Help for building a bankroll

[PrtyPSux 0]

I want to try to make a decent amount of money ( for me maybe 700 to 1k a month would be huge) I am a student I cant afford starting off w/ $ 1,000 and then going on from there. I can barely afford starting w/ $200 ( I know it will take time for me to reach my goal w/ this amount). Now look, I've made many mistakes, like puting 3/4ths of my bankroll in a 200 nl table, but I wont do it again. Also in the past I have tried to start building my bankroll w/ a $50 deposit online and playing $25 NL that didnt work either ( too much swings ). I guess I should start playing limit holdem but I need advice on what limit to start on, when to move up a level, when do I have sufficient funds to start taking money out? is there a point where playing more tournaments might be better than cash games? those sort of things that might help me start to make money, maybe even a living. If there are pro's out there (nudge to Mr. Negreanu)or just people who are consistent at making money that could help me out I would appreciate it.P.S. I forgot to mention this so keep in mind im under 21 so I can't be at a casino every day ( maybe 2 or 3 times a week), and I can only afford to play about 4 hrs. due to school.

[jayboogie 0]

You have to start out like everyone else, at the really bottom and work your way up. It depends on what your bankroll is starting off, how good of a player you are, what games your good at, what limits you can play succesfully at and etc. If your starting bankroll is $200, start playing .5/1 stakes. When you get to about $500, you can jump up to 1/2. When you get to $1000, you jump up to 2/4. When you get to $1500, you can play 3/6. $2000 and you can play 5/10. I wouldn't say these numbers are exact, but it's just a guide and about approximately how I'd do it off the top of my head. This is all assuming you can beat these games at these limits, if you aren't winning consistently at a higher limit, go back down to the limit where you have the most success at.If you want to make 700-1k a month, I think your expectations are a little too high. It will take quite some time before you get there, I'm not discouraging you but I don't think you'll be making that unless you get past the 5/10 level, which could take a while if your building your bankroll from $200 on up. To be honest though, I'm not the best at bankroll management, so maybe other poster could give better advice. I was stupid before in how I managed my money. I played way above my bankroll and for whatever reason I'm kind of comfortable even if I put a large portion of my bankroll at stake. For instance, I'd play 10/20 with a bankroll of 500, which was absolutely stupid, but I didn't do to bad, so it ended up ok. I don't do that anymore though.

[Smasharoo 0]

Bonus whore.Sign up for PP but don't deposit money.Waut for them to send you a 50% deposit bonus email.Deposit $200Play .50/$1 to unlock the $100 bonus dollars. Continue playing with an appropriate 300BB bankroll untill you get to $600 and move up to $1/$2rinse and repeat.

[tekn0wledg 0]

Basically, like mentioned above, you will have to start at the bottom and work your way up. Start at the micro-limit and start moving upwards from there. This is the only way to build a bankroll on limited funds. If you play above the scope of your bankroll, like we all have before, you will find yourself out of funds quickly and feel hopeless about your playing prospects. The simple solution to this is to NOT do it.Start small.... make sure you have 300-500xBB and for no-limit games aim for about 1000xBB. These bankrolls will help you sustain the swings and you will find yourself starting to build your roll as time moves on if you are playing solid poker.Best of luck.

[theben 0]

if you start limit, people generally advise having a bankroll of around 300X size upper limit. 200X upper limit should be enough as well. that means you need at least a 400$ roll to safely play in 1/2 holdem.my advice to you is: play the game you are best at. im assuming you are a holdem player which leaves you with games of NL, PL and straight limit. (ive never seen spread limit online). in your post, you said you played in the NL games and given current trends, i'll wager you prefer NL.if you choose to play in NL you need at fewest 10X the max buyin for your bankroll to be safe and stable. some players actually advise having at least 20X buyin. i beleive 15X the max buyin should be sufficient. allocate what you can for poker and then choose the game with a max buyin that is roughly 1/15 your whole bankroll. remeber, when playing you must always buyin for the max amount the game allows to increase earnings.keep at the money level of game until you have 15X the max buyin at the next level and then move up. slow and steady wins the race.

[DwayneWayne 0]

25/50 PL on Party could be the softest game on the internet.Start small and use the deposit bonuses every month, if your serious about it your gonna have to invest outside money to help you move along. 20% return for just breaking even is a great way to move up a little faster.Start small, .5/1, and beat the game, these games will help you play tighter.it sucks, but it has to be done....grind it out and you'll respect your BR a lot more. Also keep records of everything, this way when you have $900 and want to play a $200 sit and go you can look and see how long it will take to make back the $215 after your KK gets cracked by A2. The goal is to make money.....if you keep that as your #1 goal you will be fine.

[mike22702 0]

I recently turned 18 in October and would consider myself a pretty experienced player already. Before turning 18 I had played in several private tourneys run outside of houses, etc. and played everyday with my friends in NL hold'em games. When I turned 18 I started with $200 (I'm a student also) and started playing 3-6 hold'em at Soaring Eagle cardroom and would buy in with $50 and I am currently up to $600. Just find a low-limit game where you are confident you can win.

