Have you succeeded or failed in building a bankroll?

[sunek]

Have you succeeded or failed in building a bankroll?

Hi
I have played hold’em for about a month now. With regards to money I am pretty much break even – I have cashed out my initial deposit after receiving my bonus, so now I play for the bonus alone but my poker account is very low now.

I figured it was about time to build up a bankroll. A guide I found here at 2+2 advises you to start an account at InterPoker or an other site that gives 100% bonus up till 90 $. Then you have to play break even (or better), cash the money out and repeat the whole story at some other places until your bankroll reaches the limit you wish.

However this strategy has some obvious holes in it. Many postings at 2+2 suggest that you need about 300 BB on your bankroll to be able to withstand a down period that many gamblers meet (even the pros).

I seem to play my money away almost as fast as I gain my bonus – so I don’t really gain anything. I have I hard time determining whether this is due to bad play, bad luck or both. I play pretty much according to the strategies lined out in Lee Jordan and Millers books, so break even should be possible since I try to sit down at loose tables (although the 1/2 tables at InterPoker are pretty tight compared to many other places).

I would like to know if you have succeeded or failed in building up a bankroll. Do you have any tips, tricks or other good advices?

Best Regards

sunek

[ArturiusX]

One website:

www.bonuswhores.com (http://www.bonuswhores.com)

That is how you build a bankroll at microlimits, period.

[ArturiusX]

Also, the bankroll is more of a mental thing. You don't want your poker game compromised cause your worried about busting out. Pro's with good mental toughness could play with much less.

But don't try. 300BB, some good poker knowledge (read those books), posting some hands here, and cap it off with some bonus whoring will build your bankroll. Its a rough road to making EV calls regularly (overcards, 2nd pair hands, and multiple draws can be very difficult to play and will need a fair amount of time before it becomes natural and confident), but it does come through patience.

Its not uncommon to hit 150BB swings, 200BB if your insanely unlucky. If your worried about your play, post some hands here, re-read your poker books. Don't expect to sit down and make a standard wage playing each time. Poker is gambling.

[pointcount]

i have always been an advocate of not doing the $1/$2 bonuses straight up. You are reducing the value of the bonus (relatively speaking) plus $1/$2 is decidedly harder to crack than .50/1.

My suggestion would be to go to .25/.50 pokerstars, forget bonuses for now, this is a VERY soft game. Play here until you have $200. Then deposit at paradise using the GRANNY code and the link found on this site which is 50% up to $100. This should (theoretically) give you $300 where you go from there is up to you, but in all honesty I think there are better options than jumping straight to $1/$2 without an adequate bankroll or experience.

Good luck.

[olavfo]

My bankroll building so far:

Played my first hand of Hold'em about 2 months ago. Deposited $500 into Party for the 30% initial deposit bonus and played 1050 0.50/1 hands to clear it. I broke almost exactly even (won $5) so now I had $655.

Of course I had been lucky not to lose money (I didn't know anything), but now I had discovered this forum and the classic poker literature, so for the next 4 weeks or so I studied theory and didn't play a single hand online.

After ToP, HP, HPFAP and 3 readings of SSH (while practicing daily with Turbo Texas Hold'em) I started playing 0.50/1 again 4 weeks ago and I'm up 600 BB since then. In addition I've cleared another $300 in bonuses, so all in all I have tripled my starting bankroll and then some.

Right now I'm bonuswhoring the Party skins and later I'll do Paradise, Pacific and a few others. When I'm done with that I estimate I'll have 15k 0.50/1 hands under my belt and when I reach 20k hands I'll take a long and good look at my stats and decide whether to move up.

I'll say I have succeeded building a small bankroll, but I must add that I select tables very carefully and I play only one table at a time. With multitabling I'm sure I would have made much, much less. I won't try it until I'm confident about my abilities.

olavfo

[sfer]

I started playing in Oct 2003 and busted out of Paradise playing 2/4 way over my head. Whoops. Then I deposited $500 into Party and almost did the same, but read Lee Jones, ToP, HEPFAP, Carson, and found this site, and from that $500 I'm playing 15/30 on Party and 20/40 live. I spent a lot of time thinking about poker, possibly an unhealthily large amount of time, but I can assure you that if I did it many, many, many people can do it.

The number one piece of advice I can give you if you're serious about becoming a winning player (and ultimately that is the only way you grow a bankroll) is to read/post/think about hands here and in Small Stakes. Period.

[MrWookie47]

For a player making 4 BB/100, and a typical standard deviation of 15-17 BB/100, you're looking at a risk of losing your entire bankroll of 7-10%, and those are fantastic numbers. Actually, it's even a little worse, since I calculated that for averaging losing your entire bankroll over 450 hands, but didn't take into account if you lose it faster than that, which can happen pretty easily. Going for the Granny bonus, even if you don't have the $200 initial investment, is a much better idea, especially since you can play softer games. Or else you could play smaller limits at other sites without such juicy deposit bonuses.

