Poker Bankroll Journey

glgl on rebuilding!

Wishing your family good health.

So I forgot to post about my disastrous session on the 3rd, probably because I just wanted to forget about it and refocus my mind that I can definitely beat the micros and having a bunch of cashouts and bringing your roll low again doesn't really help moving forward in the short term.
It was one of those sessions that I couldn't win a single pot right when it mattered, running into bigger pairs, busting on bubbles with players calling utterly wide when they shouldn't ( the fun of micros). The volume was decent but I just ended up sacking off the session 4 hours before I had planned to because my roll was just disintegrating.

Stars roll finished on $158 roughly after that day, it was looking much worse but thankfully a few small cashes helped ease it.

4th March ;

So after the disastrous couple of days at the start of this month playing SNG's trying to get enough Stars VP's to unlock my first $40 chest, I decided to just go back to mixing game types for my own sanity as well as being able to boost my bankroll quickly.
I started the session off with a bunch of micro satties for MTT's but unfortunately I whiffed all of them and thought it best with my roll as low as it is to focus on micro SNG's and MTT's. I love playing the 'on demand' PKO's on Stars but I have always struggled with motivation playing $1 MTT's. I bit my pride and just decided to play whatever was $2 and under. Thankfully I managed to run deep in a $1 MTT and reached the FT chip leading. The only other half decent Reg type player on the table started busting players left right and centre with a run of cards that we dream of on and FT and I was looking at reaching at least 4th to regain most of my losses from previous days. We got 3 handed with very even stacks and with them both wanting a deal and sitting at roughly 50bb effective for all, I said lets Equity chop equally for a nice score of $150...eventually finishing in 2nd with a flip for chip lead.
Sng's went pretty frustrating again with a lot of FT's and ITM finishes but not many wins or 2nd's!
I am feeling very very motivated to push through and have a very big month in March. I have a clear goal for the year and I need to really start getting a roll to be able to make it happen.
I want this journal to prove to whoever is reading it that Poker isn't about trying to get a big lucky win but that you can accumulate plenty of small wins all year round to win a nice income.

Stars = $279

Happy with my volume and keeping up playing games late into the evening when running deep. Just need to push through when I am having a bad session.

Nice score. Yeah, some sessions are just painful. The nice thing about micros is that you often just one bink away from moving yourself up to the next buy in.

Will mention it again, but at these micro levels any freebie should be taken. GGs daily should get at least a couple of free entries every weekend. On partys weekend spins I frequently get a ticket from 55c to $5.50.

Cheers I do need to remember to do GG Poker daily and I didn't know Party offer a spin ticket type thing? Or do you need to make a certain amount of rake for that?

No, anyone with an account can do it.

5th March 2025

As it is a Wednesday, I get nearly no time to myself, lots of Dad duties and eventually I get to sit down around 8pm....now I am battling with myself, should I just have a night off and play games or watch TV or should I just play a few Poker games and just see what happens? I push myself into Poker for once! I listened to a friend of the journal and looked through the clients I have and noticed somehow I had $12 worth of Tourney $'s on Blackchip so decided to play a couple small mtts. Thankfully I cashed in both! Played a few Stars games on the side, mainly to hit 17k points, although I still need 3k in the next 2 days to get my $40 chest so I am gonna need to up the volume a lot!
Today is my completely free day so the plan is to do a few bits for my business this morning and then afternoon/evening completely devoted to Poker and trying to get good volume and a winning day! Going to focus on those 2 things moving forward! 40+ games per day and as many winning days as possible, I think mentally this is better for me at the moment then hoping for one big deep run and score this month.
No breakdown or graphs today, just a screenshot from SS of the 3 sites played last night.

