I've been running a personal challenge since April 2013, and I think it's time to start a thread to explain where I've been and give me one place to consolidate all of my thoughts and brags. I didn't start a thread before because I expected to either have mediocre results where I wasn't making much progress, or even worse, have absolutely no success and I don't really want to broadcast my failures. Poker is a competitive game, and poker players can be very judgmental of each other. If I have a bad run, I probably won't share much until I start to recover from it. If I win, then I get to celebrate with my fellow POers!! And I'm starting this thread because I've had a very good run the last couple of weeks...

I found PO September 2012 and messed around with the site off and on for a few months. Then I wound up moving from Missouri to California in April 2013. Missouri has a ban on online gaming, so most sites block Missouri players, I of course ignored those bans but wasn't very confident in my ability to cashout if the time ever came. California is poker friendly, and will hopefully at least get some state poker soon. So when I found out I was moving I started cranking out the crowdflower to save up points so that when I got to Cali I could hit the ground running with some legit accounts I could get BR boost with.

This is when I started my personal zero to hero challenge. The rules are simple. Even with the smallest amount of money, I follow my BRM rules. A BI can't be more than 5% of my BR. Re-buys get multiplied by 5 and re-entries get multiplied by 3 for the 5% rule. An example would be a $1 re-buy would count as a total of $5 buy in as far as BRM goes, so I would need a BR of $100 to play instead of a BR of $20. I won't play in MTTs/SNGs where first is less than 5% of my BR. I also decided I would cashout 10% of all winnings, therefore I need to have more than a 10% ROI to move up in stakes.

I was floundering around for a a few months until someone told me to check out the Gripsed's tournament series on YouTube. That pushed me into the +ROI% and I've had a +ROI each month since September (knock on wood and hope I don't jinx myself now). I made my first min cashout on Carbon in December.

In January I finally read Harrington on Holdem, and I've had a crazy run the last couple of weeks on Carbon. My BR went from $100 to $285. I've had multiple first and second place wins in MTTs. I've become much looser with my short stack shoving range, which works well with the re-entry structures on Carbon. I may have to re-enter a few times, but I can go on a run and build up a decent stack that can get me deep.

I haven't been able to build anything up on Bovada, and I usually miss the freerolls because of the short registration time.

SWC I built a BR up from freerolls back when btc was much cheaper, so I've got about 500 chips there. As soon as I cash, I'll sell off 10% of the win for points and sell the points for amazon. I will also put aside 10% of my LLB wins for amazon. I made $175 amazon last year on top of the Carbon check.

After I made my cashout, I went ahead and made a min deposit on Carbon on Bovada to take advantage of the deposit bonuses. I only have a BR of $20 on Bovada right now, so I'm not playing anything there right now and haven't checked on the bonus. Carbon's bonus takes a ridiculous amount of VIP points to clear. I made a $25 deposit and am trying to clear a $50 bonus from it. It will take 7500 VIP points ($750 in rake) to clear the bonus. They will release it in $10 increments, and I believe I have 90 days to clear as much of it as I can. It's 13% cleared right now at around 45 days in. Once the bonus is cleared or expires I will request my next check, since a withdrawal cancels the bonus.

I'm starting this thread now, because I've tripled my BR in the last month. I want to brag!!! At the same time, I want one place where I can come to celebrate any more progress I make. My BR is growing enough that I am having larger wins then I'm used to, and whenever I have a new "biggest win" I'll post it here. I'll also post here if I have any more major milestones. Updating will be sporadic, but hopefully I'll continue to have wins to brag about!