Full Tilt Poker Academy – First Challenge

Posted by AlCantHang | Filed under Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy

Over the last week I’ve spent quite some time poking around the new Full Tilt Poker Academy checking out the offering, lessons and challenges. I’m impressed with the amount of educational material they’ve loaded into the site with promises of more and more. After going through some of the lessons I decided one evening to fire up my first challenge.

I settled on the Aaron Bartley Sit & Go By the Numbers challenge. SnGs fit into my current schedule and I challenged myself to see how many tournaments it would take me to get through. The challenge lays out 5 tasks to successfully pass. These tasks highlight and force you to practice the ideas which were outlined in his Sit & Go By the Number video.

The 5 tasks for this challenge were:

Don’t finish in the bottom 3 in 4 9-handed S&Gs that pay 3 spots.
Fold A-J, A-T, A-9, K-Q, or K-J in early position 2 times while 7 or more players remain in a 9-handed S&G.
Go all in with A-Q, A-J, or A-T while 5 or 6 players remain in a 9-handed S&G.
Play 5 S&Gs; your buy-in for each can be no greater than 2 percent of your Full Tilt bankroll.
The Pro Play - Finish in first place in 2 9-handed S&Gs.

I won’t bother going into details about why to go through each task, that’s what his instructional video will explain. My goal was put his lessons into practice and force myself to play with a proper strategy. I was also interested in how many tournament it would take to complete. Obviously I needed to run 5 because of the 4th task.

Things started off well when I won my first SnG after accepting the challenge. Not a bad kickoff. A few days later I decided to pound through the challenge all in one evening. Not willing to crush my bankroll I decided to go all the way down to micro $1.25 SnGs so I could multi-table and keep myself from becoming impatient.

11 tournaments later and my challenge was complete. Mother Variance was obviously on my side as I cashed in 6 of the 11 and won a tournament to polish off all the tasks.

Keeping track of my tasks made things interesting. I was already comfortable with most of the ideas presented by Bartley but it was another thing to actually put them in practice. I will definitely say it helped me focus my game throughout the challenge.

I look forward to my next Full Tilt Poker Academy Challenge. I think I will probably go with the Chris Ferguson Bankroll Management challenge. Who better to learn from than the master?

Other posts about the Full Tilt Poker Academy and challenges:

Full Tilt Poker Academy – A First Look
Full Tilt Poker Academy – Bankroll Management Challenge
Full Tilt Poker Academy – Pre-flop Play Challenge

Tags: Aaron Bartley, AlCantHang, Bloggers on the Rail, Full Tilt Poker Academy

Permalink | March 26th, 2009 Play Online Poker at Full Tilt Poker

3 Responses to “Full Tilt Poker Academy – First Challenge”

1Harmonicat Says:
March 30th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Yes I like the academy callenges too, can do nothing but improve my game!
Bruster2011 Says:
March 10th, 2011 at 12:39 pm
I am starting to see why I keep getting beat up so bad by other players. I have been making some big mistakes, I will try your advice and let you know what happens. Thanks again for the help. PS. you do have the best poker site I have ever found. WELL DONE GENTELMEN.
william Says:
March 31st, 2011 at 11:41 pm
teach me please