my pokerstars bankroll strategy

so, i've deposited 25 dollars onto pokerstars and i'm gonna see what i can turn it into. i did this last week and so far so good. i know 25 bucks isn't a lot of money, but it's what i can afford.

so here is what i have come up with to build my bankroll.

i will sit at the micros and make every effort to leave with a profit, i don't care how much it is as long as it's a profit. it could be a penny for all i care. another thing i've been doing is buying into small stakes MTT's as soon as registration opens and then i'll sit down at a micro cash table and play for the hour before the tourney starts to see if i can win my buy in back, or at least part of it.

this has actually worked well for me. i've done this 3 times and all three times i've won my buy in back at the cash table. now i feel i can play the tourney a bit more loose, and all three times i have monied in the tourney. i havn't built my bankroll up too much but i'm ahead about 10 dollars. i could probably have more but work and being a single father is a bit more important than sitting in front of the comp all day. so that's how i've been doing it.

what is your take on this? does anybody have any similar strategies? do you think this will work in the long run? any input would be appreciated.

I would say, steer clear of the cash tables and stick to tournaments with a small bankroll.

Not only can you maximise your winnings through tight tournament play but it also mains you can gain maximum experience playing tournaments without risk of losing your shirt in cash games.

What I am trying to say is, in tournaments - you can learn the game a hell of alot better than you can playing cash games. Because if you bust out - you can just buyin to another and learn from your mistakes. I dont think a small bankroll can ever work in cash games due to the sickness...

Poker is all about experience and learning from your mistakes. You will learn alot more the more you play and with a small bankroll you will get more play out of micro buy in tournaments than micro limit cash games.

You will hit a brick wall and get destroyed and even though this happens in tournaments - its not so severe.

Hope this helps!

Allsopp's Poker Life

i've been playing poker for about 5 years now, online for almost 3, experience and knowledge is always wanted but the bankroll is what i am going after. i sit at the .01/.02 tables so it's not like i'm gonna loose my shirt. thank you for the advice, it is sound, and it's always good to get back to the basics now and again.

I applaud your thinking. $25 aint a lot, true, but I haven't done that much of my own physically earned money. Thank god for freerolls.

It sounds like you feel comfortable in cash games. Personally I don't.
I like the 18-45 person sng's myself.

the key for me in cash games is just to play very tight, be patient, i'll fold my blinds for an hour until i get a hand to play if i have to. at 6 oclock i bought into a 1/.10 MTT, sat at the cash table and won a 1.17 and left. i don't think this is going to work all the time but it seems to be working now.

OK Chiefer, I've disagreed with you in the past so I don't think you're gonna like my reply but I'll say it anyway:

1. You attach too much importance on leaving every cash game session with a profit to pay for your MTT. Of course, every player would like to leave with a profit (and yes, well done, you've done it 3 times) but every decent player knows that being down once in a while is par for the course.

2. Why would you loosen up in the tourney just because you've earned the buy in by playing cash games?? This is illogical.

And now for that muppet Allsop:

A. You can learn just as much from cash games as you can from tournies, if not more.

B. For the starting out player, playing tournies exclusively is just WRONG WRONG WRONG.

C. Quote: "I dont think a small bankroll can ever work in cash games due to the sickness..." Can ANYBODY from this forum tell me what the hell this means??

D. Quote: "with a small bankroll you will get more play out of micro buy in tournaments than micro limit cash games" In my experience, this is just untrue. Where the hell is this guy getting this info from??

Back to your response

3. You say you've been playing online poker for 3 years!!?? WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING DEPOSITING $25 AND THEN GOING ON ABOUT PLAYING THE MICRO LIMITS 0.01 / 0.02??

4. You say it's good to get back to basics again?? Geez, if you're going back to basics after playing online for 3 years then my advice is to go back to doing something more important for yourself like "being a single father".

You must be more of a muppet than Allsop.

And now for me?

AHAHAHAHAHA

Step aside mate, I earn more from poker in a day than you do in year so go to hell. You gain more experience from playing tournies because you are effectively playing with "play money" it gives you the opportunity to make moves and learn the game properly. If you take a beat in a tournament, you can win the chips back - still place, cash and add to your bankroll.

If you take a beat in cash games, it puts an instant dent in your bankroll that you have to try and recover from, which instantly limits what type of moves you can make. Nobody does well when playing with scared money - you probably know all about that being such a mug...

Dont try to patronise me mate, there are too many jokers like you floating around that have all the answers with no money to back it up and no time to listen and take on board other peoples views.

Dont call me out again, i'll play you for any amount of money you can get your hands on - on any site at any limit heads up till the end. This is a poker forum for poker discussion, not insulting people. If you disagree with my point about cash games as opposed to tournaments then thats fine but I think you'll find when taking the common sense approach that you are WRONG.

