I recently wrote about how I had resigned myself to playing more online poker because live poker was largely unavailable to me. This remains to true, but there are some positives coming out of it.
Years ago, I was into online poker in a big way. I would grind limit tables with Woffles or SNGs with GCox and TripJax. The stakes didn’t matter, as long as the bankroll was moving in the right direction. I have always been a self-made poker player, so my bankroll was literally the product of working my way up the ranks. Admittedly, I never got that far, but I was always moving in the right direction.
I would play .25/.50 limit and eke out a small $1.25 profit and feel like a winner. I would play a $5 SNG and be glad to make $3.50 for third place. It was a simpler time. A more enjoyable time.
Of course, once you get the bug for higher stakes, its hard to go back to nickels and dimes. I began playing higher limit non-hold’em games, peaking at $8/16 Razz. I began playing higher tournaments, peaking at $75 buy-ins (using Full Tilt tokens, usually). And then, all the work that was built up from micro stakes came crashing down.
To be fair, I cut the legs out of my own stilted house. I have always been a proponent of actually using my poker money on real-life expenses in moderation. I accept and support the notion that one needs a separate bankroll, but I also accept the notion that if wifey Kim and I are not getting any actual benefit from my poker wins, then the wins lack meaning in our lives. So, I withdrew some money to pay for a new mattress. Then I’d hit a big score and withdraw some more. Then I’d donk off more than I should at $8/16 Razz and withdraw some more to stop myself from playing that game. Then I’d just lose, trying to chase the action.
So, I found myself in a pattern. I worked with a small bankroll, hit a big score, and then withdraw at least 75%, partially for wifey Kim’s benefit and partially because I had no faith in my longterm profitability at higher stakes online. Admittedly, I play online very distracted. But even with my depleted roll, it was hard to go down in stakes. Hard, that is, until this most recent reload.
Online poker is still not live poker for me, but it is its own worthwhile entity. I have been almost exclusively playing $5.50 single table sit-n-gos, four at a time. I literally start one and keep joining new ones until four are open and running. Then I play until I am out of them all and take a break. I may not come back later for another set of four SNGs, but I never follow-up with a second set right away and I don’t add new SNGs as I bust out.
So far, the results have been amazingly steady. In about six sets, I have consistently won money in every set. It is usually around 50% of the total buy-ins, or around $10 or $11 profit for $22 spent ($5.50 x 4), so I am far from getting rich, but I do have a renewed confidence in my online game, I am having fun again, and I am once again moving in the right direction.
I can only hope that things continue to move so steadily. As long as I stick with my system, I should be fine. I may even start checking some stats, like the % of hands played in tournaments where I cash vs. don’t cash. In that vein, perhaps these SNGs will also provide me more hands for analysis here. In any event, I’ll keep you all up to date on this online experiment in bankroll building.
Until next time, make mine poker!