Trying to become a Stars billionaire

Time runs, have studied some, played live again a couple of days ago. Getting a hunch of the mechanics, seeing people playing for getting to reload in the MTTs. Not my thing, 50€ and that's it. Now four tournaments, not in the money, usually busting when blinds start to be win or lose. Game selection is this: playing low for possibly having an edge, and with bad luck and possibly non-oprtimal skill, can afford it.

It has turned out I have switched totally to live and studying with with the particular €50 mtts in mind. As there is no ante, they remind of cash games in some regards. My estimate now it's better to just let Stars be, many months since playing online. So I am left with quite exactly 4M in play chips, starting out with 1M. Quite far from the 1B. But it's too late to change header now...

Have played around ten live MTTs, not cashing yet. Think at least my preflop strategy is taking form, somehow feeling I even deserve to sit in the final one third of the tournaments.

Dealing cards to myself, both mentally and in reality, so ten-hundred times more training than playing. Simplified solver basis naturally.

I think Greenstein is a PS play money billionaire. Even though it is just play money it still represents a lot of hard work to accumulate. Maybe PS will set up and stream the ultimate play money match. You and Greenstein HU 4 rollz. edit- I replied after reading just the first post, looks like you have changed goals.

Online is not totally out of the question, and then it would be the original goal. Nice I have Greenstein as company! Have felt though the playing style at least where I'm properly play money rolled is too different for benefitting my live play. So time will tell how my blog turns out...

Got inspired to maybe take up the original challenge. Every fourth hour you can pick up 15k for free, nice "rakeback". I think an about 100 buy-in bankroll is good. So one 50k mtt a day could do it. Now that I've figured out the basics of the live play, this could even add something to it.

Two things. Have improved my play money play, first 50k tournament in a year and a half was 26/123, +36k. Sample microscopic, but my live study seems to have paid off, my earlier mainly all-in based strategy was too simple even here at 50k, even if successful at 15k.

Secondly. Earlier my live tournaments were 40+10 €, now 45+15, naturally a bummer. In reality 44.1+15.9 as 0.90 goes to a pointing system with a yearly final out of my reach with this stake. So if playing averagely well, my ROI is -15.9/60 = -26.5%. So paying for participating in an interesting game, and even ev money would be a huge win, aiming for at least that!

I'm old enough to know a challenge is a challenge, no matter what. Not very motivated to play the 50k tournaments, as you can get 15k for free every 4 hours. I have shown some endurance in loading those several times a day, I'm up to a 4.4M bankroll now. But it's not poker. So will continue loading those until at 5M flat, and then stop loading them, forever. Then everything above 5M will be pure poker wins.

Have some plans how to continue after that, but first loading those forty 15k. Occasionally checking the lobby, looking at how the play goes, you can watch a lot, all except opening the tables themselves.

Fyi, how much is the play money worth? As examples, if buying it now from Stars, and rounded to one integer:

• 1M: €3
  
• 40M: €20
  
• 1B: €200
  

So my 15k reloads are worth between some cents and a fraction of a cent. It's suitably the minimum buy-in to the MTTs, for players busting totally. So not hopefully so viable for me. Even if I will never buy, it's good to know what many opponents may be paying for their play money.

My endurance has limits. I will not load the 15k for free another 30 times. So will be content with making one more, and reaching almost exactly 4.5M. That will be the baseline.

Have thought about how to be rolled. I like to play it safe, and 100 buy-ins could be ok. But the pay-out structure is quite forgiving, about one-fourth of the buy-ins in the money. So settling for 50-60 buy-ins. If reaching 60 BI, moving up, if going below 50 BI, moving down. More about this when really starting.

So, balance is 4 497 000 (let's round it up at least this much). Time to take one of those small steps life is full of. The expected is one will benefit in the end. So no more loading of the free 15k. It will not come back as some form of rescue if running bad.

It will be the 50k buy-in Bankroll Builder tournaments. Have figured they are the nearest my live play. Difference is of course huge anyway, with the ante, player skills, structure, and why not even having nine players instead of ten at the table.

But here is the deal. I will play these until at 6M, then move up to 100k buy-in. That will be kind of taking a shot, because I will return to 50k if falling back to 5M, rinse and repeat. About the tracking in next post!

As much as I know there isn't any working tracking app for play money, so there will be no nice green curves. The ultimate tracking is of course the bankroll, easily telling how many buy-ins there are. But I want moar! That is the ROI. Will start numbering the tournaments on the spreadsheet, so calculating average ROI will be easy.

And now the fun part: predicting what my ROI will be at 50k. My intuition tells 50%, will be interesting to see how far off that estimate is.

Did run the 50% expected ROI on Primedope, 60 tournaments:

The maybe most important takeaway is there's a 20% probability I will stand below my starting bankroll when having played 60 tournaments, the average needed for moving up.

Variance really isn't a good friend if it turns against you.

Working on my preflop strategy. Looks the ante means about one position vs no ante. Think mainly solid poker is the way to go.

Indeed, with the antes especially in the blinds the GTO suggestion differs substantially from the non-ante. First in calling in SB is not even an option without antes. I understand now, paying 0.5 bb for getting into a 2.4 bb pot is starting to make sense even with, let's formulate it, "trash". There are limits how much money you can leave on the table uncontested.

Have worked on the basic ante preflop strategy. Now some virtual card dealing, maybe even playing then...with the variance I need to have as high ROI as reasonably achievable.

The last days I have read some saved parts of my old poker books. O8 really was my main game then, some really general advice is relevant for Holdem. Read and recycle. I will save only one book for nostalgic reasons, a thin one I got in the beginning of 2008, think it was as a supplement to a magazine. A lot of legendary books have gone this path earlier, may they rest in peace. At least they got partly read, good stuff for their time!

I know I have some poker books somewhere in the attic, but of the visible ones this is the last to go: The Endgame by Harrington. What's more, it's a translation to my mother tongue, showing how massively popular poker was during the boom. I have big parts of it saved, and will read it all with reflexion.

Dealing virtual cards to myself, using PokerCruncher. I have figured out the starting hand basis, but need some practice. Yesterday I dealt cards assuming I'm in the BB, today in the SB. The point is getting fast enough, rfi/vs 3bet and vs raise/vs 4bet.

Where do I have my ranges? Answer: Poker Trainer. In the beginning I just wrote the ranges as a document, have left that now, after many updates. Switching back and forth between own ranges and gto is nice. Found that Poker Trainer for life costs nearly €200 now. Sounded a bit expensive, so I searched for what I paid 1.5 years ago. It was even less than I remembered, a bit over €40. Almost unbelievable. So I found value then, one of my best poker decisions.

May luck be in your favor bro.

Thanks! May also skill be so.

Things have come up, so no poker, returning today. When checking my ranges I find that the work I put in have payed off vs memory, a bit of repetition and I could finally start the trek, maybe one tournament a day?

Still looking at my ranges and at random hole cards, will continue until I know my basic preflop strategy vs position and previous action within say 1-3 seconds. Still some way to go. Doing this work well could mean half my potential success though.