Hello everyone !

It's been a while since I have been giving you updates about my 2014/2015 online Poker Challenge. HERE is the description of it for those who forgot or for those who need to catch up.

The challenge started really well in September during which I managed to put in a decent amount of cash game hands and tournaments. In October, I got a message from the PS account security service telling me that I was not allowed to play with my accounts while in Belgium. Although living in Brussels, I was still registered in Luxembourg where I grew up and where I was still managing a company until recently. Being a Luxembourg resident, I had been playing for years on the .EU and .FR networks as I am not allowed to operate a .BE account legally.

I really tried hard to find a (legal) solution with PS as I am not willing to use any software that modifies my IP address in order to fool the client but we came to the conclusion that it was impossible for me to play legally online while in Belgium as a Luxembourg resident and they were threatening me to close my accounts and to confiscate the rolls on them if I was to try to play again while in Belgium. The odd thing is that I had no chance to know I was doing something wrong as all the functionalities of my software work perfectly well when I am in Belgium and no message is displayed informing players about the fact that they are not respecting the Poker room's terms and conditions. I guess this is linked to the announcement AMAYA made a few months ago claiming that they would be catching up on flaws and grey areas in their territory management policy. Certainly a way to please the US D.O.J. ... I guess it is in everyone's interest that US Poker comes back online as soon as possible so my only options was to adapt. I got a proper list now explaining what account I can use in what country.

As a result of all this, I virtually stopped playing while in Belgium but as I was outside Belgium mainly for work, I did not have the necessary time to play serious volume online during those periods. I never the less managed to put in a little volume since then by I am far from the 10k hands/month I was planing to play in PLO cash games. By the beginning of November I was still struggling to fing a good grinding rhythm while on the road and I was starting to seriously consider to register properly in Belgium to grind the .BE network with no hassle while in Belgium. The question remained what I was going to do with my .FR accounts but then, a new element added some spice to my situation...

My long time girlfriend broke up with me quite unexpectedly and, as we were sharing a flat she owns in Brussels, I was the one who had to leave.

This put me in a new unexpected 'freestyle' situation as I've been living as a kind of deluxe homeless for few weeks. With my stuff being relocated in various friends', parents' and brother's cellars and attics, and with no real reason to stay in Brussels or even in Belgium, I realised I was going to be on the move again which would probably be changing my legal online Poker situation again...

While settling this madness about virtual borders, I kept asking myself the question how and why our politicians think that using IP restrictions in the world wide web can be a sensible thing to do in an area where people can move freely...

It looks like I am finally back on track now with a new home in Germany since two months that I have spent only six nights in so far because of my ongoing travelling. Not complaining here, but this still does not solve my volume problem online.

With all that, I decided to alter the challenge a little bit to give me a fair chance to reach a decent result for my little friends at A.P.E.M.H. . I decided to cancel the guarantee of €200. Instead, I will guarantee €100 and I will give 100% of my net profit away until I have reached the €200 profit mark. After that, I will continue as planned by adding 30% of my additional net profit on top if my bankroll exceeds €700 by July 2015. You can read about the entire initial plan HERE (in the right column).

Part of the initial deal:

[...] I will start a long bankroll challenge on September 1st, 2014 starting with an initial roll of 500€. The challenge will last until June 2015 when the Centre Nossbierg (Esch/Alzette) will be celbrating their SUMMERFEST (summer party).

Terms of the challenge:
[-] no min./max. hand volume
[-] 30% of net profit will be donated to take part to the financing of the 2015 Centre Nossbierg Summerfest
[-] minimum donation: 200€


Right now (February 13th, 2015), these are the figures :

• tournaments played : 797
  
  
• tournament result : - €51.55
  
  
• cash game hands played : 23.111
  
  
• cash game result : + €108.58
  

BANKROLL: €500 -> €557.03

WANNA HELP WITH A DONATION? YES, YOU CAN !! HIT THE PICTURE BELOW OR FOLLOW THIS LINK.

One month has already gone by since I started my new challenge! I feel determined to play some solid Poker and to use my bankroll wisely but I still need to try to make a particular effort to pick the time of the day that suits me best. There is obviously a few reasons for that.

1. I am not sure that playing low and micro stakes limits is worth staying up the whole night kinda ruining my days as I will have to catch up on a lot of sleep during day time. On the other hand, MTTs are probably the most valuable in the evening and at night. Some of the games I currently play seem to be profitable enough during afternoons like hyper SNGs for instance. There's also often some good cash game tables to be found during the day. The only format I am truly struggling with over the day, are MTTs. The fields are a lot stronger in the afternoon than in the evenings and full of TAG micro-sharks in the mornings.
   
   
2. I like to get up with my girlfriend in the morning in order to start the day together, which makes it difficult to stay up until the birds sing and the fishes drown. It is my way of supporting her and to give her back the boost she is providing me. Also, evenings are the only time of the day when I can enjoy some quality time with my girlfriend when I'm in Brussels as she works during the day. This obviously does not mean that I never play in the evenings but I tend to avoid it for now.
   
   
3. I gotta work a little bit on my projects myself during daytime too. No, I am not making a living playing this solidarity challenge starting with €3 SNGs and €5 MTTs :) Surprised?