Stars = $268
Blackchip = $31
Ipoker = £4
GG = $1.32

6th March 2025

I felt fully motivated and pumped to have a good long Poker session ahead of me which got delayed by a couple of hours due to family duties etc. Knowing I had to clear another 2.5k worth of Stars points to get the rakeback chest the plan was simple, play SNG's all day, 12 tabling and keeping the buyin no more than $2. For what ever reason, the Poker gods decided to kneecap my mood and variance hit me like a ton of bricks, possibly the worst grind session I have had this year and at every point I was either getting 3 outered by people calling with A7o for 15bbs or an under pocket pair hitting a 2 outer on the flop to my over pair. It just felt impossible to book wins in any format I played and I pushed myself through the wall to book a decent enough volume day even though I lost almost a $1 per game.
The icing on the cake was the final hand in the $1 PKO On Demand. 3 way hand, 2 maniac players deep ITM. I have around 18bbs in the BB, 2 limpers in early positions then first maniac chip leader raises to 6bbs, the next maniac the next biggest stack at the table auto jams 65bbs....I know these guys ranges are pretty damn wide plus I always have to remind myself it is a $1 PKO!!! I have Jacks in the BB with my 18bbs and I snap call and fist pump as the best chance of a triple! The big stack has a legit hand of AKo and the 2nd big stack jammer turns over 34o!!!! Obviously 34o wins and our horrendous day is over. Now in the past my anger would have burst out but I have learnt over the years when it comes to variance there is nothing we can do....So I just laughed, said at least Poker isn't dead and turned the PC off and my brain!
The feeling of frustration is a real one at the moment, I was first playing around the Poker boom or at least 2 years after the Moneymaker affect....I was one of those semi winning/learning how to play from old Pros books. It was a very very soft period in Poker. Now I wouldn't say it is as soft these days however its not that much tougher at the micros either, but it does seem much much harder to have decent ROI's in the games and I don't believe this is down to players being better.
Anyway I have to keep going, chalk off the bad days and keep pushing, reminding myself it is going to be a rollercoaster and getting out of the micros in any format of Poker is always a very very tough ask due to rake being so much higher and player ranges being so much more skewed!
I have approx 1.3k of points to get and today is my last day. Need to push on and hopefully book a winning day!!

Stars = $199
Blackchip = $21.50

Hope today goes well - remember the free $1 tspin and go ticket on gg 9you have till around 07h00 tomorrow to claim) and your spin on party weekend wheel - and while you there spin you free daily casino wheel.

My Friday session pretty much went like yours - but much better today with 3fts although no top 3's. But nice patient play, although a bit on the passive side.

Poker update from 7th - 27th March

It has been a couple of weeks since I have updated this, not something I wanted to happen but real life took over in places and with my Poker game seemingly getting worse, my mental health kinda got to the point that I didn't really want to play. I know this is not a good response to things not going well and the best thing to do is work hard/study.....I have always hated doing the whole studying with software, I come from the early days of reading books and watching Pros and high stake guys play to learn. I have learnt over the years to go over my deep runs and check what spots I miss, something I haven't done this year, so last week to sort myself out and get back to being positive, I started going through old hands vs newer hands.
The biggest thing I find with my own game, when things aren't going great either through variance or my own mistakes, I tend to either over tighten in spots that are very very standard plays or I over play hands in spots I should definitely be folding.
I am slowly pushing myself back into a better routine and have decided I will for the time being, stick to Stars and Ipoker with the odd game on WPN too. I have also been focusing more heavily on Mtt's, something that when you aren't winning can lead to a bunch of losing days so I will be playing more SNG's again on Stars to have a steadier stream of cash coming while focusing on my Mtt game on Ipoker. I really wish the big sites would bring back the old Rebuy/Addon games like Ipoker still has, always been my favourite format!
Anyway, the cringe time for the little games update -

I also want to try uploading a hand I had 4 handed on a 5e rebuy FT on Ipoker. I felt it was a really tough spot but also I have been way overthinking a bunch of these spots so would love players input even if it is on the hand only, please and thank you.

I just thought it was a tough spot with 9s here even being the Chip leader, my thoughts were JJ+ maybe TT.....With it being Ipoker, I know I would have flopped a set and maybe that is what is annoying me more than the fold?
I came 3rd eventually, losing JJ v A5s to a 12bb stack raising to 6bb....then the shover in above hand shoved A5 into my 14bb stack that I snap called with 88 and Ace on the flop killed my game. I mean those 2 hands are just variance and standard run bad...but that 99 hand would have changed the tourney completely....Hindsight huh lol.

Stars = $143
Ipoker = £255 ( I had loaded £250
Blackchip = $11.34

I need to get my game/confidence back into a better place before I can do more volume in Mtt's again. My SNG game has always been pretty decent but if you make a mistake in Mtt's that's it and can cost a lot in the long run!

