DoN SnG Challenge Update 1

I'm only 4 days into my Double or Nothing Sit-N-Go Challenge and I'm off to a decent start after 144 games. I have an $82.40 profit which brings my challenge bankroll up to $232.40. Not once did I dip below my starting bankroll of $150.

With $150 as a simulated deposit, I have played $777.60 worth of games.

First 3 days weren't great but they were profitable. My win rate was just over 60% and I had a $58 profit.

Then came Sunday. Sunday was just a horrible day. I'm not sure what it is but weekends aren't very good for me. I was surprised Friday and Saturday were as profitable as they were.

On weekends, you get a lot of fish, and that's supposed to be a good thing but it never seems to work out that way for me. I seem to lose many 80/20 and 70/30 situations.

The day started off winning 2 of 4 for most of my sessions and then it got worse with some 1 win out of 4 sessions. I didn't have a single winning session on Sunday and even my 50% sessions put me at a $1.60 loss due to the rake.

Kings vs Jacks, they push all in, I call they make a set. Twice! Aces verses jacks same thing. I make a set, they can't let go of their under-pair and make a runner-runner one card flush or straight. I 3-bet with kings, get called by someone I've seen overplaying Ace rag, flop is safe, they push I call, they show A high no pair no draw, hit an Ace on  the river. Or they push an under pair and make a set on the river.

Player under-the-gun (UTG) raises 3x the big blind in the first level, then a raise, then a reraise, a call and I push pocket aces and get called by 3 players showing all sorts of crap. You put their cards together and they still don't have a hand, but somehow the person that couldn't let go of T3s makes trip 3's or a straight or two pair...

I'm pretty sure online poker isn't rigged, as these players have very poor stats, but it sure does seem like Sunday is make the fish happy day.

At my low point on Sunday, my bankroll was $175 and my win rate dropped down to 56%. I wasn't off to a stellar start, even though I was profitable, but Sunday was just horrible. I was averaging about $0.85 per game before that and on Sunday I was losing about $1 per game.

I took a break and since I couldn't sleep I played 3 more sessions after midnight (technically Monday) and went 3/4, 3/4 and 4/4 which put my bankroll at $210.30 which was actually around $2 more than the $208 I finished Saturday with.

My sessions today didn't get off to a great start, I went 1/4 my first two but then more than made up for it winning 4/4, 4/4 and 3/4. Overall my winrate today (including after midnight last night) is over 70% and I'm averaging $1.79 per game just for Monday.

My overall ROI is a little more than 10.6%. If not for Sunday it would have been almost 20%. If next Sunday goes as poorly I might have to skip playing Sundays.

Overall, my bankroll is up over 50% and I seem to be on track to meet my $1,000 goal in 2 months even with Sunday's poor results.

I've decided when my bankroll for this challenge reaches around $350-$400 I'll start add 2 more tables to my session and see if my win rate holds up.

There are a few regulars that will play 20 or more tables at a time. For the most part they are winning players, though there was at least one that I noticed is actually losing. Their win rates tend to be less and they average a lower profit per game but they make up for it by the sheer volume they play. Playing 100 games a night averaging $0.30 per game will net you $30 bucks.

On top of that, 100 games will give you 200 Frequent Player Points (FPP) if you're at the Bronze Star VIP level. But with the volume they play they are at least Silver or Gold Star or more. That wound mean 300-400 FPP per 100 games. A Gold Star VIP player that plays 100 games a day, 25 days a month will earn, 10,000 FPP which can be redeemed for 2 $50 bonuses in the Pokerstars FPP store for 5,000 FPP. So in addition to the roughly $750 they make (at $0.30/game) they get an additional $100 in bonuses per month. Not a bad deal for someone that can burn through 100 games in 3-4 hours at night.

It's not for everyone though and you need to have discipline, patience and good focus. There doesn't seem to be one right DoN SnG Strategy either as a lot of the regulars play very different styles, though none of them are reckless lagtards.

I'm unsure weather it would be better to play more tables or move up in levels, I'm going to do a combination of both. The rake for each game at the $5 level is $0.40 and if my average profit per game (including bonuses) wasn't more than the rake, then Pokerstars would be making more money from my play than me and I'm not sure I'd be too happy about that.

So this little experiment to try and build up a bankroll from a modest deposit playing DoN SnG's is going well. Hopefully the rest of the week goes mostly like today and my win rate improves.

If you're trying something similar, leave a comment and let me know.