How much were you down before you started winning?

This is my question to the poker players that have won alot of money playing poker. How much money were you originally down before you hit your first big tourney win or started making substantial money?

Like for example. Ive been playing online and in live tournaments for a couple years now. Overall I'd say Im down about $1500 lifetime. Generally online I've gotten donked and busted(Fulltilt and Pokerstars players you know what I mean) so overall most of my losses have been online in that way, but also play live tourneys every Thursday with about 50-70 people and out of the 11 times I've played I've made the money 3 times and bubbled twice so I know my game is pretty solid.

Can you players that had rough luck starting out give me your stories and etc?

I don't think you have to go negitive before going positive. I'm not sure because I have a liftime win of under 1k. but I am definitely up. I think if your playing at a level that suites your skill (low sitngoes v. Highstakes) you don't have to lose alot.

I deposited $100 and fell to $45-50 first week playing $5.50 stt. Dropped to the lowest cash games to rebuild, stayed there too long. Just making it to 25nl now even though was rolled for it awhile ago.

First off, live poker =/= online poker. I don't know about tourney comparisons, but Harrington believes that $1/$2 casino games are on a par with 0.10/0.25 online games. Oz who is a member of this forum and is a dealer equates them with 0.05/0.10 online games in terms of skill levels.

I'm like DWillus; I deposited $50 on Stars, dropped down to $18 before deciding to grind $10nl (single) tables in order to get my first deposit bonus. Generally not good bankroll management, but I had decided I was willing to redeposit if needed in order to get the bonus. By the time I got the bonus some 4 months later, the bankroll was $150 so I've never needed to add more of my own money. That was a long time back.

If you're down as much as you say, I'd guess that you're not managing your bankroll and/or your skill versus your opponents skill level properly. Hang around this forum more and pick up play and bankroll tips. It'll do your game good.

I wouldn't say I've won a lot since my winnings haven't changed my life even slightly, but by some other people's standards, I have. I was fortunate enough never to be down. When I started a few years ago, I bankrolled myself for $150, but before I ever used it, I won $150 in a freeroll. So basically, I have never played with money other than winnings.

When I deposited $200 on PokerStars, I'd never really played Hold'em, live or otherwise. So, I accidentally practiced good BRM because I was expecting to go broke. But, despite the fact that I started reading poker books right away, my low point was about $100. After I got serious about it, I pulled into profit, and now there's no looking back. With my current BRM strategy and profit, it's all but impossible for me to go into the red. I'd give up poker for good before I lost that much.

Hopefully I can give you a story that will give you a tad more inspiration than these. When I first turned 18 I decided to play online, because I had played in home games with my friends and I loved it. I deposited like $200 on Ultimate Bet and got it up to like $400 (playing 50NL). I thought it was really easy and I that I was really good, but I ended up going on tilt and losing it all in like one night. I deposited $200 a few more times and ended up winning at first every time, but then went on tilt and lost it all. I got so frustrated that I ended up quitting. About a year later I tried it out again and did the same thing. A year later the same thing happened. Back in January of this year I decided that I was going to give it another shot. I was down about $1600-1800 and really hating myself for it. I started reading strategies online and I decided to play on FullTilt this time instead of Ultimate Bet. I also started reading tons and tons of posts here on cardschat (without ever posting). I deposited $200 at the beginning of March and now (a little over 2 months later) am up over $1600 on FullTilt. I also deposited on Bodog and Cake to try and clear the bonuses. I'm up $400 on Bodog and $300 on Cake. I guess the moral of the story is that if you are really set on winning at poker and you study the hell out of it and try and try and try again then you may have a chance....but then again maybe some players will always lose no matter what they do? *shrug*

Well I dont know exactly, but I guess I was losing lot of money in small increments, just didnt track it.

Now I changed my attitude, I am specializing only to added money tournaments for May and writing down exact results in excel sheet. I think you cant be losing if you play just these tourneys, so I reccomend it to anyone , who is tired from grinding...

GL!

My story is a bit different. First night playing online poker I placed 2nd in a tourney of over 900 players,... although it was a super micro (Ferguson).
After that first night my roll continued to increase and has never been negative (I've had slumps mind you.... in one at the moment).
GL on the tables!

