Duplicating Chris Ferguson's $0 - $10,000 Challenge

DeJaMo · Jun 23, 2008

I'm trying the same idea on FT, as an exercise, freerolls only, got my BR up to about $5.50 and then spewed it all away at $1 SnGs, on tilt, but not poker related tilt.

Anyhow it's fun, it's time spent at the tables, hopefully learning and it's FREE.
Current FT BR $0.31

carpeamentum · Jun 23, 2008

SteveButabi said:
but i dont think im gonna follow ferguson's rules, my rule is COMMON SENSE

Good luck

smokin-aces · Jun 23, 2008

isnt their 0.10c SNG's for the real grinders? you can be fully rolled to play with as little as $4-$5

OzExorcist · Jun 24, 2008

smokin-aces said:
isnt their 0.10c SNG's for the real grinders? you can be fully rolled to play with as little as $4-$5

Not on Full Tilt. They have a rebuy MTT that's only 10c to enter, but they rebuys are 50c, the fields are huge and I think they're only held once a day.

carpeamentum · Jun 24, 2008

OzExorcist said:
Not on Full Tilt. They have a rebuy MTT that's only 10c to enter, but they rebuys are 50c, the fields are huge and I think they're only held once a day.

Correct, it is a 1000 Guarantee Tournament though, so, I have entered it twice. I also haven't been far enough from cashing on it to not play it again occasionally, no rebuys though.

As a not related to this reply update:
Cashed in an Omaha freeroll, so now I have 2.20 to work with. Time to see if I can win a SnG now that I have worked on my SnG game in play money.

hennyville2000 · Jun 24, 2008

Good luck and keep grinding.

carpeamentum · Jun 28, 2008

Went to a local bookstore and picked up Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and Little Blue Book. I believe that reading what I have of these has improved my game significantly. I suggest these books to anyone who hasn't read them.

An update:
I won 3.25 by placing 5th in a ~700 person $50 freeroll.
I then played 5 $1.00 + $0.25 9 person NL HE SitnGos.
In those I placed 4th , 3rd, 1st, 6th, and 1st. In either the 4th place finish or the 6th place finish I had a series of plays where I lost all of my chips in 2 hands where my opponents had 5 and 6 outs. It happens, but it sucks when it takes a good chunk out of your bankroll.

bob_tiger · Jun 28, 2008

carpeamentum said:
Went to a local bookstore and picked up Phil Gordon's Little Green Book and Little Blue Book. I believe that reading what I have of these has improved my game significantly. I suggest these books to anyone who hasn't read them.

An update:
I won 3.25 by placing 5th in a ~700 person $50 freeroll.
I then played 5 $1.00 + $0.25 9 person NL HE SitnGos.
In those I placed 4th , 3rd, 1st, 6th, and 1st. In either the 4th place finish or the 6th place finish I had a series of plays where I lost all of my chips in 2 hands where my opponents had 5 and 6 outs. It happens, but it sucks when it takes a good chunk out of your bankroll.

hey congrats on the win, but I have a suggestion for you. Two month ago I did something exactly like this and I wrote about it in my blog bobtigersadventure.blogspot.com. I was very serious about it and I had steps and everything for myself, so there was no way of me failing with the rules I set up.

Well believe it or not it didn't take me very long to hit that 1k task but thats not the point the point is I never came close to ever going broke, and those first two steps are always tough. Sorry, back to my suggestion, I suggest you play nothing but freerolls until you are at 25$, I have calculated everything back then and when i started playing 1$ 9 mans I never even though of being broke but yea check out my blog and pm me if you have any questions.

And one last thing over the years I have came up with a stradegy for these 9 mans that works like magic, during my challenge after i hit 35$ i was 9 tabling 1$ sngs since i was playing with profit and in this thread is the video of how i play if you care to watch it.

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/learning-poker-57/

carpeamentum · Jun 28, 2008

Thanks, bob, for the advice. I hear what you are saying. However, I don't find that my play differs based upon my bankroll. That is one thing I think I have a relatively easy time doing. In addition, I don't see a difference between playing only freerolls until I get $25 and playing those freerolls and SnG games in between. After all, I am still playing the freerolls. There just may be more time between the SnGs if I run my br down on that.

carpeamentum · Jul 13, 2008

Well, I managed to go "broke." Good for me that's where I started. Back to freerolls exclusively for me it is. Ill keep things updated as I crawl my way up.

ELF-M · Jul 13, 2008

OZ, check your edit settings, I play $1 & $2 SnGs and once in the $2 180 tournie. I'm sitting on a $32 bank started w/ FR in march, would be up around $100 if not for trying the low limit ring games. won't make that mistake next time up. only play 2 or three times per week but would rather pay attention to 1 $2 game than multi-table 2 $1 games. by my stats I have played 42 games with a $1+ per game adv. plus a 50 something 3rd in the 180 mtt game. will try more 180 games when i am over $50 again. also joining a forum was what gave me my start even though they don't play on FTP anymore.

