I found a block! Encouragement for us little guys....

[miner49er]

OK, I started mining in December 2012. I put together 6 radeon cards I had lying around, and have been chipping away my little measly .1x BTC per day. I was happy. But, I thought to myself: "With all those mega massive farmers out there, cranking 200 to (now) 4,500 TERA hash per second, whats my little rock hammer going to contribute compared to these other wrecking ball outfits? Am I just syphoning my shares off their profits and pissing all the big boys off? Is this a waste of time?"

Well, I have to say I was very pleased the other day when I logged on to my pool and looked at the rankings page. There I was, my little user ID, way at the bottom of the list. And... wait. Whats this? Could it be? YES! There it was: on the blocks found register -  a "1" next to my user ID!
I found a block! Me! My little bitty , teany weany little rock hammer chipped off a bright,shiny gem!

So I was kind of lucky, but it is pretty cool to see that I at least got 1 for the pool so far.
So, to all you casual miners and newbies out there: Keep chipping away with your little rock hammers...

[noodleman]

i am very happy for you 

And thank you for sharing this with us 

[battmann]

How small was this rock hammer?

[miner49er]

How small was this rock hammer?

Like I said, 6 GPU's (2 are new 7950's, the rest are the old ones after upgrades I have done past 2 years) I am hashing about 1,800 Mh/s.

I started back in the day with a 5770, upgraded to 6850, then upgraded to Xfire 6870's. Just replaced those with 7950's. So, back in December, I brought all the old Mobo's and GPU's out of the closet and fired 'em up on mining.

[the joint]

OK, I started mining in December 2012. I put together 6 radeon cards I had lying around, and have been chipping away my little measly .1x BTC per day. I was happy. But, I thought to myself: "With all those mega massive farmers out there, cranking 200 to (now) 4,500 TERA hash per second, whats my little rock hammer going to contribute compared to these other wrecking ball outfits? Am I just syphoning my shares off their profits and pissing all the big boys off? Is this a waste of time?"

Well, I have to say I was very pleased the other day when I logged on to my pool and looked at the rankings page. There I was, my little user ID, way at the bottom of the list. And... wait. Whats this? Could it be? YES! There it was: on the blocks found register -  a "1" next to my user ID!
I found a block! Me! My little bitty , teany weany little rock hammer chipped off a bright,shiny gem!

So I was kind of lucky, but it is pretty cool to see that I at least got 1 for the pool so far.
So, to all you casual miners and newbies out there: Keep chipping away with your little rock hammers...

Congrats

[Mike Christ]

Just goes to show you, every little bit helps

[Hawkthorne]

Congratulations! 

As I understand this means you receive 25 Bitcoins? So, a total of over a thousand dollars?

[battmann]

How small was this rock hammer?

Like I said, 6 GPU's (2 are new 7950's, the rest are the old ones after upgrades I have done past 2 years) I am hashing about 1,800 Mh/s.

I started back in the day with a 5770, upgraded to 6850, then upgraded to Xfire 6870's. Just replaced those with 7950's. So, back in December, I brought all the old Mobo's and GPU's out of the closet and fired 'em up on mining.

Tight. Good job broski

[Uglux]

... I logged on to my pool and looked at the rankings page...
So I was kind of lucky, but it is pretty cool to see that I at least got 1 for the pool so far.

The pool received the 25 Coins.

[hyphymikey]

I am one of the many waiting on BFL ASICs and will then be new to mining, and was wondering, when you find a block in your pool, you get the same amount you normally do mining or a larger reward for finding the block?

Sorry for the newb question!

[deepceleron]

OK, I started mining in December 2012. I put together 6 radeon cards I had lying around, and have been chipping away my little measly .1x BTC per day.

You got lucky! You don't say your hashrate, but your income would indicate you would average a block found every 8.3 months (so it's as likely for you to solo mine for years without finding one as you would find a block in three months).

I am one of the many waiting on BFL ASICs and will then be new to mining, and was wondering, when you find a block in your pool, you get the same amount you normally do mining or a larger reward for finding the block?

Sorry for the newb question!

Rewarding the block finder increases variability, when the goal of a pool is even distribution of rewards for work performed. It's just a fun statistic to show who found a block.

[miner49er]

I don't know, it said on the calculator sites that 3 months to find a block was statistically correct for my hardware set up (but when I did the research a few months ago the dificulty was a bit lower than it is now)-  I stated my hash rate at 1,800 MH/s previously.

 And to be clear - I am not solo mining. I mine a pool, and it was just cool to see that my little set up had discovered a block, and I can think that for just that one brief shining moment, my found block coins were going to pay for some of the "JOE Tera - hashes" shares instead of the other way around.
So I do consider it pretty fortunate that I found a block this soon. But it can and does happen, so keep your chins up and watch those pool stats, It can happen to you....