Your poker bankroll story

[fadedstar]

have not read anything yet but just posting my bankroll story. i'll make it real short cuz its really boring.

deposited 50$ on party 2 years ago, got the 25$ bonus and the guy who was refering me transfered his 50$ so all in all started with 125. played limit for 40K hands and then NL for 150K hands and here I am, including bonuses with a 15K bankroll. Most of it was cashed out and put into ING for interest. Still playing NL100 as my *main game*. LoL at me.

[pococurante]

A website I frequent was having a $10 buyin tournament, I deposited $200 to play the tournament and try my hand at cash games afterwards.

Out of the tournament in 10 hands after playing 8 of them, and was pissed off that I had the bad luck to get KQ against AQ. It's embarrassing how bad I was.

Then, too afraid to play NL since I could have an entire $10 stack on the line at once, I played limit poker since "it's safer", and lost $175 in no time. Got pissed off and quit.

Months later I remembered I still had $15, so I tried playing tight and started winning. Got up to $100, $200, $500 in no time.

Unfortunately I was not meant to be a big time player though. I have extraordinary bad luck when moving up in stakes, plus I get way too nervous/emotional/etc when playing for large amounts, so I just stick to $25 and $50 buyins. Up to about $2000 now, nothing but a consistent steady climb, too bad I don't have the balls to put more money on the line.


My brother's story is a bit more fun... deposit 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, ran it up to $3000 one weekend, got greedy and lost half of it then cashed out. Took the $1500 up to Atlantic City, got really drunk, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust. 20, bust.

[matt85]

Deposited $100, ran it up to $200, withdrew $100, busto.... Repeat x1 million

Deposited $500, ran it upto $800-$1000, withdraw $400-500, busto....Repeat x1 million

Thought [censored] this deposited $1k, learned the game, got coached a bit, played a few months solid and destroyed cashed out $5k maybe. Continued to desroy. GF whines like a bitch about wanting a holiday. Cash out $3k. Now have like $40 left.

The end.

[evilhamit]

beat: party: $50 -> $0
beat: party: $50 -> $200 -> $0
variance: read some books, learned about brm
brag: stars: $5 -> $1200, cashed out
variance: deposited $130 on full tilt and playing microlimits now

[g33z3r]

cliffnotes:
- noob thinks NLH is cool but has no clue
- noob figures he has to hit some books
- slowly but steadily building up a BR
- NL10 to NL50 in 7 months with nity BR management
- robusto with minor swings

I played some draw and stud for pennys once a week for about a year with a few friends like 10 years back when we were at the university. I was a constant winner at those games - nobody did care about strategy and good play at that time - most of us just wanted a good time with friends at the kitchentable playing cards. About half of my winnings was spend on beer and snacks for our friendly sessions anyway ... but thinking about it: The spare money from that time covered my online poker deposits so far.

I found out that there is something called NLH at the end of 2006, played fun money for a few hours to learn the mechanics a bit and deposited 70$ on 25.12.2006 without actually knowing much about the game. I thought that a "river" is something with water in it. Lost that 70$ at NL10 in a week.

Deposited another 70$ at the beginning of January 2007 + bought a crappy NLH book, which at least helped me to understand some basic concepts and to run break even in January 2007. I also played some 2.5$ and 5$ SNGs and 5$ MTTs at that time with very mixed results.

I did not have any reasonable BR management rules at that time - I just was careful not to risk too much. The BR was << 100$ all the time so there was not much to manage anyway ...

Got my hands on some of the 2+2 books and started working through them by end of January 2007 - also became a lurker in this forum. I switched between SNGs, MTTs and cash games (and still do) depending on my mood and which book I was reading at that time. Managed to grind out my first 200$ in February.

Since February I had a monthly 200$ minimum win. I was (and am still) playing like 3K to 6K cash game hands a month + some MTTs + very few SNGs.

Cashed out my 140$ initial deposits in march or april to have a "pure winnings BR" which I see (more or less) as play money. (I do make enough money for my living and some extras in a regular office job)

When moving up from NL10 to NL20 (beeing on a maximum 5% BR per table strategy) I went back and forth between NL10 and NL20 for quite some time depending on my mood, my condition and table selection. I never force myself to play at a higher limit ... when I am tired I do not have a problem with lower limits since I am not on my A game when tired. To be honest: I am not on my A game most of the time when I am not tired too [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Somewhen in May I had grinded out my first 1K$ (mostly NL20 + some NL10 + 5$ to 10$ MTTs + stupid but rare and mostly lucky shots at NL50). I opened a bottle of champagne and felt like the comming poker god ... got drunk and enjoyed myself for a while ... stalled for a moment ... and thought about my whole "poker career" while enjoying a nice cigar and some nice single malt (champagne already empty).

Although quite drunk I started thinking that this whole "poker success story" needs a structure and then "decided" to not go busto and find out how far I can go with poker in my spare time. I switched to the following quite conservative BR strategy (which was only slightly modified since then):
- Cash game play with a maximum of 2% of the BR per table.
- MTT play with a maximum of 1% of the BR per tournament.
- I only multi-table if I feel comfortable with the limit and the current tables (I usually play a single table and sometimes go for two - never did three or more).
- When multi-tableing: maximum of 5% of the BR in total.
- I cash out next time I am UTG if I have 10% of my BR in front of me at any cash game table (has not happened for months).
- I do not force myself to play a higher limit even if my BR would allow it. I have to feel confident about my game first. If I am not confident then I browse some poker books + forum stuff and try to analyse my game first.
- Shots at anything I want with a maximum of 5% of the BR (I very rarely use this exception).

