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#231 – Chris Ferguson and the Art of Bankroll Maintenance, Part II
Chris Ferguson began his assault on August 14 on the $10,000 milestone in the $50 + $5 Turbo Satellite into that evening’s FTOPS event, $200 + $16 Omaha EOB. As described in #228 – “Chris Ferguson and the Art of Bankroll Maintenance, Part I,” he won his way into THIS satellite via a super-satellite almost a month earlier, not realizing until the super had started that it was not a cash tournament.
To legitimize his play in the FTOPS event – and to be able in good conscience to count any winnings in his bankroll-building activities – he needed to achieve a goal in addition to $10,000. He had to reach $10,584 ($10,800, of which $216 is 2%, minus the $200 + $16 entry fee, which would be provided by winning the August 14 satellite) before concluding play in the tournament. He was poised at $9,500. His confidence was not misplaced, though it seems strange that he had no trouble imagining making more than $1,000 that evening when, during 2006, it took him more than eight MONTHS to make $100.
THE IMPERATIVE TO PLAY YOUR BEST
Poker players, like golfers, muse endlessly about what they are capable of “when I’m playing my A-game.” But poker, especially online poker, is loaded with landmines to blow a player off the top level of his ability. Bad beats, running bad, obnoxious or incompetent opponents, frustration, short-term goals, impatience – all these things impact decisions at the table.
The results of giving in to those weaknesses, even briefly, can be catastrophic. In following the ultra-high-stakes games between Andy Beal and the pros during 2001-2006 (and watching the thirteen days of 2006 games at the Wynn), I can point to numerous occasions where Beal played tremendous poker, maybe even better than his pro opponents. But when the tide turned, Andy started pressing, literally deciding that he was going to lose his whole table stake (millions of dollars) in that session if he couldn’t immediately force a winning streak. Once, he turned around a $7 million loss to Ted Forrest, winning it all back in a couple hours. But far more often, he lost everything he had in front of him. This is the more likely result, and it affects poker players at every level of play.
Chris Ferguson, however, claims never to go on tilt, and I haven’t found anyone who disputes that. Although he may not approach online games with the intensity of some tournaments – he might play six tables at a time while checking e-mail, taking phone calls, making travel plans, etc. – he never lets the circumstances compromise the purity of his decision-making.
A separate goal of his challenge, though it frequently intertwines with bankroll management, is the imperative to play well all the time. The long-term challenge creates a mindset in Chris separate from the win/loss dollar amounts of a particular session. As he has said (and I have quoted this many times), “I don’t play poker for money. But I’m glad other people do.”
THE DERVISH
Naturally, Chris made it through the Omaha turbo satellite into the main tournament. At 5:30 PM, right after the end of the satellite and just a half hour before the FTOP event began, he entered several $10-$20 blind NLHE cash games, buying in for $400 each time. He lost his buy-in at two tables in short order – A-K vs. A-A and, 3-handed pre-flop, A-7 running into J-J.
It quickly becomes almost impossible for me to track Chris’s status. He is playing at least two tables and sometimes three. After losing all-in, he rebuys. (Until he is below $8,000, he can rebuy for $400, since the rebuy is still less than 5% of his total bankroll.) Frequently, after he doubles up, he leaves the table, because his rules prohibit him from having more than 10% of his bankroll in play at one game. At $8,500-$9,500, this happens almost whenever he doubles up, unless he has lost some of his $400 buy-in. This bothers a few players, who ask that he buy-in for more than $400 or not “hit and run.” But those are his rules and he isn’t going to diverge from them.
HOLD ‘EM HELL AND NO-LIMIT HEAVEN
“I think of myself as the first successful Internet poker player.” More than a decade and a half ago, Chris was one of the first regular players on IRC Poker, the first server-based multi-user poker program. There was no real money at stake but the site kept track of the play-money leaders. “I really wanted to be at the top of that leaderboard. It wasn’t even the recognition. I wanted some kind of a challenge and the challenge for me was getting on top of that leaderboard.” Since you could reload any time you ran out, many of the games featured nonstop betting. If you had the minimum of 1,000 chips, there was no incentive to fold. If you lost, you would get 1,000 new chips. And if you won with everyone moving all-in every hand, you could quickly get to 10,000. But an improvement in the software led to a no-limit game that required 2,000 chips to buy-in, double the starting stake.
