Low Bankroll Strategy

[csvking]

I'm looking for advice on the "best" way to increase my bankroll if I only have about $50 to start in NLHE. I'm a solid tight/aggressive player but I can't seem to choose between sng's, tourny's, or low level cash game. I'm not even sure if that's enough to really give the .05/.10 tables a go. What do you suggest??

 

[4Aces]

No $50 is not enough to give the .05/.10 tables a go. atm i only have about $40 on stars and i built that up from scratch. I dont only play nlhe, but i do play quite alot of it and these are the games i play.

limit .10/.20 and buy in for $4.
limit .5/.10 and buyin for $2
nl .01/0.02 and buyin for $1.50 (usually multitable)
nl .02/.05 and buy in for $3.50

I only play the $1 and $3 sngs and sometimes play the 45 player sngs

I dont usally play much tournies but if i do then they would only be $1 or $2 buyins.

Just patient and dont risk too much of your BR at anytime, and you should do fine. Ive withdrawn $200 to $300 multiple times without ever putting any of my own money online. It can be done gl.

 

[vanquish]

Back when I was starting out, I just played cheap SNGs. You can build quite a BR that way, if you're patient and disciplined.

 

[katymaty]

easiest way to build bankroll is patience and dont be greedy.

big problem at the really low levels there are so many fish and they often catch which is very frustrating.

But if you are patient luck will even itself out and you should make a profit, just dont go on tilt when you get a bad beat because you will encounter quite a few.

Also low level sit n gos can be profitable as alot of people are quite aggressive sit tight and eventually you will get some nice hands. Sometimes you can fold most hands except premium ones even if you are getting low stacked and get in the money

 

[Crocodile King]

Id like to suggest bodog's beginner SnGs.
They pay to the top 5 players.
They start as low a $2.

 

[Kenzie 96]

God, I hate to say anything good about Bodog, but I agree that the beginner SNG's are a good way to go. As Katy said, just sit back play only premium hands & practice taking notes so when you get close to the bubble you will have a good idea what kind of players you are facing. Good luck.

 

[Crocodile King]

This is part of another post I made....

I recently was teaching my nephew how to play poker. I thought it would be a
good way to help him with his math (yes he is a minor) (and yes it did help him
with his math).

I taught him some basics and gave him 2 books to read, Sklansky's Theory of
Poker and Sklansky's Small Stakes Hold Em.

I let him watch me play some first and made sure he knew what the outs and odds
were before I let him play.

His first game / lesson "The Importance of Tightness".
Put him in a $2 beginner SnG and said we are not going to play ANY hands and
lets see if we make it to the $$$.
( it doesnt get tighter than that)
For those who dont know these beginner SnGs pay top 5 out of 10.
Sure enough players killed each other off and we made it to the $$$ without
playing a hand.

Every game after I opened him up to more and more hands that he could play.

Kenzie what dont you like about Bodog?
They are cheap on bonus and can only play 3 rooms.
I like the way it plays. I like the table spinning to my position.
I hate the cartoon look of other sites.

 

[eyetrace]

I'm a Bodog boy, I had to deal with there customer service today, and he was really nice, pacient, and made me feel like he was going to get my probem solved even if he had to work. I felt so special... Any ways. Every site has ups and downs. I don't know why every one says play the STT. I guess it works out nicely, and you get paid top five tables. But I don't like the idea that in STT a guy can just get a good chip stack and then log out and coast into second place. Take away money from you just because your playing and he is sitting out. I started with 50, 10% bonues. I play ring .05 .10 and I do fine. I don't have what I would call a workable bank roll, and I can't cash out anything that would be worth it. But if you stay pacient there is money people are just trying to give you on Bodog. And if you are going to do a ring game on Bodog, make sure you have about three hours to devote to it. That way you can chase you losses.

 

[Crocodile King]

Myself I would prefer to play ring games over SnGs. In a SnG I may not get cards and blinds are growing. In a ring game Im in no race against the blinds and Im patient (3 rooms at a time helps with patients).

