Best Place to start when rusty?

Ok so i havent played ANY poker in over 6 weeks, and i havent watched any poker tv or anything to do with poker...

Is it best to jump straight in the deep end(cash games) or start from the basics again...(ie poker vids/strategies/hand analysis)???

bear in mind i have a really bad memory, which aint good as a poker player.. feel like a noobie again.. hehe

oh and the reason i havent played in such a long time...

i think i lost my whole BR in one blow out session, never looked back since, plus ive just gotta new job, new financial situation so things are tight.

oooh and also how much should i "waste" on my trail back into the game...?


MOST appreciative to any form of answer



ohhh and im down about $350 from last blow out... sucks...

I'd say you have two options. There have been a couple of threads recently about people who have started with nothing and built a bankroll by playing freerolls then moving to micro stakes etc etc. However, I'd say that would be pretty frustrating (albeit satisfying if it works out). My suggestion would be as follows.

1) Read an article on Bankroll Management. There is a superb one in a thread on this forum that I started recently about bankroll management. AlienGenius posted a link in a reply to that post. READ THAT FIRST.

2) Start with a very modest bankroll. You know your own financial situation better than us, but I'd say that $50 would give you a decent start.

3) Whatever your favoured game (ring games limit / NL, MTT, S&G or whatever), stick strictly to the limits in the above mentioned article.

If you are not good enough at poker, you will probably loose your BR, or you may be a break-even player. If you are a reasonably solid player, and stick to the rules of the BRM article, you will make yourself a few dollars to suppliment your income. If you are good enough, you could give up your new job in a few months and play poker for a living.

Stick to the rules of BRM and good luck.

Boltneck

PS I make no apologies for going on and on and on about BRM!

Here is the thread Boltneck referenced. Moving to a higher level

thanks for your reply Boltneck, if u dare to venture into my history of my previous posts you will see the mess ive made...

i am a strong believer in the BRM so thanks for the good advice, nice to hear what i want to hear..

ok so i took your advice Boltneck,

i read up as much as i could on bankroll management..

ive gone down the SNG route, i have deposited $100, mainly for all the deposit bonuses so i have like $40 bonus, which is nice.

I decided to start at $1 heads up SNG on Betfred, just had my first game, either i had someone "easy" or my head is working overtime, but i pulled off a stunner winning the game with a pair of deuces.

this has obviously filled me with confidence and i intend to keep it that way, i will return here after a good nights sleep to continue...

thanks

That's a great start Bluffmaster - keep up the good work. Do remember though that it won't always be that good. As I'm sure you already know, the key is how you react to the inevitable down turns. Why don't you join in Chris_TC's "Lets build some bankroll" thread. I've found it very inspirational to see first hand that I'm not the only person who gets frustrated when things are not going so well. It's kept me on the staight and narrow more than once.

I think putting down $100 is a good start. Anything much less than that and you have to play nothing but the ultra micro limits which gets real old after a while. It sounds a lot easier than it really is, but just stick to a good bankroll plan and take breaks whenever you aren't in the mood to play, or are tilting or steaming.

I put $100 on FT, built it up to $550 then hit a MASSIVE downswing which was compounded by me tilting worse than the Tower of Pisa.

Back down below 200....

Since then I've learned to take long breaks when appropriate, and to stop playing at night just because I was bored (even though I didn't really feel like playing). I also shut it down whenever I took a nasty bad beat or three to keep the tiltmonster away.

So far on my much slower schedule I've won about $100 back. I also have been playing better since I only play when I'm in the mood for it.

Good luck.

yes thanks for the continued advice.

yea ive put up $100 to make up for the downswings. its a matter of sample size, and with $100 you can play alot(not 20k hands but alot lol) of $1 games providing i make any profit thats at least 150 games.

hmm this gives me an idea...

why not share my way with you... i see others have in the past, i aim to play 150 games... then move up.. to $2 sng, this reasonable?

hmm so im going to need a poker tracker that works with betfred(ipoker) V2 does not.. and one of those dinky charts so i can path my way.. :P



or should i not use betfred? use a site which poker tracker V2 works on..

You should be moving up the levels (or down for that matter) based on your bankroll and NOT on the number of games played. Your bankroll of $100 is adequate to be playing $2 S+G's now. If you want to play 150 games at $1 before moving to $2 then that's fine. BUT when you've played 150 games, evaluate if your BR is still sufficient for $2. I'd say that you BR should be 40 buy ins.

Betfred works just fine with PT (as do all of the iPoker sites) - I have played at Befred and am now at Victor Chandler and use PT without any problems. I'm not sure what issues you are having with PT / iPoker - post back with details.

One thing that I would suggest is that you do stay with the iPoker network, swith to Victor Chandler rather than Betfred as the bonuses are significantly better. For example, 15 action point per $1 of tourney fees on Betfred compared to 40 per $1 on VC. If you play cash games, the difference is even greater.

problems i am having is that the poker tracker complains to me that it cannot import the Sng files, it can the cash games, but not the tourneys!!, and the only tourneys i have are the pokerstars freerolls i used to play, which make my downswings of apparently $100,000,000,000 crazy!!! because i did not win every single one!!!


and oh yea, i did not mean to be ignorant and use my bankroll for the amount of games played, i jumped ahead and assumed that if i "win" 50% of the games i play i will afford 150 games, i thought about brm way before, and prolly way too much before i started this challenge. please forgive me i do understand i need to evaluate to accumulate.

thanks for the bankroll management topic, i've been playing for far too low of a bankroll for the games im playing at the moment

Do you have PT configured correctly to look for the tourney log files? By default, they are in a different place to the cash game logs. For example, mine are as follows:-

c/poker/site/history/user name/table = CASH GAMES
c/poker/site/history/user name/tournament = S+G / MTT

site is the site that you play at ie Betfred in your case
user name is your user name for the site

You can configure PT to look in multiple locations for log files, you shouldn't need to keep changing things. If this doesn't work, go to the PT support porum, they are very helpful. Poker Tracker :: Index

rite i dnt know why but i just clicked the file location again and they all imported fine, am just a noob lmao¬!


ive still got isues tho...

it says in the "amount won" table 0 for everything and says my net amount is -whatever i staked.

I apologise if I'm being a bit dumb here, but am note quite sure what the problem is here. If I am understanding you correctly, your tournament results are not showing. I think this is a limitation with PT, and you have to enter them manually. Go to the file menu, then tournament results manual entry and enter the results i there. If I've misunderstood the problem, post back and I'll have a re-think.

thats a pain, but yea that works. thnx