I finally started a bankroll and lost it all

A week ago I finally cashed in a private freeroll tournament on FullTilt. I won 1st place for $10 in a stud hi tournament. I was estatic about my accomplishment even though its not that much money, but for me it was a start. Seeing as how I was in a stud hi zone, I sat down at a micro stud hi ring game for the minimum buy in of $1. In a half an hour I had quintupled my stake to 5 bucks so now I had a bankroll of $15. I had to stop to do some other things, but at the time I was on top of the world. Two days later I finally had sometime to play so I sat down at a micro NLH ring game. I won a couple bucks, but then lost it all when I went all in with a set of J and my opponent hit a river Q to complete his straight. After that it all went downhill for the next couple of days. I was victim to repeated suck outs and poor Tilt decisions. I finally got some luck when I won a SnG for 4.50, but then precended to lose it because of a poor decision on my part. I decided to move up in the micro stakes a little to hopefully play against some better competition and see some more predictable play. That didn't work either because I just found donks with more money. So eventually I went bust after finally starting my bankroll in about 4 days of play.

The experience was a learning tool for me so far. I realized that cash games are not my strength, particularly micro limits. I should have stuck with SnGs becasue I was only risking a set amount of money on them, and I tend to play better in that format. I realized the need for me to remain patient even when I know that i'm playing better than my opponents and still losing. I also realized that I need to try and get multiple freeroll cashs to build a beginning bankroll before I start to use it.

Has anyone else gone through this kind of experience? Please share some wisdom and experience on the subject.

Good Luck at the Tables.

Everyone who plays poker has gone bust at least once. From Daniel Negreanu to me, and that is a long way down the food chain. The important thing is to learn from the mistakes made. Poker is about making the right decisions at the right time. Make more right decisions than wrong ones and you will probably come out ahead.
From your own analysis of your game you know you made some bad choices. Your on the right track. Just play within yourself and don't get to cockey.

THIS ^^^^ has worked for me. Bankroll management has meant that I should never go bust again. Works for those of us who absolutely refuse to (or cannot) deposit online.

Welcome to online poker.

As Nick said, Bankroll Management is the key.

Take a look at your bankroll and NEVER playmore than you can afford to lose.

There is a great lesson on the Full Tilt Academy website by Chris Ferguson explaining how he went fro $0 - $10,000 and his use of a very structured BR strategy.

It is well worth your time.



BTW I have never deposited on line as well and still have a reasonable Bankroll after almost 3 years on FT.

Keep trying, and you'll get another score soon. My advice is to stay away from cash games, there is a greater chance for reward, but theres a much greater risk. Tournaments will give you more play time, and they offer alot of really low level SNGs. Thats how I built up my bankroll.

I also realized that I was unable to wait around for premium hands becasue they would either be cracked by players with any 2 cards can win attitudes, or I would not get action to replace the chips that were blinded away. The frustrating part was that I seemed to be unalble to do anything right. I know that i'm not a terrible player, it was a humbling experience for sure.

If you wanna play for cash, just load up some bucks imo. Then follow the BRM other people talked about, best of luck

If your roll is small, less than $50 or so, and the money dosnt mean all that much to you by all means take some shots, because standard bankroll managment rules really dont apply.

If I was you though , and intended to take poker as at least a serious hobby, then just take the plunge and deposit at least $50 ($100 is better) and adhere to proper BR managment. Unfortunalely winning 5-10 bucks means that you need to take shots. Most of the time these shots will result in failure.

my suggestion would be avoid the time it takes playing freerolls...put a jar beside your bed...put some loose change in it each day...at the end of the month...cash in the change and deposit it on a poker site....wash rince repeat next month

good luck to you
wooter

Probably two really key aspects to maintaining control of your BR:

1. Patience, meaning you must be willing, and more importantly, eager to grind out a few bucks, even cents, everyday, not expecting miracle BR boosts. This is particularly important when it comes to micro-limits because the majority are there for fun and losing a dollar or two means nothing to them. Basically just keep it simple, learn the fundamentals (For e.g., keeping your head held high when bad beats occur. It happens to everyone. If you cannot cope with it now at 1c/2c limits, how can you expect to cope when you are possibly playing at 1$/2$, 2$/4$ etc. limits in the future?)and understand it will require a fair investment in time on your part. Once you've grounded your BR to a $100, even $500, then you will see the fruits of your labor. It's a gradual process that must be understood and respected.

2. Only move up a level when you feel comfortable and confident with your skill set. Don't move up because you want better "competition" and easier play. IMO if you are playing within your level/limits, you can find many reasons to challenge your play and thus reward and feel better about every session and tourney you have logged in. Set yourself achievable goals for e.g. 40 cents profit in 100 hands, 7-9$ profit grounded from a weeks work from SNG's. It may not seem like much, but you mustn't look at your BR from that perspective anyway. To illustrate my point, a $9 profit from a weeks work may not seem much to a player with a BR of $500, but for you and your BR of about $15-20 that's HUGE.

I know from my own experience of depositing $10.00, to grounding my BR up to about $1500.00 it is achievable.