[olavfo]

You've done what I'm dreaming about. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

How much time did it take you to get to 15/30 and feel confident there?

I agree totally with what you say about thinking about the game. After I started reading and thinking about other peoples' hand postings here at the forum it's like I have gotten a 10 times bigger mental database to use when I play online.

olavfo

[waynethetrain]

If it weren't for the occasional PP reload bonuses that can be cleared at a decent hourly rate, my playing experience would be a total waste financially despite the fact that I am building a bankroll. Even a high win rate at .50 - 1.00 is not worth the trouble on a per hour basis without the bonus and I am not winning at $1 - $2 after about 2.75K hands so far. I believe that until you can play 3-6 very profitably and perhaps play two tables with equal skill to one, the economics of playing poker are extremely poor without the bonuses.

[jrz1972]

I 3-table .5/1 and have a winrate of ~5 bb/100 over 25,000 hands. I conservatively figure that works out to something like $8 per hour.

Yeah, that sucks if you had to live on that income, but it's pretty damn good for a hobby that I would be doing anyway.

[DeadManJay]

[ QUOTE ]
it's pretty damn good for a hobby that I would be doing anyway.


[/ QUOTE ]
My thoughts exactly.

[TripleH68]

[ QUOTE ]
The number one piece of advice I can give you if you're serious about becoming a winning player (and ultimately that is the only way you grow a bankroll) is to read/post/think about hands here and in Small Stakes. Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ditto. I played break even poker for eight months. Have since been making close to $1,000 a month. But you must really devote a large amount of time and energy. I hope to keep climbing the ladder until I run out of ambition...

[waynethetrain]

I agree that it's a fun hobby, but I think he was more interested in the economics of building a bankroll. Personally, I don't multi-table. Even if I could make more on a dollar per hour basis, the game gets hectic and loses it's appeal to me as a method of relaxing and enjoying myself. It turns into a way of making money (work) - at a not so appealing rate per hour.

[jrz1972]

That's completely understandable and I used to be the same way. Eventually, though, I got to the point where playing one table got boring, so I moved up to two. It was hectic at first but was also fun since I was "in action" more, so I stuck with it. Then I found that two tables were kind of boring since I often folded hands simultaneously and then had to wait for both tables to play the hand out before I got to make another decision. So I moved up to three. Again, it was kind of hectic at first, but now I still go through spells where it's rather dull.

(I've tried four-tabling, but my monitor is small and the constant pop-ups from previously inactive tables gets to be too much for me here. Maybe that will change someday).

I truly find multi-tabling more enjoyable than one-tabling now that I'm used to it. I'm not saying you'd necessarily have the same experience as I've had, but you might want to keep the possibility in mind for down the road.

[KingOtter]

I succeeded.

Deposited $50 in Pacific in October of last year. Built it up to about $250 playing sit-n-go tournaments, so started reading/learning about ring games. Started playing .10/.25 but then figured I had the bankroll for .25/.50 so played that for a while.

Juggled some money around and moved some over to Paradise so I could use PokerTracker, and did very well there for 5000 hands so moved up to .50/1. Juggled some money around and started up on Party, and my experience there is pretty well documented here in the forum.

I've taken some money out, and about 20% of my bankroll comes from bonuses, but I could play 1/2 right now if I wanted. I want to play at least 20k hands at .50/1 first, though. Just the past 3000 hands I feel like I learned so much. I'm right at 10k now.

And as to the 'not bad for a hobby I'd be doing anyway...' ditto ditto ditto

KO

[Isura]

[ QUOTE ]
i have always been an advocate of not doing the $1/$2 bonuses straight up. You are reducing the value of the bonus (relatively speaking) plus $1/$2 is decidedly harder to crack than .50/1.

My suggestion would be to go to .25/.50 pokerstars, forget bonuses for now, this is a VERY soft game. Play here until you have $200. Then deposit at paradise using the GRANNY code and the link found on this site which is 50% up to $100. This should (theoretically) give you $300 where you go from there is up to you, but in all honesty I think there are better options than jumping straight to $1/$2 without an adequate bankroll or experience.

Good luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

I couldn't agree with this plan more. THis is the route I wished I had taken initially. I started at Part 5./1, and offcourse busted out pretty soon with my $50. Then played at Paradise .05/.10 for a bit, got over-confident and went back to party where I played break-even poker for while. Then I dropped to .25/.5 Stars and played a ton of hands while getting my basic game together. The Crypto 1/2 bonuses are definitely risky for the beginner. THe games are quite tight and you'll run into a fair share of decent/good bonus whores. Plus, initially you have to wait 2 weeks to cash out, which sucks if you are moving your whole bankroll from site to site.

