The Experiment on Doyles Room

Sorry, new to the boards so any mistakes in placement of this post are open for insult.

I recently signed up with Doyles Room to play online poker. I played at the play money tables to get used to the software and decided to take a shot at the $2 giveaway. I won an overwhelming 3 cents in the tournament. Which is great when you consider I had no intentions of playing for real cash anyways. I entered a 1cent rebuy torunament and ended up with a powerful bankroll of 20 cents. After some light playing at 10c STT's, I've got about $1.50 in cash. I have no intentions of depositing, and if I lose it all I'm fine with it. My question is, does anybody believe it's possible to parlay this cash into anything of any value? When should I start playing the 2c/4c tables? Any tips are helpful. I'm having a blast playing the nano-limit STT's, they are great practice compared to play money. So I play on playing those for a while, unless abybody has any other ideas. Thank you.

PR

[Synergistic Explosions]

Hi, welcome.

How old are you?

[Freudian]

It is of course possible as long as you are winning. If you get hit by a bad luck streak you might go bust, but I have the feeling you will survive that.

[NLfool]

1) yes it's possible to do it. And possible to go big if you're good, young and dedicate yourself

2) you haven't done much research because there are many sites offering better freerolls with no raked hands requirement

3) play NL your risk of ruin is less (when I started out I played ultratight AA, KK, QQ, JJ (though JJ is played a bit more passively preflop unless the flop came all unders then I'd jam it). Then jam the flop if you have an overpair. This strategy works well at $100 NL buyin and below it looks like a bluff to them all the time. Never slow play at this level

4) when you build a bigger roll (which will probably still be small) you play tight and make a BIG raise with AA, KK, QQ don't get tricky. Maybe allin even, you'll be surprised by how many times you'll get called by JTs, 22, Ax etc.

5) many here started out with very little, if you're good you can do it but if you'd accelerate much faster if you actually did deposit money

Regardless good luck.

[KneeCo]

If you're interested in trying to parlay a small amount into serious cash, you might consider instant bankroll for 75$ on Party.

You .15$ challenge seems fun though. If you have the discipline to stick with it, it's possible to build it up, though one cold run will kill ya.

good luck.

[miajag81]

Sorry to threadjack, but Doyles Room has $0.01 rebuy tourneys? Those sound like an awful lot of cheap fun. Might have to deposit a couple bucks there and play them.

I'm young, not saying how young because I see you people like to rat out underage players. I appreciate your advice and look forward to hearing more. I will only consider depositing if I can consistantly win at nano-limit STT's. I seem to be able to do that, but I'm not solidly convinced. I also like to play the freerolls on DoylesRoom that are for action points. I can only play the really small ones though considering my tiny bankroll.

I have a relativly small poker history when it comes to hold'em. I've been playing poker since I was 7, but 5 card draw was the only game I knew, and it was limited to heads up as you can imagine playing relatives for pennies and such. I practiced at the 2000playchip SNG's at pokerstars for about a year, before sellinf my plachips for a small bankroll ($1.25) which I transformed into about $25. I've been dabbling into the DoylesRoom STT's lately. I took a small break from poker this week because of personal issues, but I will be back playing by next week or so. I've been doing all I can to perfect my game, so any tips are welcome.

PR

[Synergistic Explosions]

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry to threadjack, but Doyles Room has $0.01 rebuy tourneys? Those sound like an awful lot of cheap fun. Might have to deposit a couple bucks there and play them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah man, they got one cent MTT's there.
But the best news I can give you is to join Igotpoker, which is Doyles sister site. They will give you a whole buck just for registering, plus an entry into a 5k if you chose that as an option. A buck and a 5k, life don't get better than that.

[ QUOTE ]
Sorry, new to the boards so any mistakes in placement of this post are open for insult.

I recently signed up with Doyles Room to play online poker. I played at the play money tables to get used to the software and decided to take a shot at the $2 giveaway. I won an overwhelming 3 cents in the tournament. Which is great when you consider I had no intentions of playing for real cash anyways. I entered a 1cent rebuy torunament and ended up with a powerful bankroll of 20 cents. After some light playing at 10c STT's, I've got about $1.50 in cash. I have no intentions of depositing, and if I lose it all I'm fine with it. My question is, does anybody believe it's possible to parlay this cash into anything of any value? When should I start playing the 2c/4c tables? Any tips are helpful. I'm having a blast playing the nano-limit STT's, they are great practice compared to play money. So I play on playing those for a while, unless abybody has any other ideas. Thank you.

