My 3 year journey from $200 to $25K online

$200 to $25K ...  How I got there!

I just recently received my latest cashout from Lock and in doing so I noticed I had passed the $25K mark in profits online.    Granted it took me almost 3 years to do this (and I’m guessing about 1500 hours), but I'm still pretty proud of it.      

It’s cool to look back on how things have changed for me.  I first deposited $200 online just to keep my knowledge fresh for playing live.   With twin baby girls, I never had much of a chance to get out at night and play poker.   I began with a focus on ROI and how I did each tournament.  I was actually obsessed with what my ROI was in Sharkscope. 

Then I shifted into just trying to maximize profits.  You can see this by how the amount of tourneys I play in an hour has changed.   As an example I played about 5-6 hours the last two nights.   In that period of time I played over 150 tourneys which is more than I managed to play on Bodog for the entire period from March – September 2010.    So as I added more tables over time my ROI dropped considerably but my hourly profits rose due to the sheer volume. 

Here’s a site recap for my almost three year online history complete with “garphs”

BODOG (September 2009 – August 2010)

I recall starting out just hoping I could make money.  I only had the $200 deposit of which I promised my wife I’d not reload for at least 5 years if I lost it.   For months I played 10 and 25NL and $4-$5 SNGs.  I was just happy to be playing and not losing.  My original goal was really just to gain experience since with brand new twins my days of having the time to play live poker were gone. 

I slowly moved up in stakes and eventually was playing 100 and 200NL and $25-$50 DoNs.    I remember setting a goal of eventually making $1K a month.   I knew I had outgrown Bodog and needed a site with bigger stakes and an actual rakeback deal.   I moved to Full Tilt...  

Here is my graph from Bodog (March 2010 – September 2010).   Note that Sharkscope only started tracking Bodog in March 2010 so previously results don’t show.

FULL TILT (August 2010 – April 2011)

At Bodog, I was still playing only 1 or 2 tables at a time and lots of cash games (this was key to me learning and getting better though).  On Full Tilt, I made the switch to play SNGs almost exclusively.  I still only played 2-3 tables but I was playing at higher stakes and mixing in turbos to get more tourneys in.   My hourly and monthly totals were growing rapidly as I actually made a little over $5K my last three months on Full Tilt!!!

Then… poof!!!   Black Friday (April 15, 2011) hit and Full Tilt was no more.  No more $109 turbo SNGs.   No more high stakes SNGs.  No more Full Tilt!   No more online poker for me??  

Here is my graph at Full Tilt. To be honest, I ran extremely well at Full Tilt.  I actually was above EV (expected value) for all but two months on Full Tilt.  My luck has changed since then…

CARBON (May 2011 – October 2011)

After some brief research, I discovered the Merge Network was still accepting US players.  One week after Black Friday, I deposited money on Carbon, one of their skins.  Unfortunately I couldn’t find any real action higher than $10 full ring SNGs so I made the switch to playing DoNs.   The $20s ran consistently and the $50s ran often as well.  There were even some $100s taking off at times (thanks to a couple of the Lock pros joining in).   Still, I was only playing 2-3 tables and I wasn’t running great.  In fact, the entire time I was on Carbon I ran below EV (Expected Value) every month.   My hourly had dropped a good amount from my Full Tilt days (from a high of $40 in April to an average of $15 on Carbon).   I needed a change…

Here’s my graph on Carbon from late April 2011 – October 2011.

LOCK (October 2011 – May 2012)

In Late May, I had met one of the Lock pros thru 2+2 and he had a potential phenomenal rakeback offering for me.   It seemed too good to be true so I took some time to review it.  Unfortunately, on June 1^st, Merge stopped accepting new U.S. players while I was reviewing the offer.    He told me this was temporary.   The deal would have to wait.

Then in October 2011, Lock started accepting new U.S. players again.  I had received a phone call the night before from my contact and he said the deal was on.  I was excited because I was basically going to be playing using the same software and player base as Carbon but getting more rakeback.   It was free money basically.  It was at this point that I started to shift my focus away from ROI and over to multitabling.   I was tiling 4 tables at the time across the screen.  That way I could see all the action.   I started to stack tables instead.   I went from 4 to 12 tables  as my hourly rose back closer to $30 again.  $40 even looked doable cause again I was running under EV.  

then poof...  Lock split away from Merge and volume died.  

Here’s my graph with Lock from October 2011 – May 2012.    It’s at this stage that I became a rakeback whore.   Now that Lock has migrated to Revolution I can publically say that I was receiving 68-78% in rakeback (due to bonus reloads and points).   If you take a look at the two different graphs below,  I think you can see now why I turned all my focus away from ROI and into multitabling.   Over this time period I made about $7K in rakeback and bonus on top of the graph profits.

Normal Sharkscope graph

Graph with Rakeback

Feltstars (June 2012 – July 2012)

On June 1, 2012, Lock split from Merge and fragmented the volume for US players.  In fact, the volume for SNGs on Lock/Revolution is currently lower than Merge.   Anticipating this, I shopped around with some insiders to get a better rakeback deal with  a Merge skin.   A friend hooked me up with a great one on Feltstars so I am playing there right now ( I also received a good one on BCP but play mostly on Feltstars).   

However, volume is down so stakes are down.  Now I'm stuck playing mostly $10 and $20 DoNs.  Occasionally a $50 DoN takes off.  To make up for these lower stakes I am mass tabling.  In fact, I actually recently had 25 going at once.   The hardest parts for me about multitabling is registering new tourneys and keeping them from interfering when they pop up.  I pretty much can keep up with the action (though I can’t make any real moves as I don’t see history).   Oh, and my laptop crashes more often (last night my new laptop blue screened and it’s already been tweaked to maximize memory).

 Jury is still out on whether I can maintain or surpass the $30 hourly.  Reality is for me to improve I need the stakes to go up (and I haven't been able to get a $100 tourney to run since before Lock split).    I have also tried to play both Feltstars and Lock at the same time but the design of Lock’s new software is so shitty that it makes it near impossible to multitable (action does not pop to the foreground when you have another client running). 

Here’s my current graph on FeltStars from June 2012 – now (july 24 2012)

So...  now I am mixing in 1 table 3 paying SNGs again.   Why?   I need volume and I often can't get more than 15-20 tables $10 and up DoNs going at once.   So... we'll see where it goes.   To improve my hourly I might need to drop down and start back up playing HUSNGs.   I'd say cash but there really isn't any full ring action higher than 200NL on Merge.   I'd need to focus on 6max instead.    I don’t want to do that because I really really enjoy the finality of playing tourneys.  Even with 25 going at a time I still love playing them. 

So near term I am going to keep adding tables with DoNs as the foundation but...  if I don't see some long term improvement I might start experimenting with HUSNGs during some other sessions.

SIDE NOTE: please note the $25K is only how much I've earned.  What I have received to date is a different number.   In fact at one point I might need to nullify what I still have left on Full Tilt.   I also have scattered amounts at Lock, BCP and FeltStars.   But for now just let me enjoy my little brag while I can!   

If you made it this far… thanks for reading!!