subject: Building a Poker Bankroll Online [print this page] Building a Poker Bankroll Online Building a Poker Bankroll Online
Building a Poker Bankroll
Most poker players who start playing online do it to make a profit, not necessarily because they want to have fun. Unlike other forms of gambling such as online craps or sports betting, poker as a game involves much more strategy and depth since you are playing against other players as opposed to the house. Not only can you swing the odds massively in your favour, but in the long term you can build a big enough bankroll to move up the stakes and make a living playing online. Indeed, most professional mid-stakes poker players ($3/$6+) make around $100,000+ per year, sometimes even per month.
But knowing how to start building a poker bankroll from scratch is a different story. The people at the opposite end of the spectrum, like Ivey and Dwan playing nose bleed PLO stakes with individual pots worth up to $500,000, have been playing for years and are able to do so because of their mathematical ability, ability to execute "plays" and masses of experience.
If you are starting out as a new poker player online, I actually don't recommend depositing. Around 80% of online poker players actually lose money, and if you've suddenly decided to play poker and make a deposit before understanding the rules/strategy of the game then you are bound to lose it all.
For new players I actually recommend learning the rules of the game and then entering play money games or freeroll just to gain experience. Freerolls are free to enter tournaments run by the poker rooms that include real money prizes. The prize pool from freerolls is usually between $50 an $200, however Full Tilt Poker run a $100,000 first-depositors freeroll every week which is the biggest online according to my knowledge.
After playing a number of freerolls (20+), you should hopefully have made a few money finishes and developed experience in the game. Learning to play a tight game, getting your starting hand selection right and eventually make it into the money places or final table should be your aim. In fact, adopting a correct starting hand selection in poker is one of the most important and money-saving concepts in poker.
Once you get to an online poker bankroll of around $100, you can start trying out real money games, either SNGs, cash games or MTTs. Personally, I recommend cash games over MTTs (multi-table tournaments) because you get more experience, you can re-buy if you lose, you can sit down whenever you want and in generally there is less variance. When you sit down, you should enter with 100 times the big blind, and this shouldn't make up 5% or more of your total online bankroll at any one time. For example, if you have a total bankroll of $100 than you shouldn't be playing with more than $5 at a time. This is called poker bankroll management. With $5, you can play the $0.02/$0.04 ring games (100x0.04 = $4 buy-in).
After gaining experience, you should slowly be able to make money in these games and earn a win-rate of around 3-6bb/hr. As you increase your bankroll and learn new poker strategy concepts and improve you overall game, you should slowly be able to move up the stakes (perhaps every month depending on how often you play). You can also take advantage of free no-deposit poker bonuses at PokerSource or PokerBankrolls.org, which give you up to $100 a certain poker rooms just for signing up an account.
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