The early stages of building a bankroll from nothing.

I am in the process of trying to build a bankroll from nothing by playing Fun Steps and freerolls. I started about a month or two ago on Blue Chip. I won $3 from freerolls, and brought that up to just over $7 by playing double up tourneys and 4NL cash games. A series of bad beats brought me down to under a dollar. I then lost everything but $0.11 playing in the .10 + 0.01 super turbos. Now that Blue Chip has left Merge, I can't use that remaining $0.11. So I just signed up to Carbon in order to get back to the Fun Steps.

I am curious as to what may be the best strategy for playing the early steps of bankroll building. A vast majority of the money I lost was by getting the money in with the best hand, then getting sucked out on. I wonder if it is better to just be super nitty in the beginning. The biggest pot I lost on that downswing was to someone on a flush draw, while I had a set. We got the money in on the turn (I figured he was on the flush draw, and was right), and he got his flush on the river. I'm sorry this is kind of vague, as I don't have the hand details. Do you think it may be better to try and keep the pot somewhat small in order to avoid variance? All it takes is two or three bad beats to lose your bankroll when you only have a couple of bucks.

So I guess my main question is, is it better to try and avoid getting your money in when your opponent is clearly on a draw? At the lower levels they will rarely fold. If I keep the pot small in these instances, I will have a better chance of not losing my bankroll when they do hit their card. Since there is so little money to be playing with, should I only be getting my money in when I have the nuts? Or is this crazy, and I should just be playing like I would with a larger bankroll, and just try to start from zero again if I lose? What say you?

Playing 4nl with $7 you are likely to go bust as you risk such a huge chunk of your roll on one game and potentially, one hand. Better to stick to the micro SNGs and freerolls.

I wouldn't really advise playing 4nl with less than $80.

Focus on improving your game. This is something you can directly control, and if you make yourself better than your opponents, your roll will grow naturally. Focusing on growing your roll instead isn't much of an idea since it's not within your direct control, not in the short term anyway.

I would stick with those SNGs and MTTs and try and get a good cash or two before playing any cash games. There's too much risk in losing the whole role to a cash table with just 7$ I'm currently in the same boat, I'm freerolling it on aced, carbon, and juicy stakes, and soon to be on bovada as well when i get into the cardschat freerolls. I'm gonna work on all these sites to build my bank with the freerolls and im not sitting cash tables until i have 50buyins . Had my money up to 11$ on carbon and lost a bunch playing cash PLO from gettin sucked out on (PLO probably my best game). I know it's hard to not play cash but hand in there with the mtts and sngs and you'll have a roll in no time

MIShroomer47 said:

I would stick with those SNGs and MTTs and try and get a good cash or two before playing any cash games.

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Don't play mtt's with a 7 dollar roll.

doomasiggy said:

Don't play mtt's with a 7 dollar roll.

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what's wrong with the .25c and .60c MTTs? best return for investment ratio at the lowest stakes?


edit: in a .25c tourny now top 3 $10.20 $6.80 $3.40 for a quarter... pretty sure he can play those games

I have found that play as if you would with a bigger roll. All you can ask is to be ahead when all the money is in and hope for the best. I have been on a terrible run as of late and lost my roll on Juicystakes to almost nothing but I have found is that the hands that you are getting sucked out on will change in your favor as long as you stay patient. The trick is to play a lot when you are running good and try to stay away when you are losing those hands that you should have won. I know it is hard and I should take my own advice as I said my roll is gone on Juicy for this reason. K's vs A's Q's vs A6 and A8 off and so on but still continued to put more money on to the table. Stay patient it'll turn for ya.

MIShroomer47 said:

what's wrong with the .25c and .60c MTTs? best return for investment ratio at the lowest stakes?

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What's wrong with them is two words: massive variance.

Even with a 25c tournament you've still only got less than 30 buyins. The nature of MTTs is that you bust most of them and hopefully win big occasionally to offset that. With a tiny bankroll, chances are you'll bust most of them without cashing, maybe get a few small cashes in the others, and then you're busto again. You have to get really, really lucky to hit a big win. This is less of an issue in STTs and cash games.

