Main Event or Bust

So for the most part, I’ve decided to take some of my own advice, and the results so far have been fairly good.

One thing that I discovered on Cake is a variation of the Sit ‘n Go called a “Double-up Tournament.” For those unfamiliar, it’s basically a ten man Turbo in which the top 5 places get paid the same—the tourney ends when the tournament is 5 handed, and if entry was say $10, payout for top 5 players is $20.

The pluses are some good bang for your buck; tables typically last about a half hour (blinds go up every 5 minutes), and there are plenty of donks. I used to like playing heads-up Sit ‘n Go’s, but I think I like this better. The key is not to necessarily try to finish first, but to just outlast 5 other players.

So far my results have been pretty pleasing: I’ve played about 150 of these in the last week or so, and I’m averaging an in-the-money rate of 58%. Now the rake on these is $2 on a $25 entry, which means that essentially you are wagering $27 to win $23—that means that break even win percentage is 54%. Put another way, out of every 100 tourneys you enter, you should win four times your average buy-in if you have a 58% win rate. Now I don’t have any delusions of making a living earning $100 every 50 hours of play, but it has done three things for me:

1) Helped me to grind my way back up to my original bankroll
2) Allowed me to earn the necessary play points to earn about $100 of my pending bonus from Cake for my initial deposit, which I guess we can now call profit.
3) Won a little bit of my confidence back.
4) Forced me to play tighter, especially if I am multitabling. (I have been multitabling occasionally, and so far tight play has allowed me reasonable success—I haven’t broken down the stats, but anecdotal evidence shows that it doesn’t seem to lower my win rate too much if at all.

I’ve also played about five more 30 player bounty tournaments, and won another one. I took seven bounties, plus my own, and the top prize again. Another shot in the arm for my bankroll, and my confidence.

To date, my bankroll sits at $625. My new short-term goal is to grind it up to $1k, so I can move up in limits, and see if I can accelerate my earnings.