Wrapping this challenge up

The year is coming to an end and I'm wrapping this challenge up.  With a little bit of luck, some grinding, and playing some different games, I've pushed the bankroll for this challenge up to $4050.26.  What's more, I preemptively took out the goal donation amount of $2500 and donated to my favorite charity.  So, technically the challenge is over but I made a goal for myself to hit 5K by years end.  I'll get there for sure now.  I'm moving to bigger games tomorrow and I'm hoping to crush both of them.  If I do, I knock this challenge out of the park in a way I didn't even expect to do.  Wish me luck tomorrow.  If I do something big I'll post it then.   Until then, Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Appologies and frustrations...losing motivation

I want to apologize for a bit of a delay in my last post.  To be honest with you, I've lost motivation a bit since this site isn't quite having the effect that I wanted it to.  Over the past month or so, I've been literally begging for people to donate to one of my favorite charities with the incentive that I'd match whatever was donated.  To say the least, it is one of the most trying things I've ever done.  I totally understand that times are hard and people are tight with money but I don't think people understand how happy it makes me to see them donate the smallest amount to something that means a lot to me.  It really has crushed me every day that has gone by with no donations.  Perhaps I'm taking it too personally but it does hurt when people don't give what equates to two coffees from Starbucks (I was asking people to donate $10).

I have found myself looking back and thinking of why I don't donate to things or have not donated in the past and some of the excuses that come up are:

• I don't have the money to help-  Although this is a very valid excuse, it doesn't take a lot to make a big difference in peoples lives.  There is never an amount that's too little.  Believe me after asking people to donate, every dollar literally made me smile.
• I don't care about the charity- Extremely valid and I would NEVER donate to something I didn't believe in, EVER. 
• Someone else will donate if I don't- This is very very untrue.  I have heard that all charities are having a harder time this year in collecting donations that are essential for them to stay afloat.  If you believe in something, it has to be YOU that does something.  You can never expect anyone else to do what you think should be done while you watch. 

I'm sure there are other excuses, some valid and some not, but the bottom line is that it is always easier to turn your head when you see someone in need.  It's easy to think that someone else will help or think about the time that you were down and no one helped you.  I challenge each of you to do something hard once a year, not for the good feeling that it give you but because it's the humane and right thing to do.  If everyone does something small we can make a big difference.

OK, enough with my frustrations and on to something positive.  I'm currently in Biloxi playing in a World Series circuit event (or 2).  I've decided that if I make a final table I'm donating 10% to charity.  So, think good thoughts and until the next post.... Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Poker Challenge update....I'm past the $2500 mark!!!

That's right, with a little bit of weekend dedication and giving up my big games to focus on this challenge, I've passed the $2500 mark in the challenge.  To be more accurate, I'm up to $2763.  I've made most of my latest progress by grinding out sit-n-gos and tournaments.  With over $2500 in my bankroll this means I can take some big shots at making some significant scores to finish this thing up in the next couple of months.  Regardless, I've hit the donation mark.  Now I just need to double this so I can have an OK bankroll to start my next challenge.  Through all I've done playing poker this is still very exciting to turn $20 into something significant that I can use to help someone else.  In fact, I know I've said it before, but this challenge means more to me than playing in my big games with my own money.  I'm hoping to wrap this up in a big way in the coming months to get me ready to start something huge in the new year.  I'll update when I get past that $3000 or $4000 mark depending on how fast I'm moving in the next couple of weeks. Until then, Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Big games up and down

No huge update this week but I've taken some big shots and missed by little bits here and there.  I made the final table of one of Bodog Poker Open series.  I finished 8th which means no big payday ($78) but I got a ticket to the Bodog Poker Open final event.  All I need to do is take this one down tomorrow and this challenge is over.  It'll be a huge weight off of my chest since I haven't had a lot of time at all to play at any point in this challenge.  I'm going to figure out the total hours played soon to give you an idea of how disappointed I am with the amount of time I've been able to put into this. Until then...Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Poker Challenge Update- Big things coming up

OK, I've mad a bit of a liar out of myself as I've said that I'm going to make time to play this challenge out.  I haven't had any such chance because of my real job getting really really busy.  I have had some good fortune on some of the tourneys I've played and pulled my bankroll up to $2149.  At this rate I'm on a good track to make it to the donation mark.  If I can make a good run at this and find the time to do so I think I can take the entire challenge down.  The new chip chart is below.  A big series starts tomorrow that I'm going to get into if I can find the time.  This could be my shot considering I can buy into tournaments as big as $40 buy-ins...finally feel like I'm making some real progress.

