Chris Ferguson Poker Challenge is Virtually Impossible

Some time ago a friend of mine approached me with a plan. He had read a story about Chris Ferguson and he wanted to try it out. Basically, without investing a penny, Chris Ferguson allegedly went from absolutely nothing online to having twenty thousand dollars. When he hit his 20K goal, he donated it to charity.

The way in which he achieved this was by sticking to a few basic rules of bankroll management. First off he would never sit down to any cash game or sit n go with more than 5% of his bankroll. He would never sit in a multi-table tournament with more than 2% of his bankroll. Also, if he was in a no limit or pot limit game and the money he had on the table was equal to 10% of his bankroll he had to leave. I'm pretty sure those were the rules. For the most part, I agree that those rules are a really good strategy. In fact, I implement a very similar bankroll management strategy that I would advise all players to try out.

In the meantime, my buddy is trying to do it and he is getting nowhere quickly. The hardest part is getting started because you have to compete in a freeroll tournament where there is some cash for the top finishing players. Usually it is a few bucks but only up top. It's really hard to get up there because you are playing against thousands of other players who just don't care because it is a freeroll so everyone is playing crazy hoping to grab a lot of chips fast.

Before I forget, Ferguson also mentioned that he never played for more than ten hours a week trying this out. This becomes a critical factor in my assessment.

I decided to try it out as well just to see if I could go further faster than my buddy. Well, I was running into the same kind of problems. I couldn't even get those first couple of bucks because I kept getting my big hands crushed by some guy who would go all in with 8, 3 off because he just didn't care.

Finally, I managed to finish in the money. It took weeks of periodic play. I now had $1. That was my best finish so far. So I decided to try to implement Ferguson's play and see what I could do. Another point to be noted, Ferguson allowed an exception to his rules in order to get started whereby he could always enroll in a tournament or game for a minimum of $1. This obviously makes sense since in the beginning he would never have enough to satisfy the rules. So I decided to go hit the tables.

I took my $1 to some micro limit hold em games and went at it. I could not move forward to save my life. The rake is so huge in relation to the pots at the micro limits that even when you win, you are barely moving. Needless to say it wasn't long before that $1 was gone. It was back to the freerolls. I finally had a good finish and managed to take home $5. I figured this would give me a little breathing room. I was able to take down a couple sit n gos and start to move it forward in the small limit games. My strategy was to win a few cents at a time and see what happened. I didn't care how long it took.

Although I was able to move up a little bit, most of the time I would just keep sliding back down. The beats on line at the lower limits are ridiculous because everyone plays like its play money because for the most part it is. Everyone down there is just playing for fun and I can't blame them. The same thing was going on in the tournaments. Even when I was going strong in a tournament, it took several hours and even after that, I wouldn't necessarily finish in the money. In a tournament you always need a little luck and if it doesn't come, you don't get paid. After playing only one multi-table tournament and a few sit and gos there wasn't much time left in the ten hour allotment for the week. I would have to wait for the following week. Usually, the same patterns would repeat.

All this to say, I don't really think it is possible to do what Ferguson did without a little help. Perhaps people saw him playing at their tables and would lay off. Even more diabolical, perhaps the site he was doing this at was helping him out. He obviously has an endorsement deal with the site. I don't know what it was, but I feel safe in saying that it is just too hard in the low limits to move forward on a regular basis and there are just too many people playing for fun down there for you to ever have an edge or chance of building a roll. Remember, this is all in conjunction with Ferguson's rules, if you stick to them, I strongly believe it is impossible to do what he did. If any of you have done otherwise, I would love to see your results. If you are thinking about trying to do it...best of luck!