130 $ Bankroll "How to start?"

Hey guys,

well, after finishing school soon I intend to invest 100 Euro (about 130 $) into poker. My question to you guys is how to start. My goals are obviously increasing my BR. I intend to increase it to about 500 $ in say about 3 months.
My experience with poker have been playing low stakes with friends (about 4 $) and up to now i have made about 100 $. Also I have been playing with play money online (pokerstars / of course i know this is not the real deal, but can anybody tell me if there are any similarities between the play money SnGs and cash game SnGs???).
My questions to you guys are:
1. Are my goals realistic?
2. How should i structure my BR?
3. What games shall I play, what games am I to keep away from?
4. Other tips???

Well, that was all and I hope to get a lot of replies!
Thank you!

P.S.
I play Texas Holdem
Preferably NL

You will find a big difference between play and real money.My suggestion would be to start at the lowest limits you can find and build from there.

It all depends. Are you more of a tournament player or cash?

If its cash, i'd say go with the lowest you can buy into. If it's tournies go with the lowest you can buy into. Hehe. Take your time and learn the game. Don't rush it. I would say setting a goal of almost 5x'ing your BR in 3 months is setting the bar too high if you have little experience. Don't worry about what you can make yet. Just worry about learning and even breaking even for 3 months is a good start honestly. The money comes with time. For now its all about honing your game and learn fundamentals. Gl with your future endeavors, however you choose to play

Edit: And as steve said, play money doesn't translate to real money. The highest, tippy top highest stakes Play money somewhat translates to real money, but thats about it.

1) If you are dedicated and do some decent learning and grinding I think you can easy hit that goal.

2) I do not know if you are playing turbo or if you are not or if this is all the money you are willing to invest so I do not know. Lets say you are going to play the 1.50 sngs, you are paying a higher % of rake to the site playing these so you want to move on as soon as your roll allows.

One school of thought is 100 buyins for the level you are on and then 10 buyins for the next level for taking a shot. This is good for playing a few tables of turbos. Turbos are good because they get you too the critical push/fold stage of sngs faster but they may be harder to deal with for a starter

3) I started at the 18 man games but I would start at the 9 man games if I could do it again.

4) Study basic sng concepts to start with, position, bet sizing, late game and bubble play.

Pokertron3000 said:

1) If you are dedicated and do some decent learning and grinding I think you can easy hit that goal.

2) I do not know if you are playing turbo or if you are not or if this is all the money you are willing to invest so I do not know. Lets say you are going to play the 1.50 sngs, you are paying a higher % of rake to the site playing these so you want to move on as soon as your roll allows.

One school of thought is 100 buyins for the level you are on and then 10 buyins for the next level for taking a shot. This is good for playing a few tables of turbos. Turbos are good because they get you too the critical push/fold stage of sngs faster but they may be harder to deal with for a starter

3) I started at the 18 man games but I would start at the 9 man games if I could do it again.

4) Study basic sng concepts to start with, position, bet sizing, late game and bubble play.

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3k post! Congrats :congrats: arty:

Blobweird123 said:

3k post! Congrats :congrats: arty:

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Great advice here. I agree that Turbo Sit & Go's will allow you to learn the fastest along with increasing your BR to where you want to be. Also, play cheap satellites to get a feel for the bigger touraments with more players. It's a cheap way to get experience, but know that the players are going to be a lot looser in the cheap S & Gos and cheap tourneys.

For 'learning' the game as a new player I think you'd be better off to play in the 'regular' speed SNG's (instead of Turbo) & avoid Hyper-turbo.

As was already mentioned, focus on learning & improving as opposed to picking some $ goal you're shooting for (it's not realistic in most cases, unless you're putting in a fair bit of work (study, read, review, etc.). Be happy to break-even (< this might even be a stretch for awhile at first).

Once you've played for awhile you'll have a much better idea of what sort of $ goals you can hope to achieve (but even then the goal should be 'work on getting better' and 'how much volume you can play').

gl

Read some poker books and watch some video's of winning players both live and online. Don't forget to post some hand histories so you can get input from the community here. Good luck with your poker goals!

guys, thank u very much for all the advice.
to summarize, i think i am going to start with small sngs and then slowly work my way up.
now that all of u say that my first goal should be improving my skill level i think i will focus on keeping my bankroll even an i will see wheather i can slowly improve

I'll give you some advice from a loosing player so you can avoid making the same mistakes I did, and based on your post it seems you were thinking the same way I was thinking when I started.

First of all scratch your idea of increasing your bankroll, like that other guy said if you are broken even after 3 months you are doing better then most players do when they first start. Setting these high standards for yourself will make it feel like you are not accomplishing anything even when you are doing good. When you feel unaccomplished after dumping in so many hours it cause you to go on tilt easier (which is what happened to me). Maybe you are stronger willed then I am and setting these high standards will help you, but for me it ended disastrously and I had to quit playing for a while.