My Bodog bank roll is about $1400 (took a big loss yesterday was almost $1600). I started with $500 for the bonus, earned it and cashed out my $500. I did make another deposit when they had some special extra bonus offer but it was only for $100. I played mostly SnGs in the begining with very little growth for months (BR around $200) then I went to ring games. In ring games my tight SnG game really paid off. I went from $200 to almost $1000 in about 4 months playing mostly $10 rooms.

Now Im playing $25 rooms and sometimes higher. To the most part Im doing well. Got greedy / curious yesterday and tried the $100 rooms and took a couple of tough losses (you can read more about my heartbreaking losses in "Thank You Cards Chat" post).

 

[aliengenius]

SNGs: $1 and 0.50 buy ins are available on several sites. You are actually rolled for these, so getting a bit of money built up shouldn't be too hard. SNGs pay the top three (of 10/9), so you have a much better chance of cashing on a more consistent basis than a MTT, even though the ROI will be higher in a MTT if you should win one. SNGs offer the best bet for a minimal bankroll.

 

[young hova]

play what your good at.

If your better at sng's than play more of those than cash games and vice versa. Even though your bankroll is small if you think your better than the .05/.10 level I would say you should try the .10/.20 levels. .05/.10 is a long grind and I wouldnt stay on that level once I got to $50. You can go to the .10/.20 with asmall portion of your bankroll (like $5) and often times come away with 3x-9x that amount. If you lose here you probably would lose more than 3 buyins of $5. This may sound a little risky and if your not ready now when you get to $50 I suggest you mess around with it.

One thing you should do, you should focus on winning sngs/cash games before you start putting money into to tournaments. When you have a winning session in either of those two, devote a very small portion of that cash here and there to a nice size mtt to try to really boost your bankroll, but don't waste too much money on tourney's where the odds are against you (ie 200+ people), those will slowly eat at your bankroll if you don't have guaranteed income coming in.

 

[shinedown.45]

God, I hate to say anything good about Bodog, but I agree that the beginner SNG's are a good way to go. As Katy said, just sit back play only premium hands & practice taking notes so when you get close to the bubble you will have a good idea what kind of players you are facing. Good luck.

Take this advice

play what your good at.

If your better at sng's than play more of those than cash games and vice versa. Even though your bankroll is small if you think your better than the .05/.10 level I would say you should try the .10/.20 levels. .05/.10 is a long grind and I wouldnt stay on that level once I got to $50. You can go to the .10/.20 with asmall portion of your bankroll (like $5) and often times come away with 3x-9x that amount. If you lose here you probably would lose more than 3 buyins of $5. This may sound a little risky and if your not ready now when you get to $50 I suggest you mess around with it.

One thing you should do, you should focus on winning sngs/cash games before you start putting money into to tournaments. When you have a winning session in either of those two, devote a very small portion of that cash here and there to a nice size mtt to try to really boost your bankroll, but don't waste too much money on tourney's where the odds are against you (ie 200+ people), those will slowly eat at your bankroll if you don't have guaranteed income coming in.

And when it comes to this one, I have to partially agree here, I don't agree with the rings and do like the advice on the SnGs and small MTTs.
Just have to add that the full/shorthanded 1-table SnGs are great for the standard TAG player with a small BR.

 

[easy_money]

HI!

I found a site where they teach you the so called "ShortStack Strategy". Its a NoLimit CashGame strategy and it works really fine for me. Its based on the fact that you buy-in with a maximum of 20BigBlinds per table. Just click on my signature and you will get on this site.

Good luck!

 

[coljung]

I also began with $50 and was playing $2 SNG most of the time. I played a few $5 45 SNG ones and won one that doubled my bankroll; after that i couldn't win anything for a week and my balance went down.......

I suggest you stick to the small ones, $1, $2, and $3.