[kenberman]

I deposited $50 into Party about a year and a half ago.

Bust.

I then deposited $50 into Pacific.

Bust.

Then I went back to Party, with another $50.

Bust.

Then I decided to stop going on tilt /images/graemlins/smile.gif, starting posting, and started seriously bonus whoring. From a 4th $50 deposit, I now have a nice bankroll for 5/10. Maybe 1/2 my roll actually comes from poker winrate; the rest is from bonuses.

I've signed up for every Party skin and every Crypto skin, and I've done the signup bonuses at a few other sites. With the monthly bonuses and reloads that come along (for being an "absentee" member of many of those sites) I do most of my playing while bonus clearing.

At 1/2 6 max, a "monetary" win rate of 8bb/100 is achievable. This will build up your roll pretty quickly, and give you some cash to do some casino bonuses.

If I can do it, so can you!

[mmbt0ne]

I started playing online in early August. I put $50 into Paradise, and played some SNGs. A little later I got WLLH, found this site, and started playing limit. I have a bankroll around $3k right now, but don't play higher than 2/4 right now. I'm not good yet, I just have a much bigger bankroll than when I started.

[jar]

[ QUOTE ]

My suggestion would be to go to .25/.50 pokerstars, forget bonuses for now, this is a VERY soft game. Play here until you have $200. Then deposit at paradise using the GRANNY code and the link found on this site which is 50% up to $100.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is what my girlfriend is doing. Once she finishes the paradise bonus, she plans to add $200 of outside money and start hitting the party .50/1 games. (The 200 is to max the bonuses, she's not planning to play with it. Also, to need more than $300 at .50/1 would be insanely unlucky.)

[droolie]

I started playing last summer by depositing $50 at pokerstars. I quickly won $50 and withdrew my original deposit so I could tell my wife I was playing on house money only. After playing through pokerstars .25/.50 to build my BR to $500 I moved to Party. I won approximatey $2500 playing .50/1 over the course of three months. In late December I began bonus whoring. Since that time I have hardly played at all that wasn't bonus clearing. I four table and usually average about $20/hr clearing bonuses playing micros. Serious money is now rolling in and my poker skills will have me playing small stakes when the bonuses dry up (I dabble at 2/4 now and feel very comfortable there). I prefer to clear bonuses at the lowest limits possible because I usually do marathon sessions and I like to have virtually gauranteed winning runs while bonus clearing. I expect to make between $20K and $30K this year through bonuses alone (including casino whoring).

[IronDragon1]

I started in September of last year with a 100 deposit into Full Tilt and lost that playing 1/2 (whoops)

From then I began getting more into bonuswhoring running about 1000 into 1500 at Party before dropping that to about 750 in two months or so.

Since then I rebuilt my bankroll (~4500) mainly through bonus whoring as I wasn't what could be considered a winning player until January-when I finished in the black by play alone (the first time I had ever done that).
This improvement came mainly through lurking and checking out the strategy posts though I have begun to get a bit more interactive in these discussions myself.

I'd have to say that the best thing you can do is too just read the books/these posts/think about the game (from not just a strategic viewpoint) and you'll be light years ahead of a vast majority of the dead money.

[Shillx]

Have you succeeded or failed in building a bankroll?

I have failed many times. I've had bustouts of 100, 1k, 3k and 1.5k since I started playing about a year and a half ago. Anyone who tells you that is it easy to run your 1st deposit into a nice 5/10 or 15/30 bankroll is FOS or is very lucky. I'm trying to succeed for the 1st time.

Brad

[sunek]

Hi all

Thanks for all your great advises – I believe that you have saved me from a bad experience and from loosing money. I am going to cash out my 90 $ from InterPoker and use them to play at Paradise Poker and return to the Crypto sites when my poker skills have improved.

Best Regards

sunek

[Durs522]

I deposited a few times in poker room and played mostly sit n goes and MTT's. I busted out eventually and deposited in party. I was doing well but tried to move up too quickly and went broke. Finally I found this forum, got some good books and I've been doing better ever since. In December I decided that enough was enough. If I was going to play online I was going to win, no matter what it took. I turned my $200 that I deposited into Paradise the last week of December into $2500 as of last night. I have been bonus whoring and pretty much everytime I play I am clearing a bonus. Winning from gameplay is great, but getting a bonus while you're doing it is even better. It allows you to play break-even or better and still make money. I would definitely suggest doing as many bonuses as you possibly can. Good luck and I hope everything works out well for you.

Dave

[GrunchCan]

[ QUOTE ]
Have you succeeded or failed in building a bankroll?

