Poker bankroll management, building and strategy – online poker guide

NY Giants Game Challenge update

Friday, June 5th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Projects | No Comments

Submitted by McTap, this article belongs to the Poker Projects series.

If you haven’t already, it might be a good idea to read the first installment in McTap’s NY Giants Game Challenge before moving on to the update below.

Just a quick little update on my NY Giants Game Challenge, and a some other points of interest. See my blog for more updates.

After being excited to go back and play on the fishy Mansion tables 12 days ago, and also to be able to bonus hunt a little quicker than on Poker Stars, reality quickly set in. It took me 7 days (12 tourneys) before I actually cashed and it was only a 4th place that paid back the BI only. Another 2 days of nothing before I finally started making the money again. Over the past few days, I managed to make all the money I lost back and then some (see BR stats on left side panel).

I am also over 40% of the way to my first $10 bonus, which I figure should hit within the next 10 days or so, depending on how much I play this long weekend. At this pace, I should be able to hit $30 in bonus (of the $200) before the end of June. If I can continue to increase my BR, I should be able to start double tabling these games to increase my bonus points faster. The problem right now is that playing in a $5+1 SNG is 1/20 of my BR (factoring in exchange rate) and that is not proper BR management. I did try the $2+0.40 SNG games but they were such a donkfest that I couldn’t play my normal game and win. I also couldn’t degrade myself to pushing OOP with any 2 cards, like most of the players seem to do at this level. So I decided to move back to the $5 games and have been striving since.

One thing that has come up a few times over the past 12 days is people getting their money in good when they are short stacked but losing to players who have pot odds, and the chance to knock someone out, call. I am totally for this. If you have the chips to call some one’s all-in and it doesn’t cost you more than 3 BB or leave you as the SS, then do it with almost any 2. If calling means committing more than 30% of your stack, then it is not worth it unless you have a strong hand, especially since the person going all-in probably has a pair or better, which would probably include at least 1 face card.

Case in point, on the bubble and I’m the BB. I have about 2500 and the blinds are 100-200. SS is UTG with 550. He shoves it all in. It folds to me. Now it is only going to cost me 350 more for a chance to win a pot of 850. Almost 2.5:1 and I also get a chance to POP the bubble. If I call, I will still have over 2100 chips and in the SB next. I look down at my cards and I have Q8o. I don’t even care about my cards, as I am getting the right price to call, so I do. SS flips over JJ and the first thing in my mind is I have 1 over -> 3 outs. The flop comes A88. BINGO! His hand doesn’t improve on the turn or river and he’s out. He starts losing it, asking how I could call with such a horrible hand. I respond, “priced in” which he doesn’t seem to understand. He starts dropping insults and such and I just ignore him. The part that got me is that he was so mad about the situation (bad call on my part in his opinion) that it made me think he takes this game a little more seriously than the average weekend player who’s only there for the fun. But his reaction to what happened made me think that he doesn’t understand the odds and game (I would have made that call with 72o). If you are going to get mad about a situation, try to understand what’s going on and why hands are being played. That should loosen the tilt edge a bit.

Another situation where I’m on the other side. Last night we are on the bubble, blinds are 200-400. I’m sitting with about 3000 chips and in the SB. BB is the SS with about 1200 (800 after posting). It folds to me and I look down at 88. I push the BB/SS all-in. He calls with T8s. I’m way ahead. Flop comes Q4T. OUCH! I don’t improve and SS doubles up. I comment on the nice catch and he apologizes. I respond that I am cool with it as I would have done the same thing. I understand why he called, as I could have been stealing with any 2 decent cards and he had a suited 1-gap connected cards. He probably figured he had ‘live’ cards and he was getting SS, so standing up to the blind steals was eventually going to be needed. Like I told him, I totally understand. How did I do you ask, well I eventually went out on the bubble as I called the aggressive CL when he raised my BB for the 3rd time in a row with ATo, only to lose to his Q6o that hit a 6 on the turn. Oh well, all part of the game.

Anyway, even though I’m off my pace a little, the BR is going up and should continue as I keep playing my B-game at this level.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

If you’re looking for a free poker bankroll, check out our review of PokerRoomSchool.

See you on the felt.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Projects

New York Giants Game Challenge

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Projects | 1 Comment

Submitted by McTap03, this article belongs to the Poker Projects series

A new challenge is on the horizon that will be played along side my other current challenges (see my blog for those challenges). First, let me provide a little info before explaining this challenge.