I'm trying to help someone out, I dont appreciate some mug trying to look big on the internet by rubbishing what I say.

Allsopp's Poker Life

i actually don't think i've read a response from you to anybody that you have agreed with, so, whatever. but i'll respond back to you and hopefully i can answer your questions.

i'm pretty sure i attach to much importance to leaving a cash game with a profit because that is the purpose of the game. i understant that i will not leave every table with a profit, but my goal is to leave with one. i'm sure if you ask any poker player if he or she has sat down at a table with the hopes of losing they will laugh in your face.

the reason i feel that i can loosen up my play a bit is because i have earned my buy in back and so there is nothing ventured nothing gained. much like a freeroll.

yeah i have been playing online for almost three years. i started out playing play money to learn online play, i went on to freerolls and played them for almost two years, with a couple of small deposits when i could afford it. and now i'm here, with a small bankroll to start, on a site that i have never deposited on before and i'm gonna see where i go. i certainly don't see anything wrong with that.

i also said that it is good to go back to the basics now and again. i didn't say i was going to scrap everything i've learned and start all over. i was simply thanking him for his response in not so many words. it's called being nice, you should try it sometime.

25 dollars may not be a lot to you, but it's what i can afford, i'm not independently wealthy. so if i take 2 dollars of my 25 and sit at a micro and win a buck or two, then horray for me. every little bit helps. furthermore, what is it to you how much i deposit and what table i sit at. the way i see it, 25 bucks, micro tables. 2500 bucks, high stakes tables.

and trust me, i don't need your advice when it comes to being a parent.

[

Dont call me out again, i'll play you for any amount of money you can get your hands on - on any site at any limit heads up till the end. This is a poker forum for poker discussion, not insulting people. If you disagree with my point about cash games as opposed to tournaments then thats fine but I think you'll find when taking the common sense approach that you are WRONG.

I'm trying to help someone out, I dont appreciate some mug trying to look big on the internet by rubbishing what I say.

Allsopp's Poker Life[/quote]


thanks again man, i do appreciate your advice. and you are right, the guy is a mook.

Hey cheifer.

The general bankroll rule is that you should have at least 20 times the buyin for a tournament bankroll.

If you play $1 single table tournies on say for instance Poker Stars, that instantly means you have a nice bankroll. Also, its quite easy to grow your bankroll playing 9 seater SnG's because the majority of the table will drop before long at the low levels and if you keep it tight - you can find yourself placing in the money and growing your bankroll without having to hardly do anything.

Sometimes I can fold my way to 3rd place and I play alot higher stakes. Maybe not all the way, but you get the idea....

You tend to need a much larger bankroll for cash games in proportion to the stakes your playing due to swings and variance. Therefore - if you want to fast track your way up the ladder, then single table tournaments are probably your best bet. Otherwise, if you like cash games - keep grinding matey!

I am following a similar strategy - focusing on MTT's. I dont sit in at cash games at all. Have been, but mucked that part of my poker playing till i have a better handle on it.

Value for money is my main focus. Playing the 20k guaranteed tonight. Seems excellent value with a 3$ buyin.

Have fun, ill see ya at stars.

i actually enjoy grinding it out at the cash games, it keeps me on edge. i like the thrill. i'm a pretty patient man, being a single father has given me the patience of a rock.

i've read quite a few articles on bankroll managment and i agree with you. i do play SnG's on occasion, and i will most likely take your advice and start playing them more often since i have had good success with them.

i was playing bodog for a long time but the site is getting aweful so i decided to switch to stars, and have seen more success and a higher level of play.

Good luck at the microstakes chiefer. You should be ok at .01/.02 and 1 dollar tournaments. Hope that bankroll grows fast for you.

Fellow upstate New Yorker, maybe Ill see you at the turning stone sometime

an orangeman, nice to see a fellow upstater, thanks for the encouragement, i'm planning on going to turning stone soon, looking at the end of june. good luck to you as well.

What's up with the name calling mate? This isn't the place for it. You'll find a lot of great insightful debating going on here, and it's all to help. The namecallling generally gets left out, as it should.

We're here to help each other, with intelligent debate and opinions.

I use to play at PokerStars and I played exclusively SNGs. I am a fair to decent player and I cashed in and kept track on a spreadsheet. But at some point I'd be back to 0 and would have to reload.

If I find a crap player in a tourney but he sucks out me when I have the +EV move, too bad - I'm out. I just read a GREAT article in Poker Pro Mag about how in a tourney, you don't always play the +EV hand. The example was say you have QQ...and somehow you KNEW (saw the hand, ESP, whatever) that villian had AK...would you push or call a push all-in? You are a 54-46 (53.5 - 46.5) favorite to win the hand...but in a tourney, you lose and that's it. So in a tourney, maybe you don't call and put yourself in jeopardy when you can pick a better spot. In cash games - that's an easy call over the long haul and you'd do it every time. If you lose, you reload and you'd do it again if it came up.