I am currently propperly BRed for NL50 and this month I seriously started playing NL50 and rarely joined NL20 tables. Works out pretty good so far.

Basically I want to understand the game good enough before advancing to the next level. I know that I am quite nity here compared to a few of todays hot shots - but my PT graph goes up steadily showing only mild swings of a few buy ins. Works for me so far. I did not have to step back in levels due to an insufficient BR at any time. When things go south then I analyse my game to find out what went wrong and do read some poker stuff to refocus on what's really going on in the games. I step back a level (sometimes only for an hour - sometimes for days) from time to time if I am not confident enough or due to table selection criterias.

I am in no rush here - the odds on poker beeing around next year are quite good.

My current aim is to constantly beat NL50 and I project my transition to NL100 by 01/2008 or 02/2008 and the transition to NL200 by end of 2008 or beginning of 2009. Let's see if that works out [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[hlacheen]

Is it weird that I never went bust?

Started with $350 playing .25/.50 LHE.

Currently play 2/4 nl w/ $18k BR.

[furyshade]

the story starts off with me playing magic online (beat) at around 15, a guy named gobboboy was in my clan, he stopped playing the game after a while and started playing poker, i started to watch. after watching him play small-mid stakes mtts for a while, i wanted to learn, when he started playing higher and around my 16th birthday he gave me $20 to just donk around 1c/2c limit, he taught be the basics, i busted that. he gave me another $50 and i started learning micro mtts and $3-$5 sngs, i ran that up a little and busted it. he gave me yet another $50, i ran that up a little and busted it. for some unknown reason he gave me another $100, i finally got like third in a $3 mtt, had like $300 now.
kept playing, kept building til i had about 700. he kept helping me and eventually i started trying 50nl, i spent like 2 weeks without a losing session and ran my br up a bit, this was last summer. i had about 1500, paid gobbo back the $220 he loaned me, went back to mtts and lost a bit, br down to around 1k. last august, i think it was the 15th, my miracle night occured, by some ungodly force and having everyone i knew in poker sweating me i won the 3r flat out, my first tournament win. this was for 6.5k when my br was 1k.
i went from the 3r being the biggest tournament i would play to be br'ed for a hell of a lot more, and wasnt sure what id do. i put 2k on party and tried to learn 100nl, sucked horribly at it and lost like 1k. took a bit of a break cause school started and kept losing till i had like 3.5k until i had a sick sick sick +~4k week getting 3rd in 5r and winning the 30fo on stars flat out, now i was up to about 8k. i decided i was going to try cash again, got a cardrunners subscription and started playing cash again determined to learn it becuase mtt's during school was simply not feasible. i started to win, probably 6 months ago i started 200nl and gobbo put me in contact with ansky. i talked to him sporadically but when i did talk to him i learned a lot, got a lot better from cardrunners/talking to much better people.
a few months ago i learned of cake poker and played 400nl there, and with a 14k br around my birthday in february i tried 400nl on ftp. i ran so badly and probably played horribly that i lost about 1/3 of br between cake and ftp. i realized i had to realy look at my game again, and started to play 200nl once more. i built my br up a bit and i guess you could say luckily for me, ansky started to run like utter [censored] and decided to take a break and advertised that he might start coaching. i had considered getting a coach for a long time but was afraid of putting down the money on a coach who might actually suck (to defend this idea, the first post i made asking about coaching i got a response from fgators). i decided after a break due to school that i had to do something to move, pm'ed ansky and apparently was one of the few who asked him and was willing to put the money forward so he started coaching me. my game has gotten exponentially better since then and am beating 400nl even though i cant put as many hands as i would like in. and on a karmic note i guess for helping me ansky ran hotter than god like 2-3 weeks after starting to coach me, and that is where i am now.

[Jamsym]

About 3 years ago i deposited $50 in party. I'd never played before. I think i'd been watching late night poker or something to get me interested. I've always been a degen though since about 15 with fruit machines, horse racing etc so its just natural progression i suppose [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

I believe i started with some $10 stt's and had some fun for a few hours i guess until i lost my $50 eventually.

I made about 4 more deposits of say $50-$200. I started to play the mtt's there and thats how i got my lucky break. I cashed for 3rd for about $4000 in a $20mmt. For some reason then i started to play $10/20 limit poker lol. I'd never played limit and had barely any experience in no limit but i had 4k so i was like may aswell.

My strategy was basic and i had some luck. I would just play any pocket pair, suited aces, or face cards. I must have been lucky anyway because i won about 3k over the next week at 10/20 on there before i cashed out £3000 which left me about $1000 in there. I carried on playing tourneys and some 10/20 until i was broke a week later.

I went back to paying the odd $50-$200 in party and losing it each month just for fun. I learnt a lot through playing and my interest grew and i began to read books and browse forums such as this one over the next few years.

I switched to NL50 at first and built a bankroll and began to follow proper bankroll requirements etc. Im currently up to NL200 with a $10k roll and things are going good.

[w_alloy]

Super short version

2005...

$100 on pacific when I have not clue what I'm doing-> $1000 -> 0$
$500 on party to grind limit -> 40k in half a year yay limit

2006...

6 month break
Switch to NL
40k -> 65k 1st 2 months
65k -> 165k huge September
+15k rest of 06 online in limited playtime
Go to vegas +50k

2007...

Taxes, money stuck in neteller, car, etc.
Lax play schedule, bad variance
Now up a bit on the year after 40k hands

Lets hope 2nd half of 07 is like 2nd half 06!

[payoff wizard]

This is a graph of my NLHE cash game story so far. Obviously I am the grand master of BR management.