H
Hsac
Rock Star
Bronze Level
Building Bank Rolls
It's true, there is no pat answer to building a large bankroll, and even the definition of the term "large bankroll" is left to individual interpretations.
Even Doyle Brunson went bankrupt several times throughout his career, and regained his wealth every time by restarting in penny poker games. He even said he didn't care if he lost all his money because he knew he could always get it back.
From my experiences, I started off with a few hundred dollars in the early eighties and ran it up to a couple hundred thousand, all in brick and mortar casinos where the games typically go much slower than online. As the old saying goes, if you don't recognize the patsy, then you're it. I'm retired now and don't care to subject myself to that kind of stress anymore.
Recently, in my latest endeavor online, I started with $25 a few years ago and have slowly ran it up to a couple of thousand. That was without playing in freerolls, only SNGs and ring games. Probably would be a good deal more than that but I don't play as often as I used to. Also, I'm extremely conservative in matching my bankroll to the size of games I play in. Just use good money management, know the odds, and play tight when others are playing loose and loosen up a bit when others are playing tight. Doesn't always work, but hey, what does?
It's true, there is no pat answer to building a large bankroll, and even the definition of the term "large bankroll" is left to individual interpretations.
Even Doyle Brunson went bankrupt several times throughout his career, and regained his wealth every time by restarting in penny poker games. He even said he didn't care if he lost all his money because he knew he could always get it back.
From my experiences, I started off with a few hundred dollars in the early eighties and ran it up to a couple hundred thousand, all in brick and mortar casinos where the games typically go much slower than online. As the old saying goes, if you don't recognize the patsy, then you're it. I'm retired now and don't care to subject myself to that kind of stress anymore.
Recently, in my latest endeavor online, I started with $25 a few years ago and have slowly ran it up to a couple of thousand. That was without playing in freerolls, only SNGs and ring games. Probably would be a good deal more than that but I don't play as often as I used to. Also, I'm extremely conservative in matching my bankroll to the size of games I play in. Just use good money management, know the odds, and play tight when others are playing loose and loosen up a bit when others are playing tight. Doesn't always work, but hey, what does?
G
Gojszli5
Enthusiast
Silver Level
AntA_KO_v
Rock Star
Silver Level
Men, time is money, this is a really boring idea!
Man, playing poker for making money is also an extremely boring idea =)))
kanogott
Visionary
Platinum Level
I think poker is a mirror of the life. At first you must have the passion for the play and then the big cashes will be autimatically getting real. You must learn the rules, getting better every day use the tools. Read some books, getting in contact with other players to discuss hands. And be calm.
ijsmile369
Enthusiast
Silver Level
The truth is that I am in that plan to build it from the bottom and it is working but very slow ... thank you very much for the advice!
What is your main strategy to build bankroll? Do you apply for any freeroll available and trying to be ITM, or maybe you've already started with small deposit?
R
Royal9012
Rock Star
Silver Level
You think someone reading all you wrote here?
WickedFRoST
Rock Star
Bronze Level
Great stuff, but it obviously was posted quite a while ago.
Today, the field is quite strong on micros as well, in cash games particularly. So building a bankroll from nothing, while still possible, is much harder. Especially in cash games. Im MTTs on the other hand, the field is much softer, and with the introduction of bounty builders, the variance is a bit less of an issue.
So in 2021, if you decide to play with a baby bankroll, I would recommend starting from builders, not cash
Today, the field is quite strong on micros as well, in cash games particularly. So building a bankroll from nothing, while still possible, is much harder. Especially in cash games. Im MTTs on the other hand, the field is much softer, and with the introduction of bounty builders, the variance is a bit less of an issue.
So in 2021, if you decide to play with a baby bankroll, I would recommend starting from builders, not cash
J
Joselmb31
Rock Star
Silver Level
The explanation is very good and I agree to a large extent on your fundamentals, I have taken my time to study (although there is always something to learn) but I can never get to put together a solid bank to play money where the players have taken the time to learn even a little. When playing the micro limits and freeroll I meet players of all levels and many put their chips in the center without sense or just because that is what the game is about; and the most important condiment in these situations is that luck and variance, in most cases, is on your side.
