Building micro stakes bankroll

For the past few months ive been trying to build a Micro Stake Bankroll but its just not happening. every time i get up a sick cooler brings me down. Can anyone offer some help or should i just not waste my time anymore?

you have to give us more info, are you trying to build a bankroll out of freerolls and when you make some you try playing cash games? anyways give us more info so we can help you, if you are trying to build out of freerolls i suggest staying around here, we have the best freerolls.

1. Bankroll Management... If you have less than about $125(which I am doubting you have), you should not be playing any higher than 2NL. Not even a little dabble here and there, you are not rolled for it.

2. Play Positionally... You should be playing more hands from the Cut-Off and Button than from EP. If it folds around to you, pressure the blinds because you have position on them.

3. Play Less Hands... If you're having these problems, I am assuming you are new(er) to poker, you may have played for years, but you haven't played enough. One of the biggest pieces of advice for new players is to tighten up your starting requirements. I'm not saying only play AA, KK, and AKs, but you should only be playing about 15% of your hands. One broadway card with a suited rag? Throw it away... Two unsuited broadway cards? not the best...

There is a couple good guides in the golden vault section.

I place in a free roll and made 1 dollar but i worked up to 20 and so i steped it up to .05/.10 where i could bet a few bucks faster or in my case lose a few bucks faster. so my roll is at 10. how long should i play at .01/.02?

My sense is that you're playing too high. I've had the same problem in the past, when I've won some money in a freeroll, built up my account nicely, and then gotten wiped out because I played at a level too big for my bankroll and had a bad session. I think you need to stay very disciplined and play at a level that fits your bankroll. I recognize the temptation to move up quickly because it takes so long to build your account playing at miniscule stakes. However, the best advice I can give is to stay within your limits and be patient.

I know from experience that's easier said than done, but I'm trying to follow my own advice. I won $16 in a CardsChat freeroll last month, and have methodically built my account to over $211. I've been sorely tempted to play bigger games, but thus far I've resisted the temptation and have gotten good results. I'm trying to remember that poker is a marathon, not a sprint.

Thanks Pasotex. That is awesome advice. Ive know that was my one biggest problem. Im going to stay at .01/.02 until what? 100 BR?

there are plenty of guides to bankroll management, most of them suggest you have 30 buyins for the level you want to play, so in order to play 2c/5c you should have 150$, for 5c/10c you must have 300$. anything under 150$ you should be playing 2nl or 1c/2c. good luck.

I've been in the same situation that you are in. I would do exactly what the other are telling you with BRM and using the guides found on the site. I personally used them and took their advice and built a nice bankroll before falling into old habits and blowing it all by moving up WAY to early.

You have it dead on. 30 buyins is an average level, but a lot of bankroll nits suggest 50. The absolute lowest I would ever suggest would be 20 buyins, but I would never do that myself. I move up when I am at 30 buyins and if I lose 3 buyins at that level and drop down to 27, then I go down a limit and build it back up and reflect. The bankroll nits like to have that extra cushion not only for safety, but also in case they see a really juicy game that is a limit above what they're playing normally, because they will then be rolled for it.

Seems like a lot of people in the thread are new(er) and don't have much of a concept of BRM. The reason we employ bankroll management is because it doesn't matter how good of a player you are, you are going to have your downswings, and variance will come and kick you in the ass every once in a while, and if you are sitting at a table with your entire roll, or a good portion of it, and that one bad hand, or string of bad hands come, then bye bye roll. You have no control over it. It always cracks me up when I see posts with someone saying that they can play beyond their bankroll because they are really good, but that doesn't matter. Phil Ivey runs into variance just like every other player, it's going to happen.

OP, you should definitely wait until you have $150 before you move up, that will give you some room to work with when you have your coolers without downing your entire roll. I know it isn't as much fun winning a .20c pot as it is to win a $20 pot, but you will get there if you stick to your BRM and learn more at the lower levels. My current roll is at about $2000 and I built that up from nada and stuck to a really strict BRM, so I know it's possible.