30/03/2025

Family weekends when my oldest comes to stay has been a massive excuse for me to not play anything and as they say, time is money....so effectively I am shooting myself in the foot. So I forced myself to use the spare few hours I would get to play a lower table count and concentrate more in spots rather than autopiloting. I still have a lot of work to do to even get back to how I was playing around 10 years ago, a lot of fearful silly plays in my game and just not thinking about things too much. I was chip leading a 5 euro rebuy tournament on Ipoker for a long time then a big stack fish got moved to our table, he 3x UTG with 45bbs and I had AKo on button with 51bbs.... We were already ITM and all I could think about was if I win this hand I will have a monster lead, I 3bet to 9x and he insta jammed, I instantly regretted it purely because I knew most of the time it would be a flip or monster pair and did I need to risk all my stack while in position. Obviously I lose the flip vs his QQ. Yes its a pretty standard hand in general but having a major Turbo background, most of my actions are very quick and very much auto reacting. I always analyse my play after something like that and I feel that I could have actually just flat his 3x in this spot and take a lot lower variance play then I normally do....My post flop play is my weakest part of my game and I tend to take the higher variance preflop play to counter this but obviously higher variance means bigger swings!

Anyway, I played just sngs on Stars and for once just won everything I was ahead in preflop, for the small volume I played I was pretty happy with the spots I took. Ipoker I played mainly rebuys with a few pkos mixed in although these were 10e buyins, way above my bankroll and as I am already playing the 5r's on there I really need to drop anything above 5!!!
I've left it late on Stars to gain enough points to make sure I keep my $40 boxes so I have 11500 points to make in 4 days.....WISH ME LUCK lol

Stars = $211
Ipoker = £242
Blackchip hasn't changed so $11.42 or whatever it was lol.

31/03/2025

Only got a few hours to play and as I need to hit my VIP chest so it doesn't reset to the lowest I decided to be a little more aggressive with my bankroll with the higher buyin sng's. Not huge volume but I am pretty happy with how I played. Ran pretty crap in the hypers though! But having players in the games who are playing 76vpip over 50 hands just makes me happy even when they bust every player in a hyper KO including myself in 2nd with a suckout....Games aren't dead, just the traffic on most sites!
I got 4 days to get 9.5k points, averaging about 40 points a game I got to average about 55-60 games a day to get it done!
With Scoop coming up and Micromillions, I really want to get a much better bankroll so I need more discipline for April and a lot more of a consistent volume per day. Plan is when the satties come out for Scoop's I am going to play a bunch....well as long as I am being profitable in them haha.
Anyway yesterdays results!

I don't think I actually listed my overall results since I started playing....There is a bunch of games pre 2006 missing that I was up around £4k on other sites. I have always been a winning player but as I have always said....I have always had a lazy streak and real life getting in the way....this is my last chance to make myself actually win a decent enough side living from Poker and help my family not struggle with the Living Crisis going on in the UK.

The player group is the 4 different Ipoker accounts I have had.

Oh only Stars played on so bankroll is now $225

Been a little frustrating of a first week of the month! I would recommend to any youngsters who play this game, to put all your time and effort into making as much money as you can while you can because as soon as you start a family and life gets in the way, finding time to have good poker sessions becomes very difficult!
I'm not complaining, I love my family life but there are times it gets in the way having a wife who doesn't drive!

So I needed a lot of points on Stars to keep my chest at the $40 mark, I went up to playing $5 sng's due to the amount of points they give and to start it was going ok although a rollercoaster of being up ok then ending breakeven on a day...I got within about 4k points something I could do in a day but just had a bad run and what bankroll I had left got chopped in half so I decided to give up and save what I had left.....The thing that infuriated me was I lost all those points for nothing in return whatsoever, I'm not sure if I had manually dropped down to lower VIP level if I would have been given the chests for the points but that is very much a con from Stars in my opinion!
I feel like with the time constraints I just need to play what I feel when I get the time so I will mix from now on. My problem was when I was backed being punished with what games I could only play when things weren't going well, effectively making it a much longer time to get back to even. This turned Poker into something I really hated playing because I lost the love of it, I need to make sure I don't box myself into that again!

