NEW Challenge: Watch how I turn $50 into $10.000 without using advanced strategies

Hello everyone,

Time to put out the February results. Month started out really good, I was playing solid, table selecting decently, running awesome. Everything was running smoothly and it looked at somepoint like it might be an awesome month. But it happened to be that I would lose my VIP status on the site that I played the whole last year if I didn't play a certain amount of hands. So it happened to be a chase which kind of forced me to play anyone and probably some of those matches/lineups werent decently +EV for me (if they even were). So I catched as well a brutal day and managed to book my biggest losing day(6k$). I really wanted to quit halfway but there is a f**king deadline. And if I stopped it would cost me a lot of RB for the rest of the year. It's one of the worst scenario you wish yourself as pro poker player.

Next thing what comes to my mind is the fact that I wanted to annouce that I will try myself with MTT's this month. I mean I really wanted to give them a shot already a while and after playing a couple of them this month I really want to learn the ICM and in general get a feeling for them. Because when I was deep and played postflop things were very easy for me but once I got shorter I really didn't have answers in some spots.
Overall gonna be trying to put weekly updates regarding MTT's and for this month I plan on playing 50 minimum. The score and results form MTT's are gonna be public but it won't count to the overall results of this challenge which will stay cash exclusively.

Anyway enough writing let's put up some pics and numbers:

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 320 142.55$(LAST UPDATE) + 11 436.61$(WINNINGS 21 DAYS) + 5 440.67 $(RakeBack) = 337 019.83$/ 500 000$

Anyway the goals for this month will be to finish building BR on the small sites and start the MTT challenge .

MTT's played:
ITM:
FT:
Overall Invested:
Overall Earned:
--------------------------------------------------
Profit Week:
Profit Month:
Overall Profit:

That's it guys. GL at the tables and cya!

Hey guys,

I'm finally back for an update. I guess it was about time since it's already the 11th April. Anyway, just gonna jump right away into the results which show that I made a bit over 19.5k$ post RB. It was an OK month where I run and played good in the NL1k games. The fact is that I got a bit lazy once the weather started to get better and I was already decently up. Also I have to be honest and say that I think I missed the opportunity for a 20-30k.
The reason is basically that bumhunting didn't really make me happy. I know it's the most wise decision money wise given nowadays poker economy, but if there is no NL1k tables going I don't get any joy or thrill by bumming a 400 fish. I will still play the 400 table but more from a professional side rather then for my own pleasure. Since I was up already decently I found new goals that would kind of give me back some joy at playing, so I set some goals.
I initially started by polishing my NL100 and NL200 results on site where I wasn't happy how they look. Basically it's mostly my perfectionist side, kind of wanting to see an +8bb WR EV on NL100/200 before I remove the the limit from my playing schedule. Well, I was doing the play and one day one reg I consider bad played me HU. We started to play 3 tables HU on NL400. Basically we battled every day when we saw each other at the tables. I had for the first time like a real HU nemesis. Despite the fact that I knew it's not as profitable as bumming around for fish, I just loved the challenge. It was great fun and it still nowadays continues to be.

Overall I played 133h only cash. The other time I spent playing some MTTs and they made me think a lot about the poker. I still think MTT players are bad postflop players and I saw my opportunity mostly in the initial parts of the MTT where I was playing pretty LAG and I think I very often bust out because I had the feeling like this 1h is my opportunity to build my stack or I will bust pretty soon. It turned out that this way I barreled off my stack too light and I had such a flawed mindset. I was trying to avoid shallow stack situations because I knew this is my leak, but in the end it's a huge part of the game and I should face it. So I spend a lot of time analyzing in ICMizer all kind of different spot, SQ jamms, OR shoves and in the end I wasn't really aware that 20bb stacks in MTT's aren't that small. For me 20bb is like a 2nd barrel in a 3BP:). Anyway, asides from the fact that they often C with wrong blockers, I haven't seen a 3 barrel bluff in a whole month from a reg. It's really kind of rare when you are used to cash games. For what it's worth I like way more the HS MTT's because I have much more room for my postflop skills but since I'm an ICM fish I make later too many mistakes that I decided to put my MTT HS desire aside and learn MTT's on the mid levels. I think I will gain a lot of new skills by learning this format, although I won't be focusing on a certain number of tournaments per month because I don't want to switch to it completely since I just simply love the cash game lifestyle:).