Very interesting thread for someeone like me who is trying obuild a BR from nothing. Thanks to OP and all contributors for giving me a lesson that I didn't have to learn the hard way haha

You started your BR playing tourneys so why not stick to tourneys. You might want to look into the many differences between cash games and tournament play. SNGs and MTTs you can only lose your buy-in, an excellent stop-loss safety net. Many a cash players , experienced or not have found themselves broke and surprised about it.

Welcome to online poker! I mean, its bound to happen lol but ideally, you should be playing lots of cheaper MTT's or even plain freerolls to build your balance up. One bit of advice is to never try to go into a big ring game to earn money on a tight balance! Build it up slowly and gradually.

well first off congrats on the win second real money online from freeroll's is the hardest to win so don't go and spend it lol jk i saved up all my freeroll money all year just to spend it all but hey it was a nice break from the freeroll's

If you have a $15 BR, I'm not sure if Full Tilt has them, but Poker Stars just added the $1.10 double or nothing tournies. This could be a good place to build a bank roll. It might take a while, but as long as you're better than half the table, you double your money (minus fee).

Wanna make money? Play in PLO hi then. Catch sum good cards and get 21+ outs to b a huge fav then ship it in and watch the money roll in lol.

Such a beautiful game.

I always here people talking about how there gonna build a bankroll using brm. Get a job and deposit something sufficient like 100-500$ or whatever u can afford. Sit n goes are the best way to build a bankroll and are easy to become very good at. Once on full tilt poker i di start a bankroll from a freeroll. I went from 0$-1200$ and cashed it out. I was very proud of myself.

This is very true. 15 dolars is no br in any stake, even the micro's. Come on there is something called varience, it's "normal" to lose 15 dolars.

min 50dolars is a must to start off. then comes the bankroll management and tilt issues and all that jazz to become a winning player.

I have lost most of my bankroll and am stuck playing freerolls and cant even buy into a tournament. The $2.50 cent heads up are the killer usually for me.. I came in 2nd in a tournament, Won 11.50 built that up to 25.60 took a break and came back the next day and lost.. So basically the same situation.. so currently my account balence is .26 cents. LOL so not even enough to buy into a table.. Been doing alright in freerolls.. winning the odd penny there and here lol.. But, it happens to us all though, and u cant always trust computerized poker..

Also, once you start re-building your roll, websites like rakebreak, and thisisthenuts.com offer rakeback which is AWESOME for building a bankroll.

not everyone.

I've got to agree with MrMuckets that making the call at the right time is really important. Knowing the odds, watching the other players and so many other factors are involve. Can't hurt to have good old luck on your side either. Good luck at the tables.

I think i have won aproximately ( i cant be sure because i never wrote down how much it was) 300$ or maybe a little more total from freerolls during 1 year of playtime. After the first win and also loss of what i won i said to myself i will not gamble it away anymore but instead gather it up untill i have more BR and then start a solid BRM challenge for myself. Buuuut ofc i never did that and everytime i cash in some freeroll the next second i jump to the cash games tables and lose it all in few minutes. Story of my life. This is the main reason why i dont deposit (yet). I must beat the gambler out of me.
So yes dont feel bad about it , i think many of us have gone trough this. Just get back on the horse and win another freeroll and start it all again.

Nope, at least not yet. But, then again, I am a BR nit.

To the OP it sounds like you should stick with what works for you, either freeroll MTT or SNG, and stay away from the cash games if that's where you are losing all your money. Its pretty standard for people to specialize either in tournies or cash and only rarely play the other.

As others have said, with $10-15 you are not rolled even for 2NL micros. BRM is not really applicable at such a low level -- Ferguson had to bend his rules when he was trying to get a bankroll going during his challenge, and it took several months before he got enough to stop going busto.

There are a few really cheap MTTs -- 10 cents sat to the Daily Dollar, the Nightly Forum tourney (private), 5FTP sat to the BLT -- on Full Tilt. Aside from freerolls. Once you get enough quality posts, you can join the CC freerolls, which can really help a bankroll if you can get past all the good CC players.

BRM is only a way to keep from going bust when the cards are running against a solid player. But there's nowhere to go down to if you are already playing at the lowest level. Anyone who is not excellent can use BRM to slow down the time it take for him to go bust. And, sadly, most players think they are better than they actually are (myself included -- I have delusions of adequacy.)

The only way to know for sure that you are a profitable player is to be profitable on a consistent basis -- the graphs of an excellent player will show a steady rise, rather than a big jump here and a big fall there. Nearly everyone catches a nice day here and there.

But you are too fresh to have amassed the stats to determine how good you are. Not trying to run you down. It's just that the hallmark of the best players is that they are constantly trying to get better -- they read, they evaluate their hand histories, they look for leaks, they conquer tilt -- and that level of game only comes with the experience that many tens of thousands of hands can give you plus a determination to keep getting better.

this thread is over a year old...cmon peeps

I've read through this thread, and I gotta say, there is some solid advice given.

But the thing that struck me most was this statement I have bolded, so I thought I'd point it out and give my 2 cents on it:

You didn't find donks with more money, you found better players who were able to exploit your basic plays and take your money.

I say this because there are many good players at FR cash, even at 2NL, who just love to feast on players not familiar with the game. The skillsets needed to be a profitable player at SNG and cash are subtle, but different and playing cash like a SNG is a good way to lose it all, and vice-versa.