I need more information on your game to make an accurate assessment. What stakes do you play? Tournaments or side games? How many tournaments lifetime? Sit-N-Go or Multi Table tournies? How many hands/hours in side games lifetime?

Without this info I'll have to read between the lines here, so correct me if I'm wrong.

You say you are down "about" $1500 lifetime. If you don't know exactly how much you are down (or up), you're making a fundamental mistake. Use a spreadsheet or journal to track all of your action and results.

I can't stress enough how important this is.

Don't lie to yourself. If you lose a chunk while a little tipsy, you can't ignore it and tell yourself you aren't counting it because you were drunk and just playing for fun.

Say you make a nice score of $300 and decide to take a shot at a bit higher stakes and lose it back. Don't just count the win and ignore the loss because you were just "taking a shot".

Your human memory will play tricks on you like this if you don't write it down.

Your following statement scares me a little. "Generally online I've gotten donked and busted (Fulltilt and Pokerstars players you know what I mean)..."

Are you implying that online poker is "rigged" in some way? If so, don't play. Simple as that. If you think the game is not honest, you'll ignore the results and delude yourself into thinking you are better than you are.

You'll think you are losing because the site is rigged for the underdog or to deal "action" hand, not because you are playing too loose, chasing too much, and bluffing too often.

There have been many examinations of huge hand samples from the major sites showing that the expected results follow the mathematical expectation well within standard deviation.

If, by saying you get "donked and busted", you mean you bust out as the favorite when an opponent draws out on you, accept this as part of the game.

Occasionally, because of chip stacks or a bad read, you'll get your money in as the underdog and need to suck out to avoid busting. Usually though, most of your bust outs (if you're playing well) will occur when someone sucks out on you. It's the nature of the game. You want to get all your chips in as an 80/20 favorite, but you must realize you'll lose 20% of the time.

When your opponent gets "lucky", realize "luck" has nothing to do with it. The hand simply fell into the small set of hands where he makes runner-runner flush.

That can be psychologically crushing when it happens, but in the long run you want the "morons" calling you as huge underdogs. Over a large sample, you'll win 80% of them AND lose 20% of them. The key is having won enough of the 80's to withstand the hit when you lose one of the 20's.

Looks like your Thursday live results have been great, but don't expect it to continue at that pace. It's a very small sample and you probably can't expect to sustain a 27% ITM result. The best MTT players only cash 15% to 18% of the time.

Most tournament payout structures are very top heavy. Are any of your three cashes in the top 3? That's where the money is in tournament poker.

Min-cashes or bubble finishes are not that important. You want to shoot for wins and top 3 finishes. I'm up about $30,000 in MTT's but have had streaks of 30 or 40 tournaments in a row without cashing. It comes with the territory.

Again, it's the nature of the beast in MTTs. Lots of no-cashes and min-cashes with an occasional big score. This is why bankroll management is so important. You must be playing at a stake for which you are properly bankrolled and be willing to play for the long term.

As to your primary question, I've played about 2000 Sit-N-Go tournies with an average buy-in of $24 and have an ROI of about +20%. I lost about $2000 in my first 300 SNGs and won about $5500 in the next 1700.

In MTTs I have an ROI of about +95% in just less than 1500 tournies with an average buy-in of about $19, but had played for about 2 years before I hit a 5-figure score. Hit another 5-figure win about 6 months later but have not had another huge score for the last 18 months (albeit at a much smaller volume lately).

In summary, start tracking your results religiously. Be a bankroll nit.
Make sure you have at least 50 buy-ins for your SNG play and at least 150 buy-ins for your MTT play.

Play 500 SNGs and 250 MTTs and re-evaluate your results. If you're in the red at that time, you've got some leaks that need plugged. If you are winner, you'll be well on the way to a profitable career.

Good luck!

I was down $2500 2 years ago. I'm about even now. But I withdrawal too much from my online BR for other things I need. I just want to play SnG's and MTTs ... I get sick of online cash games. Save those for B&M

At last count I think I'm down around $920 million, but most of that was due to some suckouts and bad beats.

I just won 2 out of 3 $1.10 SnG's, so things are starting to look up.