For me, after trying the SNG strategy to help my bankroll - I'd take 2 steps forward, and then 3 steps back and over time I'd lose my starting load. So I changed gears. I have been playing cash games (.05/.10 NL) and have gone from $75 down to $13 - now I am up to $190. For me, Cash games have been better to my BR than SNGs. Now - I play a SNG or MTT every now and then - but my BR is based on my cash games.

But - that's JUST ME. It could be (and probably is since many are successful at tourneys) and I have a leak somewhere in tourney play. But I will say I usually get my chips in the pot with the best hand...but lose on turn or river. Not always - there are plenty of times where my KK will be looking at AA...but I really try to get my chips in when I'm ahead. In a tourney, sometimes I may not want to do that...and that's something I have to identify.

seriously, it seems everytime i pose a question or post something about myself this guy comes and tries to make me look stupid. he must be on infinate tilt because he is not seeing the same success as some of the others on here, or is ticked because i'm starting small and i am see some as well.

Heh, welcome back to the forums Allsop, and what a return. Flaming, insulting and generally being an ass. Congrats on the fact that your now a high roller, does that give you instant cred around here now ? Certainly not here it dosnt, and judging by your blog your not even that much of a roller, maybe in your own eyes. Insults and childish sniping has no place here. Remember every one has to start somewhere, and if any of these guys only have $25 to play with then that gives you no right to insult them.

As for your BR advise, a lot of it is solid. I would be erring more on the side of 50 buy-ins for MTT play than 20 though, however with a small bankroll such as $25, then playing $1 MTTs is fine.

Hitting the NL ring games and being determined to leave with a profit every session is somewhat shortsighted. Once you have played enough hands youll know that youll run your set into a bigger set approx 1 time in 100 and that happens. Beats occur, and your bankroll needs to be able to ride out the highs and lows. If you have enough to play with 20 full buyins then your fine, until then you can grind the limit games, or if your fully prepared to redeposit thats also fine.

OK, I'm gonna put my hands up and admit that I may have been a bit harsh. It was late last night when I wrote and I was bored. I guess calling someone a muppet because I disagree with them is out of order. (Although I do think people from the U.S. tend to be more sensitive to this type of insult than us Brits. I mean really, "muppet" is hardly a major league insult.

ANYWAY,

I still stand by my claim that playing tournaments exclusively is a wrong way to build up a bankroll no matter how tight you play. I also think that, as opposed to Allsop, you learn a lot more from cash games than tournament play. Why? Because:

You can play 10, 20, 50, 100, 1000 tournies PERFECTLY EVERYTIME and still have no success in the long run. You still have to get lucky to hit the big pay out. Most successful tournament players are precisely GUYS WHO HAVE GOT LUCKY AND HIT THE TOP 3 in a few big buy in tournies. How many times has the decent player played for 3 to 4 hours only to get knocked out by someone hitting a flush on the river when the odds say he shouldn't have gone for it?
You don't learn anything from this. You just get resentful and frustrated if it happens again and again.

And the cash games?
Much more skill here. Yes, you can lose your buy in by being outdrawn once in a while but good play is rewarded MUCH more in the long run in cash games. (By being patient and alert in a 10 handed game and ducking and diving, wheeling and dealing in the short-handed games.) In short, in cash games good play is rewarded in the long run; in tournies, it's more like gambling, you need more luck to become successful.

I hope this is more constructive and, once again, apologies for my blunt manner in the earlier post.

hey tenbob, in allsop's defense, he originally posted in this thread to give me advice, then turniphead posted with the intent to lambaste him and myself with insults, he was only defending himself, as for his high rollerness, i don't know about that.

i agree that my leaving every cash game with a profit is shortsighted, but it is my goal, as i think it is everybody elses goal when they sit down. i sit at the 1 cent 2 cent tables and feel pretty comfortable there. and only buy into 1 dollar tournies. i'm not new to poker, just new to playing for cash on pokerstars. thank you for your advice.

for once we agree on something, i agree that you have to be more skilled in cash games than in tournies, as everyone can get lucky in a tourney, as for the insult, i'm just as guilty as you, as i called you a mook, i apologize as well and i hope that we can push thru this nonsense and have civil discussions about this game. as i said, i agree with some of your points and i agree with some of the other posters as well. what i am doing right now is working and until it stops working i will continue to do it. if i go broke i will start fresh again with perhaps a different strategy.

I think you've misread the whole situation. Go back and start again. Some clown jumped on my back for giving advice and I gave it back.

