Do People Really Build Bankrolls With $50 -$100

How is it possible to build a bankroll with $50 -$100
with all the donks on the micro and the suckouts and the swings?
like tom dwan jason mercier Or any online pro am i missing somthing.

I just droped $20 playing .2.5 and some $2 HU and wanna shot my last $55.
I understand bankroll management but Cmon siting for hours and maybe making $5 $10 bucks i mean it beats playing Wow.Am i missing something here
dont play crappy hands out of position, Continuation bet, raise rather than call. Anyone please point me right or give me some sort of motivation.

Thanks for reading

I went from $26 to over $700 in the past two weeks with safe BRM. So yes it is possible.

I mean, that's obviously like 1/1000th of what Tom Dwan is capable of, but still.

What did u play?

Well admittedly I've been running very well, but I've been playing $2.25 and $6.50 turbo STT's on Tilt, with some Rush OD's mixed in.

It seems to me that tornaments are the real way to turn a small bank roll into big cash. I am fed up with poker. Ive invested too much time and although im up if you include casino's Im down online so **** it. Im gona play in tornaments now. Ill remain focused but if I lose my BR then so be it.

Idk maybe I'm doing somthing wrong need advice any thread I missed?
Or somthing I should try with $55

Well if you're playing cash you need to stay at 2NL, and if you're playing SNG's you should stick with $2.25's. MTT's are fun but not really a good way to grind a bankroll imo.

In either case, to get better you should take hands from your hand history and post them here for cash and here for tournaments. This way you can get feedback on spots you have questions on. You should also reply to other people's questions, it's good practice and will improve your critical thinking.

Whichever game you go with should be the one you enjoy most. So what do you like to play?

My poker bankroll is a far, far cry from the likes of Dwan's or Mercier's multi-million dollar fortune, but it's self-sustaining for micro-stakes, and built up from just a single $25 deposit.

STT SnGs were my bread and butter when I started out. They're relatively low-variance and not hard to beat at the low levels. I'm focusing more on cash games these days, and can't say I've had much consistent success with them (yet), but the SnGs helped me build a roll large enough to pad my learner's mistakes.

jaystun00 said:

I understand bankroll management but Cmon siting for hours and maybe making $5 $10 bucks i mean it beats playing Wow.

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It can seem silly/frustrating, if making money right off the bat is your main incentive for playing poker, to grind out a few cents per hour, but it becomes less so if you enjoy engaging in the thought processes intrinsic to the game. If, over time, you become good enough to earn meaningful amounts of money by playing, that would just be a bonus.

I hear ya guys guess I got no patience for such poop money
I wanna make a living doing this I know I can just gotta figure out what dwan and mercier did

jaystun00 said:

I hear ya guys guess I got no patience for such poop money
I wanna make a living doing this I know I can just gotta figure out what dwan and mercier did

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No offense, but that's just not gonna happen. Those guys are unbelievably talented and put in an incredible amount of work/studying and volume. That's not to say that you're not talented, but all things considered, if you're here trying to figure out a way to make a quick buck, then you're probably not the next Tom Dwan.

Welcome to the forums.

As others have said,it can be done. I have turned 20 bucks into enough of a roll that I can play the micros with no stress while I learn enough to move up in stakes. Frankly I'm not a particularly good player yet but practice and patience are beginning to pay off .

The best advice that I have read on this forum about building a bankroll is in this thread.

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/learning-poker-57/building-a-baby-bankroll-181238/

There is no magic bullet. You just have to work at it and have patience and get better.

Good luck

FWIW, I know of several people who have turned $10 or $20 (and also $0) into four figure, five figure BRs and more. It can be a hard road and obviously difficult, but if you can develop into a player, or just get a nice luckbox run, it is definitely not impossible. Then, as you grow the bankroll, you can waive goodbye to those lower donk buy-ins while moving up to the Donks with money.

While my experience may not count since I had extensive Live Play before starting online, I myself started with an online $0 BR in 2001 or so, took a Free $10 that a site named royal vegas Poker gave away to new players, and turned it into what I still play with today. I think my experiece counts as a luckbox though

It might help if you started looking at buy-ins not $.