[Wilderness 0]

You had a bankroll of 200 and would play with 50 bucks at a 3/6 table? wow

[mike22702 0]

yep...i had $200 and bought in $50 and doubled it. is there something wrong with that. i am just a student and don't have as much money as most of you guys. :roll:

[Wilderness 0]

That's great that you doubled it, and it wasn't a knock on your skill, its just that at 3/6 that small of a bankroll can't handle the swings, so even if you are a great player the natural times where you lose money will kill destroy the whole bankroll.

[Smasharoo 0]

yep...i had $200 and bought in $50 and doubled it. is there something wrong with that. i am just a student and don't have as much money as most of you guys. You didn't beat the game, you got lucky.Not realizing that would be a bad thing.

[mavthrill 0]

I had the same problems when I was a student on a limited bankroll. These guys are right on the money. It doesnt matter how good you are the swings can decimate a small bankroll.I was playing good poker and really making some money until I had two sessions where the cards just absolutely spit in my face!!! You cant risk 50% or more of your buy in, thats suicide.Just becasue you turned 50 into 200 one night at a limit table means nuts. I used to be the guy that bought in for the minimum at limit. Now if I am at a casino and want to play wiht my friends at 3/6 i will buy in from 120-200.**Listen to these guys, they know this subject.***

[Tiburon41 0]

Be careful playing with small bankrolls and buy-ins. Variance is a real b****. I try not to enter a limit game with less than 50BB. A NL game, 100BB. Just to sit at the table. With a limit game, you may get away with less, but if you play a 3/6 NL game with $50, prepare to get bullied. Congrats on your win, but just a suggestion: Don't go to a 6-on-1 gunfight with 3 bullets in the gun...Good luck!

[Chip_and_a_Chair 0]

Ring games might be best for determining your hourly return, but I found that, given my modest buy-in and the low blind levels that I was forced to play because of it, I didn't make enough of a profit to make sitting on my butt for hours worth my while.If you're a decent tourney player and can exercise a tiny bit of patience, I'd recommend the sit-n-go's at UltimateBet or PokerStars (I didn't like PartyPoker's lower starting chip count, personally). I'm what I like to call a "risk-minimizer" at the table; I'll make plays when I believe my opponent doesn't have a strong hand, but I generally play it safe, and manage to pick off enough small pots that I don't need to gamble as much with marginal hands, even with rapidly escalating blind levels. My experience is that it only takes one or two big hands to finish in the money in most of these sit-n-go's, and most players will compete with each other for quickest exit. The uber-tight/cautious strategy might not work as well in multi-table tourneys or tourneys with re-buys, but it's suited me just fine in the single-table tourneys.Like you, my original buy-in was on UltimateBet for $50. I got it up to $1200 in two months (I use it for airfare, not poker), strictly on $10+1 sit-n-go's (and an occasional $5+.50, where I'd play looser once the first few players got knocked out). I tried to move to $2/4 ring games at one point, but my game isn't suited to beat even those games yet, because the limits are still low enough that players will stay in with draws, and I still looked at my money in terms of law school application fees and groceries, and a $70 hit on one hand sent me crying in a corner.But for you, it sounds like once you got your bankroll up, you'd know what to do. So try the sit-n-go's, but recognize that you might have to buy in again. $50 will only get you into 4 $10+1 tourneys, and you'd have to log a first-place finish in one to turn a modest profit if you didn't place in the other three. (On a positive note, I've never finished out of the money in more than four in a row, which is less a testament to skill than to the fact that most people who play these things are either compulsive wahoos or just looking to unwind). Anway, they're eminently beatable, and generally take less than an hour. Even if you run into a superior player, which I do quite often, there are still two other places that pay out in the event that you get played like a fiddle. It's very rare that you'll find a table where EVERYONE is a stellar player at the humble limits.It's just my experience that $50 or $100 won't allow you to play high enough limits to build your bankroll as much as you'd like. But remember that I'm not one of those players who can calculate equity and expected value on the spot. At $0.50/$1, the average pot size is generally $2-$3, so you be the judge how many of these you could pick off without getting nailed by variance.Whatever you do, don't dump your money into a large tourney with an enticing payout. It's just not worth the risk at this point.

[vegasholdem 0]

i'm in da same boat as you...still tryin 2 build my bankroll...so good luck 2 ya...peace!

[jogsxyz 0]

I believe from other post by you that you are under 21. How can you build any bankroll? Your poker site will terminate your account as soon as you are reported.