There is one thing that made me think this month. Does really made $$ show the true technical skill difference on mid stakes? I mean I was thought by Gordon that we always have to measure our self with money, but how true is that for mid stakes? Like a couple of days ago I was curious about the results of extreme bumhunter because I thought he was weak and I was surprised when I saw that he had a higher WR then some crushers that would destroy him. Like he was extremely focused on the fish, while the crusher was playing anybody in any format. Then I was thinking to myself, man, I also might have had 7bb on NL400 but does it mean that I'm 2x better then some 500z 3,5bb/100 winner? I can tell you clearly not, which kind of brought me to the conclusion that money won isn't always really the parameter to evaluate the quality of your play(technical skill), but rather a trivial factor that always brings along questions like how and where was the money won. But in the end, it's only food for thoughts.

In April things will be interesting since I have a bigger desire to spent more time outside and I think I need to take a theory week.Probably gonna play some MTT's along, but have to redefine some parts of game. Not to forget that it already started in March and this month it will continue,my search for the perfect plot of land for my villa. I love going around in search for it, especially since it's spring and the fact that it's mostly packed with great gastronomic adventures:D.
Anyway, that was it for today. I'm gonna leave you below the facts and pics and wish you GL at the tables. Cya!:)

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 337 019.83$(LAST UPDATE) + 15 667.86$(WINNINGS 24 DAYS) + 4 004.18$(RakeBack) = 356 691.87$/ 500 000$

MTT's played: 33
ITM: 5
FT:
Overall Invested: 2 228.5$
Overall Earned: 1 234.24$
--------------------------------------------------
Profit Month: -975.33$
Overall Profit: -975.33$

Hey, read all your blog. It is very very impressive. I still cant believe what u achieved, and its not end of course

can i ask you? what would be your 3 advice to NL10-50 microstakes players nowadays? At what should they concentrate the most?

@KnowWhyStarted
Glad you found inspiration in the blog. My 3 advice would be kind of very simple: try to improve your mindset in every possible way(tilt control), look for fine details that make a difference between beating and crushing a certain stake(don't blame variance) and keep regularly a off table routine. Hope that helped!

Hi everyone,

Time to write something about the previous month. Result wise it's been the most month for the year(25k$ post RB) and on top of that I played the least amount of hours(90). I've run super hot on NL1k and there were some good promos so I got overall the best mix to make the best month. Generally I spent more time learning MTT's and my cash game suffers a bit. No alarm bells needed but certainly I feel like I need to step up my game because next time I don't think variance will save my ass.
It's the first month where I devoted more time to study MTT's and I guess more time will even be need since I intend to play most of the SCOOP Low schedule. I know currently it won't bring as much money as playing cash games but since I started to study MTT's I kind of found again desire as well to improve in cash games aka I wanna move up. Not gonna do it now since I want to first be able to make decent months in MTT's( become a MID MTT crusher) and improve in that area so in case my shots won't succeed I have something to rely on. So I have still a bit of time to satisfy my perfections soul of seeing certain WR attached to certain stakes.♦
I will probably play on site like 888 and Party(after SCOOP) where the player pools are smaller which and I'm only gonna play regular or slow MTT's. I'm gonna start from 10+20$ MTT's mostly because I wanna build the BR and keep a separate BR for each format. It's gonna cost me time but in the mean time I have more time to study and in the end I have to realize that the main money comes from playing cash games. Anyway excited about playing my first big series and not to forget that it's my first positive MTT month:).

The plot search kept going but the weekend weather didn't play along. There are a lot of offers and a lot of places just can't seem to decide. At least I have narrowed the search to a certain extend. Also I expect somewhere this month to sit down with the architect and discuss the project a bit further. Definitely gonna keep you updated.

Enough talking, time for some pics and numbers:

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 356 691.87$(LAST UPDATE) + 20 564.32$(WINNINGS 16 DAYS) + 4 876.80$(RakeBack) = 382 132.99$/ 500 000$

MTT's played: 75
ITM: 18
FT: /
Overall Invested: 1 848.96$
Overall Earned: 3862,83$
--------------------------------------------------
Profit Month: 2 013.87$
Overall Profit: 1 038.54$

Hi everyone,

The SCOOP is behind me and May as month so it's time to write some impressions. SCOOP was fine in general ended about 1,6k in red but played a lot of the M events as well.It was really a tough grind and most of the time boring unless you were AI or some nice action was happening while there was more room to play postflop. I think in some spot my plays are way too cash game heavy in general. Already started working on that. I think in some HS MTT's a NL25/50 player would do better then I do.

Anyway, cash game wise it wasn't the best month ever but given the fact that I played 92h of them only and managed to hit 19k$ I'm more then satisfied result wise. Now to the best part. I played some awesome poker of lately. It's the best poker that I played all year. Also I have to mention that I also run very good, but still this feeling when you see your game evolving to new heights it's just such an overwhelming feeling.

