Have you ever wanted to play in the Pokerstars Steps system to try and win your way to fortune and fame? Well, I am here to give you some expectations.

What are steps?

First let me talk about what “steps” are. Steps are a system of single table tournaments where the prize at stake at any given step is an entry to the next level. Depending on the step being played, other prizes will be given for coming in 2nd to 6th. More often than not though, coming in 2nd will give you the same result as coming in 1st. To give you an example of a step payout I took a snapshot of the payouts in a step 2:

As you can see with a step 2, you will at least break even just by coming in the top 4 out of 9 entrants.  The top 2 spots will get you to step 3, where you will have a chance to move on to step 4.

As of right now, PokerStars offers 6 different levels of steps.  Each of which you can buy into directly.  Step 6 is usually played out for a trip to a live tournament like the World Series of Poker in Vegas or the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas.

It is a great way to take a “chance” at winning your way to an exclusive poker trip.

Starting from Scratch

If you don’t have the cash on hand to be able to buy in to step 6 directly, (which is $2,100) you can buy in at a level more on par with you bankroll.  The lowest buy in available is a step 1 for $7.50.

But the thing is, it is highly unlikely for someone to start from step 1 and work their way all the way to a step 6 win.  How unlikely?  That is a question I am trying to answer.

My Experience

I have played quite a number of steps over the past couple of years since their inception.  I have had stretches of running really well.  But on the flip side, I have also had stretches where I couldn’t win a hand.  Eventually though, I managed to win a step 6 in June ’09 for a trip to the WSOP in which I decided to take the cash value.

Note:  If the tournament you are playing for is out of the United States, taking the cash value is generally not an option.  So do your research if you are in it for the money.

Expectations

Now I am going to share with you some data that stems from the results of my long hours at the virtual felt.  These results are really not enough in terms of quantity to get a true adaptation of the variance at hand, but I thought I would share the numbers nonetheless.

I consider myself a good single-table tournament player that ran on par overall, but may have run well in certain situations.  But a ton of that running well, should be pretty well negated since the first 3 step 6s I played in, I ran KK into AA.  (man was I on tilt)

So without further ado……let me show you some numbers……

(if need be, click on the picture to get a better view)

From the chart above that I created in Excel I can conclude a ton of information.  It tells me what place I have come in and how often.  It also gives me specific information like my return on investment, average profit per game, etc.

Along with the above information I can determine some numbers on what to expect from scratch.  That is where this section comes in:

Here I can tell you on what to expect according to my play.  Your play will vary, but I think it is always good to get an idea.

On average, if I am starting from step 1, I can expect to pay $803 to get 1 step 6 ticket.  Not too bad if you consider that a step 6 actually costs over 2k.  These numbers still might be slightly incorrect because of the fact that I still have 5 step 5s waiting to be played at this point in time.  But I believe it to be a pretty good estimate and just for this blog’s purposes I entered in that I won 3 of the 5 unplayed step 5s and that $803 number was dropped to only $659.

I can also tell you it will take a total of about 162 games played to get myself a step 6 ticket.  (132 with 3 wins of the unplayed step 5 tix) This includes games at all levels.

Take your chance

So now that I have shared some of this information with you, I hope I can give you some more realistic expectations as to whether or not you should invest money into the Steps system.  My numbers are obviously going to be different than yours, but at least you have something to build on.  If you are going to invest your time and money into the steps, I definitely suggest you track your play with a spreadsheet similar to the one I created or some other program.

Now I am not saying that you can’t get lucky and win all the way starting with just a few step 1 tickets, I am just trying to paint a picture on how likely it is.

How likely is it?  I would be feel confident in saying, according to my numbers, that 1 in about 90-110 (1%) step 1 tickets will land me a step 6.  Then of course, I would have to win it!

Now if I told you that I was selling a lottery ticket for $7.50 in which you had a 1% chance to win over $10,000…..would you take it?

So since my big win I have been playing more steps. I have been running slightly below expectation. That is I am barely showing profit as far as the cost of the steps go. But all is good. Technically I haven’t really spent any money yet. Because a week or two ago I managed to final table a multi-table-tournament. That was good enough to boost my BR another 1k.

I am happy with the way my bankroll is turning out but my luck has really got me feeling down in these steps. Then today I saw a video at PokerRoad that made me crack up and feel all better (since I definitely feel like I can relate).  I am sure all poker players have felt this way at one time or another. 

