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(6 votes) 
August 21, 2015
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So, it finally happened. Yesterday i won The Hotter $55 on Pokerstars for $18k. Which is pretty insane, considering my bankroll was down to $10 a month ago. I have been grinding it up to $700 and this weekend I went for some stabs, an satelited into the hot 55 and went all the way. Actually I think this was the highest buy-in I have ever played. I’m in shock 
I want some input on how to proceed. Having played at an avg buy-in of 2-3 dollars, I’m not sure where to go from here. I’m taking a short break until I get my feet back on the ground, and have thought about this a little.
Appreciate any thoughts around this. Will be very happy if anyone who have experienced the same can share what they did in this situation.
Finally, thanks to TPE. Especially DannyN13 and Kyle IGT. I’ve watched all of your videos and it have had an amazing impact on my game. Thank you!
TPE Management
April 6, 2010
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thats sick! awesome job!
Obviously you can increase your buyins a bit, but frankly I would not go too crazy. The variance is real, and the competition is of course tougher at higher stakes. Im not familiar enough with Stars (being American) to give specific suggestions on what to play, but i would keep a LARGE bankroll. No reason to start firing 109s. maybe play up to 27.50s?
Yeah, Im a nit. 🙂
August 21, 2015
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Thanks Killingbird!
I agree with you, and this was my immediate thought as well since I have no experience with higher stakes than 10-15. So sick to win this one. Still shaking, and got no sleep last night 😀
What are your thought on taking stabs at higher stakes? I would like to take a shot at the Sunday Million once in a while.
Also, I’m probably going to cash out around half of it. Do you think this should lower the avg buy-in even more?
Anyway, thanks for the input. Appreciate it!
August 24, 2015
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Congrats on your big score!
My story…. I had been playing poker for 8 years every now and then and 2 years ago i finished 4th in the SM for 75K. Safe to say i was very happy but i got a very false image of poker and how good i really was with this early big score. i had already had many deep runs in smaller buy ins and just thought i had been very unlucky up until then, like everyone thinks. Took me less than a year to lose it all playing high-mid stakes MTTs and lots of turbos. i started study more the more i lost but in the end it was too late.
There are many players that binks a big score early and go busto.
You seem like you have a good attitude towards poker. I hope you keep it that way. Understanding you went from 10$-700$ there in a month requires a decent amount of run good. Study brm and you will understand you could easily have gone busto. Even the best players have losing months even years with MTTs. Binking the hot 55$ turbo demands a great amount run good, a lot more than one would think. That goes for any sizeable MTT. Being 55$ MTT the competition is quite ruff with a ton of hard working good regs.
My advice would be keep studying, dont move up in stakes before you are sure you beat you current ABI. Put in a lot of volume play smaller fields to realize you true ROI faster. talking Thousands of MTTs. If you do really well move up but do not go crazy. Being a winning player at ABI 10$ for example is harder than you would think today. 20-30$ ABI is quite hard these days.
Do not play anything higher than 55$ other than the SM. Take some shots at 55$ i would say and preferably PSKO as its lower variance.
Take out the money and move it to other sites like winamax, 888, party and whatever sites you can play on. Many sites are way softer than pokerstars. Get your deposit bonuses aswell. Avoid Fulltilt as it has tons of regs. At least it used to.
Study hard, don`t be a BRM fish and GL on your journey 🙂
August 21, 2015
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Thank you! This is very useful.
June 11, 2012
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hey,
first congrats.
i can also share my thinking here.
i ll give a short recap of my history so you can put my thoughts into perspective.
I always and still played/play poker part time with having a 9/5 job. During my studies and my PhD i played lots of poker. back in the juicy old days i started studying a bit and boom had my first 5 digit score. following this i got some more nice scores and finally i came second in the sunday rebuy for >70K i felt like an uber boss and was playing every MTT i can imagine.
Direct buy in to the super Tuesday? hell yeah i did it. On top of playing HSMTT on a regular basis i had to cut down time for analysis bc of my job. and when i found time to deal with poker it was playing and not studying. So my bankroll dwindled down and i got almost busto.
not until then i realized what i have to do. study hard, ramp up the volume and lower the ABI. And back we are (shameless brag here 
)
so my advise:
-cash out some/most of the money
-buy your GF/BF or yourself a nice gift. something small not something for xK$ (i remember i bought myself a 3k$ tv from my first ship)
-invest some of the money either poker related or else
-hire a coach to accelerate your poker learning curve
-invest the money in software tools that can help you get better at poker
-dont move up the stakes yet.
-always keep in mind that MTTs are really high variance. FYI i would never had the big ship(>70k) if not 9 handed me 2nd in chips vs CL got it in KKvsAA and the Ks turned up
-if you want to be a poker pro work hard.
hope this helps.
if you need any more advice feel free to ask
cheers
August 21, 2015
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Thank you florian. Very helpful advice. I am cashing out about half of the cash. 5k have to go to taxes anyway, and keeping a big bankroll will only tempt me to play too high stakes. Christmas coming up, so my wife will get a nice present 🙂 I will move some of the money to another site with a big deposit bonus, and maybe invest in a software, although I could use some advice to what is recommended. I use HM2 and SnG wizard today.
Thank you for the advice, and for taking the time to share your experience.
June 11, 2012
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wow 5k taxes? thats even worse than living in switzerland 😛
as for softwares i would invest in holdemresources on top of sng wizard and probably cardrunners EV (gosh i should get 5$ every time i recommend their software)
maybe also get euqilab i think it is for free if you have a pokerstrategy account. which is also for free
are you actually playing poker full time?
August 21, 2015
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Hehe. 27% taxes in Norway. But I’m totally fine with that. I’ll remember it the next time I’m in the hospital.
Thanks for the tips. I will check it out. Also considering table ninja.
I’m not playing full time. I work 60%, and have a 2-year old son, so I don’t have too much time to play poker at the moment unfortunately. Hoping that poker can be a decent secondary income, but playing mostly because it’s fun 
I have just decided to cash out enough to leave me with a 5k bankroll. I think that is enough for me, and it will make it easier to keep a lower ABI. Any thoughts on that before I go through with it?
June 11, 2012
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ah nice. 60% job+family and a little poker – shipping some turbos. reminds me of my mum 😛
living the dream imho
you could prob stay away from table ninja if you are not mass tabling. i also dont know what the future on stars will bring with software’s like this
do you have a hud/tracker?
if not PT4 and the HUD that is mentioned in a thread might also be an option
cheers
August 21, 2015
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Yeah. It’s pretty nice i guess
I use the hud in HM2. Have tried various amounts of stats, but have ended up with just the basic stats. I don’t like it when it takes up to much space.
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