Just to give some basic information about me, for those who haven't read my journal here, or read my blog. I started playing poker with $50 back in June last year. I played micro stakes limit at PokerStars only. That $50 never really turned into much. It hovered between $25 and $120. Then in September, I decided I wanted to really grow my bankroll and starting to bonus whore. By November, I had $1000. From November to March, I was a pretty breakeven player and had moved to No Limit. With my bonus hunting, my bankroll grew to $3000. In April I was playing really well and started playing 100NL. I doubled my bankroll in April to $6000. In May, I had another awesome month and made another $3,000. I started to dabble at 200NL then. In June, I still did ok, but made only about $1300 (These numbers are all with bonuses) which is still pretty good money for the ammount I play (Maybe 30-40 hours a month which translates to between 7500 and 10000 hands). In June I played about half at 100NL and half at 200NL.
Here is a picture of my bankroll.
So since the 2nd week of June, my bankroll hasn't really moved much. And I am starting to get pretty frustrated. This weekend was what pushed me over the edge I think. I lost about $700 this weekend. I know that it is only really 3.5 buy-ins at 200NL, but it's still $700 bucks!
I finally cleared the latest PokerStars bonus, but I just got crushed. In ring games there while clearing the bonus the last couple weeks, I lost $650! Thankfully I cashed in a $20 180 person MTT for just over $600 a couple weeks back, so I actually came out a little ahead factoring in the bonus money. But jeez. -$650 to clear 720 FPPs. That's terrible.
Some of it was due to bad play, but I think PokerStars switched on the DOOM switch for me. I've never seen so much bad luck. I could post some bad beats, but I won't. Those 720 FPPs took about 1900 total hands (about half at 100NL and half at 200NL). In those 1900 hands, I flopped only 5 sets. Five. FIVE!!! I only got slightly paid off on one of those. I got set over setted on two of them. I got Pocket Aces three times. Kings twice. In 1900 hands!
Sorry to rant there, but I had to
So here is the situation. My bankroll is at $10,000. From what I have read, that is actually a bankroll where I should for sure be playing full time at 200NL. And even playing 400NL (25 buy-ins) some. But one of my poker goals way back was to use poker profit to buy a nice HD television. Well, the basement got finished, and now it's time to cash out some profit. I was thinking of withdrawing $2500-$3000 for a really nice one.
But then this weekend happened, and I thought maybe I should do this: Withdraw everything but $3000. That will give me enough to buy whatever TV I want, an entertainment center, and some furniture off of poker profits (We were going to get that other stuff anyway with regular job money).
Then I would take that $3000 and only play at 100NL. And at the end of each month, withdraw whatever is above $3000 and use that for fun money (Trips, stuff for wife, etc...). Repeat every month.
That means no moving up to 400NL and beyond. Just playing 100NL, which is a level that I think I can really beat. Assuming I play 10000 hands a month, and can play at 5PTBB/100, that would be $1000 in poker profit, plus whatever I get from bonuses. That's still not to shabby.
What do all you say about this? Am I being an idiot? Am I just experiencing variance (Ya, probably). Should I just withdraw $2500 like my original plan and still try and move up in limits? Am I really just a shitty player who was on a really good heater in April-May? Take the profit and run? Avoid playing ring games at PokerStars like the plague?
![[As]](https://livepokerforum.com/images/smilies/As.gif "The Ace of Spades")