Max Diver
Legend
Silver Level
Thats a great way to start from small buyin tournaments. Keep on studying, playing and increase the buyin value slow. Thats a solid way to level up without risking a lot.
Hard work, consistency on the long run pays off.
Cheers.
M.D.
Hard work, consistency on the long run pays off.
Cheers.
M.D.
P
pkr998
Rising Star
Bronze Level
Nice Advice
You made some very good points. I'm just starting on real money poker so I have a lot to learn. Thanks for sharing some of your knowledge on the subject. I had recently punted my bankroll playing microstakes and am looking for winning the freerolls to resurrect my playing funds. I'll be taking your advice in account.
You made some very good points. I'm just starting on real money poker so I have a lot to learn. Thanks for sharing some of your knowledge on the subject. I had recently punted my bankroll playing microstakes and am looking for winning the freerolls to resurrect my playing funds. I'll be taking your advice in account.
S
stil370
Visionary
Platinum Level
That was an excellent post. You brought up the subject of picking a game and sticking to it. I've heard this advice so much so I'm sure there is truth in that statement.
Just speaking for myself I've always found it difficult to focus on one game. It can really get boring playing just one game, I like to jump around to different games/tournaments
UOTE=OzExorcist;1539923]We get a lot of discussion on here around what to do when you're trying to build a bankroll from a small amount. Maybe you've just had a freeroll cash, maybe a friend's been kind enough to transfer you a small amount or maybe you've deposited in the past and you've only got a few bucks left. How do we take that amount and turn it into a real bankroll?
There are tips everywhere including here: Building a Bankroll from Nothing
What I've tried to do below is dump the bulk of my experience on the subject into one post. For those wondering about my credentials, I've been playing for the past couple of years on a roll built from freeroll cashes. I'll warn readers from the outset, I don't have any easy answers or shortcuts. But I think what's written here might be helpful in at least dispelling some of the myths and crazy ideas people have about undertaking this task and hopefully keep them on track while they're attempting it.
THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET
There's loads of discussion on this point - time after time people have asked "What's the BEST game to play with a bankroll of (insert tiny amount here)?"
The truth is there IS no answer to that question. Everybody's different and we all have different strengths and weaknesses as players. I might have built a roll playing nothing but small stakes limit mixed games. Does that mean it's going to work for you? Dear gawd no! That'd be suicide for most people, since most people don't have the first clue how to play mixed games.
That's an extreme example, I know. It should be obvious to most people that if they suck at mixed games then they shouldn't be putting any of their baby bankroll on a mixed game table.
But there's other advice that sounds more reasonable but can be just as dangerous. How often have we heard, for example, that limit hold 'em is a great way to build a bankroll because it doesn't carry the risk of losing your whole stack in one hand like NLHE does? I know there's more than one lesson in the Full Tilt Academy that suggests it and it sounds perfectly reasonable, but guess what? If you suck at LHE, slowly but surely (and maybe not even that slowly) you're still going to lose your roll.
My point is, there is no magic bullet. There's no one game where everybody who plays it surely but steadily builds a roll. Far and away the best game to play is the one that YOU are best at. That might be LHE, it might be STTs, it might be $2NL 6-max. It doesn't matter. What matters is that YOU play YOUR best game, not someone else's.
I have an exeption to this rule regarding certain games NOT to play, BTW, which I'll discuss in a minute. But for the moment, let's move on to...
PICK A GAME AND STICK TO IT
Once you've settled on your best game, I'm recommending that you stick to it and play nothing else. A lot of people talk about how they played STTs for a little while and had some small wins, then they tried LHE for a while then lost the rest of their bankroll playing HU cash games.
There's a couple of reasons I think you should play just one game. The first is that we want to leverage our skill as best we can. It makes sense that our skill advantage will be biggest when we're playing our best game. The second reason is that we'll learn more when we concentrate on just one game. If we skip from game to game to game we won't be improving much at any of them because we won't be playing them for long enough. If we stick to one game not only are we maximising our skill edge, we're also maximising our chances to get better at the game, increase our skill edge and build our roll.
There'll be time for dabbling in mixed games and learning new things later, after we've built a stable roll.
