Why is micro bankroll building so difficult

spsb83

spsb83

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I started yesterday full of confidence and I should not really complain as I am in profit granted only $15 and I am playing 2nl but yesterday was just painful. I played my first session and left the tables up about $6 pretty happy as I'd only played about 500 hands.

Sat down for my second session with a $20 target fo the day and the big move to 5nl. Very first hand in the session I get KK's BOOM ended up allin pre against AA's, that's fine there is nothing I can really do here just move on to the next hand. Two hands later KK's again BOOM all in pre against aggro player who did actually show up with AQ offsuit, obviously hit his Ace and I'm 2 buyins down. A couple of hands later I get it in pre-flop against the aggro fishy player pre flop in a blinds war with AK suited against their A9 off suit BOOM finally looking pretty sweet for me, oh wait a 9 on the flop and then another on the turn just to finish me off.

So now I'm now down for the day and every man and his dog is folding to my big hands. I managed to eek out a 0.55c profit for the day (go me!!!)

Anyway I've vented my anger now and I know I should be pleased to come out with a profit but my bankroll is just moving so slowly.

Hope everyone else's bankrolls are building faster than mine:) . GL everyone.
 
Cafeman

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You've been getting coolered/sucked out on and you're still up, so just carry on as you are.

EDIT: oh and try not to set yourself $ goals, just play to win and the $ will look after themselves :)
 
vinnie

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Well, first thing is that you're looking at a very small sample size. You also can't expect every 500 hand session to result in a $6 profit. That's a 60bb/100 winrate! At 2NL, you can have a pretty high winrate, but that's not a realistic one to expect.

Making $0.20-$0.40 every hundred hands would be considered pretty good. Of course, you're going to have sessions where you crush that and some where you are negative. It's all about the averages.

The big thing to remember is that, every time you get someone to put their stack in behind, you're winning in the long term. You might lose that specific hand, but you'll make money if you get in those spots often enough. Variance is cruel and harsh. Keep playing right and the money will take care of itself.
 
C

Cicatrix

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In my honest and personal opinion, micro bankroll building is very difficult for the average player due to the fact that it requires A LOT of patience and discipline.

Every player will have their ups and downs.
Unfortunately, many players have their minds too focused on their down swings, and brings them down the hole even further.

If you wish to become successful, build up your personal patience level.
I guarantee it that it will be very rewarding.
 
LD1977

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Most of the bankroll increase for me came from micro buyin tournaments.

I used cash games for FTP -> buyin for FTP tourneys -> won T$ -> bought into micro MTTs with T$ -> $$$$

Kind of like freerolling really but with much less competition.

Still I am too stubborn and refuse to give up on cash games although my luck is horrific lately.
 
otari

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micro bankroll building is not worth it. First of all, it takes a lot of time for a very little profit; working a minimum wage job is more productive than playing micros. If you want to practice bankroll management and play the right way, then deposit like one or two hundred and have fun.
 
LD1977

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WTF? Profit and wage do not matter at all. You play micros to learn the game and the learning curve goes up the same way as the bankroll.
 
T

tim132

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Yeah this is just standard variance. As long as you practice proper bankroll management sessions like this won't hurt you and you'll be back up before you know it. NEVER set monetary goals for a session, it's very bad for your mindset and could put you on tilt if you do not achieve them!

You should read "Poker Mindset" by Matthew Hilger, if you haven't already. This book really helps you put things into perspective. I've PM'd you with a link of where you can get it from!
 
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forsakenone

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something that can help you build faster is adding more tables and playing more hours per day. as stated by everyone swings will come but bigger volume will make them seem less harmful. just make sure you don't add too many tables at once.
 
R

RamdeeBen

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Setting daily targets is a really bad idea. As you know you can't control variance in the games. Setting long term goals is best; ie: be at 10nl in 1 month.

If you're playing a good solid game bankroll building is easy, just bear in mind you're playing 2nl so you can't expect huge $$ profits.

Gl
 
spsb83

spsb83

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Yeah I know I can't be focused on daily results, I started making a real effort to build my bankroll 2 weeks ago and although I haven't played as much as I had hoped I'm up nearly $20 which I'm pretty happy and this only about 10,000 hands.

I used to only play 4 tables but since starting this build I have increased that to between 6-10 tables. Out of interest do you tile, stack or cascade your tables. When I go above 4 tables I have to cascade being on a 15'' laptop. I actually like cascading the tables, i feel i tilt less which is always a bonus. The main problem is labelling I try and add a note to a player and a table will pop up and it then gets lost amongst the tables.

Thanks LD1977: I might look at using points to get into some tournaments or satellites. Bink a big win and I'll be flying.

I've set myself a few targets.

