Day 2: Early Chip Lead

After depositing $100 onto Stars, I opened up my first table. A 9-handed turbo SnG for $3.50. My main game on Full Tilt when that was running. Despite losing a large portion of my stack, I knocked out the 4th place finisher to put myself into the money with a similar size stack to 3rd place. After 2 quick double ups, I knock out 2nd place and go heads up with a commanding chip lead. I few aggressive hands later, I get villain all in with rags against A7. An ace on the flop ends my first game on Stars and my first win. An immediate 10% roll increase!

The question has been brought up on the THM forum about how I'm managing my bankroll and what games I'll play, so I'll take a few minutes while watching the Formula 1 to explain. I'm going by a 5% buy-in limit in ring games, and 3% for sit 'n gos. I may occasionally play a MTT, however I don't consider myself a good tournament player, so don't expect many reports about taking any down! For ring games, I'll leave when I get to 10% of my roll, unless I know I have a massive edge on the table and can make more money. On the flip side, if I lose more than one buy-in on a table, I'll leave if I feel like I have no edge, I'll leave the table. As for games, I'll generally play HE and PLO8, PLO8 in ring games and HE for the SnGs mainly, however I'll probably play some HE cash and vice versa. Yesterday, I found myself with 4 tables open and I coped very well. With the purchase of a new monitor, I may move up to more tables, but we'll worry about that when we get there.

After a few hours play yesterday, I lost a few SnGs, but won more playing PLO8 ring. In about 2 hours play, I was up $13 playing .01/.02 games. Playing 4 tables at one time (which fills my screen full), along with my headphones on and some music, I found myself being fully focused on the game, not flicking about browsing the web. 

If you are not aware, Stars have lowered their VPP requirement for VIP status down to 10% for the month of August. To reach Silver, I merely need to clear 75 points before 31st August. Yesterday, in my short session, I cleared 18 points. Putting a few more hours in, and I will reach it and claim 15% rakeback for September. To reach Silver in a normal month, I'd need to hit 750VPP per month, 25 per day. At the stakes I'm playing, I think this is a reasonable goal (until I go back to university), so besides expanding my bankroll, my main goal for September is to achieve Silver status. Not only that, but I need to clear 1700 points to fully release my 100% deposit bonus. Going by my 750 points per month goal, I can have it cleared in around 3 months. Which, if all goes to plan, will mean my bankroll will be over $250, meaning I can jump up table stakes.

Sat here thinking about it, I always had this idea that grinding up a bankroll would be a long and tedious process. Indeed I'll have losing sessions, but even with a small win of $10 like yesterday, in 15 days, I'll have moved up stakes. This puts an aim of gaining about 2 buy ins per day, and I can move up stakes every 2 weeks.

Qualifying 3 is about to start up, so I'll end here, watch the cars and then start playing. Thank you all for the positive response to my blog, and I hope I can continue to write up enjoyable posts.

Qualifying 2 is drawing to a close now, so in about 15 minutes, I can start today's grind