How should I get a live bankroll started?

wanderingthehall

wanderingthehall

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BG: I'm a micro stakes player online. I built my BR from freerolls and followed solid BRM from the very beginning. I love the fact that every little bit I earned without investing my own money. I'm perfectly happy grinding away for pennies.

However, I really love live poker and I'm going to have a lot more time to play starting this fall. I just don't make enough to even handle the few hundred dollar swings that come with playing live poker, and wish I could find a way to be as disciplined with my live br as I am with my online br.

It's a lot easier to not buy-in for more than 5% of my br when it's a $200 br online. It feels a whole lot different when I'm telling myself I need to have $2400 to sit down at the 3/6 live limit game. That's more than I make in a month, and if I had that much extra money my husband would question why I'm not using that money towards something useful like paying off debt.

Any suggestions?
 
wanderingthehall

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Well, as I've done some more research, I see that when it comes to live it's budget vs. bankroll. A true bankroll is like my online roll where I have 20x a buy-in ready to go and set aside from all life purposes. A budget is maybe a few buy-ins I can set aside out of my normal finances for poker. Basically recreational money that I can budget to use for poker.

My problem is I REALLY don't want to just keep dropping a few hundred bucks every month to try and get lucky. That's money I could be using for non-poker things. Not only that, but without tracking specific date, I can tell how I've been doing online based on the size of my bankroll because I follow such strict rules. When I first started playing online, I wasn't making myself improve because when I lost one deposit, I would just deposit again. Now, if I'm not playing profitable poker I have to drop down in stakes or not play until I score in another freeroll.

So, I think the solution for me is to start setting aside my online cashouts to play live with and wait until I can follow the same BR rules live that I already follow online. I don't make much money online, pretty much min cashouts every month or 2. It could reasonably take me the better part of a year before I save enough to go play a cheap MTT. I'm ok with this, it forces to me to give my online play more attention.

However, I'll give myself one more week of live play without restrictions before I start this!! I want to have a little fun!!
 
JPoling

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sell the kids and wife.

JK. keep the kids. sell the wife. :p
 
sam1chips

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When I played live for the first time, I ultimately needed to withdraw money from the bank before going to the casino. As you explained, you can build up a bankroll online from freerolls/penny stakes games, but you need to buy in (and ultimately, be "risking") a decent amount of money if you decide to start playing live.

My advice would be to save up for a couple of buyins. If you're a winning player (and run good), you will end up winning money, and then the next time you play you can buy in with your profits
 
Arjonius

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Maybe think about how much you have to come up with to take a shot at live rather than to have a full BR, so say 2-4 buyins instead of 30. Where you want to play, how much is 2-4 BI?

As for how to come up with that amount, how important is it to you? Enough to find some part-time work, do odd jobs for neighbors, hold a yard or garage sale, a bake sale? These are just some possible ideas off the top of my head; you can undoubtedly come up with others that fit your circumstances.
 
teepack

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think you missed the op, she is the wife lol.

She could probably get more for herself than she could for her husband!! lol.

Are you going to try to make a living, or least earn a supplemental income from your live poker? Or are you just trying to have fun?

If you're just doing it for the fun of it, I don't think you need a BRM strategy so much as you need to just establish an amount you are comfortable losing each month and then make sure you never go over that.

If you're going to try to earn consistent cash from your efforts, then you probably need to develop a good BRM strategy that helps you manage downswings, handle hot streaks wisely and keeps you on the straight path.

Either way, don't risk more than you can afford to lose.
 
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hffjd2000

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First, online is totally different from live plays.

Second, online BRM is different also from live BRM. Online is more on long term plans while live is through sessions.

Online, has the luxury of building BR through freerolls while live has not.

You have to bring out money from pocket in live. Have to a accumulate an amount that is safe and plenty in relation to big blind. For short, join only stake you can afford.
 
chuG

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I seldom get monthly bonuses at work but when I do I consider that money expendable for whatever purpose I am interested in that month.

Like Teepack said, set something aside that you have no intention of keeping. Consider it an imaginary bankroll. So you may not have the full 20 buy-ins at the time of your first game. So long as you dont buy back in before 'unlocking' your next buy-in, then I suppose it could still adhere to good BRM.

This may not be sound advice because I've only played two live cash games but it might be a good start.
 