I have failed many times. I've had bustouts of 100, 1k, 3k and 1.5k since I started playing about a year and a half ago. Anyone who tells you that is it easy to run your 1st deposit into a nice 5/10 or 15/30 bankroll is FOS or is very lucky. I'm trying to succeed for the 1st time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Me too. I've deposited about $1000 over my poker career out of pocket, becasue I kept burning through my roll. The reason for that was simple - I sucked at poker.

I suck less now, and I've now won as twice much $ at poker as I've spent, which means I'm actually showing a career-long profit.

My advice to you is this: Assume that you suck at poker, and go from there. This makes you humble enough to look for faults in your play everywhere, including the places you think you don't have any faults.

Edit: And BTW, I haven't had to redeposit since I read SSH and found 2+2.

[fire_fly]

Ok, read all these posts and I've got a question for everyone. Seems like the agreed upon way to make good money then is to bonus whore.

My question is then is it worth it to get a rakeback deal at all of these bonus whoring sites? I have a feeling ppl are going to say "No, because you will pretty much only play there when you are bonus whoring, so it's not worth it."

But my response is this. I DO plan on moving up in stakes in the future, not any time soon, but when I get up to, say 2-4/3-6, won't I then make more by getting a good rakeback deal then I would bonus whoring? And by not getting rakeback deals at these sites, I will miss out on getting them completely for all of time, because you can't get a rakeback deal on a site you already play for real money on.

Any ideas?

[kenberman]

[ QUOTE ]
Ok, read all these posts and I've got a question for everyone. Seems like the agreed upon way to make good money then is to bonus whore.

My question is then is it worth it to get a rakeback deal at all of these bonus whoring sites? I have a feeling ppl are going to say "No, because you will pretty much only play there when you are bonus whoring, so it's not worth it."

But my response is this. I DO plan on moving up in stakes in the future, not any time soon, but when I get up to, say 2-4/3-6, won't I then make more by getting a good rakeback deal then I would bonus whoring? And by not getting rakeback deals at these sites, I will miss out on getting them completely for all of time, because you can't get a rakeback deal on a site you already play for real money on.

Any ideas?

[/ QUOTE ]

Bonus whoring and rakeback deals are not mutually exlusive. Look at the classifieds, and you'll see plenty of rakeback people offering sign-up bonuses. Sign up for sites using these rakeback deals. When/if you do get around to playing 3/6 and higher, you'll be set up for rakeback. if not, you won't lose anything.

[droolie]

I have a rakeback through coral euro (a party skin.) I believe they are the stingiest bonus offerer of all the party skins.

[Soul Daddy]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyone who tells you that is it easy to run your 1st deposit into a nice 5/10 or 15/30 bankroll is FOS or is very lucky. I'm trying to succeed for the 1st time.

[/ QUOTE ]
I would never tell anyone that, but I know that my experience has been rather lucky thus far. I started in Sept '04 w/ less than 100 BB and started playing .5/1 and 1/2 6-max(!), with little to no knowledge. I must have had an incredible run... Then I found this site, read some books, started whoring, and had a couple of big tourney scores (relative to BR).

I'm pretty certain my level of knowledge and play are nowhere near as good as my results thus far would indicate. I'm staying in the micros (ring & tourney), until I'm confident that's not the case.

[SteveL91]

I started playing real money sometime in November. I started with a $100 deposit on pokerstars, and quickly ran that up to about $450 over the course of a week. I didn't really have any comprehension of playing within a bankroll or anything, so I was moving up too fast. I was doing okay at 2/4, but one bad weekend crippled me. I dropped down, but the bad luck continued; eventually, I got so disgusted that I cashed out when I was down to about $140.

A month or so later, I gave it another try. This time, I had a better understanding of playing within a bankroll, etc. I was doing fairly well, and playing 1/2 a bit under-rolled, but only because I had 7500-10000 hands there already as a net winner. Unfortunately, I took a liking to PLO and that really screwed me over. Now, I'm grinding away at .25/.50 getting ready to move back up to .50/1.00. It's taken a while, and there have been some huge peaks and valleys, but I'm finally getting to the point where I'll be able to comfortably start moving up in limits.

I'm a net-winner after 45,000 hands, and I was winning both before and after doing any reading on the subject. I've always intuitively played a tight, aggressive game, but SSH is an invaluable resource.

I'm sure things would have gone considerably faster if I had done any bonus whoring, but I just never really got around to doing it. I honestly wasn't sure how much of an impact it would have made. A day late and a dollar short, but I'm planning on whorin' it up pretty soon.

I fully intend on playing 15/30 within a year or less. Perhaps too ambitious, but it's something to shoot for.

[Entity]

So far I have succeeded, parlaying a $50 deposit into around $8000. Ask me again in a year and I'm sure I'll have a better answer for you.

Rob

[Kid Sheleen 05]

Can you get a GRANNY bonus for reloads or is it a one time deal?

thanks.

[calmasahinducow]

I must be missing something...how do you get 50% at Paradise?