1. Play around 10,000 per week.
2. By the end of May move up to 5nl
3. Play a tournament in a local casino (this is just because I fancy playing live. This will be in Leeds or Sheffield UK just wondered if anyone else plays in these local tournaments)

Making it to 5nl shouldn't be too difficult depending on how I play as I'm hovering around $100 at the moment. Maybe I'll make it to 10nl but I think baby steps is best for now.
 
LD1977

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I see you are playing on FTP, same as me.

There you have 2 Daily Edge tournaments per day.
- One is for Ring Game Tickets (unnecessary for 2NL and horribly long to clear, but good for playing 5NL when you get there).
- The other is for T$, usually around 250-300 players for 90 prizes which is a cakewalk really.

Normal exchange rate for tickets is around 220 FTP/$ while in Daily Edge you can in the worst case take 1 T$ per 3 tries (I think I do better than that BTW).

That makes it 10 T$ per month if you can play every day.

Now, there is a tournament called Velociraptor that costs 3.3 T$ to enter and you can expect a total of around 900-950 entries by the end of registration period competing for 108 prizes. The tournament is soft and I am doing rather well playing it (not every day though since I only play it when I am fresh) but don't know exact stats since for some reason HEM has been recording a 1.1$ satellite as a 3.3$ buyin tournament so my results are screwed up and I am not keeping that data separate in Excel.

This only shows my wins, I am going to take Tournament history from the site and look it up to see what is the real status.
 

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LD1977

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Played 15 Velociraptors, total cost of entry = 15 * 3.3 = 49.5 T$
Cashed 7 times for total winnings of 54.8$

ROI = 54.8/49.5 = 10.7% + of course additional FTPs from the entries :D

I could have done better but I had Internet failure once and another time I sort of fell asleep and by the time I woke up the stack was way below average so had to lump a bit wide :( so yeah. Also I tend to autopilot way too much.

As for Daily Edge, it seems only wins get recorded in FTP report. I won a total of 58 T$ in 27 tournaments for an average of 2.15 T$ per tournament.
I estimate I cash about 2 out of 5 played or a little better than that but can't be sure since I don't keep stats on this.

So taken together I have basically freerolled to 54.8$ using only FTPs from cash games which I actually also profited from in 2NL (but not 5NL).

I won some $ from Daily Dollar in the same manner but that one is no more :D


This all may sound pitiful to advanced players but starting from zero sucks ass and even these small wins tend to add up, plus experience and fun are nice too.
Currently I am at 304$ total ($ + T$) but have bled out 32$ on 5NL so far since I am such a freaking muppet :mad: I started playing in mid December with zero prior experience in NLHE and minor experience from like 5 years back in FLHE.
 
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spsb83

spsb83

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Your doing pretty well LD, I'm currently playing on pokerstars at the moment. Might have another look at FTP. I was on a few months ago and it was a bit of reg fest even at 2NL maybe its better now.

Good luck and try and stay awake, it should help your ROI :)
 
LD1977

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Well 2NL turned out to be easy with some consistent aggression although my win rate was only 7.5 bb/100 (EV adjusted) before I moved up to 5NL (everybody kept telling me that 300$ is enough of a roll for that :D). But I am still a crappy beginner so yeah, anyone more advanced can get 10bb/100 for sure.

Yes 2NL seems to have some players who mass multitable nittily and are not spewing (except overvaluing TPTK). Good thing is they fold a lot ;)
 
BvBrMTW

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As stated above, variance will always be there,
And don't expect to make much money or build a bankroll quickly from these stakes, it's about learning the game and slowly moving up.
I have to say tho, grinding 5nl fr between hundreds of nits just kills your soul...
 
astisupamanti

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I can feel you bro, micro stakes grinding is tough and requires patience, Iv been a grinder for nearly four years now and Iv always gotten coolered, I run stakes mostly and my past 6 stakes have ended rather sourly lol, Im bust and expecting to make a return before the end of this year ... keep that chin up and you're doing well as I see from your comments, remember if you have two or three bad sessions, chill off , take a break, watch a movie, go to a park, etc ... then come back strong !
 
youregoodmate

youregoodmate

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I can feel you bro, micro stakes grinding is tough and requires patience, Iv been a grinder for nearly four years now and Iv always gotten coolered, I run stakes mostly and my past 6 stakes have ended rather sourly lol, Im bust and expecting to make a return before the end of this year ... keep that chin up and you're doing well as I see from your comments, remember if you have two or three bad sessions, chill off , take a break, watch a movie, go to a park, etc ... then come back strong !

Way to bring back a 17 month old thread
 
C

ConspiracyPoker

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1. get a RB deal :) good one

2. play tight don' tilt

3. dont fall in love with your hands top pair top kicker ( when they give action your beat )

4 . play your positions

5. find poker friends in real life number 1 or find from from forums talk in Skype

6. when you have Money buy for a traning site like cardrunners bluefirepoker or what they all are called the ones that make videos .


= Money :)
 
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