“Everyone wanted to play no-limit, so these 5-10 limit games became known as Hold ‘Em Hell because you might have to work for a week or even longer to get your bankroll up to 2,000 so you could have even a shot of playing the no-limit game.” This change made the no-limit games much more interesting. “You were sweating every time you sat down and everybody brought their A-game knowing that if they went broke, they would have to endure Hold ‘Em Hell.”
GREETINGS FROM OMAHA
Between wins, losses, rebuys, double-ups, and closed and re-opened tables, he fluctuates rapidly between $8,000 and the cusp of $10,000. At 6 PM, matters become further complicated as we both begin playing the FTOPS Omaha EOB event. I periodically ask him in the table chat for his balance, though it’s hard to get in a word, even in red, when the rail is thick with comments.
I am shocked that a few of the railers are heckling Ferguson. I simply can’t imagine somebody not liking or admiring Chris Ferguson, except out of such obvious envy and jealousy that I assume anyone so base would be embarrassed to share such feelings.
When he loses a pot, he gets comments like “You look like a bum” and “Where’s your god now?” Ironically, I’m glad to witness this. It occasionally bothers me when railbirds are especially nasty to me, and this reminds me not to take it personally. I shouldn’t assume every critic on the rail is intelligent or even mentally balanced.
To get a tally, I have to several times resort to calling Chris on the phone. Otherwise, how will I capture The Big Moment? He always knows the balance, to the dollar.
DOWN
An important aspect of both Chris Ferguson’s goals – managing his bankroll and playing his best in all circumstances – is the rule about stepping down in play. “You have to move down in levels when you lose. You have to know you’re going to do that and you have to follow through.” Naturally, this protects your bankroll but it also – maybe even of greater importance – forces you to play your best. Like Ferguson’s days in Hold ‘Em Hell on IRC, he knew that losing his stake in a no-limit game would force him, if he wanted to return, to play a game he didn’t want to play. That made it easier for him to avoid thinking like, “What the hell, it’s only play money” or “These guys play awful and get lucky so I’m going to play awful and get lucky.”
In 2002, in the days before Full Tilt Poker, Chris Ferguson attempted to recreate the IRC Poker experience, where he could develop a motivation more important than money. In describing this recently, he was mindful, as a pitchman for Full Tilt, not to mention the site where he did this, but it started when he asked Annie Duke to transfer a dollar into an account for him, so you figure it out.
He lost the dollar so he asked her to transfer another. His goal was to take that dollar and run it up to a stake big enough to play the biggest game on the site, which at the time was $50-$100 blind NLHE.
The second dollar stuck. In six months, he built the account to $20,000. “I got to $1,000 quickly by winning a tournament so I was very lucky actually.” Describing this to me in December 2005, before starting the zero-to-$10,000 challenge on Full Tilt, he followed identical cash-game rules: “I wouldn’t buy-in for more than 5% of my bankroll, and any time I got more than 10% of my bankroll in a game I had to quit. This 5% rule kept me from buying into bigger games that I wasn’t really ready for. I really think this is a very good way for poker players to move up in the ranks and to know how good they are.”
It also provides an important protection. When you lose and move down, your bankroll is mostly intact and even if you continue losing, your losses will be smaller. This happened with Ferguson in this earlier challenge. He had built his bankroll to an amount where he could play $25-$50 blind NLHE. “Then I got smacked down. I made some headway but got smacked down again, to $10-$25. Then I lost more than half my bankroll and had to go down to $5-$10. It’s tough when you’ve been playing $25-$50 to play $5-$10. Most people, when they lose they want to move up. That’s the wrong way to do it. And the threat of having to move down more made me play better during this losing streak.” It took Chris just six months – he estimates about 100-200 hours of play, many of which playing 5-6 games at a time – to get from $2 to $20,000, and that included these setbacks.
The message is clear: you can prevail over even significant losses if you manage your bankroll.
