A New Challenge

I think I need a new poker challenge. With much of my on-line play, I kind of just sputter along. Over the several years that I’ve played, I am slowly, ever so slowly, building up a bankroll. But on-line is much harder than live play for me.

On three occasions in the past I’ve “taken a shot” at higher on-line limits -- $5/10 and $10/20NL. All three times, I had initial success and then dropped it all back. When giving it back, I’d fairly say that 50% was due to variance and 50% was due to bad play brought on by the variance.

I’m thinking of an accelerated “shot taking” chance. For example, start with a decent amount, like $500 (the “Starting Stake”), and put it all in play. Then, with each win, immediately put the Starting Stake plus all the Winnings from the Starting Stake in play. Instead of using good bankroll management with the Winnings, continue to push by putting the whole Starting Stake and all the Winnings in play. But never put in play more than the Starting Stake plus all Winnings. I will play mostly cash games, with some SNGs thrown in for variety.

If I crash, it would be like one losing session and I’m just out the Starting Stake. With solid play, I should be able to avoid a crash with anything but a bad beat. At least that’s the theory. I have the feeling that a lot of high stakes on-line players quickly built up this way.

I’ll set the goal at $10,000 -- if I can parlay the Starting Stake into $10,000, I will stop and go back to good bankroll management. (I might change my tune if this actually works and I hit something like the $5000 or $8000 mark. It would be difficult to set down at an on-line table with $5000+, but we’ll see what happens.)

I’d like to eventually be playing on-line for the same stakes as I do live, so there’s not so much disparity for me between on-line and live games. I pay more attention and play better when there is more at stake, which might explain why I often sputter along at the lower on-line stakes. Sitting down with $400 at a $2/4NL game and cashing out after an hour with $500 just doesn’t seem to have much pop when there is so much money in play on-line.