Milestone 3 (Oct 30, $223)
Actual bankroll: $519.06

As long as I am staying close to my more difficult milestones, I will be referring to them in my milestone updates. After winning the $4.40 180-player SNG on PokerStars for the second time in a 3-day period, I am nearly 3 weeks ahead of schedule for attaining even my tougher goal, and more than a month ahead of schedule on my original goal.

I keep saying that I'm expecting negative variance to sneak up on me, and I did experience that somewhat last weekend as I lost nearly half of my bankroll, but I came back with a vengeance on Sunday and Wednesday to get my $100 over $500, without even playing all that much poker.

One thing that worries me is that with my quick rise to first $330 and now $520, I didn't spend much time at the $10+1 SNGs. I did notice that the $10.80 DoNs were much more difficult than the $5.40 ones, so that is one thing to keep in mind if you are considering playing the DoNs. As you move up in stakes and the play becomes stronger, the ROI simply drops too low for them to really be worth it. When winning the DoNs, I'm hardly ever finishing 5th, and rarely 4th. Since the typical SNGs pay 3rd place $18 and 1st has the possibility of $45 (remember also that there are 9 players in these instead of 10), the standard 9-player SNG seems to be a better -- and certainly more fun -- way to spend your time.

As I was saying, though, I only played a few $10 SNGs. I believe I placed second in one and out of the money on the rest. I really find myself gravitating more towards the MTTs. I think that my ability to change gears and modify my playing style to fit the situation at hand really helps me in these tournaments. I follow "tight is right" early on, play aggressively when my stack is short, and generally try to survive until the final few tables. Once I reach this point, I feel like I have as good of a chance as anyone. In both of my wins, I was in the middle of the pack when it got down to twenty-some people left, and I basically "decided" that I was going to win. I didn't enter any other games, I increased the table's window to fill most of my monitor, and I was focused 100% on the game at hand. In both cases I got a little luck, but most importantly I didn't make any big mistakes, and I won 1st place both times. I'm confident that any FTR member is capable of doing the same. So basically, survive the first 90% of the field however you can, and from then on, give the game all of your attention and don't make any foolish mistakes. And it doesn't hurt to get a little lucky in key situations .

Looking back at what I've done, increasing my bankroll tenfold in three weeks while practicing good bankroll management is more than I ever expected. I have a lawyer friend who chats with me online during the day, and towards the beginning she was ribbing me, asking me how much I had made that day. At first it was $2, or $10, and she would make fun of me. Now that $200+ every few days isn't out of the question, we're both starting to realize that the idea of me making a living playing poker is very realistic.