Yep, just seen his apologies in a few threads. Apologies.

Have you tried the dollar/ low limit sngs chiefer?
Despite what Turniphead (fitting name) says, you can build a bankroll playing Sngs. I started at Absolute with about 30 bucks and grinded it out on small/ micro stakes Sngs and built my bank roll from there. It is just a preference though, and some people will swear by cash games. If you gravitate towards tourneys, it might be your best bet... as typically at 9 player Sngs you only have to get in the top 30% to cash, while most big tourneys it around 10-20%.

Good luck, keep us updated.

Robbie

thanks rob, if i play a SnG, i'll play the 1/.10, i usually have pretty good luck with them. i would have to say that tournament play is what i enjoy most, then Sng, then cash. i like to test myself now and again, so i sometimes if i have a good day at the cash tables, i'll buy into a highter stakes SnG. thanks for the words of encouragement. i will try to keep everyone updated.

In my opinion, just do whatever you most comfortable with and best at. There is not just one way to build a bankroll, you can do it through any of those methods. Just adhere to proper BM strategy or as close as you can with a small roll and you'll be fine.

yea, that's what i figured too, i feel more than comfortable playing this strategy, so i'm going to continue until it proves unprofitable.

A couple of points;

MTTs have a higher rate of variance than cash games, so you generally need more of a bankroll if these are what you intend to mostly play.

That being said, $25 is really not enough of a BR to play any cash games (you have only 5x the $5 buy in for one cent/two cent).

But, you have 22+ buyins for $1.10 tournaments! Granted this is about the minimum you want, but you are close to being with in BR guidelines here.

I would like to also suggest SNGs to you, as they will give you a smoother variance curve than MTTs, so I would recommend them based purely on bankroll considerations.

You can go a long long time without cashing in MTTs for reasons that have nothing to do with how you play and are totally out of your control, namely the size of the field. With one in three (approx.) cashing in SNGs your variance will be a lot lower.

Another argument for SitNGos: they will more quickly provide you with some of the skills you will need to cash big in MTTs: short handed and HU play.

Obivously do what's more comfortable for you.
I have had a lot of success here lately with NL ring games so I have to advocate for that. I played in a 3 table SNG yesterday and there was one player that was overly aggressive and whenever she would get called on it, she'd get lucky. Every hand was a decision for all your chips, so a lot of +EV hands were folded to her. In a cash game, she'd get toasted as those +EV hands would catch up to her. In a tourney, you could push your +EV hand and get knocked out. I had AJ and she had J6. She caught a 6 on the river to knock me out. In a cash game, I reload and keep playing. Because it was a tourney, I was out after 2 hours of grinding vs her.

My last load at Absolute Poker was with $75 and dropped as low as $13. Today, after playing last night, I'm at $267. I started at .05-.10 then started playing more at the .10-.25. The last two nights, I took a shot at the .25-.50 table and turned $20 into $85 in about 2 hours. Played very tight and just got max value when I hit my hands. I got AA/KK about 3-4 times and pushed each time. Only once did I NOT double up and that's when I just won the blinds. Now I am at BR mgmt as this is the most I've had to play with at once. I have a job and an income, and when I go bust, I just reload. But as far as having money IN an online account, this is the most I've had and I don't want to lose it. But to turn a low starting BR into a BR where you have a little breating room, you have to gamble. If I can turn $13 into $267, ANYONE can. But it is a grind and I put in a lot of hours playing....and losing my initial load SEVERAL times (although, most of those other loads were lost to constantly chasing SNGs).

What's funny - I don't even put the time in for my online experience...I use it as practice for the live games that I play - but the more you play, the better you get at reading and knowing when you are ahead...and knowing what play is +EV.

I think skill is paid off more in cash games because +EV catches up and when it does, the profit is greater than when +EV catches up to you in tourneys. In tourneys, you hit your monster and you get more Tchips. In a ring game, you hit your high FH and beat a lower FH and a flush - you triple up real $$$, not tourney chips. You can win that monster in a tourney, and then lose it all and still be out before getting ITM. I just like the instant gratification of seeing my BR go up when I win a good pot. But I also like tourneys...but for BR building, I advocate cash games. I don't know much about limit though, I'm talking NL.

Again, it's what is most comfortable - without that, nothing else will matter. I just know what's been working for me.

my br has without a doubt grown more from the cash games rather than MTT's, i like playing the MTT's simply for the chalenge of beating the rest of the field. the only problem with the low stakes MTT's is that they are mostly donkfests. i find more of the serious players at the cash tables.

i do like that instant gratification of winning a big pot in the cash games more so than in MTT's.

not me, im on a sick mtt run as of late.

nice joose, pass some luck our way, some of us could use it.

gl with your bankroll grind it out