mahdrof45-year-old poker enthusiast from Canada
A week has gone by and my roll continues to grow. As of my last blog post on day 10, my roll had grown by $427.44 and stood at $527.54 and my goal of hitting $625.00 was starting to be achingly close.
I stayed away from casino and stuck to small stakes cash and SNG, and had a couple of good days when I hit day 13. Unlucky for some but lucky for me, I started out by having some small gains in my morning session and then left home for my work day.
When I sat down to play in the evening I spotted a full ring NL100 table with only one reg and a whole host of unknowns, so I sat down and started to play and watch the action.
I consider myself to be an average player when it comes to strategy, but when I am rested and alert I find I can make good reads. One player was very aggressive and he muscled me off of an early pot, but several hands later with TT I raised, was reraised by him, a third player called and I called. The flop came down 9-2-2 rainbow, and I led out with a quarter pot bet, and naturally aggro-tard reraised me substantially. Third player in the hand folded so I felt pretty good reraising the aggro-tard, at which he folded and I had a $60 gain on the hand.
With the gain I had now passed my goal, but although I felt like stopping the table was just too juicy.
A few hands later with KhQh in late position I raised with only the blinds in the pot, and button called. Flop was Ks7h2h, and I checked hoping to have a bet from the button, but he checked too. Turn was 3d, bet half the pot and got a call, and then flop was 4h where I bet half the pot again but he folded, another $20. A few hands later my stack was at $196 and I called it quits and immediately requested the $125 withdrawal, first goal achieved.
My next goal is $2000, which when I reach it will trigger another Mahdrof Dollars tournament. I have to say that I am really pleased at the response that I have received for the current Mahdrof Dollars tournament. Now, some of you might wonder why $2000 is my goal. Simply, my favourite cash game to play is NL100 full ring, and I find that to play any level you need to be comfortable with the amount of money you have available so that you can play a natural game and not be freaking out because you have your whole roll on the table. Bad beats happen.
I take a safe but aggressive approach when it comes to bankroll building, building up in steps. For example, once I reached my goal of $625 I took out $125 to cover my initial deposit of $100 and to host the $25 MD tourney. With a little over $500 now at 888, I am back to building up using small stakes cash like NL10, and low BI SNG, using $500 as my starting block. Once my roll starts to be closer to $650 I will start to look for weak tables at NL50 and NL100, and try to capitalize on these tables to resume increasing aggressively until I hit my next goal. The idea with this is not to lag too long at a low level making small amounts, but to use gains to grow rapidly without having to deposit if the going gets rough. You always need to keep in mind what your "do not go below" bankroll is and have a solid handle on your tiltiness, not always an easy task.
Here is the graph of my gains for the last week. I didn't play on day 14 as my son had basketball practice, and the following evening was very disappointing. In the morning I had played and had a $20 gain, and after supper that night there was a table at NL50 with only one or two regs - so juicy - but I kept falling asleep! After a while I fell asleep for so long that when I woke up I had been booted off the table! And then ... and then... I closed... up because I couldn't stop... falling..ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Just stick to your tactic if that make you profit 
Here it is.
