Monday, October 22, 2007

FTP FCC: The $100,000 Bar

100,946 to be exact...over one hundred times my original buy in.

This past session I sat down to five tables and with 85K in my pocket. Had a horrible mis-click that cost me over $5K. I was in about 1K+ in bets and hit fold on the river instead of raise. I already had a low that would have won 4K+ and the player to my left picked up what would have been my fifth Diamond so I probably would have scooped and it would be closer to a $9K screw up.

But I plowed ahead and played solid starting hands and got some cooperation on the big streets. Made up my mistake and then some. Took down some huge pots and had a head of steam as I passed 80K, 85K, 90K, and when I got to 95K, I thought I should just take a breather but I got involved in a hand in the lower left table. I was three to a low straight flush and getting mad action. I pretty much bet/raised every opportunity I could. Made my low, then a straight, then picked up the flush on the river too to scoop and put me over 100K. Then I immediately sat out of all the tables and folded any hands I was in to lock in the moment.

Not much more to say right now that I didn't say on my $750K post but I can say that it feels good to reach such a big milestone. Sure two orders of magnitude in play money is no double up of real money or anything like that but it is still an accomplishment that takes patience and know-how. I also tuned my approach based on my experiences and from reading up on the subject.

I'm actually at a bit of a crossroads now. I certainly feel like I've learned a lot about managing and building a bankroll but the learning curve seems to have flattened out. I'm not going to pretend that I know everything but I wonder if continuing on with the FTP FCC is going to be the best bang for the buck. I'm anxious to get into some real Cake but just can't get a sponsor for my starter roll yet. I think I will continue on with the FTP FCC for now and see what kind of scaling issues I run into. But right now, I think I'm going to head out and treat myself for breaking through six figures.

3 comments:

Sushi Cowboy said...

Played my first go at the 500/1000 table. WAY different play. Even with play money the betting is pretty mild. No capping at all. And plenty of free streets.

At 100/ante and 150 bring-in I was down a couple thousand before I even saw a playable hand. My 4th street % is 17 which is low to begin with but that is very deceiving because most of those were walks to higher streets. I actually only pursued one hand and I took the low on that.

18 hands, one showdown, one split. Stakes are higher. A big bet on this table is about an entire hands worth of money on the smaller table but I pulled down 6300 for half of a pot and almost made a flush for a scoop as well.

Bankroll management-wise I was sweating it. I bought in for 10K (standard) knowing that not all of it was at risk. When I got down to 8K I added on another 10K because I didn't want to be caught short with the nuts and players capping on the end. But it was nerve wracking. I won that hand but if I didn't I would be down over six grand instead of barely above even. And having only one table available means I can't run multi-tables so I end up paying a lot of attention to the one table which gets to your head. It also means I can't spread my risk around to balance out swings.

To be fair, I was not getting very playable hands either. Normally I will see 25%-30% 4th streets but I only saw 1 out of 18 or roughly 5%.

Very interesting how everything changes when the stakes go up. I feel like I'm starting all over again and need to play super tight in order to keep my roll in good shape. And even though I broke even on a bad run of cards, I feel like I dodged a bullet.

Now 101,471 after flirting with the 500/1000 table and two sit and go tourneys (placed second in an PL08 single table).

Sushi Cowboy said...

Interesting thing just happened.

I was on the 100/200 tables and ended up down 5K. I was actually further down but climbed back up to just being down a buy-in. A little d0nkage on my part but mostly just running into better lows. Also got middled again on an 8 high straight which could very well scoop. Percentages were a little high for 4th streets but I was getting some good starters and I also just plain ran into some dead ends on 7th being four to the flush and four to the low and just not hitting.

So then I went to a 500/1000 table and it had enough people for me to play and feel comfortable that I can fold hands without getting ante'd/bring-in'd to death. First hand I pick up is decent, not much betting but I take down a small pot. Next hand I muck. Then the third hand I get involved in ends up scooping a big pot for me. In three hands I'm up 10K. I do a hit and run and get the heck out of there while I am still up for the session (even the combined 100/200 and 500/1000 session).

With such a small sample set of hands from the 500/1000 table I can't really say anything definitive about what i can expect on the 500/1000 tables. I've got 100K+ in the bank and it costs me 100/ante and 150 bring-in. I am going to see going to the river 1 or 2 time out of ten and will win over 50% of my showdowns, sometimes scooping. I need to do some number crunching to see if I'm playing over my roll. It turned out OK this time but I don't want to be ROTty about the session.

Even though I didn't change my starting hand selection much (maybe just a smidgen tighter), it was very revealing how laissez-faire I was about my hands on the 100/200 table. Calling WAY light but not really caring. But every single street on the 500/1000 table was a nail biter. Reminds me of how risky I thought going to the 100/200 tables was and this jump is only 5x from the last table compared to 10x from the 10/20 to the 100/200 tables. Something for the Cakers to look forward to.

Sushi Cowboy said...

Doubt still lingers around whether or not the 500/1000 table is over my roll. I'm holding my own and it has been EV+ overall but it sure drives home the bankroll issue when I pull down a 24K+ pot. That amounts to about a quarter of my roll before I sat down and that puts things in perspective. I ended up sinking about 10K into the hand out of my stack and some of that was due to me driving the betting. I could have flat called in some places instead of raising but I was confident that I was ahead and thought I might be able to get some players to fold (yes, they actually fold on the 500/1000 tables) but everyone kept hanging around and the pot got to be huge.

It was also sobering to see a guy who busted out on that hand reload for a fresh 100,000 between hands. Wow, there are some big big stacks of play money out there.

31 hands. 26% 4ths. Had four to the low on 5th street and blanked two streets in a row for my only orphaned 7th street. Other than that three other visits to the river won the showdown taking down the low halves.

Now 115,346.