Next Short Term Goal

So I've been playing the $5 full ring games instead of 6max because I refuse to play 6max without a HUD.  At least I've played enough full ring hands to be comfortable playing a higher stake version of those for now.  So far it's been good.  The play here is, if anything, WEAKER than $2NL, plus I'm racking up the FPPs and VPPs on Pokerstars at twice the rate (FPPs are like comp points to use in the store for tshirts, hats, iPads, TVs and even a Porche for 3 MILLION points and VPPs basically track your volume and upgrade you to silverstar, goldstar etc). 

Anyway...I figure this blog is about grinding a bankroll out of basically nothing, so I should take EVERY opportunity to get any kind of money into my bankroll without depositing any additional money (exception:  say Pokerstars offers a 50% reload bonus, I will deposit what I can comfortably afford in order to unlock the bonus).  So my next move is to get my bankroll to $200 (it's 167 as of right now) and move it to Cake Poker.  Not only do they offer a 110% first time deposit bonus, but I signed up for Cake through progrinders.com and got 33% rakeback from them.  Also 6 Tabling $4NL on Cake will allow me to unlock the 110% bonus faster for a free $220 increase.  From a math standpoint, this makes sense for anyone to do unless you're a major losing player.  Let's use my $2NL stats and assume I will have the same exact results at $4NL on Cake. 

To estimate my income, I'm using the calculator found on bankrolltools.com.  According to the calculator, with a win rate of 6.73 big blinds per 100 hands, 6 tabling for about 10 hours per week will have an expected income of $12.92/week.  When you throw 33% rakeback into the mix, my expectation jumps to $23.38/week.  Now, as I'm looking in the Cake lobby, I only see 4 or 5 games going at that level, so 4 tabling, the number changes to $19.08/week including rakeback.  This number can be inflated by playing more games at once if available, or playing an extra hour per night, whatever.  Now our $200 on cake essentially becomes about $650 at least by the end of 12 weeks.  From there I have options.  I can split it up $200 on 3 different sites and continue my trek through $5NL and $10NL.  I can split it onto 2 sites, I can branch out and maybe get back into Fixed Limit Holdem, try something new like Razz, play tournaments again, who knows?  Immediate goal is to hit $200 on Pokerstars then move to Cake and grind out the deposit bonus.  If anyone wants to offer prop bets on unlocking my bonus I might take a few of them!

The downside here is that Cake doesnt allow tracking software and HUDS, but really it's a double edged sword.  One side, I won't have my own HUD, but the other side is neither will anyone else.  Cake is connected to a sportsbook which attracts naturally bad gamblers while at the same time keeping the grinders away, since they're all on FullTilt 16 tabling with full tracking software.  From here on out I'll generally post updates once a month.