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It all started when I won $2 from the Australia freeroll on FTP in June 2009. So I started to play 1-2c ring games. I didn't do so well at first and was down to my last 10c and put it all in with A4s and flopped a flush. In the few months after that I got a little better at cash games and some tournament scores from a fantasy poker freeroll and 2 5 FTP buyin tourneys as part of FTP's fifth anniversary promotion.
Then came a lot of 1-2c grinding and I eventually found my rhythm in those games. The Take 2 bonus of $50 boosted my bankroll to about $90. For a few days I was having trouble trying to crack the $100 playing 2-5c NLH. I eventually cracked it with my first crack at the Daily Dollar going on an incredible run and finishing 44th out of 9256 for what is still my biggest tournament cash to date of $20. I continued for a bit with 2-5c NLH and then made the move to 5-10c NLH. I went on a bit of a run and thought that I was doing great. I peaked at about $144 before I got a few AA and KK that got cracked either getting the money in preflop or I overplayed them after the flop sending me on a mega tilt and couldn't believe my luck.
I decided to have a go at Stud/8 after watching some great videos on FTP Academy and had some initial success but eventually ran into stations and didn't know how to handle it. Obviously I was still learning but I couldn't help but think that I was just unlucky. Thrown into the mix were some mix games which didn't really help either.
Over the next few months it was mainly $1 SNGs and I developed a strategy that would build my bankroll back past $100 but had a cold streak and crashed yet again. I eventually levelled out and I was going to take it easy with my poker volume but then FTP released Rush poker which threw a spanner in the works. I thought it would be the perfect game for me because I'm a bit of a grinder but I kept overplaying big pairs and bluffed a lot which sent my bankroll crashing again. At the time of release, Rush Poker only offered 5-10c NLH but I got back into it when they release 2-5c and just played when there was a promotion on like Take 2 and Rush Week.
I really can't remember exactly what happened in the following 10 months but at one point I was below $10 and it felt awful. Somehow I cracked the $150 mark. I think it involved lots of 9 player super turbo SNGs, some Rush Poker, a few HU super turbos and a few bonuses. It was about 10 months because that's the gap I left in my bankroll tracking on my spreadsheet. Towards the end of that time I eventually figured out a style to playing Rush that works for me and in the following 3 months I moved up to 5-10c Rush. Along the way were a few bonuses and Super SNG Madness.
By now I had a healthy bankroll for micro stakes. I decided to make a deposit and take my first deposit bonus figuring that I want to be able to withdraw some money at some point in time. That's when I took my shot at 10-25c Rush and went on a heater. My bankroll skyrocketed and before I knew it I was closing in on $1000. I peaked at about $1350 thinking that I could easily go $1400 then $1500 but I went on one of my trademark crashes and crashed to about $1100. It was also due to taking too many shots at 25-50c Rush. Somewhere in all that I made Iron Man Gold for November and December as well as Truly Free Poker Training from Cardrunners. So after watching a lot of Cardrunners videos I thought I would have a crack a HU PLO cap. My bankroll fluctuated wildly anywhere between $1000 to my peak of $1400. I eventually crashed to about $950 and had to revert back to 10-25c Rush. Problem was I couldn't stop taking a few more shots at 25-50c Rush and crashed a little more. After realising that I should stop taking shots and stick with 10-25c Rush I crashed some more down to $700.
In some of my crashes I would take the worst beats. Apart from the standard flush draw, open ender, gutshot or over card that sucked out or even the coolers, sometimes I would be all-in way in front with my opponent dead to runners and get runnered up to three times per session. So now I'm steady at just over $1000 and when I look back at all of this, I realise that I shouldn't be in such a rush to move up in stakes or take on a different game.
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