The Challenge

This post is always on top
(Challenge started on 8/31/07 but to keep this post on top the date will change)
Recently Chris "Jesus" Ferguson had a freeroll Challenge...
The Goal?
To Turn $0 into $10,000. This is something he had accomplished before, only I believe he started with nickle and dime limits or something and he had a limited bankroll. So How did he do it? He played freerolls, Once he won the freeroll he made sure to manage his money extremely well.

Here's the guidelines he used.
-Never buy into a cashgame or sitngo with more than 5% of your bankroll at stake
-Never buy into a multitable tournament with more than 2% of bankroll... However due to it being tough to play games when you only have a small amount, you are allowed to play $1 multitable tournaments.
-If at anytime in a cashgame you lose enough money so that you have more than 5% of your bankroll at risk... LEAVE IMMEDIATELY, and play lower stakes.

The tough part of the challenge is first you must win a freeroll... Depending on the fieldsize and payouts, this can be a fairly difficult task, especially if you aren't used to playing big fields against players that are willing to risk it all way too often. If you don't know how to make the adjustments against people that will call just about anything you will have troubles.
The second hardest part is accumulating enough cash in your account for it to mean enough. It took Chris Ferguson a LONG time before he even got aboven $100. (7 months, and he puts quite a bit of hours in).



$10,000 is a little unrealistic for me, however $1,000 on the other hand is very doable. In fact, I've been through this all before... TWICE... Two times I've gone from nothing to $1000.

The first time, I knew a little about poker, but not too much. I knew that tight aggressive was the best strategy against random opponents, and I took that to the extreme. After winning a 10 person freeroll I entered the cash games. I just shoved all in with Aces Kings queens jacks tens 9s or 8s, AK, and AQ and folded everything else. I didn't want people to realize how tight I was so I moved tables every rotation. Unfortunately I knew NOTHING about bankroll management. So After earning $1000 I blew it all on about 4 bad beats, and once when my kings ran up against aces.

But then I started to play at Ultimate Bet, The tournament structures were made for advanced players, it was fairly deep stacked tournament early, but the blinds escalated, the ante kicked in, and the blinds got higher and higher. Waiting around for aces just didn't work. Even when I was catching them, I would blind down so far that I was ALWAYS at risk of survival. I learned that aces all in, although was 80% favorite, was only going to give you about a 50% of survival if you were all in 4-5 times. So before I really learned about poker, I just thought it was more of a crap shoot. I just tried to double up earl, well I soon found out that didn' work. I began to learn more and more about poker.

After having a taste of what it's like to go on a rush from 0 to $800 in a couple weeks, I was determined to win it back.

So I finally decided to check out some other freerolls, and Absolute Poker had quite a few going. So I won a dollar or something, won a sit N go, then played at the .05/.1 limit games,

I was much more cautious about bankroll management... I ran it up to about $70

Then someone I found had a sweet offer where you not only got a deposit bonus, but you also get his instructional ebook... SO I found a neteller account, I transfered $50 over, had $20 in my other account, gained a $25 deposit bonus, and a great ebook that taught me on style of poker that worked pretty well. Well I ran that money up and took some money and tried some different sites out, played a lot of sitngos, turbo sitNgos, played some cash games, played limit. I read books and ebooks, articles, I watched poker. I loved it. I learned so much, I won 1st and 2nd in $5 and $1 buy ins with a pretty big field. It took WAY longer for me to work my money up to $1000 this time, but I was a lot smarter about it. Unfortunately Congress attached a clause on a port secuirty bill that said banks weren't allowed to use transactions between overseas online gambling sites. Well Party Poker ditched out, I tried to withdraw all my money and neteller froze the account. So I was stuck with no money (except a little bit that I kept in my account), and no way to play poker.

Perhaps you can relate, perhaps you freerolled your way to some cash, perhaps you made a deposit ran it up then went broke, perhaps you've never really made that much, or maybe you just like the thrill of the challange. Maybe you just want to prove you're good enough, or maybe you just like FREE money! (who doesn't)

Well whatever it is I can help. I've been there before, I've grinded it out, I've read books, I've studied poker theory, I've used various software, I've watched videos, I've created my own theorys and mathematical formulas. I know how hard it is to have your aces cracked and think "there's got to be an easier way!" Well there is, and I'm going to prove it to you.