FWIW OP, my suggestions here: https://www.cardschat.com/forum/learning-poker-57/building-baby-bankroll-181238/

wushuguy said:

I am in the process of trying to build a bankroll from nothing by playing Fun Steps and freerolls. I started about a month or two ago on Blue Chip. I won $3 from freerolls, and brought that up to just over $7 by playing double up tourneys and 4NL cash games. A series of bad beats brought me down to under a dollar. I then lost everything but $0.11 playing in the .10 + 0.01 super turbos. Now that Blue Chip has left Merge, I can't use that remaining $0.11. So I just signed up to Carbon in order to get back to the Fun Steps.

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This is not an answer to your main question but some general advice on buildning from a tiny bankroll. I'm in the same position you are trying to build a BR from just a few bucks that I've won in freerolls. I have played lots of double up SNGs which I like partly because it's easier to multi table and partly because I find it's less variance. However, at most sites the lowest double up SNGs you'll find is $1 buy in ($0.5 buy-in is the lowest I've found anyways). Even though it's less variance it is still way too much for a $7 bankroll for example, I have lost quite a few BR under $10 playing $1 double ups. I realized I had to try the lowest regular SNGs but I felt it made the building too slow after having played the $1 double ups. Of course the down swings were less damaging too but I was boored so I went on to the turbos and super turbos, same buy-in. This was also not a good idea since there's obviously much more variance in those. Anyways, I'm now back to regular 10 handed SNG's with a 0.1+0.01 buy-in. Sure, I'm bored out of my mind but my bankroll is slowely but surely growing. I've built from $0.5 to $4 in a few days so I'm definitely sticking to these for now.

These are just my experiences, hope you find a way that works for you!

Thanks for the replies everyone. I still haven't got the money to start with yet, but I have quite the collection of Step 2's and Step 3's. I'm just waiting for a time when I can actually play without distraction. The problem with Carbon is that the lowest stakes available for SNG's are the .1+.01 Super Turbos. The variance with those is too much for me, so I will probably avoid them (except for a fun game every now and then). I think my best bet may be the double up tourneys, and possibly limit holdem, though I have never played limit. Carbon really isn't too friendly to those with the tiny stacks. We'll see how it goes...

Carbon offers micro mtt's at 8 pm est for 11 and 27 cents. First place is like 8 bucks for one and like 3-4 for the other. You are right though there micro tourneys are limited. I usually play the .02-.04 cent NLHE cash but you have to watch because with a low stack like the min buy in of a 1.20 some players will try and bully you. Good Luck on the felts!

I had no idea about those micro mtt's. Thanks for the heads up. I'm sure I'll play in those every once in a while. Good luck to you as well .

Keep grinding free rolls build a roll by doing that, then play maybe 5NL once you have enough maybe 100 bucks

You would do better to play freerolls up to a Bankroll of at least 50 Dollars

I recently had gotten 5 $5 buy in tournament tickets from bovada,more less access to5 free rolls.I guess bovada was trying to promote their site to new players.Anyhow I played my 5 tickets and won a tourney paying me like $106 for 1st place.I played hard and moved that bank roll up to $400 then started playing higher entry fee tourneys is where I messed up.I was playing too big of tourneys for my bank roll.My bank roll went from $400 back down to $189.I had to get back in control of my bankroll quick or I was going to go broke.A few card dead tourneys can break u fast & every poker player goes through losing streaks.I had read an article on bank roll management and its changed my game.I started playing smaller buy in tourneys 5% of my bank roll buy in.I have been sticking to it.My bank roll has increased to over $1,000 .I am by no means ,I am not a pro player but I am a good solid player.The best thing about this bank roll management is IT WORKS.So I like free rolls and they an get stress full but playing them with solid hands and making good reads on players & managing your bank roll ,they can pay off .

I started playing poker this summer and now again that I'm on break from school. This is how I currently play freerolls.

Early rounds

[First 3 blind levels]:
Avoid pre-flop all-ins unless you have a premium hand. Try to avoid all-ins when there are more than two other players jumping in unless you have the nuts.

Play your premium hands aggressively. Beware that premium hands are not unbeatable, but are the favorites to win in most cases.

I overplay a bit and see as many flops as I can while it's cheap and I have decent hole cards.

I limp in if I am the big blind. If there is a raise and I don't have a good starting hand I fold.

[Rest of time until Final Table]:

After that I play really tight and only play good starting hands. Which is pairs AA - 88 (Sometimes I can get away with lower pairs if there aren't that many players in the pot). AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ, QJ (It's better if these a suited). AX (Only when suited).