I’m a HUGE NY Giants fan. It is almost obsessive once the season is in full swing. Most of my free time during the week leading up to the game is spent analyzing match-ups, talking about it on various forums, and making my picks for the several pools I’m in. I would say I’m just as obsessed with the Giants as with poker, only poker is 12 months a year, while my Giants obsession minimizes during the off-season (I still read as much as possible, just don’t throw myself fully into it until pre-season starts). My wife has come to terms that Sunday’s from September to February (Super Bowl) are pretty much off limits for family outings, ESPECIALLY if the Giants are playing. Yes I have a PVR, so I could record it, but what good is that. I am so involved with it that I now have my ritual clothing that I wear for each game, and now that my kids are a little older, they also ask to wear their jersey’s on game days (gotta love them!). So what does this have to do with a poker blog and a new challenge, let me tell you. A few years ago I found out that in 2009 the Giants would be playing against my good friend’s favourite team, the Oakland Raiders, in New York, and since I would be turning 40 that year, and he turning 30, we thought a road trip to the game would be necessary. So 2 ‘Major’ birthdays, and a huge rivalry amongst friends, meant fun times and plenty of drinking would be in order. Trying to make this happen would be our goal. We’ve spent the past 2 years talking about it and now that the schedule has been released, we now have a date: October 11th, 2009 1:00pm. Now comes the dilemma. The price of tickets for NY Giants home games are OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. The reason, the stadium is mostly season ticket holders, so getting them through the box office/Ticketmaster does not happen. This then means that I/we need to look for other avenues to secure tickets. i.e. online ticket sellers (scalpers). The problem is that these guys mark up the price +300% because they know there is a demand for tickets, and they are allowed. This then makes a $110 ticket (lower bowl sections) anywhere from $300 to $500 a ticket, and when you are buying 2 each (our wives would be coming for the weekend and the game), it gets expensive fast. So 2 tickets to the game ($600-$900), 2 nights hotel (anywhere from $125 to $400, so $250 will be assumed), and transportation (gas) & food for 3 days (~ $250) makes this trip cost somewhere between $1200 and $1400 plus spending money. Ouch, but for the big 4-0, I can justify it. The problem is my buddy doesn’t think he can. Bummer, as this has been our goal for some time now. So unless things (price) change, I will be doing this trip with my wife only. And if that is the case (I have no problem taking her and she really wants to go to her first game), then I will chose a game closer to my actual birthday, in this case the November 22nd game vs Atlanta.

Now for the challenge and the poker aspect of this blog. Currently I have $130 on Stars that I will try to increase to $1400. This way I can go on the trip without it costing me any of my money (what a way to spend your b-day with a free trip/gift). The deadline date I will set will be September 1st. This allows me enough time to order and receive the tickets before the Oakland game (if that be the one I go to), otherwise I can extend it to October 1st, if I go with the Atlanta game. This breaks down to 133/163 days to complete this challenge. For the Sept 1st deadline, it will mean increasing my BR by a little more than $9/day, while the Oct 1st deadline makes it just under $8/day. Both of these are some aggressive numbers and will take some serious discipline, and solid playing, to achieve.

In order to do this, I will set the following rules:

* Start each session with proper BR rules (25x BI) and only multi-table if the total BI falls under this rule or if the total BI is less than $10.
* During a session, only move up levels once a profit of $10 has been made and the remaining covers the next level BI. For example, in order to play a $5+0.50 SNG on the same night I started out playing $3+0.40 SNG’s, I need to profit +$15.50 at the $3+0.40 SNG’s.
* End a session before losing more than 3 BI’s. This should minimize the amount I can lose in 1 night.
* If I make more than $10 in a night, end the session if buying into another SNG will drop me below $10. For example, if I profit $13 during a session, I must stop for the night or play a SNG with a BI of less than $3 as this secures my $10/day amount needed.
* During this challenge, I will play BI levels according to the following BR amounts:
o $175 and under – $3.40 SNG and lower
o $176 to $360 – $5.50 SNG and lower
o $361 to $780 – $11 SNG and lower
o over $781 – $22 SNG and lower
* Once my BR goes up a level, I will modify my rules for the specified BI SNG games. I will allow myself a 30% decline before dropping down BI levels. A post will follow specifying any new rules once I move up/down a level.