This, of course, does not mean that I have been spending the month looking for good spots and dining with my girlfriend. There has been quite some playing and there has been some good old swinging too!

I initially planned to play at least 10.000 hands of cash game per month during this challenge. I don't know whether I will be able to keep up that pace throughout the whole thing but I think it is a good goal to put together some decent volume and to try to reach something like 100.000 hands at the end of the challenge in June 2015. This first month, I have managed to reach the 11.000 hand milestone, 11.049 to be precise.

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The beginning of the challenge has been quite harsh though as I started with losing around 15% of my bankroll over the first 500 hands. Thank you PLO! We love you! Really! :) Since then, all I have been doing for the rest of the month, is grinding my way up again in grand Omaha and NLHE Zoom (or 4-tabling) tradition: up and down and up... and down... Every time I seemed to take off a little bit, a series of weird encounters or silly plays of mine occurred, sending my graph down a couple of buy-ins again. At the end of this first month, I am down €27.67 in cash games. This is the result of 76 sessions played in 20 days at stakes ranging from NL/PLO2 to NL/PLO30.

MTTs and SNGs are games I would like to focus a lot on as they tend to be good bankroll boosters if you are lucky and talented enough to make big hits. So far I have played 327 tournaments (turbo MTTs, regular MTTs & hyper SNGs). Buy-ins have been ranging from €1 to €10 playing €1-3 hyper SNGs and €3-10 MTTs. On September 18th, after being stuck around ±0 for 209 tourneys, I managed to finish 5th/230 in a €5 6max tourney and I also almost made a second final table the same day busting 10th/237 in another €3 full ring game. I could have done better in the €5 6max but I came in a bit short at the final table and busted in a very standard way where I min-raise on the button with JJ just short of 15bb (drawing dead preflop actually :p ). I then call an all-in from Mister Second-in-Chips, uAREaDEADlol, who I have no other info about than the 37 hands played together on this final table. He ends up holding A9o. A on the flop. Auf Wiedersehn!

Being up €130 at that point, I decided to take some €10 tournament shots besides the €3-5 games and I played more €2-3 SNGs along with the €1 ones. Today, I am down again from +€130 to +€21 some 120 tournaments later. So back to the grind!

I don't believe it's interesting to religiously grind one's way up from limit to limit in online micros as fields are big, swings are huge and skill is not necessarily rewarded if you consider the ridiculous rake you pay in low cash games. My belief is that, below buy-ins of €25-50, it is preferable to move up based on the bankroll rather than considering the win rate only. Based on the surreal rake, I got the feeling that the volume needed to identify the true win rate will make me pay way too much to the Poker room. Even with good rake back promotions, I feel like chances are, I will be playing micros for a veeeery long time before I can move up. I consider that it is worth a (not so wise) shot to move up as fast as I can using kinda aggressive bankroll management. Once I hit the €25-50 buy-in limits, I think it is definitely worth to focus on one's win rate again more seriously before moving up further because I consider those fields hard to master in tournaments. In cash games, I always find myself playing against good regs from NL50/PLO20 on. Below, it is not uncommon to still find plenty of 70/10 artists.

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All in all, my starting bankroll of €500 is now €494.56. That's a loss of €5.44 over 11.049 cash game hands, 327 tournaments and more than €1.000 invested. I am really not feeling bad about this result but it is not like I am going to be bragging for days and weeks. 'It's not enough', as my brother loves to claim quoting George Young interpreted by Johnny Depp in one of our favorite movies, Blow. It is indeed not enough to make this solidarity challenge something that can remotely be called 'a success' but my gut feeling is good regarding the quality of my game and of my mindset.

As I know I might not be able to play as much this coming month, I am planning to play more satellites during the next weeks. I will be away from home quite a bit during october, mainly for Poker live coverages of the WPT Brussels, the Winamax Poker Tour launch in Paris and the Namur Oktoberfest. It's always more difficult for me to play some volume while I am not at home (home, sweet home). As a result, I might play less €3-5 MTTs and compensate with some €2-5 SATS potentially giving me access to some €10-50 tournaments with smaller fields and bigger top payouts . I will not buy-in tourneys >€5 though before my bankroll reaches €600 again. Hyper SNGs will still be on the menu of course as they are short games and I am also still planning to reach the 10.000 cash game hand milestone during October trying to take advantage of the periods I will be at home to play longer multi-table and zoom sessions. Looking forward to it!

Thanks for your attention if you made until here!

Don't hesitate to send me some feedback, some advice, some love... or some money if you care.

Actually, if you really were about to send some money, I would rather suggest you to send it to the A.P.E.M.H. Foundation VIA THIS LINK.

Take care and run good at the tables!

Damian

Time for a new challenge!

It's almost September again, so back again to serious stuff in life! The daily grind at work, at school or at the Poker tables... whatever brings you through the year :)

After the premature stop of my last challenge in Costa Rica due to Javier's marriage (congratulations!!), I have set up a new challenge that is planned to last from now to June 2015.

[Scroll down for details. You can read the text in italic below for more information and references.]