Quick Challenge update

My bankroll for the challenge is up to $1401.  I'm going to put in some extra time this week where I can to get this challenge jump started again.  Although I think I'll be hard pressed to make the 5K goal I'm pretty sure I can get to the 2500 donation mark.  I need more hours in the day.

1/4 of the way throgh the poker challenge

With my bankroll at $1262, I'm officially 1/4 of the way through the poker challenge. I'm starting to shake this run of bad cards and almost did so in a big way this week.  I had my top tournament cash of the challenge this week, a third place finish for $353.  If I won the hand that I got into (where I was favorite) I had a good chance to win this one for nearly $1K but that race didn't quite go my way.  Next time it will, I'm sure.  I'm updating my main graph on the challenge page and will update the chip-graph next week.  Until then...Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Something old and something new

I've taken a bit of a break from the blog because I've been sick and on travel a bit.  Here's the new news with the challenge.  Progress= NONE....I'm just staying at the same level and can't quite get ahead the past couple of weeks.  That's getting old.

Now for something new, I've developed a new way to chart my progress on a week to week basis.  Below is my new chip graph.  I'll post this with my posts from time to time.  Every chip there is worth $200 (25 total chips).  The greens show my progress and the whites show how much further till I hit my goal.  Man this looks daunting given the timeline and the way I've been running lately but it can be done.

More updates to come. Until then Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Passing another mini-milestone in the charity challenge

This week I've passed another small milestone in my poker charity challenge.  I've turned my starting amount of $27.59 into $1006 dollars.  Yes, I've passed the $1000 mark, so I'm 20% complete.  Although this is great, I really need to pick up the pace in order to hit my end of year deadline for $5K.  As it stands, I've got to make a bit under $1K each month to meet this goal.  Up to this point I expected that once I got to $1000 that it would be pretty easy sailings.  That has proven to not be the case.  I've run into a streak of bad luck.  I'm sure once it passes I'll get the earnings back up to a mark that I want to be at.

More updates to come. Until then Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Charity Challenge Update- Frustrations and Opportunities

This weeks update is slightly bittersweet.  I'm beginning to get slightly frustrated with this challenge.  Did I continue making progress this week? Yes.  Did I play up to my ability? Yes.  Did I make time to play more? Yes.  Did I see the return that I was looking for? No way.  This, ladies and gentlemen is what we in the poker call running bad.  I've been getting beat on hands that I should win 80% of the time...all the time and I've been losing what seems like every critical all-in that I get into.  Does this put me on tilt (tilt = when you let your emotions clod your judgment at a poker table and begin to play badly...vicious vicious cycle)?  No, no tilt for me but it is VERY VERY frustrating.  I'll pull through though.

As for when I want to stop running bad and begin running good...45 minutes from now would be a good time. And you may be asking why 45 minutes from now.   If you are, I'll tell you why, because that's when the tournament starts where I could win a seat to the World Series of Poker Main Event for next year worth $12,000.  With only 45 people to beat in this tournament...I like my chances.  So, think good thoughts for me over the next 3-4 hours because I will be playing my hardest and hoping for some of these coinflips to go my way.  I'll be updating this blog every hour on my progress until I'm out if you want to follow.  My first update should be at 8:30, after 1 hour of play.  Keep checking back for my status.

Correction..the game starts at 8:30 so the first update will be at 9:30.

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Hour 1 Update:  No really big hands to speak of.  I'm slightly above the starting chip count but not too much.   47 of the starting 54 players left.  Lets hope for something big the next hour.

The end.  Out in 33rd.  The guy had 2 cards to catch and he made his hand.  Oh well, I played perfect...back to the challenge.  No world series seat this time.