YOU HAVE TO GET LUCKY
This is the bit that's going to hurt for some people. Even when we stick to just playing our best game, we're STILL going to need to get lucky in order to build our roll. By definition we've probably got less than good BRM dictates we should have to play in the lowest stakes games. If you're starting off with enough for just one buy in obviously you'll need to get very lucky - you'll need to win in the first game you play in and then keep winning in quite a number after that so that you've got some breathing room.
Even if you start off with, say, 10 or more buy ins though you'll still need a bit of luck to avoid a downswing that wipes out your roll. They happen all the time to players with full size rolls and there's nothing that says it can't happen to us either.
What I'm saying is remember that luck plays a part. Pick your best game and play your best. If you still wind up busto, don't dwell on it or let it get you down. Just pick yourself up, start over and hope for a little more luck next time.
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, STOP PLAYING MTTs!
Here's the bit where I'm going to contradict myself.
If I were to tell you I'd just made $10 from a freeroll and I was going to take it straight to a PLO cash game table to start trying to build a roll from it, how many people would think I was mad?
I think it might be more than a few. A select few of them will have prior knowledge of how much I suck at PLO. But others, even without that knowledge, would likely point out that the variance in PLO can be a killer and I'd be better off playing something with a more stable return. They'd probably be right too.
But here's the thing - a lot of those same people probably wouldn't bat an eyelid if I said I was going to take that $10 and play the Daily Dollar or something with it. Which is a funny thing, because as far as variance goes things don't really get much more swingy than multi-table tournaments. You certainly want a lot more than 20-30 buy ins to be rolled for them.
As discussed above, we already need to get very lucky to build a roll from nothing. We don't need to compound our problems by stacking variance against us - instead, we need to concentrate on games that offer us at least some chance of grinding a slow but steady path upwards. That usually means ring games or single-table SnGs and I'm recommending that, at least for the initial stages, you steer clear of MTTs and the horrible swings they bring. Even if you think they're your best game.
BE MILITANT AND CONSERVATIVE ABOUT BRM
In the beginning we're already going to be playing with bad BRM. There's not a lot we can do about it if we're not even rolled for the lowest stakes other than play our best and hope we run our roll up to a point where we ARE properly rolled for the level we're playing.
For that to happen though we have to be militant about the stakes we play. No playing in some random MTT or forum game or whatever, even as a one-off, unless we're rolled for it. Things like that are luxuries that we'll have later when we've built a stable roll.
We also need to be conservative with our bankroll. Most systems will tell you that if you've got 20-30 buy-ins for a given level you're rolled for it. I'm going to suggest you consider yourself "rolled" for a level when you've got 50 or more, that you don't move up in levels until you've got that much or more for the new level and that you move straight back down if you run bad at the new level. We worked hard to build that roll, we have to protect it as best we can from variance. Don't be ashamed of being a bankroll nit.
DON'T GET HUNG UP ON BONUSES
Free money is a beautiful thing. We all love it, and it's especially attractive when you don't have very much of it to start with.
Free money in the form of bonuses, however, usually comes with strings attached and those strings are almost always having to grind out x amount of frequent player points in real money games. Unlocked right, bonuses can be a fantastic way to pad your earnings and move your bankroll along faster. But done wrong they can send you hurtling backwards.
Take the recent Rush Week promo at Full Tilt. Anybody could participate, and to unlock the bronze level $10 bonus you had to grind out 10 FTPs a day on the Rush tables for seven days straight. Pretty sweet deal, right? Maybe, maybe not. If you're not rolled for the minimum $5NL that you'd need to play to earn the points, or if you're not any good at Rush, then taking this bonus on would be a terrible idea - chances are you'll end up losing more than you stood to win in bonuses and you might jeopardise your whole bankroll in the process.
The same goes for other things people consider doing to unlock other bonuses, like adding more tables than they're comfortable with to run points up faster or playing at higher stakes than they're rolled for. It's a slippery slope, I'm suggesting you just avoid it altogether.
As long as there's competition between online poker sites there'll be bonuses, so there's always another one somewhere around the corner. Stick with the plan, work through the bonuses that you can get safely by just and just playing your normal game at your normal limits and ignore the ones you can't get.