So Stars roll has taken a bit of a hit so I do need to tighten my management of the roll better and rebuild it. Thankfully putting some nice hours in this weekend on Ipoker has resulted in some deep runs and even a nice little Bink first place in a small PKO. I'm not a huge fan of the games and schedule on there compared to say 2 or 3 years ago but I am slowly getting used to it. I will say there are far too many tournaments running at the low stakes, it was hard picking the right ones! I think I had 2 or 3 others that were final 2 tables, just all ins not going my way.
Also hit a couple of nice little bonuses on slots during the downtime after, I play very small stakes just for promotions and I got a couple nice hits this weekend which bumped the roll up more.
On ACR (Blackchip) I had a really deep run a couple of nights ago in a tourney with I think was $350 up top, got down to final 2 tables and the flipping site crashed on everyone!!! Because I was sitting in 9th out of 13 and it was a pko, my compensation was pretty pathetic...having 17bbs is still pretty manageable at that period and who knows what might of happened, as long as I run ok I give myself an edge over most of those left. So yeah kinda cursing my luck a little of late but we have to keep going, I know it will start to come good as my game gets back to what it used to be!

Stars = $106
Betfair = £430
ACR = $44

08/03/2025 Entry

Started the day a little later then I wanted...stupid friend asking me to play a video game lol. I don't have many friends in life at my age and how my life currently is I don't spend a lot of time in places to make friends so the ones I have I need to hold onto is my excuse lol.
Anyway I managed to get some ok volume in for a 6-7 hour grind. Mostly 10 tabling mtts on Ipoker/GG/ACR. Hit another FT on Ipoker, coming in 2nd on a small PKO I was feeling pretty good, I had played well for the majority of the tournament but 2 monster fish on the table and not hitting a single hand just made it one of those really frustrating horrible FT's! Everytime I 3 bet with AK/AQ etc, the fish would call with J4s and call 2 streets with bottom pair...I quickly realised I was burning chips vs those playing 55+ Vpips weren't going to fold! Eventually busting in 4th jamming 10bbs with AJo and getting rejammed on by one of those fish with 44, I missed the board yet again and that was it. Just one of those not going to happen final tables!
Also hit a mystery ko of 100 euros which came as a nice surprise and made the session a winning one. Apart from the FT the rest were very frustrating, running into AA in the same tournament to shorties 4 times was really fun haha. Lots of 2 and 3 outers hitting our opponents and probably a few mistakes here and there from myself meant the rest of the night was a bust.
Played 2 micro games on GG and whiffed! 3 on ACR with no luck either.....Seeing as ACR is all free money at this point, I am trying to cherry pick the good games to play.

Ipoker = £444
ACR = $39
Stars no change
GG = $4

I have my oldest coming to stay on Friday for basically a week, I always struggle to play when she is here because I want to spend time with her, will have to try and juggle some time though!

09/04/2025 Entry

I realised on previous post that I put March instead of April for the date....time flies when you get old haha.

