
The Challenge
I am, by nature, a very competitive person. When I play games, I play to win. My friends want me to take up golf – but if I can’t be at least competitively good at something, I will get no enjoyment out of it. The main forum for my competitiveness has been basketball – both playing and coaching. Now, though, I have found a new outlet: Poker.
It has gripped me in a way that few things have. More than a hobby, it has become an obsession. I have a small library of poker books now – and have read through most of them at least three times… and this is only in the last three months.
One of the things I stumbled upon when I first started playing was the “Chris Ferguson Challenge.” Ferguson built a bankroll of over $10,000 from absolutely nothing–squadoosh. He started by playing freerolls until he stabilized his bankroll at around $6, then went from there.
While I enjoy playing poker for money, I really play to try to conquer the game. The ‘mark’ of winning is to show a profit. So, I decided the ultimate way to set a long-term challenge for myself is to undertake the Chris Ferguson Challenge. My rules are a little different from his, but I will be using a very limiting bankroll management system so that I never go broke. And thankfully, I have already accomplished the $6 part – back on October 31st, I came in 16th out of 5,173 players in a PokerStars Weekly Round 2. The payoff for about 7 hours at the table? $6. Since then, I have seen my roll go down to as low as $2.16. But now, I am back at $5.37 and ready to share the journey.
If I get too bored, I may give up on the challenge and deposit some real money to start playing higher stakes (with the same limiting bankroll standard). Until then, though – let’s see where this goes. Shuffle up and deal!
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