 

[Broke31]

Definatly stay with low S&G and be very patient

 

[Wolfpack43ACC]

Well if you are a beginner I guess start low like these guys said, but if you have some game I'd go to a .25/.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game. I 4 table those cash games with a spread of $200 ($50 each table - max buyin). Considering I started with $225 on the 3rd of July and now have $850... I'd say .25/.50 is the way to go. Only if you have the experience though. Otherwise listen to these guys.

 

[jeffred1111]

Well if you are a beginner I guess start low like these guys said, but if you have some game I'd go to a .25/.50 NL Hold'em Cash Game. I 4 table those cash games with a spread of $200 ($50 each table - max buyin). Considering I started with $225 on the 3rd of July and now have $850... I'd say .25/.50 is the way to go. Only if you have the experience though. Otherwise listen to these guys.

Even if you have "game", whatever that means, managing your bankroll is still very much important:

1) Even the best players endure downswings when they get sucked on a lot and losing 1/4 of your bankroll isn't the way to go. Poker is a game of odds, not certitude: AA can lose to 2-7 multiple times a row and when you don't have the BR to sustain the odd play of the cards, you're busto.
2) You don't get a lot of experience for your money.
3) The players will be better at these levels. Sure there's still plenty of fish and people who gamble, but I wouldn't like to face a few of the players on this site at 50$NL. I won't see them grinding the 1,2,3$SNGs though and I'm much more likely to have an edge there.

 

[jeffred1111]

Also, playing limit cash games might be a good option, altough you're not very likely to make money (if you make any money at all), but it still is a very good training ground to get the feel of odds, betting , reading the flop, reading your opponent, etc. for very cheap. Plus, you get to be train your patience and get your feet wet multitabling if you wish to.

The advice to play SNGs and get good at them is very sound, as if you play 1$ buy-in and you average 20% ROI (standard to good over a long sample), you'll (only) have to play around 300 of them to get 60$ (and more than double your bankroll if you start with 40-55$) while you would have to play around 30,000 hands of limit .5/.10 at 1BB/100 hands (or 15,000 hands at 2BB, wich can happen). If you figure that SNGs last around an hour normally (if you're agressive and don't chip out on the bubble, they can be pretty short) and that most limit table won't play 100 hands an hour (especially full ring), you'll get there faster.

But even then, you're looking at a long grind. Not bad, since you'll have many hands under your belt once you hit the higher stakes.

 

[Crocodile King]

And of course enter every free roll you can find.

 

[muddawgg]

low bankroll strategy

lots of good advice . i pay freerolls often..practice for free

 

[bw07507]

What everyone has said here is really good, I just have one more thing to add. Small buy-in turbos are a gold mine (especially the 3.30 ones at bodog) and they dont take nearly as long to play as a regular SnG. I believe ChuckTs posted an excellent strategy guide for turbos here if you have never played them before. Say you have a 20% ROI at regular SnGs and 20% ROI at Turbos. You could build a BR faster by playing the turbos as they go about twice as fast, allowing you to play twice as many.

 

[Crocodile King]

I would prefer the cheap ring games because in a SnG blinds will come, you will be under pressure to play.
With turbo even worse. You would have to be looser and luckier.
In a ring game I can wait for premium pockets and good flops.

 

[jeffred1111]

I would prefer the cheap ring games because in a SnG blinds will come, you will be under pressure to play.
With turbo even worse. You would have to be looser and luckier.
In a ring game I can wait for premium pockets and good flops.

Not necessarily. If we take your average low buy-in 10 players turbo, you can still wait for holdings, or at least position and then induce mistakes from opponents (and beleive me, they do make them). You can win these things regularly if you develop the skills needed to thrive (hand selection, blind steal, managing M and Q factors, bluffing, etc.). And if you can withstand the pressure from the blinds, it becomes an asset to you since you can bully other players around.

Plus, he is not properly for NL ring games already and the small limit games take forever and ever to build a bankroll if we consider the rake. But I agree that once you are properly rolled for cash games, they are far more lucrative and certain than tournaments since you can exploit any edge you're given without fear of losing your shot at making money (cue the old 99 vs AKs discussion, etc.)