STOP TALKING AND START DOING
(OR "NOBODY ACTUALLY READS YOUR BLOG ANYWAY SO WHY STRESS YOURSELF")
Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry. We've all seen it - someone comes along on a board or starts a blog talking a whole lot about how they're going to build a roll from nothing or how they've got this freeroll cash and they're going to run it up and make loads of money. Some of the dedicated ones even give us day by day or game by game updates for a short period... until the inevitable post where they tell us they're busto either because they played bad, they didn't follow BRM, they had to withdraw all their money for some inane reason or, my personal favourite, the donks ate their bankroll.
Save yourself the time and embarassment by talking less and DOING more. Use the time to actually review your games, rather than telling the world about every single bad beat you ever get. Post actual problem hands for analysis and ask meaningful questions that might help you improve your game, rather than telling everyone about every tiny fluctuation in your bankroll.
You're also putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. Chances are somewhere in the back of your mind there's a though along the lines of "What will I be telling my readers after this session?" and that can have an adverse effect on your game. So stop talking and start doing instead.
That's it, for the moment at least. Run good y'all.[/QUOTE]
Just speaking for myself I've always found it difficult to focus on one game. It can really get boring playing just one game, I like to jump around to different games/tournaments
UOTE=OzExorcist;1539923]We get a lot of discussion on here around what to do when you're trying to build a bankroll from a small amount. Maybe you've just had a freeroll cash, maybe a friend's been kind enough to transfer you a small amount or maybe you've deposited in the past and you've only got a few bucks left. How do we take that amount and turn it into a real bankroll?
There are tips everywhere including here: Building a Bankroll from Nothing
What I've tried to do below is dump the bulk of my experience on the subject into one post. For those wondering about my credentials, I've been playing for the past couple of years on a roll built from freeroll cashes. I'll warn readers from the outset, I don't have any easy answers or shortcuts. But I think what's written here might be helpful in at least dispelling some of the myths and crazy ideas people have about undertaking this task and hopefully keep them on track while they're attempting it.
THERE IS NO MAGIC BULLET
There's loads of discussion on this point - time after time people have asked "What's the BEST game to play with a bankroll of (insert tiny amount here)?"
The truth is there IS no answer to that question. Everybody's different and we all have different strengths and weaknesses as players. I might have built a roll playing nothing but small stakes limit mixed games. Does that mean it's going to work for you? Dear gawd no! That'd be suicide for most people, since most people don't have the first clue how to play mixed games.
That's an extreme example, I know. It should be obvious to most people that if they suck at mixed games then they shouldn't be putting any of their baby bankroll on a mixed game table.
But there's other advice that sounds more reasonable but can be just as dangerous. How often have we heard, for example, that limit hold 'em is a great way to build a bankroll because it doesn't carry the risk of losing your whole stack in one hand like NLHE does? I know there's more than one lesson in the Full Tilt Academy that suggests it and it sounds perfectly reasonable, but guess what? If you suck at LHE, slowly but surely (and maybe not even that slowly) you're still going to lose your roll.
My point is, there is no magic bullet. There's no one game where everybody who plays it surely but steadily builds a roll. Far and away the best game to play is the one that YOU are best at. That might be LHE, it might be STTs, it might be $2NL 6-max. It doesn't matter. What matters is that YOU play YOUR best game, not someone else's.
I have an exeption to this rule regarding certain games NOT to play, BTW, which I'll discuss in a minute. But for the moment, let's move on to...
PICK A GAME AND STICK TO IT
Once you've settled on your best game, I'm recommending that you stick to it and play nothing else. A lot of people talk about how they played STTs for a little while and had some small wins, then they tried LHE for a while then lost the rest of their bankroll playing HU cash games.
There's a couple of reasons I think you should play just one game. The first is that we want to leverage our skill as best we can. It makes sense that our skill advantage will be biggest when we're playing our best game. The second reason is that we'll learn more when we concentrate on just one game. If we skip from game to game to game we won't be improving much at any of them because we won't be playing them for long enough. If we stick to one game not only are we maximising our skill edge, we're also maximising our chances to get better at the game, increase our skill edge and build our roll.