2 years ago to this date I won my first thousand starting from nothing... 2 years ago I lost it all because I didn't know how to manage it.

18 months ago I started all over from nothing, again I made it to the thousand mark, this time I did it the right way, safely cashing out.



And Now, I begin my journey again, starting my bankroll from scratch... And I'm not going to stop until I'm back to the quadruple digits again...

And this time YOU get to see EXACTLY how I do it. Not only am I going to tell you what stakes I am at, what hands I played that stick out, and various strategies, but I'm going to SHOW you. I'm going to let you "watch over my shoulder" I have screen capture software and a Microphone and I literally will show you exactly what cards I play and when. You'll hear EXACTLY why I layed my pocket tens down in one situation, but pushed with pocket 7s in another. Why i fold a raise with AK all in, but then call an all in with KQ. Why I won't even CONSIDER taking a coinflip for my tournament life early, and won't even take a situation where I'm 60/40, and sometimes even 70/30, but I'll be willing to call an all in on the BUBBLE when I could easily be a 40% dog! I'll even explain to you why mathmatically I am making the correct play. In fact, just now I finished top 30 in a qualifying tournament n a field of 3500. I folded AK TWICE, once early, just after I folded TT, I got down to a third of my starting stack, but then I got it all in with a set of 8s when my opponent was DRAWING DEAD. I then got it all in with ACES with my opponent only having 5 outs. I got it again all in with ACES preflop .... Other then these hands, and me being all in with 99 towards the end when the blinds were huge, I was NEVER all in and I seemed to hardly ever pick up any other hand then I listed. But I was robbing people blind, and hardly risking ANYTHING. Given that I got it all in as a 100% favorite, a 80% favorite, a 80% favorite and a coinflip, I had about a 30% chance of beating a field of 3500 and qualifying. that means every 3 tournaments I enter and play like that I'm cashing.

I'm not telling this to brag... It's a freeroll for goodness sakes, But I'm saying it because I want you to know what I can do for you, I want you to know that you, like me, can also learn from people who have been there before, just as I have learned from those before me, dramatically shortening the amount of hands I need to play to learn.



Now I'm going to walk you step by step on exactly what I do and how. Look there's plenty of pros that will tell you a certain way to play tournaments, but first of all, not all pros have made the adjustment to people who play as aggressively, they're only now starting to learn the secrets to success in these HUGE fields. PLUS, everything changes in freerolls and low stakes tournaments with thousands of entries... bluffing is pointless, you're going to get called... Blind stealing is pointless you're going to get called or raised. Restealing is out, if they're raising with a hand, they're usually calling all in with it. 70% of what the pros do is read players, they can't do so online, so they can get away with not having a perfect technical game to them. Beleive me, I've tried LOTS of strategy, I've changed my game so many times, only to find that they ALL have their weaknesses, and strengths, it's up to you to KNOW which style to play and when... When I finally added Daniel Negreanu's Power Holdem Strategy to my game, and then saw how Phil Helmuth had finally made adjustments to play these big fields and watched what he changed, EVERYTHING changed.



For the past month I've played nothing but low stakes tournaments and freerolls. I won a couple dollers here and there, I won a few qualifiers (and most of the time I slept in or forgot about playing in them) but I couldn't get that small amount of cash into a meaningful amount to the point where I could play without risking a large amount of my bankroll. I was mostly just "experimenting". But after reading about Chris Feguson's journey to $10,000, even watching him play in a tournament on Full Tilt, and after finally getting my money back from Neteller, I was inspired, determined to do it all over again. All that learning I've done has Compounded, all the styles and things I've learned have clicked together, I don't know what it is but my game has clicked, I KNOW I'm going to get back to $1000, and when I hit that mark, watch out, anything could happen.



So Come Join me on my quest.. Watch how I do it, and go out and do it yourself, using my techniques and strategies as a guide. Heck, beat me to my goal if you can go ahead and try... Maybe you can apply some of my strategies with your own and you can become even better than me. It'd be hard to believe that anyone could dominate the freerolls like I can, but then again, I'm basically teaching you everything I've learned and not only that but I'm SHOWING you HOW I impliment those techniques to dominate the freerolls and low stakes tournaments as I build my bankroll up to a thousand.