More updates to come. Until then Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Charity Challenge update and bank error update

When we last left off I was accidentally rewarded $12,000.  Perhaps I should be more optimistic and say, I was awarded that amount too early.  That issue was resolved with some swiftness and the poker site was kind enough to reschedule the tournament with the players that were remaining for this Friday evening.  That's great, now all I have to do is beat 55 or so players for my seat at next years World Series of Poker.  What's more, for the inconvenience, we were all given a free pass to play in Bodog's big Sunday event.  This game guarantees $100K of prize money and it pays $25K for first place.  Once I find a good weekend to play in it maybe I can wrap this challenge up.  Regardless, as usual, the site dealt with an issue that came up very well in my opinion.

As for the challenge, I am sooooo close to another mini-goal, the $1000 mark.  My bankroll sits at $984.22 right now so the hope is that the next update will be over that 1K mark.  As I said before you will likely see some ups and downs as I move forward from this point and try to wrap this thing up.  Check the dedicated challenge page out for an updated graph.

A new update will follow at the end of the week, until then Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

$12,000 Bank Error in Your Favor, What Do You Do?

As I'm trying to complete the Charity Poker Challenge, I've been involved in a 13 game series that Bodog has going on.  It's called the Mini Series of Poker and we were required to win our way into the final tourney of the series.  You could do this three ways: 1) play every event in the series 2) win one event in the series 3) complete the series top 10 in points (I think I was 23rd or so) or 3) finish in the top 18 in a qualifying event that was held on Tuesday night.  I final tabled one of these events but couldn't quite finish it out and because of my work I couldn't play in all 13 events so I had to depend on qualifying in Tuesday's game..which I did. 

First place in this tournament won a fully paid seat to next years World Series Main Event and some spending money ($12,000) package.  Second and third got what equates to a $2000 package and 4-9 got a ticket to Bodog's big weekly $100,000 guarantee prizepool game.  At the end of hour 1 the game abruptly ended with about 50 or so people in it and we were all paid the $12,000 first place tournament credits!!!! What to do, what to do?  It's obviously an error soooooo... what did I do, I e-mailed and called and let them know so they could take it out of all of the players accounts that the error paid out (prior to them losing it)...and yes, that included my account.  Minutes later...12K back out of my account.  I'm certain they will reschedule.  What would you have done.  By the way, that would have definitely completed the challenge :-).

This is one of the rare cases where I've had an issue with their software and their staff are working quickly to clear it up.  Good people over there.  I'll keep posted on what's going to happen w/ it.  I would like a litle feedback though...what would you have done in this spot?

Picking up the pace in the poker challenge..almost at $1K

As I've increased the buy-in levels that I'm able to play a little I've started to consistently win at the pace that I want to be on.  This week I picked my bankroll up to $894.52.  I have a good feeling that I would have broken the 1200-1500 mark this past weekend but my internet service provider (I won't name names but will let you know my home may be dark pretty soon), went down in my neighborhood while I was my largest final table to date in the challenge.  I had a chance to win $700+ but because the network went down as soon as we got down to business at the final table (for 3 hours), went out in 8th and took $75. That's pretty depressing since I'm more emotionally attached to this challenge than I am on my day to day poker games with my own money (which are slightly bigger than the games I play in the challenge).  There are no worries on my end regarding the challenge though.  I'm pretty confident that I can still complete it in the timeframe I set out for myself.  I will tell you to expect some ups and downs in my graphs from now on as I will be taking some shots at some bigger games in the future.  I know there are some interesting developments on the way for this challenge.  Check the challenge tab out for the latest graph at the bottom.

I'll continue to keep everyone posted on this challenge but until then...Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Increased the bankroll by 50%

I've won my third average sized (for my bankroll) multi-table tournament on Bodog since this challenge started.  I took down a $12 buy-in event for $323 this past week, bringing my bankroll up to $754.52.  That's great considering I haven't been able to put the time into that that I have wanted to yet.  Next goal $1K.  That's 20% there.  Not quite the pace I want to be at but steady progress and that is good.  For those of you that are more spatial (can't read), here's an updated graph of the progress.  I've added a tab to the top of this page where I will update this graph more frequently.  I'll likely only update it on the main blog page on a monthly or bi-weekly basis to keep clutter down as I will be beginning other challenges soon.

Until my next update: Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

$500 mark broken in the charity poker challenge

Although I had some ups and downs last month and missed on some bigger shots that I took I've kicked off the new month by breaking the 1/10 mark int the challenge.  My account balance is up to $554 which is great because I can now buy into some pretty good sized prize pool multi-table tournaments that are a $10 buy-in.  Just a short update but I wanted to post the small celebration.  By the way, I expected that as I went up in limits, the competition would get tougher...that's not the case yet (for the most part).  Here's to hoping it stays that way.