There'll be time for dabbling in mixed games and learning new things later, after we've built a stable roll.
YOU HAVE TO GET LUCKY
This is the bit that's going to hurt for some people. Even when we stick to just playing our best game, we're STILL going to need to get lucky in order to build our roll. By definition we've probably got less than good BRM dictates we should have to play in the lowest stakes games. If you're starting off with enough for just one buy in obviously you'll need to get very lucky - you'll need to win in the first game you play in and then keep winning in quite a number after that so that you've got some breathing room.
Even if you start off with, say, 10 or more buy ins though you'll still need a bit of luck to avoid a downswing that wipes out your roll. They happen all the time to players with full size rolls and there's nothing that says it can't happen to us either.
What I'm saying is remember that luck plays a part. Pick your best game and play your best. If you still wind up busto, don't dwell on it or let it get you down. Just pick yourself up, start over and hope for a little more luck next time.
FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, STOP PLAYING MTTs!
Here's the bit where I'm going to contradict myself.
If I were to tell you I'd just made $10 from a freeroll and I was going to take it straight to a PLO cash game table to start trying to build a roll from it, how many people would think I was mad?
I think it might be more than a few. A select few of them will have prior knowledge of how much I suck at PLO. But others, even without that knowledge, would likely point out that the variance in PLO can be a killer and I'd be better off playing something with a more stable return. They'd probably be right too.
But here's the thing - a lot of those same people probably wouldn't bat an eyelid if I said I was going to take that $10 and play the Daily Dollar or something with it. Which is a funny thing, because as far as variance goes things don't really get much more swingy than multi-table tournaments. You certainly want a lot more than 20-30 buy ins to be rolled for them.
As discussed above, we already need to get very lucky to build a roll from nothing. We don't need to compound our problems by stacking variance against us - instead, we need to concentrate on games that offer us at least some chance of grinding a slow but steady path upwards. That usually means ring games or single-table SnGs and I'm recommending that, at least for the initial stages, you steer clear of MTTs and the horrible swings they bring. Even if you think they're your best game.
BE MILITANT AND CONSERVATIVE ABOUT BRM
In the beginning we're already going to be playing with bad BRM. There's not a lot we can do about it if we're not even rolled for the lowest stakes other than play our best and hope we run our roll up to a point where we ARE properly rolled for the level we're playing.
For that to happen though we have to be militant about the stakes we play. No playing in some random MTT or forum game or whatever, even as a one-off, unless we're rolled for it. Things like that are luxuries that we'll have later when we've built a stable roll.
We also need to be conservative with our bankroll. Most systems will tell you that if you've got 20-30 buy-ins for a given level you're rolled for it. I'm going to suggest you consider yourself "rolled" for a level when you've got 50 or more, that you don't move up in levels until you've got that much or more for the new level and that you move straight back down if you run bad at the new level. We worked hard to build that roll, we have to protect it as best we can from variance. Don't be ashamed of being a bankroll nit.
DON'T GET HUNG UP ON BONUSES
Free money is a beautiful thing. We all love it, and it's especially attractive when you don't have very much of it to start with.
Free money in the form of bonuses, however, usually comes with strings attached and those strings are almost always having to grind out x amount of frequent player points in real money games. Unlocked right, bonuses can be a fantastic way to pad your earnings and move your bankroll along faster. But done wrong they can send you hurtling backwards.
Take the recent Rush Week promo at Full Tilt. Anybody could participate, and to unlock the bronze level $10 bonus you had to grind out 10 FTPs a day on the Rush tables for seven days straight. Pretty sweet deal, right? Maybe, maybe not. If you're not rolled for the minimum $5NL that you'd need to play to earn the points, or if you're not any good at Rush, then taking this bonus on would be a terrible idea - chances are you'll end up losing more than you stood to win in bonuses and you might jeopardise your whole bankroll in the process.
The same goes for other things people consider doing to unlock other bonuses, like adding more tables than they're comfortable with to run points up faster or playing at higher stakes than they're rolled for. It's a slippery slope, I'm suggesting you just avoid it altogether.