It is possible to build up a small BR ~1000$ starting from zilch but it's a long and winding road as said.

I'm not uber good but I did it....but it was a lot of work and sometimes frustrating.

Jumping into the pool after just having learnt to swim and hoping to win the olympics next week isn't going to happen - same applies for poker.

If you're not patient enough for large Mtts and micro Stts don't seem to be rewarding enough I'd try a mix:

The 2.25$ 27man NLHE Sngs on FT (turbo or non turbo) pay 5 places, first getting 21.xx$ (9 buy-ins) and take about an hour until HU (1.5h non turbo).

grafkarow said:

Jumping into the pool after just having learnt to swim and hoping to win the olympics next week isn't going to happen - same applies for poker.

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This ^^. Also remember that Mercier and Dwan etc did a lot of grinding to get where they are today. The clue is in the name - grinding. Build your bankroll up from base principles as unless you get very lucky there are no shortcuts. If you want to make any kind of money (let alone a living) out of poker be prepared to put in a lot of graft.

It seems to me everyone is trying to turn or do what what Tom Dwan did and think everyone is capable of turning $50.00 into millions..

I don't mean any disrespect when I say this but people starting out and grinding 2nl or $1.00 tournaments tend to expect far to much then getting frustrated because their money isn't turning into 1000's or more.. It isn't a realistic goal to start with, you should be just looking at not losing money and breaking even to start with. Don't expect micracles, some people it takes years just to start beating the micros, tom Dwan etc took massive aggressive BR management and will of had to run like god to quickly go up in the limits.. Don't get down beat at your losses, try and work out why you lost rather than saying it's because of the donks and suckouts all the time - don't make the mistakes they are doing. To lose $50.00 playing 2nl seems to me you might have more leaks than you want to believe because let's face it - players only get better as you move up to the biggest limits. The donks are exactly the people you need at your table to build a BR, not good players.

You have to understand that you can't expect to just deposit small amounts and expect to win instantly, these other people are just a very select few who have done it. Just because you know position, c-bets and all the very basics doesn't mean it's going to cut it - you're going to have to invest a lot of time into studying and not playing and eventually it will all fall in place. It could take months or many years - just try not to look at it as money and more of a learning curve and let the results do the talking.

I find the $2.20 1/4 Million satellites on pokerstars fairly easy. I try and build up some tourney dollars by qualifying and then unregistering from the larger tourney and then use the tourney dollars to enter MTTs and SNGs. If you don't cash, your bankroll doesn't change and if you do cash, your bankroll only increases. I find it a good way of protecting what you've already won in your bankroll.

its possible to get from a small bankroll to a big bankroll but it requires a lot dicipline and time to get there

i started in 2004 with $100 at 4 sites $25 on each site .
poker.com on merge, pokerstars, partypoker and titanpoker at ip-network.
joined 3 forums mainly for their freerolls and money added games they offered
the first year i played 2 and 5 nl ring loads of freerolls and lots of $1 mtts

after 1 year i had joined 6 other sites that offered or free cash to start or an instant bonus with a small deposit and invested another $100 in total.
had around $800 bankroll after that first year most was money won in freerolls and bonusses cleared .
most of it at merge and ip-network.

still playing 2-5 nl at all sites but at poker.com .
played 10nl at merge because their bonus system was great in that time
at merge you got fpp for just sitting at tables and got dealt in a hand !
with those points you could get in a daily 1K freeroll a weekly 10K freeroll and a whopping 50K freeroll each month
did the same for another 2 years and had a bankroll of $2100 at start 2008
without putting any more money in.

started to bonushunting in 2008 !
i withdrew most cash before the end of the month and redeposited at start of new month that amouth of cash to get a bonus that i could clear in that month ! and repeated that every month mostly on merge and ip-network and cake that offered montly new bonusses in that time
dropped party and pokerstars because there where to big fields in their freerolls and played mostly at merge-ip-cake !