Beware HIGH level of profanity:

So I left off talking (last post) about how I was lucky enough to turn four step 4′s into a step 6.  I actually went ahead and decided to play my only step 6 on Sunday afternoon.  Well to make a long story short, I won my seat to the WSOP!  It is a package that is worth 12 thousand dollars!

I am so excited, even 24 hours later, I don’t know where to begin.

As I was browsing the lobby at PokerStars, I saw a step 6 had 10 of the needed 12 players signed up.  The field was tough as what would be expected in a step 6, but I didn’t care.  Something inside told me that this was the one to play.  So I listened to my gut and signed up.

The game moved along incredibly slowly since we started with pretty deep stacks and the blinds were not escalating as they would in a turbo.  There was definitely plenty of play.  Some players obviously knew this as I noticed alot of deep-stack-type plays such as “floating.”  I had to adjust pretty quickly.

It was nearly an hour later and only 1 of the 12 starting players had been knocked out, and you could sense other players making moves to try and chip up.  When the following hand came up:

Click here to view a larger version.

Depending on how you look at it, AK is really a tough decision here.  I could easily make a case for folding.  However, I really thought that the button (M555SSM) was making a move.  Up to this point he had shown he is not afraid to reraise pre.  I thought he was just making a squeeze play here, and well Wes was cold calling all day.  I also felt that the SB who pushed all in knew this as well.  So I thought his range of hands here could easily be behind my AK.

I took up quite a bit of time as I finally made the decision to call.  Unfortunately it didn’t work out, but I am still happy with my call.  So it looked like this tournament was not mine to win as I was left with 7 big blinds as the blinds moved up to 75/150 the next hand.  I was really in dismay thinking that it was over.  But I never gave up!

I slowly worked my stack back up to find myself in the final 3.  It was then that I was confident that the seat was mine.  I knew it was just a matter of time.  A little while longer, the other two stacks played a huge hand in which one player got lucky to win.  It was a hand that I was shocked to see played out the way it was, but I was elated as the player that won had more chips than the other; meaning we were down to 2 players.  The game was over.  I won a seat (two were up for grabs).

I was jumping up and down like a school girl at field day.  I took a desktop pic of the lobby after I won to just make it official as I was still pinching myself.

So now I am 12 thousand dollars richer!  I have since decided to take the cash and opt out of playing in the the WSOP.  I might however attempt to win another seat.  If I do win another, I will definitely play the main event then.

I also want to note that a poker goal of mine that I set in October of ’07 has FINALLY been reached.  It was my 100 to 10k goal.  I was up to 5k within 6 months and nearly lost it all and then I basically had to start over.  I was starting to question if I would ever make it.  Now, I am looking forward to my next goal 10k to 100k.  Wish me luck! 

Oh….if you wanted to see the full hand history of the step 6:

Click here to view a larger version.

I haven’t had the time to play as much poker as I would like as of late.  But when I do, I have been consumed with attempting to win a seat to the World Series of Poker via the PokerStars steps.

What are steps?

If you aren’t familiar with the steps, they are basically a way to qualify for a live major poker tournament for as little as $7.50.  They are a group of single-table (9 players) tournaments that consist of 6 different levels.  Starting at step 1, in order to get to step 2 you would need to finish in the top 2 spots.  The same for each level until you get to step 6 where you play for a prize often around 10k+.

My attempt to get to step 6

I have played these steps in the past, and have made it to step 6 a couple of times starting from step 1.  Thanks to some pretty poor luck, nothing big materialized from those step 6′s.  So this year I was hoping to take another shot at the steps with hopes of making a 10k+ score.

I had been accumulating step 2′s over the year as I would use my frequent player points (FPP’s) to play in step 1′s.  You can actually play in step 1 for 500 fpp’s instead of $7.50. I ended up spending just over 50,000 fpp’s.  To make a long story short, I am left today with one step 6 ticket ready to be played.

If I could cash out the step 6, which unfortunately you can’t, I would be $2,100 richer (the cost to buy in directly into step 6).  I really wish I could just take the cash and reinvest half of it back into the steps.  But it is what it is, and I am stuck here pondering what to do.

To play or not to play…….