Now the plans have changed a bit. I have found a site where I'm going to play some MTT's daily. But still the plan is to prepare myself technically for the WCOOP by gaining more ICM/MTT experience in this small field MTT's and hopefully build a BR only for MTT's. Gonna maybe post a graph once I reached 100 games or so but that's anyway gonna take a while.

Anyway that's enough for this update, so I will the pics below and say goodbye till the next month. Cya!

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 382 132.99$(LAST UPDATE) + 15 659.77$(WINNINGS 17 DAYS) + 4 067.81$(RakeBack) = 401 860.57$/ 500 000$

Congrats! solid month!
I'm on the same path as you, doing multilobby on midstakes and starting to add some MTTs.
I know that asking for free info in 2016 is a long shot but, could you show us what kind of resolution/setup you have for multilobby and what kind of software you use to arrange the tables?.
Im trying to play less and less on stars but all the softwares on shady sites are like cancer.

Thanks in advance and GL with the challenge!

I started reading your blog from the beginning, what a great progress! Keep the great work

@francisco42k
TX buddy! Basically there is no secret, it's just a habit that you have to develop since you're out of your comfort zone. I mean I have 2 screens(24&27) have my 4-5 favorite site and when I don't have enough action I added the less frequented sites. I don't have any software to arrange tables it just takes a while to get used and I imagine if you are Stars player it will be a pain in the ass to go through. That's why so many people stay on Stars in the first place because handling different shitty softwares and consistently scanning manually the lobbies is a job on it's own. The fact is, that it's not really respected.

@LimitlessExp
TY sir for the nice words. GL to you!

What are your favorite sites nowadays?

@Varune
Basically by posting it I would brake PS policies by advertising other poker networks that aren't affiliated with PS.

Hi guys,

It's gonna be a short update since there is really not much to report. Traditionally, June was always one of (if not) the worst and laziest month of the year especially when there is national football competition going on. And so I played 70 poor hours, ran poor, mass tabled too much(TP was ''you can't put hours put only volume'') and I got the end result as deserved. For the first time this year I missed my min monthly goal(10k$) by ''only'' managing to achieve 5k$. Definitely a huge disappointment for me but I can't say I didn't see it coming. Sometimes with laziness you get away thanks to variance, but the slap it's just waiting around the corner. I just got one and it had a bitter refreshing feeling.

In regards to MTT's I think I have played maybe 5 of them and didn't bink anything. Think I had a good deep run in the SM but I think I made 1 bigger mistake that cost me a lot of chips that later I wasn't able to recover. Asides from it was rather an off the table month in terms of MTTs.

About the plot of land, I found one that I really like but the negotiations are pretty slow since neither one of us is really in a rush to complete the deal. So still haven't got something to show. Now gonna leave you with pics and say goodbye!:)

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 401 860.57$(LAST UPDATE) + 1 138.71$(WINNINGS 15 DAYS) + 4 607.34$(RakeBack) = 407 606.62$/ 500 000$

Hey guys,

Time to wrap up the month. Basically, the month started with a nice session on NL1k and everything looked like it's gonna be one of those unforgettable summer months but then things turned around. I hit a bad run which was challenging but I was able to overcome it. To a certain extend it was a rough period because I was enjoying ''what looked like a comfortable summer'' and I was falling again into a more lazier mood. Luckily, the downer shocked me a bit and crushed my hopes and actually brought me into a situation where my minimum monthly goal was about to fail again, for the 2nd time in row. This kind of treat instantly woke me up from my ''deep lazy summer mood'' and I was trying to get back into the ''zone''. Once I was back on track with my mindset things start to go again into the right direction and in the end I was able to reach the minimum goal.

Now let's put this section above into numbers. I've made 12k$ post RB during 105 playing hours in 20 days. What is more important that the amount of off table work was more significant then in the previous month which implies kind of that if I'm put under pressure I can still bring out the ''good old Hans''. In regards to MTT's I haven't played them a lot and I haven't gotten any decent results worth mentioning. The good thing is that I got myself a very good MTT coach and I'm looking forward to prepare myself for WCOOP although I would love to finally see the schedule...:)

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 407 606.62$(LAST UPDATE) + 8 861.17$(WINNINGS 20 DAYS) + 3 365.38$(RakeBack) = 419 833.17$/ 500 000$

That's it. GL!

500k before 2017?

