My Bankroll Dilemma

Ok everyone, so I play on Cake poker, and I deposited $25 at the beginning of the summer. I've been trying to grind up a small roll for a few months now, but I can't seem to find something that I'm good at. When I play cash, I never know when to leave and then lose my winnings to a bad beat. I like the idea of a big cash in MTT's, but I don't have the time for them, and I've got to work on my patience. I've been trying to focus on bankroll management, but I feel as if bonuses and rakeback are keeping me alive. Any suggestions? (not sure what my question is here, more of just a rant/help me post)

Thanks,

Dave

I think key for you at this stage would be to focus on improving your play. You state you haven't found something you're good at but surely that just means you haven't improved your play enough. Try to make some time for training, studying, posting hands for review, etc. If you're already doing that then try to work on your patience. I don't think you can be a long term winning player if you can't exercise patience.
Have you tried SNGs yet?

I've tried them, not too much luck. I just sat down at a 4nl table a couple of mins ago, because that's what seems to be the beginner's game. I was up $2 and then I get JJ in the hijack and raise. BB calls me with like 57 or something, and flops a straight and stacks me. This happens more often than not, and is one reason why I seem to do so poorly at these cash games....nobody folds anything.

I have Holdem manager and I'm starting to read a book or two to get me started. My issue with holdem manager is that I don't know really how to use it to maximize it's potential in analyzing my hands. Anyone have a link to a good holdem manager users guide?

Thanks for the tips. I'll definitely try another SNG or two...which ones would you suggest? I've got a roll of $45 on Cake currently.

Regards,

Dave

set you buy in
in other worlds what i use to use for bankroll was the 5% rule which is 20 buy in per game for cash and single table sng, and MTT 2% , but with 25.00 if not going to be much play for you, might want to consider deposted more in to your account.. atlease about i would say 50.00 if you are doing the 5% rule, and do not be affraid to reload your account, some people have fears of doing this trying to become the new tom dwan..
set up a excel sheet with your bankroll to see where you should be playing at

Alright, thanks for the idea dreams. I'll just work on my cash game and see where it goes from there. I'd rather not re-deposit, as my mom (yes she sees my deposits to poker sites with the money she gives me for food at school) is getting fed up with them. I've probably gone through about $50 on full tilt as well before it shut down.

Ok so I'm going to start playing 4NL shallow maybe? Which is a $2 max buyin which seems to be within the limits...or do shallow games not count for that? Also, should I be focusing on 6-max or full ring? Just need a suggestion as to what will improve my game in general more. I'll do whatever you suggest, I just need a little push in any sort of direction.

Thanks again,

Dave

best advice i could give ya buddy would be to switch networks. not a big fan of cake.. they dont offer a wide enough selection and i just personally dont trust them. If your a Us player like me i would suggest something on the merge.. Carbon or Hero i hear are the best...
HOPE THAT HELPS!!
TTYL

Problem is he cannot wihdraw now.

If you're serious about building your $25 BR...

...Don't play cash games. You don't have the BR for it and the swings will eat you up. Stick with micro $1 SNGs and grind it from there. Those games are usually really soft and you can just play regular ABC poker and manage to do well.

if you a real good player then go for the shallow stacks, but normaly when you buy in to a cash game you want to have the standard 100bb buy in, if you do the shallow stack then most people who play them have short stacks have a short stack game plan, normaly when before i sit at a 6 or 9 handed table i watch the action and see how they are playing to tell if i want to play at that table or not. Also some site show stats at the table before open it up, you want to look for a table that have a 46% and above that see the flop for loose action which mean there alot of fish at the table.

Looks like the advise is covered which is good I suck at BRM, I just wanted to say good like grinding.

Thanks for all of the advice guys. I'm going to try out a few SNG's and see how it goes. Do you suggest the regular ones? ($1+.20 with 3 spots paying out 5,3,2) or the turbo's ($1.15+.10 with 4 spots paying out 5.20, 2.80, 2, 1.50)? Not sure which would be better...it seems as if the turbo's fill up much quicker on cake poker compared to the regular ones.

I meant to post this a long time ago when you first gave me the advice, but apparently there is a 7 post per day for members under 65 posts....sorry for the delay!!

If you are confident of your ability in the push or fold phase of SNG's then I would recommend the turbos because at those limits I think the fish tend to push to tight and call too loose so it is possible to identify players to exploit. If you are not confident in push fold then study it some more, you really need it for SNG's. The $1+.20 is just way too much rake. At 20% rake it makes it so much harder to break even, you just don't want to give yourself such a disadvantage without a great deal of experience at SNG's.

