Day 10: Not Exactly What I Had in Mind

Yeah, this is what happens when you make plans in poker. Things go completely the opposite of what you had in mind.

The friendly game kicked my butt. (Okay, actually I'm only down a couple of buy-ins. And that was all due to two hands. In one monster pot, I got all my chips in the middle with the nut straight on the turn, 84% to win, and got outdrawn by a flush on the river. In the other, I re-raised from the button to 10x the big blind with AK suited, and got called by a fool with 10 J who proceeded to flop trips, while I caught my second pair on the turn.) It was just one of those nights where things didn't go my way. I got pretty frustrated, but I'm pleased to say that I kept my head level ~ while verbally venting so as to persuade others that I was massively tilted ~ and played solidly until the game broke. It could have been a lot worse.

Furthermore, I was unable to reach my contact about the crazy-ass game, so I was relegated to coming home and playing online. The beautiful thing about online poker is that you can always get a game, day or night. I played 3 tournaments and cashed in all of them, and I ran roughshod over the cash tables. All microstakes, of course. Still, the net effect was to put me up for the night, which was balm to my spirit.

My online bankroll began with one modest bonus-maximizing deposit at the beginning of 2008. I have been exercising strict bankroll management discipline ever since, and have ground it up to its current amplitude without reloading. (I did deposit once to take advantage of another bonus offer, but I do not include that deposit amount in my bankroll calculations.) I fully intend to make at least a 10,000% return on my original deposit by the close of the Year of Risky Business. Since I had already achieved a growth of 1050% by Day 1, that translates to an additional online bankroll growth of 650% from the new baseline (as tracked below) by Day 365. I consider this a relatively modest goal, by the way. There is every reason to believe that I might do meaningfully better.

Live Bankroll: 98.8%
Online Bankroll: 113.6%