Bankroll Building

I hope the following advice doesn't sound condescending or mean. And I know I might get a little flack for this but hey, I think it needs to be said.

When you make a deposit to a poker site, make sure it's the last one you ever make, using your own money. Seriously, think about it for one minute. You make a deposit of $20 here, $20 there, and either lose it that day, or if your really lucky later that week. Why, obviously through very poor bankroll management. 'But I was unlucky' I hear you cry. Bulls*** I say, you just didn't apply decent fundamental's of BRM. I'm not gonna go on about decent BRM, there are are s*** load of quality threads on this site that give you really solid fundamentals on BRM.

My point is this, you can go on making your small deposits and just enjoy yourself and go busto, if that's your thing. No one here is gonna make fun of that. we've all been there. But if you seriously want to progress think about it for a moment. Your gonna have to work really hard with a small deposit or freeroll winnings to make it work for you, real hard.!

So how best can I maximise my poker experience? Well you can make a moderate deposit (say $100 - $200, I know it's a lot, but save up all those little deposit instead) and advance yourself along that road. This site offers several deposit bonuses for you to exploit. Please take advantage of them as they can increase your bankroll quite dramatically. In fact why not 'bonus whore'. Clear the bonus at one site, withdraw and deposit at another, simple. Just watch your BR grow and grow.

Now I'm not telling you guys something you don't already know, but seriously for newbs who are just starting out on there poker experience, think about it before you make random deposits all over the place and lose the maximum deposit bonus from that site. Save up and make as big of deposit as you possible can, you will then get a decent bonus and hey presto, with decent BRM your well along the way to making a tidy profit in poker winnings.

Good luck with it and don't forget 'make sure it's the last one you ever make, using your own money'

Amen! Preach on brotha man!

Sound advice. Wish I had read it a year ago.

I don't know, jagsti. I kind of like it that OTHER people make regular deposits.

Besides, no amount of BRM is going to prevent a losing player from going busto. You need it, but you also need to develop the skills to be a winning player.

Well Belgo, I obv agree 100% with your sentiments. But there will be 1000's of ppl making those lovely $20 deposits no matter what. However, this is targeted at newbs of this site, who will become regs in time and offer wonderful advice on the HA section for me to learn form .

I agree with you 100% Jagsti. When I started playing online poker about 5 years ago, I deposted my first $100 and I have never deposited any more of money out of my personal account. Everything from then on has been from the results of that original deposit. Now since then I have closed out and opened up many new poker accounts, but any money going into those accounts have either been part of a cash-out from a previous site, or built upon bankroll winnings on my accounts that I am trying the 0-10k. I find myself to have very good bankroll management and I am able to realize when to stop as well. I have seen many friends put all their money in when they go on tilt and lose their whole roll.

I never made any depostits too, I won some money playing fr but I lost it all during Omaha hi, I went completely on tilt after a few suckouts. So my best advice considering br-management would be to control your emotions, that's my biggest flaw.

While I congratulate you on building your BR through FR winnings, I really question the value of doing it this way. I see so many people who play FR after FR, chasing a few bucks (or in some cases pennies). When they do cash they generally have 2 things working against them when trying to build their rolls. First they often take their FR mentality to a money game, and second their starting BR is so small that they can not really practice any sort of BRM.

I know that FRs offer experience and a way to turn nothing into something, perhaps even vast amounts of $$ if you're lucky, but I just think there is a better way to start and then build a BR. Let's consider a person that plays 30 hours of FRs a week (and there are some here who claim to play more than that). If this person were to get a part-time job for say 15 hrs/week at even minimum wage ($5.25 I think) they'd be bringing home say $50 a week after taxes. Then this person could spend the remaining 15 hours that used to be spent playing FRs to study the game by reading and posting here, reading books, and maybe playing 1 FR per week. At the end of 1 month they could quit their part-time job, deposit $200 online (a decent starting roll), and have a greater amount of knowledge to rely on when building it into something.

I know all the free rollers like to quote the Ferguson method, so maybe we can call this the Hillbilly BR system.

good advise indeed, my only thing is, starting from freeroll winnings takes a LOT of time, especially on the bigger sites where you got to be top 30ish of 10000. I have made somewhat of a bankroll on a big number of sites-no deposit, but, I think its time I put down some real money and play some real big games, my time is worth more than a $1 win after 4-5 hrs if Im super lucky(doesnt matter how good you are playing 5000 donks
what would be the best site for deposit, that has lotta great games, good bonuses and easy withdrawls?? fulltilt, pokerstars, ultimate bet...
and really if I lose a few hundred bucks, I should take a day off poker, go to work, and deposit a few hundred more, cuz those big buyin huge gaurenteed payouts are what Im ready for,no more nickel and diming
any suggestions?
ty gla

Good post jag, I remember when I first started a couple years ago I was exactly like you talk about, depositing $20 here and there and mostly losing it real quick. Then I started reading strategy stuff posted here and i got better, but I still deposited small amounts and tried to build from nothing basically and out of sheer luck I actually won money after every $50 deposit I made after I joined this website playing $5 S&Gs. Problem was my BR never got large since I withdrew anytime i hit a downswing in panic mode.

Then this year, I decided to deposit $100 in February and play the $5 S&Gs at PS. I have never looked back. Started playing 10NL when my roll was ~250 and then I placed 1st in a $4 180 man which propelled me to 25NL. Since March I have profited almost $8000 playing mostly 25 and 50NL. I wish to god that I had made a healthy deposit about 2 years ago and learned back then instead of just burning my money, who knows what my profit potential would be right now.

nice post..it's a good advice for new players ad totaly rookies..it's the right way..regular depositers have no structure..play every day 4 fun but also 4 her money..

Now this advice is completely useless if you aren't a winning player As Belgo said, this post assumes that you have sound fundamentals of the game. Perhaps your a winning player, with the ability to progress, but you have lousy BRM.

Learn the fundamentals, adhere to a strict BRM strategy, then if you follow the above advice, you should progress a lot quicker than making small deposits every few weeks. Believe me it works!

I did it again I won a freeroll except it was on full tilt poker and I made up to 8 dollars and lost it all because i didn't know when to quit i think things you need to do when building a bank roll is know when to stop and don't be greedy or else you will be on tilt on one hand and try to win everything back with a bad hand.

So whats the recommended starting bankroll? Is $100 enough? What guidelines do I use to choose which games to play and what limits? I play at Full Tilt and have had some luck at the cheap SNGs playing with FRoll winnings I'm up to abut $20. I don't like to risk more than the $2.25 the SNGs offer me but do look at the $5 tables occasionally but I think I need more money to play at those.

At the top of the page is the search utility>type in 'bankroll management'> you will see a whole host of info on this. Also look at the links at the bottom of this page your looking at now, there are some there already to start off with.

I have only made one $50 deposit, after i lost it i built it back up from freeroll winnings then i lost it again. I find its so hard to win in freerolls now because it is such a donk fest.

BANKROLL MANAGEMENT= for myself I only risk 5% of my bankroll a day, if I lose the 5% it's back to the freerolls for the rest of the day. If I make money then I will risk 60% of what I'm up for the day.....

That's great man. Also just a little bit of advice, I learned the hard way, for ring games. You have double or triple the minimum to buy-in to that table? Stand up and find another seat. There will come a time when you'll go all-in with ur Qs or Ks and you'll lose and you'll be happy you didn't risk all 20 bucks instead of 10. Trust me.