Until my next update: Challenge yourself to challenge the need. 

Charity Poker chalenge- SO SO close to 1/10th of the way there.

I'm getting much much closer to breaking that $500 mark.  I'm currently $6 away at $494.  This should be the last update that I make pre-500.  I wanted to post an update graph in here to better visualize the progress on the challenge.

I'm sure there's a way I can make this prettier and when I find it I'll swap this graph out.

Until my next update: Challenge yourself to challenge the need. 

Charity Poker Challenge- 1 month in

I just realized today that I'm exactly 1 month into my charity poker challenge.  Right now I'm at a good pace.  I'm up to $390.47 which allows me to just about buy into $4 tournament and bring $20 to a table for a cash game or sit-n-go.  Up to this point I've been focusing on multi-table tournaments and 10 person sit-n-gos and I've been ultra-conservative with my sit-n-go buy-ins. I'm still making good progress though... Lets hope the next update is over that $500 mark.  Time seems to be ticking a lot faster than I thought it would and I haven't really had the time to put into this that I wanted to.  I will find the time to make this happen though...no worries there.

Until my next update: Challenge yourself to challenge the need.

Charity poker challenge- first milestone broken $100

I've broken my first milestone for the charity poker challenge today.  My account reads at $107.42.  It's been a tough time grinding out the low stakes but now I can buy into $2 multi-table tourneys and up to $5 in cash games and sit-n-gos.  That is an oddly exciting statement for me to write.  I'm looking forward to the next mini milestone $500.  I'll get graphing up in future posts.

Until my next update: Challenge yourself to challenge the need. 

First update on the Poker Challenge

OK, I knew the start of this thing would not be easy.  At first I planned on starting the challenge w/ 0 dollars and having to win money in a freeroll to begin really playing but I knew it would be hard enough starting with under $30 and I want to give my charity a bit of an edge on this one.  Even so, it's been a hard road but I am proud to say that I have more than doubled my starting bankroll to $58.54.  No, $31 dollars doesnt sound much but it's a pretty good amount when I'm playing $1 buy-in games.  Yes, I technically 'broke' my guideline but at this low of a starting stack, it's a requirement.  It won't happen once I get to $100 though.  As I find more time to play I'll pick this earn up...just keep watching. 

Until my next update: Challenge yourself to challenge the need. 

Charity Challenge #1- Charity Poker Challenge

For those of you that don't know already, I have just started my first challenge.  I technically started the challenge on April 14, 2010.  I logged on to one of the online poker sites that I used to play on a lot but have sense grown away from.  After seeing that I had $27.59 remaining in that account I decided to set a challenge for myself.  My goal initially to make as much money using this account to ultimately give to my favorite charity, at the end of the year.  First things first, as you who have made goals in the past know, the concept of making "as much money as possible isn't a goal, a goal is something you can ultimately reach, so I have limited this somewhat to what I think is reasonable to make from $27.59 and very limited time to play cards (10 hours or so a week).


The goal: Make at least $5000 by the end of the year playing poker solely on this one site and donate $2500 of that to my charity of choice (the other $2500 will be used to fund a new challenge).

The rules:

1.  I cannot deposit any money into the account.
2. I will follow guidelines regarding the games that I can buy into (this isn't really a rule for this challenge, but guidelines I follow at all times when I play cards...so they apply here):
• In a cash game or ten person sit-and-go (SNG) tournament, I can only buy in for up to 5% of the total amount of my bankroll (bankroll = the total amount of money in the account...for the non-gamblers out there)
• In a multi-table tournament (MTT) I can only buy in to a game that costs 2% of my total bankroll.
• I'm allowed to qualify for bigger games than these limits through other games.
3. At the end of the challenge (Dec 31, 2010) $2500 will be taken out of the account and donated to charity.  If I hit the $5000 mark, the remaining $2500 will be used to fund a second charity poker challenge that I have planned for later this year or next year.

I will post my status on the challenge as often as I can on this page.  The plan is to post it weekly or bi-weekly at very least. 

Until my next update: Challenge yourself to challenge the need.