I watch out for players sitting out and if no one else calls their blinds I do because it's an easy steal of blinds cause the automatically fold. I make I know they are not there cause it could be bad if I call and hit nothing then I lose chips unnecessarily.

So far playing like this has gotten me to the bubble (1-3 spots away from being in a paid position) the majority of the time and twice in the money. My downfall has been not following the strategy all the way through. When I get a big stack and the blinds are in the thousands it's easy to lose most of your chips off of one bad play. After that, with the blinds being so high it's either all-in or nothing and if I don't get good hole cards before the blinds catch up to me then I don't play and end up out.

In the end I say pick a strategy and stick to it all the way through. Good luck out there I hope I helped.

Do as you like ,but like some of the others here have said 11 bucks is really too soon to try and play the cash games stick to the freerolls until you aquire at least 50 dollars ,I personally wait til I get more near a 100 . Patince is the Key to building a bankroll from nothing PATIENCE!!!!!!!!!!!

yes anything under 100 is pointless on cash games of any type. low limit mtt's are were its at

I have found the best is micro SnGs. The MTTs are a lottery combined with a donkfest.

At the SnGs one big pot might lose you chips, but you keep your bankroll safe buy only commiting a small percentage of your bankroll at any one time.

micro s&g is good to begin with. MTT at micro stakes are a poor return even with minimal investment. the chance of cashing in on these donk fests is next to nil in larger fields.I don't consider three hours in return for pennies to be even decent recreation, let alone profit.

Within what your BR can support, play whatever game or mix you enjoy. As I said before, your main focus if you have a tiny roll, assuming you want to move up, is improving your game so you can move up. Whether you might make more in the short term by playing a different game isn't nearly as important because in the long run, you stand to win a lot more money by moving up than by switching games at the same level.

i think any mtt that has a starting chip stack of $500 and sometimes even $1,000 are just a lottery shoot out and it's an all in or nothing kind of thing.

game selection is absoloutely key.
You especially want to play standard blinds because players will be making alot of mistakes so you have more time to play and make chips,

I made $150 this week at 888 starting from Zero. Say for example you have $7 you can afford to take 2 shots which is what I did if I lost I still have $5.00 as a BR.

so I took a shot in a $1.00 40 player mtt and played a $1 Stt , I won both fortunately which allowed me to move up.

This is what you then do -

You play 2 tables, 1 table is your bankroll feeder (small sit n go)
The other table is your shot taker (mtt)

you should be good enough at the lowest levels to keep cashing in a weak sit n go if your solid, this keeps our bankroll at say $10.00

on table 2 we keep taking shots for maybe $1 in mtts until we win the mtt which shouldn't be too hard to do we then have a bankroll of around 20.00.
We do this one more time and then move up and shot take at a $3 40 man mtt.
We can also play 1 cash table as a feeder table instead of a sit n go (if you dont like stt)

Avoid playing more than two tables until the bankroll grows to over $100 then you can potentially start playing cash games or whatever you like to do.
I've tried cash grinding but shot taking is by far the quickest way to assemble a bankroll to 3 figures

I've also started out on merge, first getting the dollar and playing 11 cent super turbos. They were extremely soft two years ago, the fish all played too tight and all you had to do was use sng wizard to find a way to exploit them. And limping PF with AA and KK XD.

I think it's best to play your usual game, as if you had a large bankroll. Don't let your small bankroll get to head.

I recommend using all the ten fun step 1 tickets every day, even if you can't play, just sign up for the tournament and leave, hoping that the noobs take each other out. Multitable those as many as you can.

Once you get 3 dollars or more, you can mass multitable super turbos or double or nothing SNG. You could play cash games, but you'll probably need more money and the chances of going busto are much higher. I've heard that DoNs are much lower variance, so maybe find some info on that. Regardless, there is a BIG chance that you will go bust. I only busted once, but it can happen many many times. You have to be willing to take that chance, and continue improving your game. I think things get more stable once you get something like 50 buy-in for ST or 20 buy-ins for DoN, you can start applying bankroll management. Now, you can try taking shots at micro buy-in tournaments, or higher buy-in sng/cash games.

can anyone describe how to access the fun step tourneys on carbon?

i watched a youtube video where it was shown that 'fun step' was under the promotions tab, but it's not there now