Your poker bankroll story

[Gary Stevenson]

i started with $50 on stars back in the spring of 04 after having played played money for a few months, lost it, redeposited and haven't really looked back despite some downers. started out playing micro cash games and having mediocre results, eventually running it up to a few hundred. when i got to college during that fall i put some money on party and ran sick hot and increased my BR from a few hundo to ~2K playing 50nl-200nl not really knowing what i was doing.

eventually started to break even and decided i didn't like party bc it was clearly rigged so i went back to stars and played MTTs mostly. had pretty good results during the winter and increased the BR to about 7k after a few good scores in $10 and $20 mtts.

during the spring of 05 i decided to take a shot at 5-10nl, even though the highest i had played before that was 2-4nl. back then there were only full ring tables and players like twin caracas and h@llinggol were dominating the tables. i ran hot for about a week and made about 8k and was on cloud nine and my friends and i all thought i was a poker prodigy...lol. i proceeded to drop about 7k of that back in the next couple days and immediately cashed out all but a few hundred bc i was pretty shook up that i could lose all that money so quickly.

during that summer i decided to give it another shot and started grinding like 25 and 50nl on party. i started reading 2p2 more for strategy instead of just trolling my friends who posted there and started to develop a sound foundation. by the end of the summer i was back up to 100nl and decided to play sngs for some reason. i made a little money in those but realized i wasn't that good and it was kind of a waste of time. around november of 05 i started playing 100nl again on UB and ftp along with stars and finally started seeing some results. i slowly moved up to 200 and 400nl throughout 05 and by the middle of the summer i was back to playing 5-10nl FR on party.

the summer of 06 my BR was around 25k and i was feeling good about my game. by the time party died in october my BR was up to about 40k and i decided to move back to stars for cash games. i decided to give 6max a try even though i had had poor results in the few times i'd tried it before. i immediately ran hot at 5-106m on stars and haven't really looked back since then. i've made about 250k overall from poker including live cash games which i actually might enjoy more than online. maybe that's just bc i had my biggest month ever playing live in vegas for about 3 weeks where i made 80k playing 10-20 and 25-50nl. anyway, poker BR is about 200k now after expenses and buying a car and i'm just grinding 5-10 and 10-20nl online and playing live when i get the chance.

wow that's long

[swityak11]

Casual player...

I deposited $500 a year or so ago in order to play .5/1 limit after having a fairly successful recreational weekend playing 2/4 at the Taj in AC. I had no idea what I was doing and proceeded to lose almost all of it. Took a couple months break.

Bought some 2+2 books and started playing around at the micro limit tables and built that back up to the $5-600 range. I got bored with poker again but I kept the money on Stars and Party for a good 6 months without having logged in.

Started playing 1/2 NL for fun at the Borgata and Foxwoods every few weekends and did fairly well and ran $500 into around $2200. Decided to start playing online again and focus on NL. Couldn’t deposit because of the Neteller fiasco but I still had the $600 on Stars to play with so I started at 25NL and built that up to around $1500, moved up to 50NL and proceeded to run bad/monkey tilt away $800 of it. Took break.

Played some more Borgata 1/2 and 2/5 and ran that up to around $3500. Decided that I wasn’t going to deposit in order to comfortably play higher than the micros and just build from what I had left online. Live roll would strictly be for live games. Right now I play 25NL and 50NL and slowly build up enough of a comfortable roll to possibly move up to before mega tilting off 10 buy-ins in an hour… rinse repeat.

I’m not very good and I lose interest relatively quickly but I am trying to get better and haven’t lost my initial buy-in from a year ago yet. Total BR dedicated to poker in the $5k range, most offline, up from an initial 1k.

[illini43]

Poker Story

[gimmetheloot]

5$ donk n goes with 10BB starts playing in dorms in boarding school after watching some WSOP. WOn the first, second, third, and fourth of them.

never looked back 30k in ~6 months of serious play with quite a few months before that playing donkish online (ie grinding NL 50, taking 1/2 roll up to 600NL+ and getting owned)...rinse repeat. now im a solid 100NL winner getting ready to move up.