It's not a bankroll dilemna, it's a skill/ability dilemna.

the most important thing to do is improve your game;
HEM and the like are only as good as the play without using them; analyzing hands after play is critical and will tell you a lot;
bad beats are just a part of playing, expect them they are inevitable,
its not so much anything to do with bank roll management, although BRM is essential,
luck=chance=happen-stance

It's .10 less rake. At that level, it's not really worth thinking about. The weak play more than makes up for that rake. Both have about equal variance since the higher variance turbos award 4 places paid to offset (though my suggestion there is to ignore 4th place and focus on exploiting the bubble to propel yourself to wins).

If you really like turbos, Cake's definitely for you. Most of their regular tournaments are already turbos. Cake's SNGs don't fill as fast as other sites, so it would be best if you could play both formats, if you can handle multi-tabling, and sign up for as many as you can. If you had to pick one or the other, I'd probably stick to the turbos. Not because you're getting such a great break on the rake, but there are no $2.20 regular SNGs on Cake. You have to wait until $5.50 for a regular SNG with decent rake, unless you wanted to go to the double-up SNGs, which would require learning yet another format.

You're going to want to move up as quick as possible. As soon as you get to $40, you're going to want to mix in some $2.50 turbos. You can wait til $50-75, if you're planning on being really risk averse. You don't want to extend past your bankroll, but being able to add in $2.50s will allow you to up your volume and not have to wait for tournaments to fill. Of course, you'll want to hold off on those $2.50s if your br starts dipping.

Of course, that's if you decide SNGs are for you. And I'd give it at least 100 to make sure you like them. With your experience, you should be able to play at least that many before losing a significant amount of your bankroll, and most likely realize a profit that you can analyze, even on a small sample.

I am not going to tell you to shy away from ring games. Though I might steer you towards some limit hold'em. You can comfortably play LHE at .02/.04 on your BR for a long while, and you'll learn some pretty important fundamentals while you play, which might help you when you build your BR to be solid enough to jump back into the NLHE tables.

Good luck to you.

Ok so this and the comment afterwards really got me thinking. I'll grind as much as I can at the $1.15 turbos and see how well I can do. Regardless of my standings, I'll review my game using holdem manager, and attempt to reap all of it's benefits, and learn how to use it properly. Thanks a ton guys, I've really got to improve my game...and Improve on what I know to improve on...wow ok I sounded like a retard but you know what I mean.

Thanks all,

Dave

yea i know. but he should still switch sites, take the 25 dollar loss and keep on rollin to mere . its a better network all around

Unfortunately the networks you mentioned no longer accept NEW US players as of June this year. Hopefully they will lift this because it is only because of it's customer service...I want to be able to use my HUD....I've paid for it!!!

Merge will open back up soon to new US customers. Cake is ok to play on, but Merge is probably the more profitable option. You should look into Intertops on the Cake network. You won't get rakeback through them, but CardsChat is offering some great freerolls and money added games if you download Intertops Poker through them and deposit.

Sounds good man, I'll do that first thing tomorrow when I'm sober!!!

i just started playing at Minted Poker; I like it there; and software and the steps freeroll Sngs would be great practice for you as they start up steps 1-3 every minute just about. . .step 6 is guarenteed $;

I looked into minted poker when I was looking for a new cardroom. I chose cake because it seemed like it would have more traffic, but I guess Minted is turning out to be more popular than it was before. The rakeback there is also something to consider. I've got to see if I can get some money to deposit, if so, I'll do just that and start trying my hand at those step tournaments. Thanks for the info.

Oh one more thing, does minted poker allow HEM HUD's?

Dave,

Welcome to cards chat. Please don't be offended but the part of your original post that I bolded shows that you have quite a bit of studying to do to beat any form of poker. You want them to call you with junk. In the long run we make our money from our opponent playing badly. They will occasionally suck out on you. Its fair and its good for the game.

Its fair because even the worst hand in poker has some equity. Download pokerstove. Its free and it will help you to learn how equity works. Its a very important concept. 7-2 off suit will beat AA 12.57% of the time all in preflop. No hand is a guaranteed winner.

That's good for the game because if bad players didn't sometimes catch their miracle cards then they would stop playing either because of a lack of money or because of total discouragement. You make your money by playing players that are worse than you. Never fall for the trap of "moving up to where they respect my raises". I'll repeat: you want them to call you with junk.

Its hard to give a lot of advice without seeing some stats and hand histories but a good start is always, play tighter. The number one flaw of 99% of new/struggling poker players is calling too much. Also, learn to respect and use position. Play most of your hands from the cutoff or the button. Play only really strong hands under the gun. Until you start to get a handle on your game it would not be the worst thing in the world to fold all but your pairs and AK from the small blind. Its far from optimal but it will keep you out of trouble when you are in the worst position at the table.

