Nick is a cash game player, content creator and part of 888poker’s Stream Team. Each week he shares his thoughts and experiences as a player dedicated to the daily grind. This week he looks at that classic test of poker staying power, the bankroll challenge…
When I first joined 888poker back in June of 2021, I decided to undertake a bankroll challenge to kick start a new wave of content on my channels. I know I’m not the first to take on this kind of project, but it’s something I thought my viewers would find interesting. After all, who can’t relate to trying to build something big from something small?
Your typical bankroll challenge is not very restrictive, usually just a starting bankroll and a profit target. I opted to take it one, miserable, step further and make my challenge to win $1,000, but it all had to be won at 10NL (i.e. playing $0.05/$0.10 cash games).
This was a mistake.
I started my $1,000 10NL Challenge on August 9, 2021 and, $850 later, it’s still going. Here's a clue as to why:
Battling the two fiercest demons in poker
If you’ve watched any bankroll challenges before, you’ll be aware that many of them end in (usually abrupt) failure. This can be for any number of reasons; frustration, boredom or the shine simply wears off and viewers lose interest.
One other, not insignificant, reason is that they are a huge time-sink, and every day you spend battling at the micros is a day you don’t spend winning (ideally), at your usual stakes.
Unless you’re able to offset this opportunity cost with the content the bankroll challenge generates, you can imagine how bashing your head against the proverbial brick wall would quickly become unappealing. That’s especially true as many find out that winning at the micros isn’t as easy as you’d like to think it is. You have to battle the two fiercest demons in poker in their cruellest form: rake and variance.
In the face of all this, giving up seems not just reasonable, but mandatory.
Am I just a sucker for punishment?
There are many very good reasons to not start a bankroll challenge, and even better ones to quit them as soon as physically possible.
But despite this, there are some challenges that make it past these obstacles. Most notably Doug Polk, in somewhat controversial circumstances, managed to find a way to the summit of his personal Everest. Granted, he had to play way outside of usual bankroll management to do so, but it's my opinion that simply finishing one of these wretched things in any fashion should be applauded.
So why am I still going? I’m now pushing on three years of my challenge, playing over 250,000 hands of 10NL along the way *shudder*. I’ve ‘quit’ more times than I can count, only to hear the harrowing call of the challenge claw me back into its evil vice grip.
Am I the victim of a sunk-cost fallacy or is there just a part of me that thinks I deserve this suffering? By far the best reason to kick it all in is to preserve my sanity. I feel every single cent that I win or lose, and that has definitely taken its toll on me as we approach the dreaded three-year mark. I’ve taken some of the most heinous bad beats along the way, and suffered through the most unfathomably gruesome sessions.
The one most important word of advice
There are a few things keeping me hanging on by a thread, with the first being that the content never seems to run dry. For a taste, check out these Bankroll Challenge updates.
It doesn’t matter how many times I go on unending tilt after losing a $20 pot, it never seems to get old for my viewers, and for that I’m grateful. I also can’t really say for sure that my time would be better spent playing higher stakes, since I don’t consider myself a crusher by any metric.
But the content alone could never keep me coming back, it’s something a lot more powerful that forces my hand so desperately. Over the course of my life, I’ve always given up too easily or taken the path of least resistance, and surrendering to this challenge is just a little too in keeping with that pattern for me to actually do it.
This is going to be the time that I stick the course and power through; the time I set myself a challenge, something really difficult and mentally challenging, and make it to the end.
People often ask me how I think it’ll feel when it’s all over, but the truth is I’m not allowing myself to think about that just yet. It’s one cent at a time until (hopefully) we reach the finish line. And I’m here for it.
So if you’re reading this and thinking of starting a bankroll challenge of your own, I have just one word of advice for you. Don’t.
Images courtesy of PokerGo/888poker
