I can't seem to build my bankroll!

Hey everyone,

It's my first post here so "Hello" to you all

I'm looking for some advice from you more experienced players, I've been playing online poker for about 3-4 months now, not very serious. Everything I know about poker has been learnt in these months so I'm sure you realise I am not experienced.

For the first couple months I deposited $200 into my full tilt account, I did it $50 at a time, at this point it was really just to learn the game and maybe win some money, well, I lost it quickly but really enjoyed the game and learnt quite fast.

Now I have got a bonus of $50 into my Titan Poker account for joining through another site, I want to turn this into a seriou bankroll, however, I'm finding it hard to build it.

I got the bonus around two weeks ago, I've been playing maybe an hour every day and guess what...it's still at $50!

I just seem to go up down up down.

I play pretty much only 6-10 player sng's, $1 buy-in, the prize in these is very small but I figure I have to build it up slowly as it's so little.

I know the obvious answer might be that I'm just not good enough yet.

Can you guy's share some advice with me about this situation, think if you had just start playing poker and you had a very small bankroll, how would you progress?

Thanks a lot and btw, been reading the posts here and the info is absolutely great ;-)

1.) you going to be losing some money because your inexperienced
2.) try some micro limit cash games
3.) try some tourneys
4.) try to play tight if not expand your play

hope that helps you.

I would suggest getting into some of the large freerolls that take place on all the sites (poker stars, full tilt, ultimate bet, etc). Yeah, it's donk fest for the first hour or so, but that will help you minimized your mistakes. Try and make it a point of just surviving the first hour. Once you can consistently do that, try and make it to the money. The first hour is learning how to profit off idiocy, and the rest of the tourneys usually provide decent play since all the donks are gone by that point.

Suckouts will always happen from time to time, but if you are playing smart, you should still be able to consistently place in the top 10% of the freerolls. Once you can do that, then I would say start playing the micro games for real money. Until then though, I would say don't spend any more cash than you need to.

Sit n gos are probly to go or mtt if you are good at tournies but mabey since you have little expperience practice with play money and read poker strategies and mabey if you read Chris Fergusons challenge how he went from zero to 10k

In my opinion, I think the best way to improve quickly, and build your bankroll would be to buy a couple books, and add micro limit tournaments and freerolls to your list of games. I don't know what tournaments titan has, but I'm sure they have some low $1-$3 tournaments that have a payout that you would be happy with at this level.

I think it's fairly easy to make some money just by playing in the tight aggressive style that most books would tell you to play in, and if you are disciplined enough to stick to a super tight game for the first hour or two, you should come out ahead a good percentage of the time.

Hey guys,

Thanks a lot for the advice, I was just getting frustrated that I kept on playing but never seemed to increase my bankroll, I will take your advice and try to get better.

Cheers

well in response to ur question pocket jacks i must say that due to ur in expericen u r going to lose money but instead of putting 5 to 10 dollars into sit n gos i say u buy into a 10 max cash game and pkay real tight its pretty much imposible to lose unless you get a bad beat only play prime hands like a pocket pair or ace 10 or better this should help alot becasue most of the peoeple on there in those games are just as experienced as you are, anotehr helpful hint is to try to deposit into bodog.com this is the easiest csh ive ever made mainly becasue they are all sportbetters and not poker players they just tryi ti every once in a while., well gl man

Break even is a good start Many never get there. Keep in mind you ARE beating the game just not the rake (as if that makes you feel better).

If you enjoy tournys keep at it. If you are unsure of your skill refer to the SnG guides available here or elsewhere. Take advantage of freerolls too. No down side.

As far as getting better, you're doing the right thing. Join in here and other places, discus the game with friends etc... And READ! Books, articles, whatever you can get your hands on.

Your progress won't be linear but more of a roller coaster. A slow grind up then a freefall, only to start going up again. Just hang on and keep your head.

Good luck!

goldog

Welcome to the forum.

Reading books and internet sites is quite useful, and as already stated, breaking even isn't so bad to start.


If you really want to improve, you've got to review your previous sessions, look for where you might have misplayed hands, and better yet, post them here and see what more experienced players have to say about how you played the hand.

ya i would say maybe even practice with play money a little which sometimes can help u learn, maybe read some books. but 1 really good tihng i have noticed from u already is not getting in over ur head. i use the chris ferguson experiment rules, only up to 5% of ur BR in SnG's and Ring Games and only up to 2% in MTT's

o by getting in over ur head i meant, u r not spending a lot of BR on games which is good thing! haha

I had this problem early on. Biggest problem I had was depositing a lot of small amounts ($30 - $50) at a time, instead of making 1 good deposit.

I also went straight to $5+ 6-player SnGs which was either a win or lose my bankroll type of thing. So my main suggestion, deposit a nice amount ($200+) one time and just go to micro limits and try ~4 tables.

Try to play only premium hands, try to play smart, and see how you do. Do not try and play every hand because it is cheap, if you are limping into most hands then there is probably a problem.

Not sure what to say but I was in this same situation and when I finally got out of it and did a withdraw, I had no way of depositing any more

Good luck to you and hope you succeed