2011 SNG Challenge

Happy New Years everyone! I'm writing this to officially launch into a personal challenge my brother and I are partaking in for the entire year of 2011. It's going to be a long and bumpy road, but with perseverance and determination we will see ourselves through it.

Challenge: Turn $20 into $100K

The challenge is quite lofty, but with hard work and dedication I feel as though it is definitely attainable. Our strategy will revolve around a ton of volume, a lot of self and team review of our play, and a very aggressive bankroll strategy at the early stages of the challenge.

We will be playing exclusively on PokerStars, and will both be beginning with a bankroll of $10.00. At the onset of our challenge, our VIP level will be Bronze and we hope to quickly rise through the VIP ranks so that our effective rakeback % increases quickly.

Our $20 bankroll will be split between the two of us at the onset of the challenge. So as to reduce variance we will be sharing our rolls and moving through the SNG stakes according to our combined roll and not just our individual roll. This will serve the purpose of allowing us to be very aggressive, but also reduce some variance as we're able to level each other out a bit.

Poker Background

I began playing poker in March of 2010 after returning from a trip to Vegas with some friends where I spent a night at the Luxor at a $1/$2 cash table. Since then I've dabbled in various SNG structures along with cash games. Additionally I've had (in the past) subscriptions to Card Runners, DeucesCracked, and was a part of Nick Rainey's RainmanPoker training site for a few months. I currently have no subscriptions to any training sites.

My brother began dabbling in poker in May of 2010 and didn't take it very seriously until more recently. He played around 100 HUSNGs on a different poker room before we decided to take on this challenge in 2011. Since then he has been practicing his MTT-SNG game at the PokerStars Play Money tables. I'm happy to say that he's grown quite frustrated only being able to 3 table the SNGs, as volume will be one of the most critical factors to completing this challenge successfully. As of the beginning of this challenge my brother has played no real money games at PokerStars.

Here is my lifetime PokerStars graph to date, it will change a bit in the next couple days leading up to the 1st as I'm grinding some DONs but there shouldn't be any big swings.

PokerStars Overall

Full Time Jobs

One of our major obstacles to completing this challenge is going to be that we both have full time jobs. This will be a direct hindrance on our daily volume along with study time. One perk, however, is that we are not dependent on the money made from poker; and as a result we will be able to use very aggressive bankroll management to help grow our bankrolls very quickly at the beginning of the challenge.

Progress Updates

I'll be updating my personal blog regularly throughout the challenge. Additionally I will keep my twoplustwo thread updated regularly with our overall BR progress. Please see my profile for a direct link to my blog.

Let's Do This

We'll be starting this challenge at 12:00AM EST on 1/1/11. I'll be playing under the screen name “yomatta”; I won't out my brother's screen name but rather will let him do so if he chooses.

Best of luck at the tables in 2011.