ELF-M · Jul 13, 2008

GL on your chalange carpeamentum, you really can play on other peoples money. the other thing that helped me since I haven't been playing long, is reading books. Sklanski's Tournament poker for adv. players, psycology of poker, phill gordon's little green and blue books' and the first one I read was borrowed from a friend, I think by Gus Hanson.

kaiWalk · Jul 13, 2008

Never heard about the Ferguson challenge, but I guess that's what I'm already doing at Doyle's Room. Cashed in the quickdraw freeroll & played a few .09 SnG's.

My own rule (once feasible) was no SnG's over 10% of my bankroll. Once I got over $20 I started playing the .02/.04 ring games.

In a week, I was up to $110. I've had a couple major tilts and lost half of it, but I'm back up to $75 now.

Been about 3 weeks since I started.

What was Ferguson's timeframe?

carpeamentum · Aug 3, 2008

It took Chris Ferguson 18 months to complete his challenge.

martygokona · Aug 4, 2008

SteveButabi said:
but i dont think im gonna follow ferguson's rules, my rule is COMMON SENSE

I think I would have to loosen up the starting requirements. If I won $7 bucks in a freeroll. I would rather go bust playing $1 or $2 SnGs and start over than grind out .01/.02 ring games.

A few months ago I started with zero on Bodog. Cashed a freeroll and over time have cashed out over 2K playing SnGs and MTTs. "Note: I had to make a deposit to get the first payout." I probably cashed out too much because I went on a bad run and my BR is pretty much depleated. But, I'm confident I can build it again. And, I'm confident that the zero to $10K thing is doable. I don't play that many ring games, (although I'm trying to improve) and I just think that it's more realistic to loosen up the early buy-in requirements for your bankroll level, especially if you're gonna do it through SnGs and MTTs.

matt6781 · Aug 4, 2008

no need to start from 0

to tell you the truth starting from 0 zero will take you forever just make the minimum deposit and get started lowest play on ft is 25c -50c limit go from there and good luck

carpeamentum · Aug 4, 2008

For those who want to question the ROI of this endeavor, I can not hope to match my normal rate of income without significant monetary risk. However, I am not yet ready to play at that level. That is one reason why I am starting at $0.
For all of you who say deposit and skip the early levels, see above and also note that this is is a matter of pride in addition to being a matter of practice.

I have taken a break while I am busy with other things. Once I have some more time, I intend to pick back up this project.

JCN221 · Aug 4, 2008

Speaking from personal experience (if you're playing on Tilt) do not put your entire 2 dollar bankroll you won from a freeroll in a 5-10 c Omaha game.

I highly recommend the 10c crapshoot with 1k guaranteed (usually reaches 1.4K)

chapeltuno · Aug 5, 2008

I finished 25th in the usa freeroll on ft yesterday. It payed $2.00. I finished ITM in 5 out of 8 $1.00 one table SNG's and now I'm at $20.00. So, you really don't have to deposit to get to $20.

LarryT503 · Aug 5, 2008

All right, I'm on board as well though I will try to do it at Carbon. Had my account up to 80.00 once, but lost it all on a bad beat! Good luck everyone!

metzyman06 · Aug 5, 2008

I prefer to play 6 man sng's rather then HU, I need to work on my HU play.

cAPSLOCK · Aug 5, 2008

When it comes to initial funding... The choices of freerolls or a small deposit have both been offered.

But I started up my rags to riches run another way.

I made 1M playchips in about a week and sold them for $10.

That's still a little skinny for .01/02 on stars, but I survived. I suppose you could sell 5M or so and have a better cushion.

chadherczeg · Aug 5, 2008

I have actually been trying the same thing for almost a month now, i have gotten my bankroll up to 30-40 bucks a few times but then go outside of the BR management rules trying to win big and lose it all. All i can say is learn from my mistake and listen to Chris cuz he has done it. Don't try to win fast, just take it slow and see how it goes. I am trying it now, and won a couple bucks yesterday but then got into 2 dollar and quarter sitngoes and lost it and am back to 20 cents. hopefully i can do it again today on the 10 cent 1000 guarantee and get back up to where i need to be. Gl on the felt and i am gonna add you as a friend so i can see how you are doing from time to time. I will also let you know how i am doing and maybe we can turn this into a competition, cuz i love competition.

orangecat · Aug 5, 2008

AHHH good ole bankroll management. That is definately my downfall. I am working hard to correct that flaw but each time I build a roll from scratch I get the itch to move way to far up in buy ins. I finally placed deep in a ft 28,000 gaurauntee (5th) wich has added 1700 to my ever backwards br. I will stick to the 5% rule on tourneys as apposed to furgesons 2-3% rule. and I will keep an update for anyone who is interested in my progress.

anyone else have variations of there own on fergusons strategy?

Orangecat

PopeNegro · Aug 5, 2008

I'm actually trying to do this on bodog, been fluctuating between 300-400 for about a month now, mainly because i've been playing way too many MTT's

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Duplicating Chris Ferguson's $0 - $10,000 Challenge

DeJaMo

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carpeamentum

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smokin-aces

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OzExorcist

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carpeamentum

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