Starting out with $100 - advice needed

[Snoh84]

The best way to beat microstakes is bonus whoring/rakeback. You can be a profitable player, but at the stakes you're playing, you'll make just as much through bonuses. If you haven't made a real money deposit on sites, usually you still qualify for bonuses.

Far and away the best advice I can give you to build up your bankroll from $100 is if you ever lose more than $10 in a given session, quit. When you are first starting it is super-easy to lose it all in one day tilting or not caring.

[You're No Daisy]

If you just deposited $100 on Poker Stars, start at the .02/.05 No limit hold'em tables buying in for $5. The players are aweful and you can easily work your way up to $200 playing there for a short while. Once you get close to $200 you can take a shot at .05/.10. When you get to $200 you'll have 20 buy-ins for .05/.10. 20 buy-ins is the magic number here for any stakes you're playing at.

Forget about SNGs, MTTs, HORSE, Omaha 8/b, or any other split pot games. I consider myself an excellent Omaha8/b and Stud/hi-lo player but the games are nowhere near as profitable as no limit hold'em...especially Omaha 8/b which is the KING of suckout poker games. If I feel like taking a break from NLHE, I'll play some HORSE or split pot games for fun just to give my mind a break from the monotony of hold'em. I played Omaha 8/b for just over a month starting out with $100 and managed to get it up to $136. When I went back to NLHE I turned $136 into $230 in 3 weeks. I'm comfortably playing .05/.10 and I'm planning on taking a shot at .10/.25 when I get up to $350. When I say take a shot, I don't mean stay there until I lose $100, I mean take a shot or two by doubling up at a table then moving back down to .05/.10 and banking the profit I made at .10/.25. I hope this helps.

AC

[I-Love-Poker]

OK here is my expierence starting with $100, which I have done multiple times, and have great sucess many ways.

#1, I suggest you DONT play 2nl or 5nl, it is not even poker with 20xBB raise is standard, and every1 is all in. You will not learn anything from it, and it will only worsen your game.

#2) Wanna take a chance? Here is my #1, way of playing. I go to 50nl HU, and just win like no other, b/c most fish are at low stakes HU. I win about $300 and I go 3 table 50NL, and just build up from there. But it is risky starting out.

#3) S&G's, I would start out with $5 6-max S&G's where many fish come to play. Easy wins, and you can make $100 in a day playing that.

#4) Do some MTT. If you do like $1 rebuys or something, and keep it to $4 or $5 max per game, you can make a killing with one Top 3 finish.

[You're No Daisy]

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2) When you start feeling like this could really be a way to make money, invest in Poker Tracker and PAHUD. Both of these programs are priceless IMO (in reality, they run $80 together), but they're both exceptional tools to have.

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Just get them now. They will pay for themselves shortly. Go to the software forum if you're confused on how to configure PokerTracker or PAHUD (Poker Ace HUD). I would try 6-max NLHE because the games are really soft. Read Tien's post on 6-max fundamentals found HERE to get an idea of how to properly play TAG.

AC

[pzhon]

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The best way to beat microstakes is bonus whoring/rakeback. You can be a profitable player, but at the stakes you're playing, you'll make just as much through bonuses.

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While bonuses and rakeback may boost your win rate slightly, they are not worth much to a player with only $100. If you get 20% rakeback, then to get $100, you need to pay $500 worth of rake. For that to happen before you lose $100, you need to beat the table average by a lot. It's much more important for someone with $100 to concentrate on finding a game to beat.

People get really excited about rakeback, but this often comes with a higher rake. Further, in NL, win rates of solid players are much higher than the rake, and thus many times larger than rakeback. Winning small stakes LHE players often have lower win rates than the rake, which makes getting a good rakeback deal (on a site which doesn't charge extra rake to cover it) more important.

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Far and away the best advice I can give you to build up your bankroll from $100 is if you ever lose more than $10 in a given session, quit.

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That might help to prevent tilt, but it will only slow down the losses (and learning) of a losing player or the downswings of a player who is underbankrolled, such as a marginal winner playing $3 SNGs or $3 MTTs. It's all one long session.

It's much more important to learn to beat the game. No betting system will turn a -EV game to your advantage, since no sum of negative numbers is positive.

[pzhon]

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20 buy-ins is the magic number here for any stakes you're playing at.

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No.

First, a losing player will burn through any amount. A marginal winning needs a much larger bankroll than a solid winner.

Second, in low stakes games, a solid winner does not need anything close to 20 buy-ins, while in higher stakes games, 20 buy-ins is not enough for an expert.

Saying 20 buy-ins is like responding "4:00" any time someone asks what time it is. Maybe it's close, but only accidentally.

