Just to prove a point, world-renowned professional poker player Chris Ferguson took $0 and transformed it to over $10,000 by playing online at Full Tilt Poker. Known in the poker world by his nickname of “Jesus,” Ferguson was born in Los Angeles in 1963 and has a Ph.D. in computer science from UCLA. Both of Ferguson’s parents have Ph.D.s as well, with his father’s Ph.D. being in mathematics. It should come as no surprise that Ferguson became a professional poker player when considering that his father teaches game theory and theoretical probability UCLA. Similarly, with his parents providing such a strong mathematical influence, it is easy to see why his style of play is highly mathematical.

Chris Ferguson Bankroll Management

In an effort to prove that even someone with no money can make big cash with online poker, Ferguson decided to start what has become known as the Chris Ferguson Challenge. Over a period of 16 months, Ferguson challenged himself to take no money and turn it into $10,000 by following a few simple rules. Among the rules that he had to adhere to included:
He could never by into a Sit & Go game or a cash game with over 5% of his bankroll. For lower limit games, however, he could buy into any game that had a buy in of $2.50 or less.
He was not allowed to buy into a multi-table tournament for any more than 2% of his bankroll amount, though he could buy into a multi-table tournament if it cost $1.
If the money on the table ever equaled more than 10% of his bankroll at a Pot-Limit or a No-Limit session, he had to leave whenever the blinds reached him

Transforming nothing into something wasn’t necessarily an easy process. In fact, building up the bankroll was very slow at first. In order to reach a bankroll of $6.50 that stayed stable at this amount, it took Ferguson about 7 months. He had to put in a good amount of play time before he could reach his goal, but he finally had a big breakthrough when he won $104 after coming in second at a 683 person $1 tournament. After this point, it took him another nine months or so to reach his $10,000 goal.

Full Tilt Poker

If you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty and see how Ferguson progressed toward his goal and just how much money he won, you can check out some pretty detailed graphs on the Full Tilt website. Watching his bankroll may not be as exciting as watching your own bankroll grow, but it is still quite interesting to see.

In order to help anyone else that is interested in taking no money and turning it into cash, Ferguson has written Chris’s Pro Tip on bankroll and management, which can be on the Full Tilt website. You can earn some great winnings and keep the cash for yourself, or you can do like Ferguson and pledge to donate the winnings to a charitable cause. Either way, you will certainly have a good time doing it!

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