their computers and hoping to be the one to ship the tournament.

stay tuned...Cookie ;)

Day 10: Bankroll Management

Today I want to talk about the right bankroll management to succeed in the long run.

On the one hand it should provide enough safety to cover downswings and it should guarantee to play in the comfort zone.It is really helpful to feel comfortable with the money on risk by playing your A-game at the same time and don't worrying about loosing a stack. Because if you don't feel comfortable at the tables/stackes, you play with feared money and this affects you negatively and can lead to a B- or C-game.

Example:
Imagine having a $10k BR while playing NL2 (5000 Buy In's)...you won't be scared or feared to 4-bet shove on the river when your instinct tells you there is a chance your opponent is weak or bluffing.

Then you are ready and in the right mindset to play your A-game!

In conclusion everyone has to check out individually where the right limit for a comfort zone  is reached.This has to do a lot with risk evaluation.One may need 200 buy in's to feel comfortable and another one feels okay with only 20 Buy In's.

On the other hand I want to succeed fast and don't want to waste my time by grinding the low limits forever.I want to move up the limits to accumulate more and more money.Therefore a shot-taking strategy with a non-conservative bankroll management would be best.With 20-30 buy-in's it will be theoretically a lot faster to reach the high stakes.Taking shots with only a few buy in's is the main aspect of this strategy.

After deliberating I decided for a balanced mix of a conservative and shot-taking management.
I will following a 40:10 ratio (40 buy in's for the appropriate limit and 10 "shot" buy-in's)

This will look like this:

Limit	Buy In’s + “Shot”	Move up	Move down
NL2	any	$2	$0
NL5	40 + 10	$250	$199
NL10	40 + 10	$500	$399
NL25	40 + 10	$1250	$999
NL50	40 + 10	$2500	$1999
NL100	40 + 10	$5000	$3999
NL200	50 + 10	$12000	$9999
NL400	50 +10	$24000	$19999
…	…	…	…

I am kind of a shot-taker...I love the rush to move up limits and actually I feel okay by having my full bankroll on the screen.This is the ultimate thrill.But this challenge is not about the quick thrill on a sunday evening, this is a steady and controlled grind over the long run.(I hope I finally got this^^)

phhew...pretty long blog post,thanks for reading ;)
Cookie

Official 1st Day

Today is an important day.
From today on everything can happen and everything will happen.
I have my $38 at Pokerstars now

I am still not sure if I am strong enough for this challenge, but who can say this.I just have to DO IT!
It will be a lot of exhausting work for me and I will try my best.

My biggest fears so far are:
- to tilt ( I have a big tilting problem that costed me a lot of money in the past)
- going broke ( I am not sure if I would restart the challenge)
- don't improve
...

What I am lookig for:
- move up the limits
- building a solid bankroll
- improve my skills (in poker and life)
...

I am excited where this challeng will bring me!

...stay tuned, Cookie

Update:More chips,more money!

Finished playing with playmoney:

The last days I played some hours (maybe 8h or 9h, I didn't looked at the clock) of the 500k 6max Hypers and accumulated 10 more million chips in the end! The peak was actually reached by about 15 millions but after that nothing went right. In the following 2 hours I dropped to 7 million at the lowest. But I can't say that I tilted or played bad, I really tried to keep up my A-game.But variance can be hard sometimes.Unbelievable how many runner-runner suck outs I got but I am sure that you know these days as well, thats why I don't keep bothering you with it for now :)

Furthermore the 6max Hyper SnG's have a lot of variance.Best example for that is the blog of Alex "Awice" Wice. Where he describes his ongoing with the $1 million challenge he tries to pursue, and even though he is a professional at the Hyper 6max SnG's he is struggling with 10-20 buy in swings on a daily basis! I like his challenge but think its quite exhausting to play that much he is planning to play.Anyway good luck to him.

At least I could reach the 10 million mark again, so I managed to sell the chips as well (for $16).

Summing-up:

All in all I accumulated 20 million playmoney chips and got about $38 for them!

Next step:

It's time to move up!
By the end of the week I will have transfered the money on PokerStars so I can start playing with real money!! I think $38 are not optimal to start at the NL2 games but on the other hand I think the NL2 games are soft enough to don't go broke with my 20 buy in's.At the beginning I will play quite conservative and maybe buy in only with the minimum buy in of $0,80.And I will not play more than 6 tables at the same time.


to be continued...Cookie :)

More Chips, more Money!

 Growing my bankroll

After rereading my last blog post about how to grind the playmoney stakes,
I decided to accumulate some more chips.First of all to sell them in order to start with a bigger bankroll and secondly I have some free time at the moment I want to use.I want to start grinding with my real money bankroll by the end of the next week (15.02.13).Until then all transactions should be completed.