As you can see I will need to take a little more aggressive approach with my winnings, all while staying within proper BR management. My goal is to maximize my winnings by working off any hot streaks I may go on, while minimizing my loses. The 1 major problem that I see is that I don’t play every day, so missing days will increase my per day amount needed to reach my goal. If that be the case, I will follow the rule that before I can move up a level (during a current session) I must make the necessary amounts needed to keep my average at $10/day or more. Now when it comes to playing style, I will do my best to stick to solid ABC poker as this style lends itself to making the money fairly consistently at the lower level SNG’s.

One thing I will keep in mind with this challenge is that as long as I can make some of the money needed for the trip (preferably 50%), then I’m going. The big question will be whether or not my buddy, CanuckJack who is more of a casual poker player, will try to do the same thing with his BR on Titan (~ $150) so that we can go to the ‘birthday/bragging rights’ game together. Otherwise, the November game time line will skew the numbers even more in my favour. Either way, challenge on!

First step is to get my Bankroll up to $175 within the next 15 days.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

If you’re looking for a free poker bankroll, check out our review of PokerRoomSchool.

See you on the felt.

McTap03

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Projects

Poker Bankroll Blog’s bankroll building project update 2

Saturday, April 18th, 2009 | Poker Projects | No Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Project series.

To celebrate our new collaboration on the Poker Bankroll Blog and PokerBRB sites, McTap03 and I have started our own bankroll building SNG and MTT (multi table tournament) project on Full Tilt Poker. Our starting bankroll is 150$ and we will be posting regular updates on our many wins and hopefully fewer losses.  It goes without saying that we expect our bankroll to increase significantly in no time.

Since we started our bankroll building project in February our bankroll has decreased to 147$. The highest it’s been is around 170$. It goes without saying that we have yet to hit a final table. The closest I (Mark) have been is a 20th place in one  of the FTP early double events. Bankroll building via mostly MTT tournament play definitely requires patience.

I have completely lost track of the number of tournaments we have played, but so far we have earned 337 FTP points. You earn 7 FTP points per dollar payed in tournament rake, so 337 points corresponds to about 50$ in tournament rake. I mostly play the early double events which are 5000$ guaranteed MTT tournaments with a 5$ buyin and a 1$ rake. I know McTap has been playing some 90 player turbo SNG’s and I have also played some 2$ and 3$ buyin tournaments where the rake is 0,2$ and 0,3$ respectively. I therefore guesstimate that we have played maybe 75 events in total since we started the project.

Usually when I play the early double events I end in the money in one of them, so I hope it is only a matter of time before I hit a final table.

We will keep you updated!

Mark and McTap03

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Poker Projects

Stake deal

Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Projects | 6 Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Articles series.

I was approached the other day by my good friend MaddyUK who wanted to discuss a possible online poker stake deal. Maddy has previously grinded 1/2$ shorthanded cash games with good success and I know him to be an extremely disciplined player so obviously I was interested to hear what he had to say.

Turns out he is highly motivated to get back in the game but hasn’t started due to a lack of necessary funds to start up an online poker bankroll. Maddy’s timing was perfect since I have 1000$ of risk capital lying around perfectly suited for an online poker stake deal.

Here’s what we agreed on:

Starting bankroll: 1000$

Revenue share: 50/50 for the 1000$-6000$ profit interval

Limits:

• 1000$-1500$ :  0,25/0,5. If the bankroll drops below 500$ the project is stopped. Between 500$ and 1000$ Maddy will continue to play on the 0,25/0,5 tables.
• 1500$-3000$ : 0,5/1. If the bankroll drops to the interval 1200$-1500$ Maddy will continue on the 0,5/1 tables. If the bankroll drops below 1200$ he will move down to the 0,25/0,5 tables.
• 3000$-  ?           : 1/2. If the bankroll drops to the interval 2400$-3000$ Maddy will continue on the 1/2 tables. If the bankroll drops below 2400$ he will move down to the 0,5/1 tables.

Daily stop loss: 2 full buyins at any given level

I would not recommend people to do stake deals unless they know the person they will be staking really well. I have known Maddy for more than 20 years so there are no trust issues whatsoever.

You can follow the progress of the bankroll building project on Twitter (pokerBRBblog and MaddyUK) and I will also post regular updates here.

Wish us luck:-)

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Projects

Poker Team Bankroll

Thursday, March 5th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Projects, Poker Tools | 6 Comments

Submitted by Matt Gai this article belongs to the Poker Project series

Free web-based service for turning your home poker game into an enterprising partnership with your friends

This article explains the history, features and strategy behind pokerteambankroll.com

The idea was spawned as my friend and I were talking during a car ride down to Atlantic City for a poker tournament over a year ago. He said to me, “We should get everyone in our home game to pool our money together so we can play in big tournaments like a World Poker Tour (WPT) Championship and the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event!” That was all it took to get the wheels spinning.