Oh, guess I missed the first line, haha. I shouldn't have been responding

- $50.00, but now i am up, and working in 2nl and 4 limit.......

I was down to $5 from $100 then going up to $1000+ on bodog tourney. when i was at the low $5 i just started bluffing the next 4 then another 5 hands straight and my stack kept increasing.

When I started playing poker, I deposited 30$. 2 months later I doubled it. Of course there were ups and downs. At least I didnt lose money. I still have to study.

If you start at low limites you can start winning from the beginning.
Increase your limit as your game and bankroll get better and bigger!

I was never down.

Deposited $25 on absolute poker many years ago and within the first week I was up over $200 and never looked back.

that's pretty much what i tell my family...i think they halfway believe me. they went to vegas a few weeks ago and didn't even tell me till they were there...i guess cause they're afraid of what i'd try to gamble on, who knows.

i've never really deposited and am still working on trying to build my roll through freerolls, never seem to be able to capitalize over the long term with my freeroll winnings, but that's life i guess

Ummm Iam down roughly.... Ummm hold on..

Carry the 1 then x's that hy 18.

Multiple that by 23 ah never mind

You wanna know how much iam down?

there's no counting how much ive lost

AND I DONT WIN SO U DO THE MATH

No I'm not sure what you mean...

As for my story. I would practice terrible BRM and eventually found myself down $400ish. That's when I decided it wasn't the site but the player. And joined here to take things more serious. All in all it took about a 1 1/2 years for me to get out of the donk phase

Its nice to know I'm not the only jerk out there thats had trouble. I keep working, tracking my wins...er losses, and hope to improve.

Thats an interesting story!!!! I had a huge problem last week! i started to play doble or nothing tourneys of 20 dollars... i had 30 in my bank rool.... so i went up to 120 dolars...i continue playing this tourneys and now i have ****ing 25 dolars.... I have decide to study a bit more of poker and to take care of my bankroll, because something is going wrong....any help from someone?

Yes. You are playing too high a level. With 30 dollars you play a 20 DoN?? Read up on Bankroll Management yo

bout tree fiddy

I had jus' givin Stars tree fiddy da week befor!

WHAT??? You gave dat Stars anotha tree fiddy?!?!? No wonder it keeps comin back to our house, you keep depositin' dat tree fiddy!

well...I was down 370 $ ish from poker and another 127 $ which I payed for subsription at a training site.So I was down 500 $...( I counted only the money deposited from my own pocket)
Now I'm on the plus.....I hope I wont have to look back

I started playing poker about 2 years ago ,I made 3 deposits of 15 $ on carbon poker ,after the 3th deposit I started winning.
I withdraw more than 5000 $ mostly from carbon and fulltilt .When I dont 't have money on poker accounts I play private freerolls.

I lost about 400$ when I started to play online a few months back. I was enough of a newbie to make an initial deposit of only 50$ on Full Tilt... and I didn't know anything about BRM and rakeback either.

I'm now on a solid winning curve at micro stakes (over the past 30k hands), but I still need about 200$ more to be break even !

I lost about 50 dollar before I won a PLO tournament for 650 dollar..

Never been behind. Initially, I deposited some cash and played a £2 MTT that I came 2nd in and played $5 SNG to clear my bonus = +£200 at end of 1st month. A few months later I won $960 in a MTT. Since then I've been averaging about £50 a month and been consistently unlucky - I'm still £2k up - but keep losing in MTTs just outside the cash and 90% of the time with the best hand when the money goes in. Just waiting for my luck to change or to learn how to avoid losing big hands late on.

I started out with an online BR of $250. It took me nearly 6 months to get into profit (this was back in 2005/6).

I`ve improved a little since then and am now ahead $22k.

Deposited 50$ and lost it almost right away(not bad BR managment just horrible play).
Deposited 50$ read some forums,strategy article ect and managed to grind it up.
Havent deposited since excepted when transfering from site to site or for bonuses.

So yeah i was down 50$(or maybe like 70$ since i didnt start winning right away with my second deposit)

Freind of mine was down like E8k in his first year playing online(Mainly cash games)..he must be up tens of thousands this year as hes on FT`s regulary and he made FT in 1.5mil on titan.
As for me im still waiting to turn into a winnng player