I started playing poker in 2018 and began streaming on Twitch in 2021 under the name “UnleqitPsycho”. Hailing from Cologne, Germany, I am currently 22 years old and I love playing poker.
I usually play Multi Table Tournaments in the low- to mid-stakes range and was looking for a challenge. In collaboration with my stream, it was decided that I should start again from the beginning. I was going to do a bankroll challenge.
It was decided that I would start the challenge on March 29th with €25 and the goal was to reach €1,000. For the challenge, I would play all formats on GGPoker including Spin & Golds, MTT’s, Cash Games, and Battle Royales. I decided that I would document my journey so I would be able to look back and remember that ‘just because something is hard, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth doing.’
Week 1
For the first week of the challenge, it was decided I would concentrate on Spin & Gold games to try to finish on the leaderboard to get this challenge off to a good start. The German leaderboards, unlike most of GGPoker, run on a weeklong basis which is why I played this format from Wednesday 12:00 CET to Wednesday 11:59 CET. Due to the small starting bankroll, I would only be able to afford playing at the €0.25 Spin & Gold stake, thus attempting to rank the “Low” leaderboard which pays out $1,500 to the top 30 players each week.
The first day saw us start and end strong. We were able, through solid play and well-timed spins, to increase our bankroll from the €25 we started with to €57.38, a profit of €32.38. Not a bad way to start the challenge.
Days 2 through 4 were generally flat, but we did manage to squeak out a small profit each day and increase our bankroll to €86 when we finally finished up for the day.
Day 5 we had our first set back. We did keep playing and grinding away, but when it was all over I, unfortunately, was showing a loss. With the bankroll now down to €69.72, I called it a night and went about forgetting the session and learning from my mistakes.
Spending the time moving on was the best move I made on day 5 because on day 6 we were able to fully recover from the loss and creep above the day 4 total, ending the day with at an all-time high (for this challenge) of €89.07.
The last day of the leaderboard, day 7, also ended on a positive note and bring the bankroll up to over €90. And while I was pleased with the results, finishing in the positive 6 out of 7 sessions, what really gave me a boost was finishing in 5th place on the leaderboard for an extra $100, bringing our total bankroll to €190.41
The first week went extremely well, much better than I was hoping for. Starting week 2 having doubled my bankroll was a great start.
Week 2
Week 2 life got in the way and I was not able to play quite as much as I did in week 1. I did play some Spin & Gold’s to possibly place again on the leaderboard, but also because of how fast they play. At the end of the week, which was a breakeven week, I had managed to finish 16th on the leaderboard, good enough for 16th and a $20 bonus. All told, by the end of week, I was up to €210 and looking forward to a better week 3.
Week 3
In week 3 I decided to switch to cash games and with my bankroll, I decided that NL2 was the best place to be. The week started off very strong and I was able to build my bankroll but unfortunately, the monster known as variance found me towards the end of the week and beat my bankroll back down. The one shining light of the week was the bad beats which happened enough that I had chips for the GGCares Flipout freeroll. I managed to finish in the money for €21.54 in the Flipout which build my bankroll up to a new all-time high of €232.
Week 4
Life and responsibilities caught up to me again in week 4 and I was only able to play poker one day. Because of this, I decided to start the first MTT session of the challenge together with the stream. After a very long session, we were able to satellite into a $54 Bounty Hunter Daily Main, but it was worth the effort. We grinded it out and finished 512th out of 6794 players and took home $241.13. This was of course a huge jump for the challenge and we were able to bring our bankroll up to €445.
Month Conclusion
With the first month of the challenge completed, we are proud to say that that we are already halfway to our goal. I have streamed a lot of poker over the last month and can honestly say it has been a lot more fun than expected and overall the challenge has been very cool. I am looking forward to completing the challenge over the next few weeks and hopefully completing it successfully.
If this is something you want to try, I would strongly recommend following Bankroll Management. For myself when choosing an MTT, I stick with 100x buy-ins for Normal tournaments, 200x for turbos, and 300x for hyper tournaments.
As to the future, I will be jumping to cash games next then to Battle Royales. Hopefully, you can join me in a stream on this adventure and maybe follow me to the extended goal of €10,000!