Awesome thanks everyone... i think Ive read it a million times but because i was the one asking this time im really going to stick to it. Thanks for the help guys.

i think $150 is a bit to much to move up to .02 .05. i would suggest somewhere between $80-100 before you try .02 .05 and if you lose go back down until you have your confidence back. i have done what you are doing twice now. the first time i got to excited and moved up to .25 .5 NL with about $75, a horrible idea, and i lost my entire roll. the second time i had learned my lesson and moved up to .02 .05 when i had $100. I know you are thinking that this is going to take forever but trust me, it is worth the wait.

Thunder thanks for the advice thunder. Im on the grind right now...

I use this BR manadgement system

If you play ring tables.

If you got say ... 10$
Play 1/2c till you get up to at least 25$

Then step it up to 2/5c till you gather 150$

Then step it up to 10/25c till you make 300$

Also keep in mind ...
If you lose more then 2$ at the 1/2c table (Change tables)
If you lose more then 8$ at the 5/10c table (Change)
If you lose more then 15$ at the 10/25c table (Change)

And if you lose more then 30$ if you are at 5/10c (Change to 1/2c)

I use this Manadgement and it worked for me ...
I am up to 1600$ playing at 25/50c

Hope this is usefull to u my friend

When you lose more then 10% of your BR (Consider taking a brake) and also change tables

Spookey's BRM might be a little bit too aggressive for a lot of people. The biggest/hardest thing to do when trying to stay within BRM is to move down after a bad run. If you are already taking shots way above your bankroll I would suggest a more conservative BRM since you won't like moving down.

*Plus $25 is not enough to move up to 5NL, 5 buyins is just asking for it.

spookey i really like that guide sounds the like perfect pace for me. 25$ is a little aggressive for moving up to 5NL i agree with suit on that but im just going to do it a little different but still follow what you said. thank you spookey.

i like the idea of setting dollar amounts when moving up but i also think you should have a sample size when moving up. you can turn $5 to $25 in 1 small session rather easily or luckily, this doesn't qualify as a move up though. i think 5,000 hands at .01/.02 should be a minimum range before moving up in stakes.

$25 for 5NL seems extremely low. Hell, I've built my bankroll up to $100 from my initial $20 and I'm still at 2NL for now.

You'll have big downswings. It happens. I haven't seen one yet in my normal cash game grinding (But I sure have in Rush poker, that really damaged my bankroll.) but they'll come and you'll turn into rageasaurus rex over it. I promise.

$25, at 100BB stacks, that's just 5 buyins at 5NL. A 5 buy-in downswing is certainly not unheard of at all.

Just to avoid confusion, Spookey's BRM guidelines are really bad.

It's possible to structure a good aggressive BRM strategy but that's not a good example of it.

Some of the parts that raise red flags:
Max buy ins don't scale well with the stakes.
Moving tables after losing <100bb implies playing very few tables at once, in which case the OP will take an insanely long amount of time to go from $10 to anything resembling the stated 1.6k. - Don't read this as saying play lots of tables, play very few and add more later on.
It's an aggressive strategy being suggested to someone who's new... I wouldn't even suggest an aggressive BRM strategy to the most seasoned players I know. For it to make sense the person has to have a lot of edge (and be able to judge that objectively, after rake), have almost inhuman discipline to move down every time it's required (and poker is played over absurd amounts of hands, you will make major bad decisions over that timeline), we also have to know how they play when their roll is deep compared to shallow and if anyone thinks they play it the same they're not paying enough attention to their game.

The point is, don't listen to it. About the only things you need to know about BRM is:
The more hands you play with a certain amount of buy ins, the higher your risk of ruin. The lower the amount of buy ins, the smaller the number of hands required to push your risk of ruin past whatever you consider a reasonable threshold.
In other words... consider 20 max buy ins a minimum and increase it as you move through the stakes.