Stay Tuned for the videos!

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zero to a thousand update

First entry: I qualified in a tourney placing top 30 out of 3500 but the recording software got goofed up so I was unable to load it up. I believe the problem is resolved. I limped with a few pairs early, and it wasn't until I had only 1000 in chips when I hit my set, but that double up got me to 2400 and I was able to accumulate chips from there, getting it all in with aces on the turn with my opponent virtually drawing dead (two outs). I made a lot of sick laydowns. I folded pocket tens twice. The first time was very early to an all in, and those of you that read the Power Holdem blog know my disdain for taking a coinflip early, it was worse than a coinflip because two players had gone all in in front of me... I also layed down pocket Tens to a tight player who only played all in or fold at the time and he showed pocket Qs. Even later on I folded AK suited which was probably the sickest laydown I made the entire tournament, given the timing of it. It was pretty late in the tourney, the period of time that you'll want to take a coinflip. I had about 20000 in chips my opponent had about 18000, However, he hadn't ever moved all in, I felt he had a pair and I was a slight underdog, but most of all I was just confident enough that I was going to be able to squeak into the top 30 anyways. Later on I was getting short and picked up pocket 9's and had to make a move so I shoved all in after a guy who had been raising more than his fair share raised it up in early position (he almost had to have had a hand that was good enough to make it a coinflip). Well I had all my chips at risk for only the third time... The first time my opponent was drawing dead, the second time I had aces built a big multiway pot and flopped the top set. and Now I had 99 and he had AQ and I was a 56% favorite.
I had to make a couple blind steals by making a 2.5X raise and a minraise with basically nothing to kind of tread water. I was in 26th place with 35 left, and just kind of managed to stay afloat as I had to fold 77 and AJ to an all in, knowing I would probably still make it without taking that risk. I was at some tables that it wasn't very easy to accumulate chips at because they were so loose aggressive that I just had to sit back and wait for a hand, and even when I had a hand I had to fold a lot of them.
Qualifier: Now that I qualified, In a field of over 2000 people, all that are top 30 qualifiers in their fields of 3500, I was unable to cash but managed to do very well early accumulate chips before I got distracted and lost focus making a bad play risking my chips from the big blind with A6 on a 623 flop. Opponent had 45 suited. I didn't need to get involved in a big pot against someone who had me outchipped at the time, I had plenty of chips and there were less than 600, maybe even less than 300 at the time.
First documented entry: You should be able to see this soon if I can get the video upload to work. It doesn't seem to want to upload to google or youtube at the moment... the file size might be too big... I'll look for an alternative video source, if any one knows of any let me know. The blinds get big and I come up short again losing with AQ against AA... You hear me talk about how playing AQ in early position is a little bit of a questionable play at that stage in the game, and I almost folded it preflop... The guy played the hand well preflop, but basically gave me a chance to get away from the ace high flop, but I just didn't want to believe that he had me. After that I was short stacked and forced to make some moves two hands later from the BB I shoved in on a minraise and a caller in late position and the small blind, knowing the person always bet his good hands strong, and a minraise to me meant he didn't have it, and the guy that called tended to see a lot of flops. The small blinds calling range was pretty wide for a raise like this. I shoved in with JT suited and it just so happens the smallblind made a trap with AA. I hit a J and a T, however with a pair on board my two pair weren't as good as his two pair and I was out. The funny thing is I was good enough to recognize that the table was good enough to make these sort of traps, and I mentioned when I first sat down how much trapping was going on, but I still wasn't able to identify it and get away from it, an error in judgment on my part.

I think from the video, you'll be able to see how I accumulate chips early without taking much risk (although before I started recording a little early I shoved in with AK and got called by 88 but doubled up). If nothing else it should be a good lesson on risk management and chip accumulation. If anyone knows of a video site where I can upload videos that are above 100M, let me know so I can get this video up and running. No cash yet, but it's still only a couple days into the challenge, and cashing first and getting the money up to a bankroll where I can afford to safely play in games are the most difficult things about the challenge.