From $100 to $240 to 0.

So I joined Bovada with the intentions of building my bank roll. I started at the 0.02/0.05 Games, and quickly turned my $100 to $150. Then I got Balsy and buyed in a $20 tournament, and won first place $90.

Then I started going 1 v 1 with $50, one the first, then lost twice in a row.
And slowly i started entering big tournaments trying to Chase my losses, the $140 it took 3 hours for me to build, not only went away, but also my own $100 in the span of 1 hour.

So my question is. What should I have done as soon as I got the $240 bank roll? Was that pure luck, and should i have never even attempted that?
What would you say is the best way to build a bank roll tournaments or cash games? And should I stick with the 10% of my bank rule at all times? I'm afraid my next $100 deposit im going to want to do that again and try to make it $240, otherwise with strict roll management it will take me forever.

Opinions? Tips?

You played out of bankroll, this is in my opinion the BIGGEST leak in the majority of peoples play.

For online, in essence you want 100 buy ins of the stakes you're playing.

It will take a lot of time to build your BR using a good BR management scheme, but you will avoid situations like the one you have just described.

I prefer cash games to build us your BR, but keep in mind you should have about 20 Buyins (at least) for whatever stake you are playing. So for $100, .02/.05 is good. At $240 you could move to .05/.10.

If you go the tournament route, with $100 you should only do the $1 tournaments, though if you are feeling balsy you might through in an occasional $2 one.

The story you described happened to me also. I built up a $20 bankroll from solely playing freerolls and decided I wanted to play some real money games. Being completely naive about the importance of bankroll management, I bought into an $11 tournament. I didn't cash, and then lost the remaining $9 on casino games trying to cut my losses. After losing my entire bankroll, I followed a strict bankroll management approach and I now currently have a $120 bankroll without having deposited. The key to strict bankroll management is that you shouldn't gamble with money you can't afford to lose. As soon as you had the $240, you should of played SNG's. Ideally with SNG's you don't want to use more than 1% of your bankroll at any one time. I would of played $2.40/50 SNG's until I reached $350 and then I would of played $3.50 SNG's until I reached $700. Hope this helps.

1st mistake playing $20 tournament with only $150
To play $20 you need $1000 about 50 buyins

As for Cash 20 buyins is the minimum so $100 playing 2c/5c is ok but ideally you should have ben playing 1c/2c

In brazil we have a saying that says "you are gonna trying to do the step bigger than your legs"...

Im sure thats happened to most of us
and I hope most of us have learned proper bankroll management because of it,
you want 50-100 buyins for any game, or risk going broke again and again
gl on the next run

That makes a lot of sense guys. Thanks so much. With a stricter bank roll, how long would I be able to turn $100 to a $4,000 a month income? Give me a lucky situation as in the fastest, and the strictest situation if im a decent poker player and reach that milestone at a slow but average rate.
I'm taking a break from cash games but will deposit another $100 and try again this weekend. Thanks guys.

AKPOKER said:

That makes a lot of sense guys. Thanks so much. With a stricter bank roll, how long would I be able to turn $100 to a $4,000 a month income? Give me a lucky situation as in the fastest, and the strictest situation if im a decent poker player and reach that milestone at a slow but average rate.
I'm taking a break from cash games but will deposit another $100 and try again this weekend. Thanks guys.

Click to expand...

Lucky: Cash in a large field multi-table tournament for $48,000. That averages to $4k a month for 1 year before taxes.

Stricter: Grind your $100 bankroll from the micro stakes to a bankroll sufficient for something like 400NL ring games online. Be able to win at those stakes over a large amount of hands for 2 big blinds per 100 hands ($8/100 hands). Play 50k hands per month (600,000 hands per year) and maintain that win rate throughout. That's $4k a month before taxes (assuming my math is correct, sometimes it's not ). That's not including any rake-back or other bonuses you may have. Of course you can go to higher stakes than that, but you'll have to do your own math to figure out what that would take.

Giving a timetable on either of those situations is pretty much impossible imo. There are lots of different factors such as how well you play, how much you can play, how variance is treating you at any given time, etc. For a beginner, I'd say it would take several years and tons of work both on and off the tables. As an already accomplished player, it would probably take less time. Again, I don't think anyone is able to tell you personally how long that would take.

yep it happens I took a bankroll or 0 won a freeroll won 1st won 2.25 on ACR
took that into a .55 tourney won 1st place won 14.25 played a 1$ demand took first won 97$ was over 100 stayed at the 25 gtd for .55c buying was doing great there then lost it all in 3 days of cash games playing to many toruneys at same time and just being stupid well time to build it up again

I think your original post pretty much sums up your problem. You are jumping into games that are too big for your bank roll and then you are chasing your losses. You need to figure out what your bankroll is going to be, set yourself a limit to risk at a time, and stick to it. My best recommendation is any time you think you are going to chase a loss, DON'T PLAY. You usually will end up losing much more trying to get it back.