@Varune
Read below.;)

Hello everyone,

So finally back from Spain where ofc I wasn't ''legally'' able to play poker. August has been really solid and probably great in terms of hourly. I mean I played 92h and manged to scoop a nice 22k$ month. Some really awesome run good rather then me playing really sick. Fits perfectly for the end of the summer as I got a bit of momentum before going to a nice vacation to Spain.
Other then that I can also report my first FT which I went to lose HU against a villain that were interested in making a deal. Since we were 70BB deep I thought I had the edge but it turned out that he beat me with his flush vs my top straight. Felt a bit sorry and disappointed in the end but still it was a nice experience to get some ICM spots in.
Also it seems that everyone wants me to finish this challenge by the end of the year. I personally don't really care and I felt it's not that type of challenge that I really want. But a couple of days earlier I saw a new plot for my villa that I decided that it would fit together, finishing this challenge and buying the plot if the price fits. Although in theory it would be 4 months to reach the goal in practice it will be only 3 since half of September is over and I'm going to be away for another 7 days. Also looking forward to get my motorcycle license. Will see how September turns out and then take an exact plan how to tackle the challenge.

That's enough text for this update. I wish everyone GL at the tables and write to ya all at the beginning of October.

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 419 833.17$(LAST UPDATE) + 18 818.82$(WINNINGS 20 DAYS) + 3 848.62$(RakeBack) = 442 500.61$/ 500 000$

Nice to see that your hourly's keep improving

@ilidek
TX buddy! Let's hope that it won't drop the next few months in order to finish the challenge successfully.

Quick and short update: I don’t have much to report since I have played such a low amount of hands/hours that I’m embarrassed to post. I mean I did expect a lot number of hands but this little, it surprised even me. Anyway so the next update will be September and October together. Been working on a lot of stuff outside of poker but I guess time to emerse myself back in the game. Till then GL.

Hans, i observed that you swing regularly up to 10-20 BI per session. How is this possible within 2k-3k hands sessions, esp. When not playing fancy? I usually swing around 2-4 BI as a default?

What sites can you recommen rakeback-wise?

@cobby
It just seems that I swing 10BI regularly, because I play a different range of stakes(200-1k). Also it depends on your style. About rakeback I don't think it would be really appropriate here on PS to give any specific advice as it also depends on your limits.

Hey guys,

Gonna rep it up for this prolonged month. So where to start since there is a lot to be said. Basically I play in September less then 5k and since it's such an embarrassment that I decide not to post it. Also it was around 10 hours overall. Then I started October hitting a brutal swing which was accompanied by some bad play of mine and all of sudden I found myself in a deep hole of -10k$. Man, was I crushed, as I told already on the forums I'm gonna hunt the 500k mark by the end of the year and now I almost hit the worst start ever. Pressure was rising inside me and I became obsessed about turning things around and the result was the best month of the year:
- 195H on the tables
- Played every single day in October
- Spent countless hours off table
- Celebrated my BD(and as always lost on that day:D)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Result: +30k$ month post RB

This is definitely the best month of the year not only financially but also based on many other parameters like quality of play, work ethics and mindset. Like I was under a lot of pressure but I used it as motivation and got into the lab. I turned my game around, came back more mentally prepared and even if I wasn't running good in EV(-12k) I was playing ''like a boss''(mentally and technically) and averaged a 12bb/100 EV WR over this sample of 85k hands(although to be fair HU included but there was 50/50 reg/fish). Got a huge boost of confidence and I'm so proud of myself that I could bring out the ''good old Hans''.

Now, this might not be interesting to everyone but still I'll write my thoughts. Why can't I always perform like this? This question is currently bugging me but I think I found an answer. Basically when I signed the pre-contract for buying the property I realized how much money the villa that I'm going to build will cost me. The expenses are way more then I currently earn in a year so it made my accomplishments feel small. Normally I can buy in my country whatever I want within month(s) but this time the project made me feel small that I need to step up and prove myself that I stand the challenge of building this villa. My motivation was back, I was very pumped up, have a good buddy who forces me to always rethink what I know(TX mandza) and I have the obligations to this blog to finish the mini project.
That all together made me just hit the lab and soon results came no matter if I run bad in AI situations. Although I don't like the balance between the lines, I can't start complaining and from now on I will be only playing NL400+(mostly SH and here and there HU when regs overestimate themselves). Now since I played every single day in October + a couple of days in September I can present for the first time this year 4 pictures:

TOTAL CHALLENGE: 442 500.61$(LAST UPDATE) + 24 808.58$(WINNINGS 20 DAYS) + 7 015.78$(RakeBack) = 474 324.97$/ 500 000$

Anyway that's it for today. Gonna hear from me again in December. GL!:)

Good to see you back

Inspiring results!

195 hours? Makes sense when you are earning more than 150 an hour.

Before you were incorporating some MTTs in your play. Have you played any MTTs recently or are you only playing cash games?

Hello Hans,

Very impressive blog and I have much to read and learn still.
Looking forward to future updates and successes.

Regards

Matt