As long as there's competition between online poker sites there'll be bonuses, so there's always another one somewhere around the corner. Stick with the plan, work through the bonuses that you can get safely by just and just playing your normal game at your normal limits and ignore the ones you can't get.
STOP TALKING AND START DOING
(OR "NOBODY ACTUALLY READS YOUR BLOG ANYWAY SO WHY STRESS YOURSELF")
Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry. We've all seen it - someone comes along on a board or starts a blog talking a whole lot about how they're going to build a roll from nothing or how they've got this freeroll cash and they're going to run it up and make loads of money. Some of the dedicated ones even give us day by day or game by game updates for a short period... until the inevitable post where they tell us they're busto either because they played bad, they didn't follow BRM, they had to withdraw all their money for some inane reason or, my personal favourite, the donks ate their bankroll.
Save yourself the time and embarassment by talking less and DOING more. Use the time to actually review your games, rather than telling the world about every single bad beat you ever get. Post actual problem hands for analysis and ask meaningful questions that might help you improve your game, rather than telling everyone about every tiny fluctuation in your bankroll.
You're also putting unnecessary pressure on yourself. Chances are somewhere in the back of your mind there's a though along the lines of "What will I be telling my readers after this session?" and that can have an adverse effect on your game. So stop talking and start doing instead.
That's it, for the moment at least. Run good y'all.[/QUOTE]
Pokerpoet2
Legend
Loyaler
Building a bankroll from nothing is relatively easy, specially if you are a member here in Cardschat, but it takes Patience, I feel the only way to learn the game is to play, play, and play some more.
I have over 100,000 hands under my belt in online poker, and possibly 20,000 in Live games, but because of the up and down swings in your results it is really hard to play consistently well over a long period of time.
I have had days when I could not lose a game and won more than I lost, other days I could not win a sausage. But that is all down to Variance of the game, not my skill level, sometimes the flops are kind to you, other times the flops can destroy you.
The important thing is to learn from your losses, play a little better the next time, and take a break from the game occasionally.
Money you win from Free-rolls is a great way to start from, and if you can afford to leave it in your account and let it grow, it does not take long before you can buy into Micro stake games and from there you build into buying into higher stake games.
I have done it 4 times now on different sites, and it is possible, it just takes Patience and a little skill, and a little luck, Poker is a game and all games should be fun, whether it be Poker, Monopoly, or Snap, keep it fun and remember one thing.
When the fun Stops, STOP!
I have over 100,000 hands under my belt in online poker, and possibly 20,000 in Live games, but because of the up and down swings in your results it is really hard to play consistently well over a long period of time.
I have had days when I could not lose a game and won more than I lost, other days I could not win a sausage. But that is all down to Variance of the game, not my skill level, sometimes the flops are kind to you, other times the flops can destroy you.
The important thing is to learn from your losses, play a little better the next time, and take a break from the game occasionally.
Money you win from Free-rolls is a great way to start from, and if you can afford to leave it in your account and let it grow, it does not take long before you can buy into Micro stake games and from there you build into buying into higher stake games.
I have done it 4 times now on different sites, and it is possible, it just takes Patience and a little skill, and a little luck, Poker is a game and all games should be fun, whether it be Poker, Monopoly, or Snap, keep it fun and remember one thing.
When the fun Stops, STOP!
garibe
Rock Star
Bronze Level
The post is from 2010 but I must say that doing most of that has helped me build my BR finally.
One point though. 30-100 BI is not the safe number anymore. I belive one great tournament player (truly dont remember - but maybe Pads?) said in an interview that the minimum BR now is around 150-200 BI.
So, if you are looking for a safe number of BIs, the current game requires more BR than before.
One point though. 30-100 BI is not the safe number anymore. I belive one great tournament player (truly dont remember - but maybe Pads?) said in an interview that the minimum BR now is around 150-200 BI.
So, if you are looking for a safe number of BIs, the current game requires more BR than before.
ghitocarcia
Rock Star
Bronze Level
I am trying to build a bankroll playing micro tournaments but cardschat does not help me I want to reach platinum level to play more tournaments and try to climb levels, I am silver but I would like to be platinum. Does anyone know why I don't qualify for the platinum level.