One more thing, full ring is easier to beat than 6 max. Play full ring to start imo.

Start reading threads and posting questions in the hand histories sections.

Okay, at the risk of getting some mods mad at me I'm going to post the best thing that I have ever read for learning the basics of beating NL holdem. Its not from this forum, but the object here is to help new players. This helped me a ton. It was what finally made the light bulb go on and I went from a fish to beating micro stakes and starting to understand poker.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/78...micros-430637/

TL;DR Cliffs:

You want to play against fish.

Play tighter.

Read the guide to beating micros.

Good luck.

Alaskabill,

Thank you for those tips. I'll definitely take them to heart and read the information from the link that you sent me. I've definitely got to work on my game and get a better understanding of poker as a whole. Thanks for taking the time to write that all out, and I'll see you around =)

-Dave

Yes, as I said in another thread... also look for rakeback affiliates that offer freerolls as well.

If you think Cake has no traffic, don't go to Minted looking for more. Cake pretty much trounces Everleaf sites in every possible way... unless someone can attest to withdrawals being better.

I have no idea about the HUDs.

I would've used that money for a bankroll first. (probably not being much help to you now, 'shoulda', 'coulda', 'woulda'). Not sure why newer players bother getting a HUD? imo, learn to play the game, & stick with one format.
I just started on CAKE, starting bankroll was $5.50 > went busto. Another $6.60 & now over $50.
WoW! What games did you choose to play PO?
I played the Cardschat games. (hope to see you there.... soon!).
It's not easy to build a baby bankroll 'but', it can be satisfying & will also help you with patience & good bankroll management down the road. $25 is going to be a tough go for sure, as it doesn't really allow you much room for variance. Hopefully you'll get a bit of 'rungood' (like me, lol) & you'll seen be breaking the $100 mark.

Currently around $55 on Cake and I've been trying to master the most simple of games. Full ring 4NL...I've been doing pretty good, but I find myself busting from stupid mistakes (you could call it impatience and frustration). So I think I play better with a slight buzz going too. I seem to get impatient very fast completely sober. I know I know you're supposed to be completely concentrated when you play, but I feel if I have a few beers and throw a lip in, I'm on my game. Ok well thanks everyone for the advice. I'm going to stick with cake for now and improve my game. If I come across an extra $50 you think I should throw it on cake, or start a roll on minted? Thanks again for helping me out. Best of luck to all of you!

If you are looking to deposit on another site, go with the one that will give you the best bonuses and rakeback. You're not out of the micros yet, so it's not too late to switch sites. I wouldn't go with Minted, just because the traffic there is horrible, but it's an option, especially if their new software improves their gameplay and helps attract more players. I would look towards Black Chip, Lock or other Merge sites, but if you find a Cake site that works for you, go for it. The bonuses and rakeback are the key.

I know you say you play better with "a buzz on". I've heard the same from many, and very few of them are playing as well as they think they do... nor does it work for them when they move up to significant stakes. The ones who truly do this profitably are usually highly talented enough to sacrifice some of their mental faculties to quell their attention deficiencies. It would be better for you to practice not playing with any enhancements while you're at micro stakes. The roll you're building isn't anywhere near significant enough to practice bad habits.

I found one way to beat impatience was by adding more tables. That way you have less time to wait between hands you get involved in but you can still play tight.

Makes perfect sense to me, thanks. I think I'm just going to pop up another table so I have less room to stray from my goals and what I am doing at the time. And you're right about minted...I'm not going to deposit on there, but if I've got free time I've heard that they are not too shabby at freerolling in to a baby roll.

Yes and no... they might be doing away with the freeroll step sngs. Who knows what they'll come up with in their place, if anything. Their MTT freerolls aren't very lucrative and are run poorly.

Minted have a message on loading up the software that they will stop running new Step 1 sngs at the end of the week.

OK u mentioned at start u r chasing bonuses and rakeback... u dont have the bankroll to make much on bonuses, I would forget them and concentrate on learning the games, stay within yr BR as stated above, so play super micro ring or sng, mtt etc... DO NOT grind just to make a few cents on rakeback or chase a bonus... u can end up playing lousy poker just to get points which never works long term.

It will take time to build from 25 bucks, so remember you are not in it to make big bucks right now, you are in it to prove you will not spew yr lunch money all over the place, and can hang in...

Mom will be proud if you can learn and explain BRM.

Check out Chris Ferguson's Zero to Hero feat, where he went from 0 to 10K in a year using BRM. Unfortunately, the story is no longer on Tilt but Google it or read about it here on CC.

GL and dont expect to make 10K this year, you are not Jesus, you are just learning from the start. Baby steps... Have fun!