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Forget about SNGs, MTTs, HORSE, Omaha 8/b, or any other split pot games. I consider myself an excellent Omaha8/b and Stud/hi-lo player but the games are nowhere near as profitable as no limit hold'em...especially Omaha 8/b which is the KING of suckout poker games.

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I don't see why you reject SNGs. They are simple, they have a relatively low variance, and they are relatively easy to multitable. SNGs are fine for building a bankroll, but their simplicity may stunt your poker development, and higher stakes SNGs are not as profitable as other high poker variants.

If you know how to play, split pot games like O8 and Stud8 offer high win rates relative to their variance, particularly when you play SNGs. Yes, suckouts happen, but very often it is just for half of the pot, and you can make a killing when you are the only one going for low when you are playing several people who think (J8)J or QQ85 are good hands, and who draw to lows that aren't close to the nuts.

These are more complicated than Hold'em, so it is harder to teach a beginner to play them, but they are a safe way for an expert to (re)build a bankroll rapidly.

[pzhon]

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I suggest you DONT play 2nl or 5nl, it is not even poker with 20xBB raise is standard, and every1 is all in. You will not learn anything from it, and it will only worsen your game.

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Many good lessons can be learned even at the lowest stakes. Some of the most profitable situations at NL $1k come when you realize someone is playing the same way you might have learned to crush at NL $2. That happens a lot more than you might think, since contrary to the common misconception, losing players at every level generally deposit at that level. They did not win their way up from lower levels, so they are not necessarily avoiding the mistakes from lower levels.

It is also good to have the possibility of rebuilding from $20 by playing penny-ante NL as a safety net.

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Wanna take a chance? Here is my #1, way of playing. I go to 50nl HU,


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Playing NL $50 HU on a $100 bankroll is close to the opposite of rational bankroll management. It's gambling on a game where the OP is likely to lose.

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Do some MTT. If you do like $1 rebuys or something, and keep it to $4 or $5 max per game, you can make a killing with one Top 3 finish.

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$100 is not necessarily a sufficient bankroll to play even normal $1 tournaments. You might make a killing, but you don't get much feedback about what you are doing wrong before you bust out. A lot of the advantage in MTTs comes from playing well at the final table, since a large fraction of your profits comes from winning, not just making the final table or cashing, and you don't get much final table practice even if you play a lot of MTTs.

[jacaranda]

My personal rule for bankroll management is 2%. I only allow myself to buy in to tournaments for 2% of my bankroll or less.

An easy way to calculate 2% is, move the decimal two places to the left and then double that number. For example. You have $100.00 Move the decimal over 2 spots you get $1. Double that number you get $2. It is safe for you to play a $2 tournament with a $100 bankroll. Once you work your way up to $250, you can play for $5 and so on. If you have a solid game, before you know it you'll be buying into $100 tournaments ;-)

[pzhon]

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My personal rule for bankroll management is 2%. I only allow myself to buy in to tournaments for 2% of my bankroll or less.


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That might be fine for you in some context, but it's pretty dangerous as a general rule.

A reasonable guideline is to use

bankroll = comfort * (standard deviation^2)/(win rate).

People typically want a comfort level from 2 (aggressive) to 4 (conservative). The standard deviation for a 200 player tournament depends a bit on your playing style. It may be about 5 buy-ins for a break-even player, and 6 buy-ins for a player with a 50% ROI. Let's call it 6 for this example. What ROI do you need to have a comfort level of 3 with a bankroll of 50 buy-ins?

50 = 3 * 6^2 / ROI
ROI = 108/50 = 2.16 = 216%.

A 216% ROI means you average a prize of $3.16 for every $1 you use to buy in. That's a lot higher than I think anyone can expect to get in all but the softest MTTs of that size. (Also, we underestimated your standard deviation, which should have been about 9 buy-ins.) The MTT FAQ says much lower ROIs are good, so the vast majority of players will not have a high comfort level when playing with 50 MTT buy-ins.

While people repeat 20 buy-ins for NL, and 100 buy-ins for MTTs, the latter is typically much more aggressive. 50 buy-ins is dangerously aggressive.

Playing satellites to bigger tournaments can be fun and profitable. However, if your bankroll is not large enough to buy in directly, then you should view winning a satellite as worth less than the entry fee to the larger event.

[OMGuraBOT]

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Hey Lucky, thanks for replying. I would like rakeback but already have a play account on FTP, and a money on UB. That leaves PS for me.



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I've had money on UB for a couple years and just switched my account to rakeback today. As long as you didn't sign up with an affiliate, raketherake.com should be able to switch your account to rakeback. Other sites may be able to switch your account too, but this is the only one that I came across.