Yesterday I got paid for my first chunk of 10 million chips and got 16,50€ for them (approximately 22$) =D.I will try to accumulate about 15-20 more millions and sell them, so I can start with a 50-60$ bankroll.Then I would have like 25-30 buy-in's for NL2.

See ya at the tables,
Cookie ;)

PS: Who is watching the EPT Deuaville Live Stream? Good luck to Enrico Rudelitz and Thomas Butzhammer!

Hyper Playmoney Grind

In this blogpost I will explain how to accumulate lots of playmoney on PokerStars.

General:
At the beginning you have 1000 playmoney chips in your bankroll.You can reload these 1000 chips up to three times per hour.Than you have to wait until one hour passes to get a new reloaded chunk of 1000 chips.So you see that you don't have to be cautious with your bankroll at this point because if you bust it, you can easily start over.

The Start:
The strategy I used at the beginning was to play 25/50 HU with all my chips.You have to try to double up your stack a few times until you have like 16000 chips.
Than you have four minimum Buy-In's for the NL Holdem 100/200 6max games and you can start four tabling!

The Strategy:
The strategy and style of play is a complete different at the playmoney tables.Play a tight aggressive style because your opponents are mostly beginners,drunk or maniacs.You can open your hands with 5-20 BB when holding pocket pairs(88 - AA) and broadway connecters(JQ - AK).There will be always some donks that pay you out with middle or bottom pair and a lot of people overrate their draws.Betting for value with the nuts is important.Overbetting or jamming the river is quite profitable.Furthermore you get quite good tells from your opponents and can bluff effectivly.

The Grind:
Once I had grinded up my playmoney bankroll on the 100/200 6max stakes to 500k, I started to play 100k 6max and 9max NLH Hyper-turbo Sit'n'Go's. When I accumulated 1 million chips I moved up to the 250k Sit'n'Go's and after having more than 2 million I only played the 500k 6max Hyper Sit'n'Go's.These are the highest available stakes they offer you.
At least I played the playmoney nosebleed stakes ;)
From there on it is only a matter of time until reaching 10 million. I would say that you can make 250-500k per hour on average.Unfortunately you are only allowed to play a maximum of three tables at the same time.You can decide arbitrarily by yourself how big your bankroll should be in the end.

Cash In:
If you plan to self-finance your real money bankroll with this undertaking.Go for it!
The price varied betwen 1-2$ per million, just check out some offers on ebay.

This is how I did it.Let me know if you liked it.

CM :)

The 100K Challenge

The ultimate poker challenge "from nothin to 100K" is to turn from $0 to $100k within 2013.

If you are questioning yourself right now..."how can he even think to make money whithout depositing some"...here is the answer:
Everyone who has an Pokerstars account has automatically 1000 playmoney chips at the beginning.I grinded up these 1000 chips to a staggering 10 million chips during the last month (my strategy I used will be discussed in a later blog).
One day I discovered that you actually can trade them on ebay for real money.The value varied between 1-2$ per million and I expect to get for my 10 million between $15-20 profit,...this profit I will deposit on my account.

~Then I have a small real money bankroll!~

From there I will begin my journey through the different stakes and limits.
I will treat this similar to a  video game, where you have to go through the different levels to succeed.I will start on the lowest of the low stakes NL2 and hopefully grind my way to limits like NL400.

...have fun, Cookie.

Introduction

Hi,

you can just call me "Cookie".
Thats my nickname and at the moment I don't see the point to tell strangers my real name.
To my person is to say that I am 19 years old, living in Germany
and nearly finished with school (4 more month to get my A-level).

I am busy with playing and studying poker for around 15 month.
I won big and lost big and I am loving it! I am obsessed with it in a positive way.
The complexity and psychologically part of the game have drawn me into the spell :)

 If you want to contact me, write me a PM or add me on Skype...feel free to ask!

1st entry

Welcome to my new blog!!

I thought a while about making this blog in order to record my progress and thoughts.It should help me to stay on track with my challenge and maybe get some feedback from other people that think similar or want to share their experiences with me.I will try to update at least once a week this blog depending on whats happening around me.

I entitled it "Journey to 100k" because the main feature will be my challenge to accumulate $100k in 2013! The challenge is to turn from $0 to $100000 within the next 11 month.

In order to achieve this aim I will play lots of online poker preferably on PokerStars.

In my next blogpost entries I will introduce my person and explain in depth the idea and approach of my challenge and why I am doing this.

 ~ Follow your dreams and never give up ~