British grinder Mark Rubbathan is a name you’re going to see a lot of at the partypoker tables. The 29-year-old from Manchester, United Kingdom, is about to start a bankroll building challenge that sees him play exclusively at partypoker.
Rubbathan is affectionately known as “Weazel” to his friends and he discovered poker as a fresh-faced 16-year-old. He and his friends would meet up and play £1 games against each other on a Friday and Saturday night, but he hit the online poker tables as soon as he turned 18.
“I ended up doing quite well for myself in low stakes tournaments. Since then I have played all forms of No-Limit Hold’em live and online, both cash games and tournaments. I played live cash for a living before getting a job again so I could get a mortgage. Now I’ve bought my place it’s back to the poker grind.”
$90,000 Profit in 365 Days
The plan for the challenge is simple: turn a $10,000 bankroll into $100,000 within 12-months. Rubbathan can reload if everything goes belly up, but he must make $90,000 clear profit between August 1, 2020 and August 1, 2021.
This isn’t the first time Rubbathan has put himself through such a challenge. A while ago, he turned $1,000 into $10,000 in only seven months. This latest challenge is going to be far more difficult, so much so his friends have priced the likelihood of it happening at 20/1.
“I did a $1,000 to $10,000 bankroll challenge on Twitch a while back and was toying with the idea of a $10,000 to $100,000 in the same time frame. The challenge was mentioned to a few friends and they were discussing the likelihood of me succeeding and decided to bet against each other. One friend laid another 30/1 odds against me completing the challenge exclusively on partypoker. Now I thought I was an underdog but not a 30/1 underdog, so I asked for the same odds and we settled on 20/1 for me to complete my challenge.”
The main reason for this year-long challenge is to force Rubbathan into logging some serious volume. Having a target serves as motivation for him to log plenty of hands.
“The reason I want to do the challenge is to force myself to put in decent volume, grow my stream and gain some exposure. Streaming is something I love doing but often I lack the motivation to grind without a set goal or target, so here we are.”
“partypoker are the good guys out of all the sites available
It’s going to be one hell of a grind, that is for certain. His initial plans are to grind our $0.50/$1 fastforward tables and aim to hit Diamond Club status. This would give Rubbathan 40% cashback on all his real money play, which will be a huge help in hitting $90,000 profit. He’ll also by throwing a day of MTT grinding into the mix. Why choose partypoker over all the other available sites, though?
“I’m choosing to play at partypoker for a few reasons, the primary being the integrity of the site. I genuinely believe party is the best site FOR the players. My play used to be on GGPoker but they made some changes I wasn’t happy with, so decided to move elsewhere. I don’t play on PokerStars because I believe they are bad for the player and their customer support is woeful, and I think partypoker are the good guys out of all the sites available.”
“Secondly, I think the fields are relatively tough, meaning it’s a good challenge and hence why I got 20/1 odds on completing my challenge. My odds would have been lower on so-called softer sites.”
The positives and negatives of streaming
Putting yourself and your play on a live stream can be difficult and stressful, just ask our Twitch Team members who do this almost every day. Like anything in poker, Twitch streaming has its positives and negatives.
“The positives of streaming are the community aspect. Twitch is really a fantastic place to hang out and the Twitch community is incredible for motivation and general enjoyment. The community I have built up over the years is absolutely incredible. The support they give me serves as motivation to play and want to do well. I would 1,000% recommend streaming to anyone. It also means I am motivated to play and to play my best. For example, if people are watching I can’t just decide to gamble in a spot where we have all been tempted to make a losing play.”
On the flip side, however…
“The negatives are clear: anyone can watch the way I play. Especially at higher stakes cash games, this does become a problem in that opponents can see how I played and what hands I bluff with etc. This means I have to be aware, especially if I know there are players watching me who are also in the same games. There is a slight added pressure to perform too, in that I will be harder on myself if I have a bad session (in terms of how I played) but at the same time it’s a reason to play better and put time into improving my game where I can.”
Rubbathan starts his challenge on August 1, 2020 and you can watch him in action on Twitch or receive updates via YouTube.
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