2008 was my best year until now
played 5-10 nl ring - freerolls and mtt up to $5 buyin most freezeouts or bounty games .
won a 10K freeroll at merge for $1500 and severall big cashes in mtts and
had over 6K bankroll at start 2009

From there until now i make a steady $200+ profit each month and have past the 5 figures bankroll last year !
still play mostly 10nl on most sites and some 20-25 nl .
play also a lot mtt between $1 to $10 buyins most freezeouts and bounty games .
withdrew over 5K and still got a 5 figure bankroll.

i could easy play higher limits ringgames or mtt but tried that and not felt comfortable in those so stayed at the low limits.
i play mostly for fun and am happy with the $200+ each months at levels i like to play at, maybe i could get more profit by playing 1 level higher at 25nl or 50nl but chose to not play there.
most cash is reserved for my retirement fund that i intend to use for emigrating to thailand in about 3-4 years

my advice to players that want to increase their bankroll is patience and not move up to quickly !
not move up in levels to quickly ! even if bankroll allowes it !
play those games that you are comfortable with and make profit on is better than trying to moveup and play even or loose at !
make use of bonus offers as much as possible thats the most easy way to get cash
if playing a day and start loosing stop playing that day and play another day ! no use in getting frustrated and trying to makeup losses it will let you make mistakes and lets you loose more !
if got a good start on a day increase the play and even might try 1 table at a bit higher level to make use of your good run.
never play to many tables/games at the same time than you can handle on a relkexed way.
not play wen not feel good or rested enough !
take regulair breaks on a playing day to be fresh at the tables !

good luck leo

Playing for hours and only winning $5 may seem like a lot of work for not much return BUT if you play the game to learn it, and not to make the big bucks (at least straight away), its just icing on the cake.

takethepain said:

Playing for hours and only winning $5 may seem like a lot of work for not much return BUT if you play the game to learn it, and not to make the big bucks (at least straight away), its just icing on the cake.

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I agree with this. Poker, like anything, must be something you enjoy doing if you hope to have any success. I am currently playing a 10$ BR that I had on Pokerstars. Because I enjoy the game and want to improve, I'm more than willing to sit through three hours of a .25 90-man for the chance to make a dollar or two. Those minor wins add up, and eventually - if I choose - I should be able to move to higher stakes, having established a solid foundation from which to build.

I made about 5$ in the last week. Not enough to pay the bills, but more than enough to keep me going. Let go of trying to be one of the "Miracle Boys" and be yourself. If you look at poker as a get-rich-quick scheme, you are doomed to failure 99.9% of the time. There's more to learn about this game than even the above average player can manage in years of work.

Back when I was playing cash I started with $120 odd on Full Tilt when I started learning. I played purely 2NL 6max and moved up the levels following BRM.

Around 5 months later (quite a long time but I was learning the game at the same time) I cashed out around $1.3k

I have done it with as little as $5 more than once. ~$25 more than 15 times. So yeah it can be done. This was playing STT's at FT mainly.

You are cash game player, but it can still be done. If you can't figure out how to PWN the micro's, you will be stuck there for a while or move up too soon and possibly lose everything.

I'm not gonna make a huge post about this cause I think it' been covered and proven more than enough that it is possible. The main thing is unless you are counting on luck, you have to be a winning player and use proper bank roll management. Sounds like a broken record, right?

thanks guys

For your time and consideration and for bringing me back to earth.
Everything takes time and it is a grind.

Any post you guys recommend me looking over?

as great as they are

clearly they had to use player statistics and they had to study, study, study

we all say, play the player, well what if you could hand pick the player and then play him

it would have to be your full time job, which kinda goes against the $50-$100 bankroll ... if that's your bankroll, then you need a full time job and then u dont have the time to devote

now, if you are young enough and living at home, maybe you can do what they did or you are receiving severance, etc.

but, clearly they hand-picked tables and tournaments that gave them the best chance to win based on the statisical average skill level of the other players signed up

they couldnt have been that good when they started ... now, well, u have to say they that good, cause how else would you define it

It is definitely possible. I have done it myself starting from nothing. It is critical you have a bankroll management rule and follow it. The hardest part is getting your bankroll to a point where you can get that big win or cash. Good luck building your bankroll.