PR

[/ QUOTE ]

You can make something out of it man, no doubt about it. I'm not posting here to brag, I don't even consider myself that great a player, I'm just posting to show you a few tips I've picked up along the way.

I was in your shoes once as well. I played playmoney on PokerStars, and got "good" at it. Eventually I sold 8 million chips for $9.00 real money. From then on I just treaded very lightly. I played scared and clueless, I had no idea what I was doing. I played the penny tables, .02/.04 and really just nutpeddled. Once I got $30 I started playing .05/.1 NL because I thought that 300BB was a good NL roll [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] . I've come a long long way since then, due to a lot of luck, and a lot of reading as well. You must realize that although you may make something out of your money, there is a very real risk that you will lose it. I know you don't consider a couple bucks as a real "loss" but earning those few dollars is something to be proud of. Don't waste that achievement on one hand. You've already made something out of nothing, now make more. I don't have any real bankroll tips for you to start, I have no idea how Doyle's SNG's work, nor their ring games. You can continue grinding out SNG's, or you can go for it. A double up will do you a lot of good here.

You can feel free to ignore me, but I'm going to let you know what I'd do in your situation. Keep in mind I've never deposited from my credit card before, and know what it's like to grind out those penny limits for thousands of hands. It's very unpleasant to play 3000-4000 hands and win something like $10, but it is a very nice feeling to look into your cashier window and see a few bucks knowing you've earned every cent. My suggestion to you is to jump into the lowest NL limit possible. Here's the strategy I'd follow, please note I did not create this myself:

Limp 22-QQ from any position. Don't raise with anything, no, not even queens. If you flop a set, push all-in. Be aware of straight and flush potential on the flop, you're pushing if it's relatively safe.

Push all-in with KK/AA preflop, regardless of previous action. You're UTG with KK? All-in

Limp any Axs, calling bets of 3xbb MAX. If you flop a flush, push all-in as long as the board is unpaired. If you flop a flush draw, draw to your flush if you can do so cheaply. I've read that flushes will only come ~6% of the time when you play two suited cards; keep that in mind. Remember, you're pushing when you hit your flush.

You fold everything else. I'm going to tell you to fold very strong hands, such as AKo on the button with a couple limpers. Your postflop game may not be good enough to play these hands profitably. The whole point of this strategy is to hammer massive edges. We aren't getting potential profit out of marginal hands, or hitting small edges. We're getting our money in when we have the best of it. If you follow this strategy, you WILL encounter very bad beats occasionally, but you WILL become a winning player. You're going to be extremely bored at first, this is very straightfoward. Watch TV and surf 2+2 while you fold you AQo in an unraised pot. Once you double up a few times, you can add more tables, allowing you to see many more hands, which makes this strategy much more profitable.

This is just my opinion on how I'd play were I in your situation. Do not assume it is the "norm" or anything. I think it is your best bet to turn your small sum into something more reasonable, at a decent pace; keep in mind you can also lose it all on one hand.

[Cry Me A River]

My bankroll started with a $13.50 prize in a Freeroll. Went bust shortly thereafter. $17.60 in another Freeroll. Bust. $20.30. Bust. $30.60...

And that time, it stuck. Since then, I've cashed out... Well, let's just say I've done okay... It's very, very possible to build a respectable bankroll from nothing!

I was playing on Interpoker (Crypto used to have really juicy weekly Freerolls) where there were no microlimits so I was playing $5+1 SNGs with an insanely high ROR (risk of ruin) given my tiny bankroll and just trying to string together several cashing tournaments until my balance got to a sustainable level. Which is why I busted out and started over several times.

I have a buddy who's only ever played play money. He's been playing casually as long as I have (about 2 years) and I just shake my head every time we talk about it. What a waste of time. He could easily have been playing for real, building a bankroll and learning the game properly instead of messing around with play money monkeys.

If you're going to play, you might as well be making coin. Particularly if it's free money...