I booked a $8.92 win yesterday. Yup. Slow going. With a few hours to play, I fired up three NLHE tournaments and busted without cashing in all three. With another half to go in the Jets/Bills game, I sat down at a .50/1 LHE table as well as a .25/.5 NLHE table to try to at least recoup my losses.

Biggest hand of the night was playing NLHE when I was dealt KK in the button. 3rd to act raises to 1.50. 4th to act calls. I re-raise to 5. Flop comes 35J rainbow. I bet $8 into the $15.75 pot. Initial raiser folds and other caller re-raises all in for $4 more. I call and he shows 85os. The turn is an 8, giving me a heart attack, but I recover when a river J ships me the pot.

With my roll this low, I expect things to go extremely slowly for a while. Hopefully I can take down a few 90 man or 180 man SNGs to boos myself up and into a higher buyin range.

I’ve also been watching a lot of the Isildur1-driver high stakes games on Full Tilt. While Izzy has lost a ton of money in the last week, he’s still playing the nosebleeds. Meanwhile, Durrrr has moved down to the 300/600 and 400/800 tables. It’s sick to think that we have come to consider that low limit.

So my first day was a bust. Thinking I had some time to play, I fired up three MTTs and three 9-man Sit-n-goes. I didn’t cash in any of them, but was extremely happy with my play. I’m not looking to cry over bad beats, but I did’t get my money in bad on any of my bust hands, save for an all in call with JJ after I had been raising pre-flop for about a half-dozen hands. One player, who I had beaten in a hand earlier via suckout on the turn was upset and shoved with A3 after I raised with JJ. I called and he hit. Fair play.

So yeah, I’m stuck for day 1, but it’s not too bad. I plan on playing some tonight and getting myself back in the positive. I don’t mind having downswings, obviously, but I would like to get off on a positive start.

Alright, here’s the breakdown for how the 50K challenge is shaping up. I have my roll spread across three sites. I’ll check in daily and update the progress.

Full Tilt: $500

Pokerstars: $123.13

UB: $128.34

Total: $751,47

My challenge is off to a horrible start. As reported yesterday, I set a goal of turning a $1,000 bankroll into $50,000 by January, 2010. However, before playing a single hand I have found myself with a bankroll cut in half.

This is mostly my mistake. Well, entirely my mistake. As a member of one of the better-known poker forums, I replied in a thread dedicated to player-to-player transfers. I was hoping to get half my roll onto Pokerstars and replied to a thread from a poster with a good reputation and lots of trading experience. As is customary, I made the initial move since I was new to this. After sending this player my $500, I waited for him to return it on Stars.

I’m still waiting.

Chalk it up to a lesson learned. It’s a huge step backwards, but I am still up $500 from the weekend.

I plan on playing some cash games tonight and will report back with results.