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aina27

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Without children and without husband, that I can sell to arm my bank, jajaaj is difficult to support the bank, providing that I come to $ 200 I lose rapidly
 
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themosthigh

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Save whatever you can scrape together and put it aside. Once I started working again one of my goals was to set aside a live bankroll so basically after all my bills were paid anything that was left over went into an envelope towards my bankroll. Only took a little over a month to have $2k set aside for the 1/1 game at the casino.
 
TimboJonez

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Use the money you earn from online freerolls to help support your live poker :).
 
dj11

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Cut coupons on a massive scale.

I once saw a gal using coupons go to the checkout with 2 fully filled baskets of food, and a folio full of coupons, and in the end she walked away with not only those 2 loads of groceries, but some cash back, It really did blow my mind. Easily $300.00 worth of groceries. Figure she did that once every 2 months. Hubby probably didn't know it.
 
wanderingthehall

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I play poker for fun, but my intention is to make a little money off of it. I don't care how much I make, but I don't want it to be a hobby that costs me money.

I enjoy MTTs, and that's what I want my focus to be. However, most of the places in my area are about an hour away, so I will also play live because I want to play for 6-8 hours when I go.

I've gone few times to play in the last year, but have either broken even or lost money. It was mostly just the variance of MTTs and a bad of cards, but I do need to work on my game. That comes with more practice/play and that takes money.

My concern isn't about finding the money to play with, but keeping my poker money separate from my life roll. Sure, I may have a couple hundred to sit down and play poker with, but that's 2 days of work I'm risking.

I have most of this week off before I will have life stuff that will keep me from playing for well over a month. I'll go ahead and keep playing for fun this week and hope to get lucky. After that, I'll just focus on my online game and start putting my online cashouts aside to build a live roll. No more using my own money for poker starting in 2 weeks. There are quite a few cheap MTTs around here <50 so I will only need to save roughly 1k before I play live again.
 
dj11

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Just wondering where you live that you have 'quite a few cheap MTT's <50'.

I live in the L.A. area and while there are usually daily MTT's in that range, I can't say quiet a few. You also suggest that on those days when you do play, you might do what I do, which is to start with an MTT and if things go south too soon, you stop over at the ring tables. Here in the L.A. area there are even occasional guaranteed freerolls. However they always have lots of add-ons and rebuys and a freeroll like that can easily cost $100. Never seen one that didn't easily cover the (typical) $5K guarantee.

So I will suggest that you do a more thorough job of understanding the structure of your tourney's. There is one at the Bicycle Club, called the Quantum Reload, that is the most convoluted structure I can imagine. Crazier than anything I have seen online.

I have sort of changed my mindset tho. On any day that I do a live MTT, I feel satisfied if I make the 2nd break, which is usually 4 hours of play. Last 3 times I was satisfied, and did not make the stop at the ring tables.

This plays into a developing concept about EBR (emotional bankroll). It is still fuzzy, but it involves my desire to play live in a way similar to my ability ($ wise) to play live. There is no doubt in my mind that if I could afford it, I would play an live MTT a day for the rest of my life. At least I would have that mental stimulus.

And because we all are meddling idiots, What does hubby think about your passion?
 
wanderingthehall

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Just wondering where you live that you have 'quite a few cheap MTT's <50'.

I live in the L.A. area and while there are usually daily MTT's in that range, I can't say quiet a few. You also suggest that on those days when you do play, you might do what I do, which is to start with an MTT and if things go south too soon, you stop over at the ring tables. Here in the L.A. area there are even occasional guaranteed freerolls. However they always have lots of add-ons and rebuys and a freeroll like that can easily cost $100. Never seen one that didn't easily cover the (typical) $5K guarantee.

So I will suggest that you do a more thorough job of understanding the structure of your tourney's. There is one at the Bicycle Club, called the Quantum Reload, that is the most convoluted structure I can imagine. Crazier than anything I have seen online.

I have sort of changed my mindset tho. On any day that I do a live MTT, I feel satisfied if I make the 2nd break, which is usually 4 hours of play. Last 3 times I was satisfied, and did not make the stop at the ring tables.

This plays into a developing concept about EBR (emotional bankroll). It is still fuzzy, but it involves my desire to play live in a way similar to my ability ($ wise) to play live. There is no doubt in my mind that if I could afford it, I would play an live MTT a day for the rest of my life. At least I would have that mental stimulus.

And because we all are meddling idiots, What does hubby think about your passion?

