The value of gambling luck

After once again, a catclysimically bad couple of days where my bankroll had skyrocketed downwards or for another metaphor tumbled down a cliff, I was saved by a miraculous decision to go for a football bet which had me coming out smelling of roses in the end.

Here is an image of my winning football bet on Pokerstars re-boosting my bankroll to £215.  The truth is, had I not bet on football once this month, I would have been at this point anyway money wise, by simply grinding it out playing at the NL Hold'em micro stakes.

• This is not my total balance, as the rest is in US dollars.  It says my accumulator lost, but that's because I cashed out early and didn't receive the full £105 pay out.  I thought that as the French U21s were down to ten men, despite being 2-0 with 15 minutes to go, I didn't want to risk it at this point!  Re-building the bankroll was way more important than a minor £5 loss here.

So I got a little lucky I'll admit here, but my plan was to risk this bet and then just carry on playing my usual way for the rest of the month to atleast break even, which is nothing to be ashamed about, from a £110 bankroll.

PUSHING THE BOAT OUT

  So using this famous/well known English expression

So using this famous/well known expression, since my recent bankroll boost, I have found the confidence to try my luck playing two levels up and test my skills against the better players.  Mainly so far I've been playing super tight and just watching how they play.  So far, it seems to me the play isn't too dissimilar to the lower levels!  Already I doubled up the $25 buy in to $50, when I hit a set of 5s on the flop, versus an overly aggressive player going all in with his/her top pair AK, after I check raised him/her on the turn.

                           He was basically drawing dead with his hand here, and by the turn I was a winner :)

As you can see, the cards are slightly different from what I remember - 7 ♥️ instead of 9 ♥️ etc.

GOING AGAIN

My feeling is that it will be slightly tougher at this level without the appropriate bankroll, but once this is available, re reading the basic strategy I've been applying, then the results should ultimately lead to success.  In the meantime I will continue to feel out the type of play at this level, but continue to build the bankroll at my usual 0.5/0.10c level.

LUCK plays a BIG part again..!  

Here are a couple of hands where I got a bit lucky with yesterday;

                     Calculated risk or lucky wins? Apologies to the losers!!

Final thoughts; What do I think of the Pokerstars FC challenges?

Generally I've liked the challenges on offer by Pokerstars, such as in last month's challenge prizes were awarded for aces in the hand won (x12) which was surprisingly easy to achieve, but I was disappointed with the 0.50c prize given.  As I'm a big football fan I like this new challenge too.  I still have 12 days to go to complete it, but it remains to be seen what rubbish or (hopefully) great prize will be awarded? I will share the result....

Half way there 😄 Thanks for reading all.  Good luck!