Building my bankroll

Hey everyone I am brand ne


I have been playing poker for awhile. I feel I am a solid player - I play no limit hold em sngs and freezeout tournies. I rarely ever commit all my chips to a pot unless i hold a monster or I have top pair and am reading a bluff. That being said, I still have a ton to learn of course.

I generally don't want to commit more than 5% or at the most 10% of my bankroll to any single buy in. Therefore, I find myself sitting down at $5 and $10 buy ins. This subjects me to a ton of online donkeys. I place a lot but usually only earn a little bit more than the buy - ie. $10 and win $19. I am wondering how I can build my bankroll, but i think because of my limited funds I really have to beat the donks - what is my best strategic options to do this?

If you had asked this question a year ago, I would have told you "bonus-whoring" - if you are American, this is much harder to do than if you are European.

20 buy-ins is the minimum bankroll you'll want to play at the level that you want to play at...so 5% is a good figure. Keep grinding away at the $10, if you're having success there, or try adding a 2nd table.

That's all i got for now.

Thanks for the reply. I definitely enjoy the higher buy ins - between 30 - 50 dollars much better play and respect for the game. Do you think I should save up and try to add a couple hundred more to my account so i cant play those buy ins or will solid play eventually build my bankroll from the lower buy ins?

That would be up to you - I grinded my bankroll up to the point where it once was (I recently took all but $400 out due to lack of playing - and lack of desire to play) due to bonus-whoring and tournaments...and now I am back to grinding it out again when I take the time to play. Only this time, instead of the $5 SnGs at Stars, I'm at the $16 Turbos.

If you're a winning player, your bankroll will get up there soon enough to where you can comfortably play the 30-50 dollars games. Then again, if you're looking for donkeyless games, the Sunday Million isn't safe, either.

I seem to do much better playing the $20 and $30 9 or 6 person games. Once I win some money I try to play $5 and $10 games to keep my bankroll but I usually end up losing it all

I know why you lose on the $5 and 10$ sngs - because you know a lot of poker strategy and put it into place in those rooms. But that is an error - most of the other players just don't have the skills. Ie, when someone comes out with an overbet after the flop and you place them on not wanting a call b/c of 2nd pair, etc, what they actually have flopped is full house and just dont know how to play it.

The only way to win these consistently is too wait for a premium flop for your hand and trap trap trap.

If you cant build up your bankroll with the limits youre playing then its not time to move up yet.

I agree with Alan on this, you have to be able to win on a consistent basis at the lower levels before moving up. The fact that there are donks on these games you play should be an advantage to you, not a disadvantage. Also, if you try $10 MTT's the level is not that bad and if your good enough you will build a nice BR, at least on PS. I see that you play on FTP and I'm not sure how the $10 MTT's are there but I doubt there is a really huge difference.

I have been trying to work this one out myself for 2 years now and have played the same kind of low limits and going around in circles mostly. I have recently moved up and am finding it much easier at anything higher than the lowest level SNG's ($5). The problem I think is at the lowest levels you really are just being forced to gamble all the time, it has got worse as well I think as people just throw their whole stacks at anything, I would find it hard to believe that anyone can beat the lower tables over time, its just too little money for anyone to play seriously. Strange really cos the argument that it should be easier to beat crappy players seems correct but in practise I think it ends up just being pure gamble most of the time.

I may be wrong about this and not really had long enough at higher stakes to be sure but I suspect this is the case. I play 10 man sng's by the way not 8, dont have 8 man at pokerroom, they would be easier im sure.

Problem is of course if you move up and get killed you will most likely think your not ready, thats what happened to me everytime I tried untill I stuck to it and played more games to get an average, like I say though its still early days and I have always had a bank roll big enough to play higher, I just thought I needed to conquour the lower levels first.

Maybe you could set aside an amount to allow you to play 10 games at a higher level if you can afford it and see how it works out.

Mozzi

The low limit sng's $1,$2,$3,$5,$10 are the games where if you have a huge hand play it as aggressive as you can, meaning if you haave AA raise 5Xbb pre flop if the flop looks solid enough you can half bet the pot, but if it looks like a flop that someone hit a draw on or top pair and will call you down no matter what start fireing pot sized bets in and if you get re raised more then likely they have top pair top kicker. I have been playing these limits for far to long now and it is tough because someone pushes all in I have KK or AA and they hit miracles to beat me but if your hands hold then you will make some good money against the donks.

I've been playing at these levels for a while now, and I'm about to move up.

What I've found is that you need to play very tight and straightforward poker. You will encounter mostly bad or mediocre players, so don't try to get fancy.

Here are a few rules that have worked for me in SNGs.

- I play very few hands, depending on my position maybe down to A10s. Maintaining this tight image gives me quite a bit of freedom expecially at the later stages because people will respect my raises and I can often get away with raising weaker hands.
- In 95% of all cases I raise preflop instead of limping, I try to make the raise a consistant 3.5x - 4x the BB. I don't vary the bet based on the strength of my hand
- I hardly every call all-ins except if a) I have KK or AA b) I'm already in the money and have a good hand c) I have a much larger stack and a reasonable chance of kicking the smaller stack out.
- If I opened pre-flop I will almost always make a bet on the flop, no matter if I hit the flop or not
- Once the table gets shorthanded (4 players and less) I play extremely aggressively. I'll raise a lot because I know that at this stage everybody becomes scared of losing chips. You can steal a ton of blinds at this stage. If I do get called, I keep betting hard at the flop. Considering that the other player probably missed it, it doesn't even matter whether I missed it myself.

These are some of the things that have worked really well for me.

In general, I just find it very important to avoid gambling.
Very often, players tend to go all-in even at the tiniest blind levels. There's not a single hand with which I'd do that, it's pointless.

good post chris.

Good post. I play on Bodog (I know, I know...) and I will give you the stats I have been keeping for quite some time. I have had AA "rockets" 84 times now. An allin preflop has netted me 78% wins. A pot raise has only netted me 34% wins. The percentage for KK are very different, Allin preflop only 51%. Pot raise is actually 54% wins with cowboys.

The most important advice I ever received was "patience pays"

My 2 cents....

pretty good strategy

http://www.cardschat.com/poker/guide/

You can also try here ^^^^