The very next week I drafted up the concept on paper so all of the home game players could get on the same page. I laid it out for everyone. Our team goal was to put together enough money for one $10,000 buyin to the WSOP Main Event for one of us, plus $1,000 for 1 Main Event Satellite buyin for a second player, plus $2,000 for travel, food and lodging expenses for both. $13,000 in all.

In order to reach our goal, we were going to follow this plan…
Any profit made in our home game could be contributed to our team bankroll in exchange for an equal number of points. I would collect the money from each player and record an equal number of points on paper (e.g. $82 profit contributed = 82 points recorded). I then put the money in a savings account that I set up just for this. We did this every week – and we still do. Anyway, every week, profits are contributed and points are given. And it adds up quickly!

The idea is, when we reach our goal, whoever has the most points will take $11,000 from the bankroll and use it to travel to Las Vegas to play in in the World Series of Poker Main Event, poker’s most prestigious tournament. Our team member with the 2nd most number of points will take $2,000 from the bankroll, travel to Las Vegas and play in a satellite tournament to try to win a seat in the Main Event. If that player wins a seat, then the team will have 2 players in the Main Event, thereby doubling our chances of cashing.

Here’s the best part, and you may have guessed it already, but, if either player cashes any money in the Main Event, everyone who contributed to the team bankroll will be paid out according to their percentage of contributions. For example, if the point leader, who contributed $3,500 in profits to the team bankroll, which is 27% of $13,000, cashes $100,000 in the tournament, he or she wins $27,000. The rest is paid out accordingly.

What this means is that everyone has a shot to win big money, regardless of how much you contribute. Take this hypothetical example: Player B has the least amount of points contributed (130), which translates to a 1% share in the bankroll. If the point leader wins the WSOP Main Event and cashes $10 million, player B wins $100,000. Not bad for a $130 investment!

So here’s where the web site comes in. I got tired of recording everything on paper, and so, being a webmaster, I decided that the best way to keep track of all of our activity would be online. That way, everything got recorded safe and sound, anyone on the team could easily check their statistics at any time, and everyone would always know where they stood with respect to the goal. We started recording and tracking every single buyin, cashout and contribution for every weekly home game on the website.

From there I starting adding features like a message board, photos, avatars, event selection, goal management, team management, emailing and more. It became so useful and so integral to our team that I decided to put it out there for the entire world to use.

Now anyone can create a private team on pokerteambankroll.com and use it to turn their home game into a big tournament team effort – and transform their home game players into poker super stars – all for free. Good luck!

Post by Matt.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Projects, Poker Tools

Poker Bankroll Blog’s bankroll building project update 1

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 | Poker Projects | 2 Comments

It’s been a couple of weeks since we started our Fulltilt poker (FTP) SNG and MTT poker bankroll building projects, so we thought it was about time with an update on our progress (or lack of the same).
We were off to a slow start, both being busy with the re-design of the pokerbrb website, but then things cleared up and we were able to put in some hours on the FTP tables.

Here’s a quick overview of the tournaments we’ve played:

• Two 3$ MTT’s
• Two 2$ 180 player SNGs
• One 2$ 9 player SNG
• Four 5$ MTTs

We didn’t have any high finishes ITM so our roll on FTP has dropped 13$ to 137$ 

We have experienced quite a few suckouts during our first hours on FTP which has confirmed our hypothesis that all online poker is rigged:-)

As for the opposition; tournament players on FTP seem to be of an overall higher quality compared to Titan poker. You rarely see preflop re-raises on Titan poker, but they happen quite frequently on FTP. Higher quality opponents doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing; their feel for the game means that higher poker level bluffs tend to be more likely to succeed, which is definitely an advantage during the later stages of tournaments. On the other hand, better opponents require that you play your A-game at all times and watch your back. Playing tournaments on auto pilot until the later stages simply won’t cut it on FTP.

We vow to come back stronger this week and get our BR over the original starting mark. At the least, we will go down swinging and embrace the risk to our grave:-)

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Mark and McTap03

Tags: Poker Projects

Poker Bankroll Blog’s Fulltilt SNG and MTT tournament bankroll building project

Monday, February 9th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Bankroll Management, Poker Projects, Poker Tournament | 9 Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Project series.

