Broke again/ weak bankroll management

Hi,

I started playing poker in August and now I'm broke for the 2nd time. First I played Limit and made 400$ out of 0$. I did fairly well on Everests 1$/2$ tables but then lost most of the roll playing 2$/4$ and NL. Then I thought I like to learn NL which took me quite some time. I was doing fairly well, but couldn't resist playing 50$NL with a 200$ roll.

I) How do you resist the temptation playing above your roll?
II) What steps would you recommend limit-wise?

I'm taking a break reading HOH and Mastering NL by Fox. Next week I will deposit 500$ at pacific.

My advice would be to not stress your progress.
There is no such thing as fast and easy money in poker.
I started in August with $2 and now have a bankroll of $175 playing .25/.50

I started at .05/.10 and worked my way up.

I know it's extremely slow, but I want to learn solid poker while building my BR. I have no rush at all.

[AKQJ10]

I think you need what (at least in religious circles) might be called an "accountability partner". Don't deposit $500 in Pac, because you won't need it for the limits you're going to play right now. Deposit $100, treat that as your bankroll, and don't let yourself near the other $400 until you've shown that you can manage the $100 well. Put the $400 somewhere -- I would say in escrow, but that's probably a bit much for such a small amount -- where you won't have ready access to it, and the person who controls it will make you give an accounting for how you've used the first $100.

Now, you don't have a $500; you have a $100 roll. If you're a winning limit player, you likely can play 5c/10c with no risk of ruin, so do so. (I'm going to talk in limit terms because you seem more sure of your play, and you should concentrate where you're most sure of your play. If you want to buy into the $10 max NL game on Pac for $1 or $2, as I'm doing to learn, then that's probably OK. But set strict boundaries -- no more than $20 of the $100 goes to NLHE, for example.) Play that until you're up $25.*

Now you have a $125 roll and another $400 on ice. You've shown you can be trusted not to dabble in higher limits so your accountability partner will free another $100. Now you have a roll $225 and can play 25c/50c if you're able to beat it. Repeat the process - go up 250 big bets ($125), show your numbers to your accountability partner, and now you're probably OK to release the last $300.

At this point you will be tempted to consider yourself "free" of accountability and go blow it all playing too high. DON'T! Continue to meet with this person and have them look over your shoulder.

A poker-knowledgeable person would be ideal for this role (no, i'm not going to pretend i could be that then scam you out of the $400!) but a spouse, parent, or good friend without poker knowledge can provide that portion. We'll provide the plan; their job is to print it out and make you stick to it.

*You haven't shown any data to support that you're a winning limit player, so I'm assuming you need to prove yourself still. Once you have such data you should share it with your accountability partner.

[pzhon]

It's very easy to blame bankroll mismanagement, but you don't have enough evidence that you are a winning player. If I had to guess, I'd say that is your main problem, that you are either a losing player or a marginal winner at $1-$2 and above.

Moving to Pacific may help, as the players there are terrible, much worse than on most sites at the same limits.

[ QUOTE ]

I) How do you resist the temptation playing above your roll?


[/ QUOTE ]
I've won so much at lower levels that playing at the highest level for which I might have the bankroll scares me. If you assume I have the skills for the higher games, then I have a bankroll for games 10 times as large as I play now. I'm sure I'm beating NL 200. I'm less confident about NL 400, and I'll wait to move up until I am sure.

[ QUOTE ]

II) What steps would you recommend limit-wise?


[/ QUOTE ]
If you read the microlimit forum, you'll see that some people recommend playing $0.10-$0.20 until you grow old, then $0.25-$0.50 until you die, at which point you can consider taking some shots at $0.50-$1. I think that's too slow, but you don't need to risk going broke.

Make sure you are a winning player. Get in the habit of winning, even if it means playing for pennies. Know which mistakes your opponents are making that you are exploiting. Then move up while maintaining that feeling of outplaying your opponents.

[Ray Zee]

you have no business playing no limit while learning. if you want to build a bankroll and be a winner you need to do alot of serious reading and thinking about the game. then you can play a little higher limit poker and have a chance. good luck.

Thx for the replies so far.

My impression so far is that for learning NL I'll have to play NL.

Should I go on with Limit and switch to NL later on even if I want to be playing NL in the end? With what roll would you recommend a switch and to what limit? Maybe 1000$ / 50$NL? What about MTTs/SnGs? Should I consider playing other variants like stud after a few months?

I read SSHE for my Limit game. I will probably read WLLH by Jones, Supersystem II and TOP after the NL books I mentioned (HOH & Mastering NLHE).

What I didn't mention is that I'm going play up to 50h/week from now on. Playing is lots of fun, but I hope I can turn playing poker into a side-job.

I would say that if you want to play NL, then thats where you should learn, and move up through the various limits. Start at the .5/.10 NL on stars and go from there. Don't move up until you have 20X the max buy-in for the next level. GL.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
you have no business playing no limit while learning.

[/ QUOTE ]

In the age of micro-sit-and-go's and micro-buyin NL cash games, I don't see how this statement is self-evident. I value what Ray Zee has to say on the topic, but I'd like to see a well-reasoned explanation of why learning limit in order to learn NL is the way to go.

[RatFink]

Here is my shot at an explanation of the benefits of learning limit before NL:

-- You learn the value of hands and position and the drawbacks of being out of position that cannot be corrected with a shove
-- You learn discipline and patience in starting hand selection, or you go broke
-- You learn the art of post-flop play
-- You develop the ability to take a suckout
-- You learn how to read hands effectively
-- You learn how to evaluate other players and identify their weaknesses and develop plans for how to exploit them

While you can accomplish all of these things sitting down playing micro-NL-sng's, that format allows many beginning players to screw around for quite awhile without ever really learning much about poker. If it's a fun hobby good for them. They can continue to put in $x from every paycheck and have fun.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
While you can accomplish all of these things sitting down playing micro-NL-sng's, that format allows many beginning players to screw around for quite awhile without ever really learning much about poker. If it's a fun hobby good for them. They can continue to put in $x from every paycheck and have fun.

[/ QUOTE ]
You listed a number of good things to learn, but I don't see why you think they are learned more at limit than NL. Many people play limit badly for a long time, too. At every level, the average result is to lose.

NL has a much lower variance relative to a good player's win rate. That means that when you start to outplay your opponents, you get more rapid feedback, as you have far less frequent losing sessions.