Pretty much after months of hard work and really trying to improve my game I slowly but surely burned my 200$ bankroll. If it were not for the tilt factor I probably would have been break even, but my small wins amounted to nothing next to my foolishly big looses. After about four months of playing I burned my bankroll twice over and decided to cut my losses and quit.

I was one of the lucky ones though, because I did get back to playing 10$ tournaments a few times a month and ended up hitting big on one ($1100). That covered my looses and gave me a free bankroll to work with and that's what I'm currently working with now. Since then I've more or less been breaking even, I've been reading books and trying to up my game. I've accepted that I'm not going to turn the tables and becoming a winning player in a matter of months and this acceptance has me taking my looses with much more grace. I cant tell you how to become a winning player because I'm not there myself yet, but I'm reading books and studying the game and I certainly feel a huge improvement in my play.

So moral of the story, take your time and just enjoy the night of fun you get for the 5$ buy in that you may or may not loose. Read some books and search for advice wherever you can find it.

Bovada $109 $15K guaranteed to start with and if you don't cash in that, piss the rest away on 21, that way youll have gotten your first "going busto" out of the way. Its kinda a right of passage, you need to get past.

And the quality of play will be what you can expect in future games, real games, that is, games worth playing.

And if you do well in the first tournament, youll be on your way.

:smokin:

teeworlds112 said:

guys, thank u very much for all the advice.
to summarize, i think i am going to start with small sngs and then slowly work my way up.
now that all of u say that my first goal should be improving my skill level i think i will focus on keeping my bankroll even an i will see wheather i can slowly improve

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Good idea, it's never a good idea to hurry up and lose money. CAmurray is just being funny I'm sure.

atlantafalcons0 said:

Good idea, it's never a good idea to hurry up and lose money. CAmurray is just being funny I'm sure.

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:call:

Regarding play money SNG's.

IF you are playing the highest buy-in play money games, you will find approximately the same game as a $5 buy in SNG. To be playing those games you will have accumulated at bare min, 100K play chips.

Anything less than those highest buy-in play money games are representative of nothing.

well, the thing is that those high buy in (playmoney) cash games are very very easy. u just have to wait for a good hand and shove and so will call with 94 off.
do u mean the high buy in sngs?

well, seeing as i can't PM u, thanks alot for ur message
Poker Orifice
I am now regularly watching sngs online.
But i have a question. Is there any specific player i could follow/watch on pokerstars woh plays alot of sngs and is successful?

cash games...start at the lowest stakes with $5 buyin and work from there! Tournaments $5 or lower as your buyins! Until your bankroll start increasing.

The reality of online poker is very different from the perceptions people have when they first get into it. Its a very difficult game to beat. Start at the smallest stakes, use brm and best of luck.

teeworlds112 said:

well, seeing as i can't PM u, thanks alot for ur message
Poker Orifice
I am now regularly watching sngs online.
But i have a question. Is there any specific player i could follow/watch on pokerstars woh plays alot of sngs and is successful?

Click to expand...

You might be able to view a players success via sharkscope, or www.officialpokerrankings.com/

Not sure how this will help you unless you find a winning player at the stakes you can play. What works in high money STT's &MTT's won't always work the same in low money games. And visa versa.

Why do you need 500$? What will you do with your money? Do you invest it and will receive passive income for the end of life?

Play .10 .25 cash game and buy in for 1/2 table max amont ,thats so your swings aint as bad .It has worked for me for years and when u get your acct. double take 1/2 of your winning and start over.

Play the smallest games available. You want to be risking the smallest % of your bankroll at a time ESPECIALLY when you are just starting out. 5% of your BR should be the maximum you are sitting with at a ring game. Also - don't over extend yourself with multi tabling. Learn the flow of opponents at whatever level you are playing before even considering it. Multitabling takes away from your knowledge of the specific styles/moves of an opponent. The more tables you have open, the more you are relying on cards alone. In the lowest stake ring games there will be a mix of strong TAG players with a school of fish as well. It is possible to mass multitable successfully at these limits but it takes a lot of discipline. Also, with low stakes SNGS (9 max): I recommend playing extremelyyyyyy tight through the early stages. After approx 3-5 players drop out (depending how tight the table is) I'd start opening up my range. By this time you have a tight table image and can begin to steal a lot of chips both preflop and with most C bets. When you get low don't be afraid to shove PF from LP into an unopened pot with a wide range. Just don't do it too often and make sure to do the same with your monsters. Don't let your stack dwindle away to nothing waiting on a huge hand. Make plays. So long as you play TAG you should yield a decent ROI in $1-$2 sngs no problem.

Sorry for long and somewhat over detailed post.. new at posting here. My mind just took off in many directions once I started typing!

Goooood Luck!

1) Start small
2) Limit your play
3) Make daily targets & stop losses(don't play beyond them)
4) Play micro tourneys/sitngos(plan to last longer & gain experience)
5) And if you're planning to make online deposit for first time, do check out poker sites where they might give you upto 100% first deposit bonus.
6) Good Luck

for me the best way to increase your bankroll : never play more than 4 % of your bankroll.

mfd

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