To celebrate our new collaboration on the Poker Bankroll Blog and PokerBRB sites, McTap03 and I have started our own bankroll building SNG and MTT (multi table tournament) project on Full Tilt Poker. Our starting bankroll is 150$ and we will be posting regular updates on our many wins and hopefully fewer losses.  It goes without saying that we expect our bankroll to increase significantly in no time.

 Here are our rules for bankroll management and sharing of winnings

• We will start playing SNG’s and MTT’s with 5$ buy-ins or less. If we play re-buy tournaments, we are allowed to re-buy up to a total buyin of 5$.
• Each time we double our bankroll we will add another buy-in level
• All levels must be played for 1 week before moving up. This avoids any *rush* playing (where you only move up because you are on a winning rush), and allows some time to get use to the current level. Weeks start Monday morning.
• All SNG winnings will go to boost our bankroll.
• MTT winnings will be shared according to the scheme below with the winning player getting the bigger amount:

- MTT winnings below 100$ will go to boost our bankroll

- MTT winnings between 100$ and $500 will be split 45/45 and 10% to the bankroll. 

- MTT winnings between $501 and $1000 will be split 55/35 and 10% to the bankroll.

- MTT winnings between $1001 and $2500 will be split 60/30 and 10% to the bankroll.

- MTT winnings between $2501 and $5000 will be split 70/20  and 10% to the bankroll.

- Anything higher than that will be split 80/10 and 10% to the bankroll.

Winnings can be withdrawn when agreed upon by both of us.

Our screen name is ‘pokerBRBblog’ and our motto will be “Embrace the risk” which hopefully will make Mitchell Cogert proud of us:-)

Wish us luck!

Mark and McTap03

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Bankroll Management, Poker Projects, Poker Tournament

short stack strategy_applied_update 5

Sunday, August 31st, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Projects | 2 Comments

“Easy come easy go” seems to be the story of my life when it comes to reaching the magical 200$ poker bankroll. I was so close 3 sessions ago when I hit 197$, but I’m now down to 135$. As usual I have made a graph which clearly shows my dismal last 3 sessions.

Here’s how it happened (posts taken from my bankroll building thread on the PokerBRB forum)

Took a beating tonight

Not my best session hour ever. Lost 3 buyins (-24$) and my bankroll is now down to 171$

Lost with QQ against AK (turn and river were AK)
Lost with AA against AKs (turn gave my opponent the flush)
Lost with 910s on a A52 board (2 of my suit) against KK

Instead of playing on, I decided to stop for the evening. No point in continuing when I am mad about my losses.

Perfect example of the short stack strategy in action

I look down at KK in early position and raised 7xBB to 3,5$. I get 2 callers.
The flop is 10 8 K, two spades. I go all in with my remaining 4,5$ and get one caller with QJ
Perfect, I get the money in as favorite which will make me a winning player in the long run.
Not tonight however since the river was an A
My bankroll is currently free-falling….

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Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Projects

short stack strategy_applied_update 4

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Projects | No Comments

I’m on a roll, and I have a graph to prove it. MUHUHAHAHAHAHA

200$ Bankroll here I come!!!

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Projects

short stack strategy_applied_update 3

Sunday, August 17th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Projects | No Comments

I bet you have been waiting in great anticipation for my next short stack strategy update. I have been purposely waiting until I hit the 50 session hours mark so I could compare my short stack strategy results to my ealier regular cash game project.

Here’s a quick summary

Regular Cash Game project:

• 50,45 session hours played
• Bankroll high: +42,56$
• Bankroll low: -28,9$
• Largest losing session: -13,04$
• Largest winning session: 23,15$
• End result: +25,75$

Short stack strategy project:

• 50 session hours played
• Bankroll high: +78$
• Bankroll low: -6,22$
• Largest losing session: -36,7$
• Largest winning session: 36,22$
• End result after 50 hours: +49$

If there is one conclusion I can make on my limited statistics it is that following the short stack strategy probably results in larger swings in your bankroll. Having said that it automatically follows – in my case at least – that the short stack strategy approach is simply more fun. I dislike the long grinding sessions…it’s simply too boring for me. I also like the simplicity of the short stack strategy. You will either be folding or putting it all out there.

I have also been playing quite a few tournaments lately to practice some “real” poker. I have had very limited success which has meant a reduction in my tournament bankroll from 300$ to 200$. I am seriously considering cashing out this bankroll because I would hate to lose it all.

I will leave you with an updated graph over my short stack strategy project. There are some big swings in there:-)

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Projects