So I had a pretty great night on Ipoker, it started off not being sucked out on with 2 and 3 outers or runner runners for the first hour or so, I thought this might be an omen for the day. 2nd hour it started to crumble a bit and the 3rd hour was much of the same but I told myself just focus on the long term goal and laugh off any bad variance! I managed to FT a 6 man coming in first place but after a lost flip for a decent amount and just being out flopped with I had AK etc, my stack dwindled down. 4 handed picked up JJ with 25bbs, the only fish at the table flat me, T64r flop, I bet third pot he calls, something like a 3 came on turn, I bet half pot and he jams, I cover him by about 6bbs I call and he tables trip 6s, he holds and then couple hands late I bust with A6s...was 400 euros up top and pocketing 75 felt very disappointing that another FT everything kind went wrong but I was very very happy how I played up until the final table and making those daily is a nice sign my game isn't horrendous at the moment!
Within about half an hour I FT a small rebuy and went on a complete tear through the field, I think I was maybe 2nd or 3rd in chips coming in and I just pushed against the shorties to start on my left....I think I ended up busting maybe 6 on the FT and won the HU within maybe 10 or less hands for just under 200 euros....I was fist pumping the air at this point haha.
I had played a small mtt on GG that I min cashed in and a couple of low stake ones on ACR that just went terribly and lost over half the bankroll but as it was free I was a little more agro.
The night wasn't over though, I had 3 tables left on Ipoker, 1 of them was a 10 pko tourney...a couple of nice hands and I managed to get on my 3rd FT of the night around 5th in chips....at this point anything was a bonus on the night I had already had. The big stack was one of those reg/rec type guys who basically makes around $1 per game on average....was raising very wide and was bullying the table, he had the biggest bounty obviously! Managed to find my way to top 3 and chipped my way up until a slight chip lead....I was really gunning for the 45/31 fish who was also with us as they both had better bounties than me. Unfortunately Ipoker's hand history seems to download terribly into my PT4 and didn't have the full history and as it was pretty late I can't remember if I eventually got the fish before HU or not.....I am sure I did but anyway HU was quite the battle, a lot of back and forth, him raising way more than myself and defending more than me....something my HU and BvB game certainly needs improving on ( I still play like it is 2014 I guess lol).
I came into HU trailing maybe 2.5/1 or so....he chipped me down a lot, I then picked up A5s and open shoved 16bbs, he snaps me off with AK and I am cursing my luck....obviously I out flop him and this turns the whole game. I chip up after this to a decent lead, a little over 3/1...I then pick up 4s and jam into his 15bb stack, he snaps it with KK and now its 60/40 in stacks. I tell myself it isn't against me and we still have this, he regains the chip lead before I retake it back...eventually chipping him down to 15bbs again. I get 8s, shove and call for the game to end, he has AK....I can't look!!! He bricks and we pocket just under 600 euros!
I haven't had a night like that in a good while, felt great even though it was past 1 in the morning. With the bankroll the highest it has been overall, I need to make this count, not do any of the past mistakes when on my own roll and stay focused and motivated to push on!

The only thing I find a little annoying is, when I finish a session I look at my volume in PT4 and it always says higher than Sharkscope....I guess because of rebuying back into games.

Ipoker = £1088
Stars = $141 ( won a little from slots)
ACR = $15
GG = $4

12/04/2025 Update

I was fully going to play again on Thursday after the great Wednesday session I had but I got nagged by the wife to have another evening off and I was feeling a little tired from the late finish so it wasn't hard to say yes. Friday was my day to pick my daughter up, normally after school but I forgot it is the Easter holidays here so had to pick her up in the morning which meant I had time to play Poker afternoon onwards. Persuaded the wife who wasn't feeling great that I needed to play and after the kids had dinner and went upstairs I choose to have a pretty chilled out Ipoker only session. It started off pretty shaky, lots of running into bigger hands and losing flips but I was running really hot in a 10euro pko, I think I busted maybe 6 or 7 players in the first hour or so....I think we got to around 3 hours and about 10 from the money when I picked up JJ with 41bbs raising UTG, the slightly bigger stacked reg at the table on the button 3bet me and I flat called. Flop 8KJ 2 spades...I had JJ with a spade, I check called his 1/3 pot bet....in hindsight I really didn't like this and felt it was a spot I should have really been check raising on the larger side with the draws out there. Turn Td, I checked and he bet really small 8bbs into 26 pot...I had 29 behind and decided to check Jam, he snapped me off with AQo and that was it. I felt really annoyed with how I played it, giving myself the rope vs a decent reg.... I knew as soon as I busted it that I would feel rubbish and the brain would say that's it I'm done...I had maybe 7 games still left and made the conscious decision to not load anymore but to concentrate with what I had left.
Thankfully it gave me enough time to chill out and refocus my brain and I managed to FT Two 5 rebuy tournaments, 1 of them I finished second for 214e and fifth in the other for 70e. I am pretty happy with how I played for the most part in this session, maybe a couple of mistakes that I noticed and obviously not happy with the JJ hand at all. I must learn to be more aggressive vs regs, especially the better ones...I always allow myself to be bullied and I always pay the price!
Also made day 2's in two tournaments, one of the normal weekly 2euro ones and a short stack in a 5e but that is a couple of weeks away and hoping I can play it lol

Ipoker = £1201
Stars = $157 ( a little more slot wins)
ACR = $15
GG = $4

Can't play today (Sat) as the wife isn't well at all so been looking after the kids, breakfast/park/toys/dinner....then dying on the sofa when they finally go to sleep lol.
I have my oldest for most of next week too so thankfully I will get to play most of Sunday Funday!
I really would like to build up the smaller ones without anymore deposits this year, I've only done small ones Ipoker to get going and Stars so a small goal for myself.