I understand what your saying Pokerkid. I just always have to keep in mind its not an over night thing or even over week thing. its going to take time and i need to stick to a good BRM guideline. Im not going to move up as fast has spookey said but i think im going to move a little faster then normal. once i reach 25NH with 20 max buyins im going to sit there for awhile. but for the 2Nh im going to try it a little bit faster. Thanks for the input everyone and if anyone thinks this is a extremely bad idea please let me know

start at teh 2nl tables than grind your way u;po to higher levels.

Correction: Spooky's guideline is not bankroll management

Pokerkid said it all with just this sentence. Take his advice because it'll never work if you follow Spookey's "guideline".

The key is patience.
Stay at the lowest limits and I suggest limit HE.
Play tight/aggressive say around 20/15/2.5.
Look at making $1 a day, in a year you will have a $365 bankroll, I'm doing just this and have reached $230.
Use the advice from this site and 2+2 it is brilliant.
There are no short cuts, you need to be patient.
At the lowest level batch your buy-ins at 80cents x 6 buy-ins per batch =4.80.
When you reach $48 ie you will have 10 x 4.80 per batch.
You can try the next level at this stage with a single batch, should you lose that $4.80 batch drop back and start re-building.
If you succeed keep going, but make your daily goal manageable.
I started playing SNGs etc at $150 and had some success, but i keep my goals achievable, remember patiences and no short cuts, like you it took several attempts to get under way.

I think this sounds perfect, great post.

All that stuff spooky said is wrong.

Hi everyone...

Couple things to answer your questions:

For the best profit return overall I would say that cash games offer this to you as most good cash game players can make more than a good tournament player (great cash game players make more than great tournament players etc..).

That being said though the style that wins in sngs is better suited for MTTs, expecially late. Dealing with a shorter stack and looking for spots to get your chips in good is much different than a cash games.

In cash games you generally are sitting on 100bb stacks and there is a much different hand value that you should be willing to stack off with. Both games are played a little differently, so good luck with whatever you choose to branch out to, but it would seem to me that MTTs would be the easier transition in the short term....

Alright thank you guys. Clearly Spookeys way is going to do nothing but make someone go broke so i really appreciate your guys helping me out...

I am a firm believer in depositing money on a regular basis, win or lose. I budgeted what I would put into online poker and have really never changed from that since I started. I kind of looked at it from the viewpoint of when I was playing a home game I would be willing to play with so much per week. I use that amount of say $25.00 to $50.00 per week as a deposit. If you having a losing streak you may not have to drop down as quickly and if you are making money you can move up quicker.

One of Full Tilts pros went from nothing to $10,000 without depositing anything in his account, it took him months!!

Use the link to see his story, theres also a link on that page that shows you how to manage you bankroll, hope this helps and good luck, i'm trying this myself!!

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/chris-ferguson-challenge

It pays to remember you will not build your bankroll quickly.I see no evidence of how Spooky made $1600 in cash games.
You must act as if the goal ( I hope you have one ) is in the far distance.You are playing in my case for a year not by the day.
You are sitting and waiting for your good theories and play to be proved correct and your opponents' theories proved wrong, this will take time.

one of full tilt's pros lmao...
he's a bit more than that haha

How could anyone address Jesus as 'one of FT's pros...?' He's fckin JESUS!!!

lmfao.. that is funny that he said one of FT's pros. i think everyone on CC has knows who Chris Jesus Ferguson is and has read that thanks for looking out if i haven't read it though.

I think you should follow the ferguson advice when it comes to the micro stakes, a lot of the vid's on the FTP academy are very helpful and you should take it for granted. A couple of time i've built BR from nothing to over $50 then lose it all the very next day. Hopefully you get on a good run soon so you can build up confidence then move up to the 2/5c tables when you reach about $75 and 5/10c tables at $150.
Hope all goes well for you and you keep your BR for a while, Best of luck.

I have been trying to build a bankroll from freerolls and low stakes for the past year and I still have no luck therefore i don't think i should give you any advise lol. All i can say is good LUCK we in the same boat.