…..that is the question.  Should I hold it for a later date?  Should I try to get more step 6′s first?  I really just don’t know what I am going to do as of yet.  Something is telling me to wait it out thought instead of playing it now.

The plan is to just gradually play more and more steps until I am left with about 5+ step 6′s.  This way I would feel confident in my chances of winning at least once.  The pressure would really be relieved, I would think.

Confident to win

I am confident that I will eventually win a step 6.  I just don’t know when.  I am just trying to pave the way to see to it that I can be most likely to succeed.

How can I be so confident that I will even get to another step 6?

Well, this is when record keeping comes in handy.  I have an excel spreadsheet that I use that keeps tally of the number of steps that I play and what place I come in.  It is really great to know the “chances” of getting to step 6.  Though there is such a thing as variance, I feel like keeping stats does give me some idea as to my expected value of playing these steps.  Below is a picture of the “totals section” of the spreadsheet, with my stats:

I am happy that I was able to get a step 6.  But to be honest, I am disappointed at the same time.  I really ran wayyyy below expectation in the step 3′s.  I was really getting discouraged.  At one point, I was starting to doubt that I would ever get to a step 6.  According to previous step attempts, I normally come in 1st/2nd place in those around 27-31 percent.  This year I only came in the top two spots 15 percent of the time!

Somehow though, I was able to turn four step 4′s into a step 6.  I will let you know when, if any time soon, I decide to play it.

If you are interested in getting a similar spreadsheet, then I have made it available in the NoMeNot E-Store for free.

Well, it has been nearly four weeks since my last post, and in that time I think I might have logged a total of five hours over three sessions of poker. In those sessions I left losing a little bit more of my BR.

I am over the whole bad beat stuff, and I realize it is just part of the game. Only time will tell if I have been able to truly learn from the whole mess.

I just am not accustomed to losing even though deep down I know it is not in my control. But what is in my control, I need to continue to strive to make better in my poker game. Not to name anyone, but I have recently gotten some extra motivation to hit the tables once again.

I decided to fire up the good ole’ $4.40 limit 5 card draw mtt tonight. A tourney that I consistently do well in when I play, but in the past six months, you can count the times I have played that MTT on one hand.

To make a long story short, I beat out 126 players for another first place in that tournament. The only down side is that it is not really what I consider “big money.” Though $136 is more than a 10 percent increase for my Stars BR. For that I am grateful.

Back to my motivation to play this tournament again…. Well a person that I had basically taught the basic ins-and-outs of online limit 5 card draw has recently been doing really well. So much so that she increased her Bankroll by 700 percent from just playing 5 card draw!

So to overcome “that losing feeling” that I get when not final tabling a huge field NLH tournament. I have decided that I can off set that by playing more of the 5 card draw mtt, and also fire up more SNG’s.

Speaking of SNG’s I have a ton of frequent player points on Stars, in which I plan to use to play some PCA steps. For those that have not been following my blog, I came incredibly close to winning a $12,000 package back in May by playing the WSOP steps. I feel with the amount of FPPs I have, I should expect an average of 2-3 step 6 tickets (starting at step 1). So for free money, I feel it is worth another shot.

I really felt good tonight playing poker again. I was getting the same rush tonight as though I had never won a tournament before. Something that I was starting to miss not only because I wasn’t winning but because I wasn’t motivated.

On another note……..I opened up my fulltilt account and found that I had just under 15 dollars in there. During some of my few recent sessions, I worked that up to over 80 bucks. So hopefully I can start to build some money on there as well.

I will update my total BR on the right of this website tonight to include the total from FullTilt and Pokerstars.

Until next time……

When Pokerstars was running their WSOP steps, I put in over $1000 in step 1s. I would end up playing in five Step 6s. Not to talk about bad luck, but I did run KK into AA pre in 3 of these step 6s and only cashed in one.

So after getting pretty accustomed with the step system, and seeing as I believe any good SNG player should show profit in these things, I took my W$ and played in some (4) step 3′s.

Well, I won two step 4 direct satellites for a win of W$1,060 from my original W$328 investment. Hmmm……could I be on to something here?

I went through all of my past stats in the WSOP steps and just by buying in from the step 3 level and playing for the step 4 satellite in these WCOOP steps, I should show a pretty decent profit.

So over the next week or so, I will be trying to bang these things out and see where it takes me.

BR: $2,868.80 (1,100 of which is W$)