I'm actually in San Diego. I'm still in the process of checking out all of the local poker rooms. I'm willing to drive as far away as Lake Elsinore, so that gives me quite a few options. Usually, I'll play in an evening tourney. Since most of the buy-ins are so cheap, the structures are pretty crappy and play out fast. I like to stick around until 10-11 most nights. Even when I've chopped I've still had time to play. Most of the places don't have their structures online, so I'm giving everyplace a chance and getting a feel for each of the different rooms. Eventually, I will settle on 1-2 to make my poker home.

The freerolls I've seen around here require a minimum number of hours of cash game play. I would actually need more saved up to play the cash games to qualify then I would to just play the cheap tournaments.

I'm like you, in that I would love to play a live MTT everyday. If I didn't have to drive so far to play, I would be happy just playing my MTT and going home. Rake is so ridiculous here that I should be skipping the cash games anyways and just wait until I'm in Vegas.

My husband and I have a great thing going. He loves playing video games, and I love playing poker. So, we can sit on the couch next to each other for hours each doing our own gaming, spending time with each other, and we never worry about a spouse nagging us for our hobby!! 12 hour session on my day off?? No problem!!

He has reservations when it comes to how much I spend and time that I spend gambling that I could be spending with him. He's all for the way I play online, since I've built it from freerolls, but wouldn't support me making a big deposit.
He doesn't enjoy poker or gambling like I do, so he won't go to a casino with me unless we're in Vegas.

As far as money goes, I don't think he would be comfortable with me losing more than 200-300/mo of what I earn out of my paycheck. He also wouldn't want me giving up a day with him to play poker more than once every 2-3 months. He works until midnight on weeknights, so that actually leaves me plenty of time to sneak away and play while he's at work. :D It just means I have to skip the bigger weekend tournaments. If I were to build a bankroll that I kept separate from the rest of my finances, he wouldn't care if it was in the 1-3k range. Any more than that, and I think he would start wanting me to use it to pay off debt or put it towards a down payment for a house.
 
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twohaha

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I'm also trying to build a live bankroll... Try finding someone who can stake you. Say they give you 1k and you put in 1k, then you give him 50% of your winnings.
 
JPoling

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My husband and I have a great thing going. He loves playing video games, and I love playing poker. So, we can sit on the couch next to each other for hours each doing our own gaming, spending time with each other, and we never worry about a spouse nagging us for our hobby!! 12 hour session on my day off?? No problem!!
Damn that's all I have to do? Guess I should give up poker and tell my girlfriend to start playing for me instead :p haha:D
 
dino

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hi,

I was always much better playing live than online.

I would suggest to use that money you build it from your online account and use it.
Worst case scenario, you can always go back to build your BR online.
Why not.

Try it out and I wish you good luck.
 
jazzaxe

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If you plan on building a live poker bankroll from nothing you are going to need a lot of luck. Win lose or draw, put a regular amount aside for poker each week. On the weeks you don't play, your bankroll will grow. If you don't have a lot, play online until your live broll grows to the point where you can play. Then play by the standard bankroll rules a good player uses. Another good tip is not to borrow money for your bankroll from a Mafia wiseguy.
 
F

fordman427

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I am still under the age of 21 but when that day comes I hope to be able to start a bankroll to play live cash games and tournaments.
 
tbdbitl

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I would recommend paying off that debt at the same time that you are building a BR. Find your vices and reduce them. Look for areas that you are wasting money. Sell things that you have that you don't need. Eat out less and take your lunch to work.

as for myself, I quit smoking. with a carton a week expense, it didn't take long to build a bankroll.

Good Luck!
 
wanderingthehall

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I would recommend paying off that debt at the same time that you are building a BR. Find your vices and reduce them. Look for areas that you are wasting money. Sell things that you have that you don't need. Eat out less and take your lunch to work.

as for myself, I quit smoking. with a carton a week expense, it didn't take long to build a bankroll.

Good Luck!

My vice is poker. ;)
 
P

pokieman04

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What I would do, which exactly is what I am doing now.I would keep grinding online and keep trying to build your bankroll and pay of debt at the same time. Once you get the debt down some if you do end up catching a bad run, losing won't hit you as hard...and by then you may be able to withdraw some of your poker winnings from online
 
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DoloBrolo

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The truth is a proper BR is going to be hard to build without a reasonable initial investment. When I began saving for my first live session I cut a few comfort expenses and put the money towards building a BR to begin with.
 
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