[Superfluous Man]

Mine is almost exactly like Gary Stevenson's, except replace '04 with '03 and 'stars with Party. Oh, and I never went busto after depositing my initial $50, but I came really close a few times in late 2004/early 2005.

Oh, and I also had staking scores and stuff and I've run really good this year.

But the $50 roll --> $250k roll part is essentially the same.

[itWASaDREAM]

When i started playing poker I was taught by a friend and he said I should play on part poker. I played there for a while (this is pre-legislation) and probably burned through 200-300 making 50 deposits and playing 50nl.

This was before I knew anything about bankroll management, how to actually play poker (my vpip was probably 90% and pfr 50). I thought that limping every hand and betting the flop was the way to win. if I hit top or middle pair, my stack was in the middle. I was a joke and a regulars dream fishy.

I ended up deciding that online poker was rigged and shouldn't play anymore. This was just two months before the legislation. I stopped playing for the rest of the year and at the begining of this year I found the site Ultimate Bet.

I was able to make a deposit of $25 and played on that for a little while. At one point I was down to 5 dollars all on one table (10nl FTW!). I ended up winning some coin flips, and getting sets paid of with and over the next 2-3 weeks I ran hot as the devils balls and finally had a suitable bankroll for 10nl. Over the next 3 months I ran my bankroll up to 400 by beating 10nl and shots at 25nl and usually being successful. I moved my bankroll over to Full Tilt to take a shot at there 25nl games.

On FTP I got beaten down really bad. I dont have my old database any longer to post graphs, but I ran terrible and over about three days cut my roll in half. I moved the money back to UB.

On UB I built my roll back up to $500 and decided that I wanted to beat the full tilt games. I deposited my roll back on to FTP and played and ran well.

My bankroll never really climbed above 800 on ftp because I was constantly having to cash out $200-$300 so that I could help pay for my bands tour.

As of right now I am technically busto. I cashed out my entire bankroll for the most balla' purchase possible. Rent, food, cell phone bills, and a big computer monitor. The last month I did not work, I just spent my time playing poker, and making withdraws any time I needed money.

As for my current roll, the van that I purchased for our tour I am selling. I will be depositing all of the profit I get from the sale. Its going to be anywhere from 2k-4k depending on how much of my bills are paid of with. I am going to be playing 50nl if I deposit between 2-3k and 100nl if I deposit 4k+. I have a rb payment coming this month of 127 which I plan on blowing at 50 nl. I know this is not proper BR management but I want to get a feel for the 50nl games and I am not worried about the 127.

[PoorTom]

TV poker + Big Deal = interest in poker

(Small deposits + NLHE + no idea what I’m doing + 1 buyin bankroll) x 5 = busto x 5

Low limit SNGs = profit, but lol donkaments

Free 2+2 books = LHE

Deposit bonuses + rakeback = grinding

Casino bonuses = robusto! = $10k profit = the hell with poker!

End of good casino bonuses = poker = deposit bonuses + rakeback

Poker = 1/2 and 2/4 LHE 6max on a $12k bankroll lol while I actually try to learn how to play poker profitably

I know I should l play NL, but I enjoy 6max Limit a lot more for some reason. Despite the stupid swings. Once I get PNL and work though it I might think about trying NL again though.

[mlane]

Lol i missed the whole party poker wave and just started learning how to play last year after the ueiga. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[unlucky4me]

If you are saying you win 300 dollars a day playing 3/6 limit in a casino then I'll eat every damn hat in Texas. Thats the most impossible statement I ever read anywhere.

[Marmor]

Deposited 3 times onto Pacific Poker, busted each time, deposted 50$ on Party, busted that too. Then I deposited 200€ (by overcharging my bank account) rolled that up to 900$ then lost 2/3 playing 1/2 6max on Coral Eurobet. Grinded back on .5/1, got my roll up to 5,8k then an long downer hit me and I lost interest in Poker / cashed out a bit.

After a 6 month break I started again in March (cuz I wanted to fpp buy me an iPod) and turned my 2,9k or so left into close to 9k now. My big problem though is that I am such a huge BR nit that my regular games are 1/2 und 2/4 Fullring Limit on Stars grinding out 100€ Amazon gift certificates now to pay my tuition. Boring story but it fits the author.