$1k In 1Year

Goal = ATTAINED. Utilizing conservative bankroll strategy, and finally setting about poker with a solid plan, I turned $50 into $1k in just a week shy of a year, starting at .01/.02 shorthanded NLHE, and now finally bankrolled to tackle quarter/half. It can be done.



Just for fun, the hand that won me the final $16.90 and pushed me over 1k with the nut boat (he mucked QQ after calling my river overbet):



Analysis

Before I dive into the gritty stats and too much self-analysis, yes, it's an achievement, and I'm proud of it. Was it easy? No. Was it profitable? That depends on whether you think averaging $1.25 per hour is profitable. My main point here is to acknowledge (and caution) that playing poker seriously and coming up from nothing the hard way is far from a get rich quick scheme. Sure, I think if I was to start again today with $50... I could greatly increase my earn rate and make it to $1k a good deal faster, but it would still take a significant amount of time. If you scoff at the length of time it took me, you're either a better player now than I was then, or you don't understand (or don't care about) bankroll management. In poker and life, the lucky few among us may seem to stumble into success, but there really is no shortcut. Easy come, easy go.

Ok, some stats. I predominantly played single tables at three stakes of shorthanded NLHE. (Figured into the 1k total are also some low-level SNG's[net -] and a small amount of bonus money[+], which coupled together almost exactly zeros out.)

Stakes	Sessions	Hours	Profit	Earn Rate
.01/.02 ($5)	25	40.58	$24.75	$0.61/hr
.05/.10($10)	171	396.25	$411.55	$1.04/hr
.10/.25 ($25)	162	322.08	$513.98	$1.60/hr
Totals	358	758.92	$950.28	$1.25/hr

Nothing staggering here, other than how you'd think the earn rates would be higher... at least I know I think they should be. In big bet poker, the swings (and the rake, but that's a different subject) can and will devastate your earn rate. The simplest explanation is that the absolute value of a "good" decision you might make, doesn't tend to be as big as the absolute value of a "bad" decision. Interpretation: a mistake often costs more than a good choice earns. Putting it yet another way, you can play good poker and make many correct decisions and earn small solid gains, but you can blow those gains with just one mistake. Opportunities to make a single huge gain with one decision are few and far between, and often difficult and risky.

Of course, I also freely admit that the low earn rates are in part due to a whole slew of tilt and more often the deadly and deceptive "semi-tilt", not to mention outright inexperience. The whole point was to learn the game and master myself (or master the game and learn myself, depending on how you look at it), and that probably takes a good chunk of loss to do.

With all of the above said, it is significant to note that by looking at the graph above, you can see how low my roll was at about 2/3 of the way across. This low point represents yeah, some bad play/beats, but also means that in the last 137 sessions since that point, I made a profit of $736.60 in 244 hours, for a "recent" earn rate of just over $3. Knowing my play, I also know that this was no accident... I simply played better recently.

$3/hour doesn't seem like much, but it is relative: it's IMHO a respectable 12 big blinds per hour. Translate that into playing $.5/1, and you're making $12/hour. Sure the competition on average gets better as you move up through these stakes, and it becomes more difficult to maintain such a relative earn rate, but the absolute earn rate can, will, and should continue to increase.

The goal for me is to keep building my bankroll and eventually move up stakes to the point where I'm paying myself not only a respectable rate relative to the stakes, but one that is also respectable in real-world terms on its own. In hindsight, the $1k itself isn't nearly as significant as what it represents... as termed above, "coming up the hard way"... Putting in the hours, taking the beats, making and re-making and re-making mistake after mistake, realizing just how hard (and easy) it can be, stripping poker down to its essence and slowly layering tendencies, human nature, knowledge, and personal experience on top. It takes balance and instincts to play winning poker, and there has been no better teacher for me than the roughly 75,000 hands it took to build myself $1,000 in a year.

Next up, $2k.