[JFarrell20 1]

I just started playing for real money Saturday night. I don't know why it took so long but I wanted to be sure I had a fool-proof formula to build a bankroll. Anyway, I deposited $100 on Saturday night and started off at limit hold em .5/1 (The blinds are actually .25/.5). I brought $50 to the table (100XBB) I was amazed to see that of the 4.5 hours I played this weekend, I never sat at a table with someone who brought more than me. People were playing with $13, $8, $15, I think they just came in with $25 because that is the "default" amount. Ridiculous. Anyway, at this level, the play is horrible. I've won $117 in 4.5 hours of play ($26/hour clip. This includes a dry spell of being down $15 during a 45-minute stretch.)Anyway, for me to move up a level, 2 things have to happen:1)I need to double my bankroll at the current level2)I need to be consistently winning 5BB/hour Nobody mentioned number 2 yet. It's not just about doubling your bankroll. You can double your bankroll by winning only 1BB/hour, if you play long enough. You need to be consistently beating the game in order to move up.So, right now, I'm winning 52XBB lol. However, I'll probably hit $300 before moving up to 1/2. Then after doubling my roll, and winning 5BB/hour, I'll go to 2/4. Etc...You've got to grind it out man. I think this is a pretty fool-proof way to supplement your income. Even if you are in college and can only buy in for $100, or $50, you can still grind out at the lower levels. And I won't play tournaments until I have more padding in my roll. Once I get a lot in there, I will be able to take more "risks" and play tourneys (which can pay off a lot more potentially). But for now, it's time to GRIIIIIND!!!

[Smasharoo 0]

Nobody mentioned number 2 yet. It's not just about doubling your bankroll. You can double your bankroll by winning only 1BB/hour, if you play long enough. You need to be consistently beating the game in order to move up. 5BB an hour is unsustainable. We're talking about one table, here, right?Impossible. Not even close to a realisticly sustainable number.Also your starting bankroll of $100 is WAY too short. Move up (to 1/2) when you get to $600. Track your win rate by BB/100 hands, not per hour. It's much more presice.If you're not beating .50/1 for at least 2.5BB/100 single tabling, you're probably not getting maximum value from situations, but don't let that stop you from moving up when you hit $600.If you're not beating .50/1 for at least 1.5BB there's very likely a serious leak in your game and you should stick around at any bankroll amount untill you can beat it consistently at a higher rate.5BB/hour is around 7BB/100, which again, is impossible to sustain over anything but a small sample of hands.

[JFarrell20 1]

5BB/hour is not my creation. I think I saw it on Howard Lederer's page. I may be wrong but I think he said you shouldn't move up until you're consistently winning 4-5X the Big Blind at a table. Anyway, I think 52XBB/hour at .5/1 is safe to move up to 1/2 here, I just need to keep abusing these calling stations at .5/1 for a few more nights then I'll jump up.Smash, the internet is so automatic and fast (at least at .5/1) that I think it's pretty consistent to use 1 hour as a guage. Maybe at the higher levels people take longer to make decisions, I don't know. The point is:Not only do you need to build the bankroll to sustain swings at a higher level, you need to make sure you are consistently beating the level you are at. Ballplayers don't start out in AAA when they can't hit the fastball of an A-ball pitcher.Just to keep our feud going, it's "precise", not "presice".

[Smasharoo 0]

5BB/hour is not my creation. I think I saw it on Howard Lederer's page. I may be wrong but I think he said you shouldn't move up until you're consistently winning 4-5X the Big Blind at a table. Anyway, I think 52XBB/hour at .5/1 is safe to move up to 1/2 here, I just need to keep abusing these calling stations at .5/1 for a few more nights then I'll jump up.Listen to me.Play 5000 hands at .50/$1 before you move up.Whatever you do after that, I donn't care. Just play 5000 hands and see where you are. You're on the way to losing your whole bankroll and then coming back here and wondering why. I'm trying to help you here.Play 5000 hands at .50/$1 before you move up.For your own good.IF you play 500 hands a day that's 10 days.

[jayboogie 0]

5 times the big bet is unsustainable at probably any level unless your multi-tabling. If it was sustainable, you'd be making a killing and bankroll would be the last of your concerns

[Smasharoo 0]

shouldn't move up until you're consistently winning 4-5X the Big Blind at a tableAha!I think we have communication thing here, I just caught that. 4XBB means 4 x the BIG BET when talking about Limit, not 4 X the BIG BLIND.5 times the BIG BLIND is certainly sustainable.Still. Play 5k hands before moving. It's worth it in the long run and won't take you that long.

[Spidurman 0]

Smash - BB multiple is usually big bets for limit (at least in my poker experience), but BB is big blind in big bet.And I agree with 5000 hands - but I'd consider that a bare minimum. I'd say 15-20k hands are about where you need to be for the statistics to be meaningful.

[Smasharoo 0]

And I agree with 5000 hands - but I'd consider that a bare minimum. I'd say 15-20k hands are about where you need to be for the statistics to be meaningful.Sure, but playing 20k hands at .50/$1 when you have $5000 sitting in your accoutn is pretty tedious.It's unlikely that most losing players are going to be up signfigantly after 5000 hands, allthough still possible.

[Spidurman 0]

winning/losing should be clear after 5000 hands - and if its close, then you're probably close. I was referring to how much of a winning player, that would obviously be clearer after 3x the hands.