50PL Challenge: From $200 to $1000

[Slaladin]

<u>The Challenge</u>

A few people have asked me (they don't really play poker) whether it is easy to turn $200 into $1k playing for $50 a time. I have always answered that it is unlikely that anyone could do it but it is possible, if not improbable. Now my curiosity has got the better of me and I'm going to try and do just that.

<u>WTF, How?</u>

The plan is to play 50PL for 5 months and see if I can manage. I figure if I play 32k hands and run at 5bb/100 I will end right on the money. I'm not sure I can manage more than 8k hands a month of 50PL as I play 200NL and tournaments as well, so maybe realistically I am looking for 6 months.

It's definately not an easy challenge with a 4 buy in roll, but I think the restriction will make it more interesting, as long as I don't bite the tail end of the variance too soon in the challenge and run slightly above expectations for the first 5 buy ins won or so (assuming I can beat 50PL!!) I guess it shouldn't be too hard. If I do go through a 10k breakeven stretch, even with bonus clearing (forgot to mention - no rakeback, that could be a killer) I think that will whittle down my 4 buy in roll to the extent that it will be highly unlikely that I can complete this challenge.

<u>Help?</u>

I am sure many people here have managed to do this, and I would appreciate some general strategy that I can perhaps implement whilst doing this. I am not planning on changing my game up too much and will be playing 5/6 max because I believe my edge is greater where I can easily isolate. I will also be buying in full and will practice good game selection where possible (so many players in and out of tables after 50/60 hands at this level, unreal).

Any advice/strategy/ridicule will be much appreciated.

I've got a couple of <u>questions:</u>

What are the normal win rates of good players at this level?
From some of the graphs I've seen 9bb/100 seems to be the most I've seen over 25k hands (sick). Is that sustainable? Is 5bb/100 realistic at these levels?
Should I play 25NL to as well to try and decrease the variance in the size of my roll? (i would prefer to play only 50PL but if people who have done this routinely played 25NL as well then I am more than happy to).

Any questions ask and I'll be more than happy to answer.

Mods: If this is in the wrong forum feel free to move it, I just figured I'm asking for strat at ulimits with a short roll.

Disclaimer

No I don't think I'm an awesome online cash player, but with a steady head and decent play, I think that a lot of the players I know could have a shot to achieve this. What makes it very hard is the fact I only have 4 BI to start off, so I have to play well and get lucky essentially. If I play great and get unlucky, I cannot see myself grinding through a 20k breakeven stretch because even with bonus clearing (no rakeback) it will wittle my roll down and down.

Thanks for reading.

[qdmcg]

why would you bother doing this? if you play higher, you know that this is clearly possible and not even unlikely. if you actually play/beat 200NL, this is a joke/waste of your time.


edit - the 4 buy in stipulation doesn't make this at all interesting to me. you said yourself you could move down to nl25 , and a winning player at nl25 would have to run pretty bad to have an -8BI downswing

[Slaladin]

is it really this likely with only 4 buyins is what i really want to know. when i played 50nl when i started i had 25 buy ins after a tournament score and felt comfortable with that. if this is really that likely, i honestly didn't know. i know i didn't build my roll this way (a tourny score helped me a lot) and was just wondering if many people did and whether it is feasible.

EDIT: Just noticed your edit. so have many people done this then? i guess if its not that special then there's not much point. playing 5/6k hands of 50PL won't really affect my win/rate at 200NL as I can fit in just as many hands as without the 50PL.

[qdmcg]

there are calculators out there that should calculate your ROR based off of your suspected winrate at a given level. plug in your expected win rate (and possible your std dev) and it will estimate your chances of busto

[hennnerz]

ZOMG 200 to 1k unpossable!

[LiveNow]

this is incredibly retarded. Like next level.

[Slaladin]

okay, i get the pic, it's pretty pointless. been done before a million times etc. challenge cancelled and gone baack to playing poker.

edit: waht a waste of time typing that all up was.

[916greatest]

seriously this is a waist of time

[hennnerz]

maybe even a trouser leg of time

[Lego05]

This is easy as hell. You have to win 16 BI's at 50NL to do this. I could do this 3 to 4.5 times every month not counting rakeback/FPP's playing only like 21 hours per week.


My last 4500 (I don't play 50NL much anymore, mostly playing 100NL) hands at 50NL I've happened to have run hot and made about $650 so I'm only $150 short of turning $200 into $1k.


This is slightly more difficult if you mean that if you lose the $200 that's it. Because this is incredibly poor BR management and losing 4 BI's is a normal happening. I still don't think it's that hard and would expect to succeed more times than not.

I do think it's stupid, however.



And also 5PTBB/100 hands is sustainable for good players.


Over my last 150,000 or w/e hands at 50NL my winrate was about 5.4.