I actually am going to start doing a series of these I think, the first one got really good responses from people and I like to help others out. So if the mods will rename my first thread to Why you suck at uNL Part One: Playing Aggressively, id be very happy. Maybe these can go in the sticky or something cool.

Let me tell you guys a story about my poker career. When i started poker, i was crazy degen like many of you. I would play with most of my roll and when i busted it, blame it on bad beats. The truth of the matter is, you need a bankroll to play poker. There is a common phrase in this forum "Bankrolls are for Winning Players", that is used when a losing player posts about a bankroll. I would actaully like it changed to "Bankrolls are for responsible players with a goal to win long term". Im pretty sure when we all first sat down to play poker, we all were pretty terrible. Without the bankroll to allow you to lose a bit before starting to discover your game, you may never get that chance to even become a winning player. So do yourself a favor, play with a sufficient bankroll. I am going to make it really really really easy for you! Just follow this chart. No more "I have $25.74 what do i do?" threads, this is about to be the end all. Note: I am an American player, so this will be based on sites that all players can access.



I want to become a winner at Cash Games.

- You absolutely must have 20 buyins, there is no exception. Preferably more, but at least 20. If you ever drop below 20 then please move down.

I have <$100 on ....

Stars - You should be playing 1/2c. Buy in for 5% of your bankroll. If you have 20, that means you are short stacking. *Recommended*

FTP - Get your ass off of FTP or dont play cash games, you cannot play anything on ftp with this amount.

Ultimate Bet - Same as Stars

I have $100-500 on ...

Stars - You should be moving up to 2/5c and 5/10 by now. However it is fine to play 1/2c with $5 deep. This can be very profitable. If you have worked your bankroll to this point you will probably be fine long term. *Recomended*

FTP - Get your ass off of FTP or dont play cash games, you cannot play anything on ftp with this amount.

Ultimate Bet - This is a bit tricky, they got straight from 1/2c to 5/10c, so you should probably build up to 200 and then take a shot up.

I have $500+ on ...

Stars - You should be playing 10/25c by now

FTP - NOW you should take your money, and deposit it on FTP. Get rakeback, and a signup bonus. Ship the cheddah now you have a good deal. *Recomended*

UB - Sometime after FTP you can consider a UB deposit, but their bonuses clear slow and there isnt a ton of volume, so you have to think about what you want.


I want to become a winner at Sit and Go's

- You need to have 40+ Buyins for sit and gos. If you have <40 then you need to play lower or something else.


I have <$100 on ....

Stars - Stars has a huge selection of low end sit and go's, including 10c 360 man tourneys. That is correct, you can have a FULL roll for these with $4. This is the place to build your tiny, tiny, roll. *Recommended*

FTP - FTP has RB and is probably slightly softer, but doesnt run as low as stars does.

Ultimate Bet - Probably the softest but even less lower games and wayyy less volume.

I have $100-500 on ...

Stars - You can start playing the amazing 4/180's, and by the end of this scale start working in some $11 180's. Great game selection and easy to get a lot of games going, this is the way to go. *Recomended*

FTP - Here FTP starts to become a bit better, and the rakeback and game softness might even make this potentially more profitable then stars. However they just dont offer the same versatility stars does.

Ultimate Bet - See FTP

I have $500+ on ...

Stars - You can now move up to bigger sit and go's, but Stars wins the trifecta from their support+game selection+volume.

FTP - Rakeback and game selection become even more important now, but really by this point you are probably good enough to win in most environments, i suppose this is more opinion now at this point.

UB - Same as above but even softer and even more rakeback but less volume.




I want to become a winner at Tournaments.

- 100 bi minimum. If you have less then this dont even play.

To be honest, im not even going to run through sites, I think the amount of low level tournaments and how large they get makes stars the easy favorite for this one. The $3 rebuy is one of the softest tournaments on the internet, and with an amazing amount of selection and constant tournaments, stars is the place to play.


So if you have $xx, go to this thread, and you will know what to do! Good Luck!. And remember, no matter how good you are, if you increase your risk by too much anyone can go broke.

~Doug

I have a question-

Hypothetical situation. I have 200 dollars in my account (Let's just assume we are properly rolled for buying in with ten dollars). Where do I sit- deepstack at 5nl or regularly at 10nl?

Wherever you feel your edge is bigger, but probably nl 10.

I think you should add the reason why you should have at least $500 (preferably $600 so you can take advantage of the full first deposit bonus) before you play on Full Tilt. Part of good bankroll management is understanding the rake. You not only have to beat other players to be a winning player, you also must beat the rake.

Full Tilt is a great site, and a great place to play poker, but not at 10NL where the rake is a crushing 10%. Personally I think charging beginning players this kind of rake is evil. Not only are you trying to learn the game at the lowest stake, but you're trying to beat a very high rake.

The $1 SNGs are also higher on Full Tilt--$0.25 fee opposed to $0.20 on Pokerstars.

Stay off of FT until you have enough to join the games that have resonable rakes.

First off, Great posts. Keep them coming.

Second, I know this has been answered before but I was more looking for your opinion. What do you think a good expectation is in terms of BB or BI for SnG, MTT, or Ring games. Feel free to put it in any format session,day,week or month .

thx for the great insightful post doug. always a pleasure.

One thing that may be overlooked is, the average micro player may have a bankroll of $100-200 or so, as in that is the amount in his or her online account. However, he or she can easily afford to reload the account with an extra hundo or more if he or she goes busto. So therefore, the typical micro player does not succumb to the standard bankroll rules. They have a better capability to replenish a depleted bankroll than does, say a player with thousands in their br and no other source of income.

+1

This is an important point.

Yeah, if I were to go play at NL25 and try to start a BR there, I wouldn't blink to get in there with $300 so long as I wasn't playing more than a few tables - and forget dropping down if things don't go well. The opportunity cost of grinding out anything smaller is more than reloading at a later point.

Now, if you're making a living with an $80k BR and your livelihood depends on minimizing your RoR, that's something else. But at NL5? Just get some hands in, if you can't afford a reload sometime later then you really can't afford to play anyway.

Now having said that, if you're routinely going busto at the small micros, even with as little as a dozen buy-ins, there are game issues (this isn't to say you maintain a small BR, just that you start with one). A decent players' edge in those games will be pretty big and will greatly reduce RoR.

That made me laugh.......

Anyway, also on Stars for micro stakes SNG/tourney players is the Sunday Hundred Grands Satellites.

If your a small stakes player playing the $1.20's or $3.40 turbos, you'll rake in 210 FPP quite quickly, and when you do, enter a 20 man turbo satellite. Six places are paid, and the play is extremely soft. Any even slightly decent player should have an edge in these. Theoretically, you should cash in 3/10, but in reality, your cash rate should be 5/10 (1/2).

As well as that, there are satellite tourneys that run about twice every hour in peak times, also to the SHG. These are even softer. Entry fee is $2.20, so a only a cash rate of 1/5 is needed to break even, which is extremely easily to get. Even if you have a cash rate of 2/5, thats 100% ROI. They are also very low variance, since there are generally only <150 entrants, and around 30 places paid. Easy! I recommend that all tourney players make these their priority.

Once you cash, you can just un-register from the SHG, and use your $11 tourney dollars in your next session of SNG's/tourneys.

When you are multi-tabling do you still keep the extra cash in your account. What I mean is say you have 100 on Stars. You would buy in 10 $5 tables or 10 $2.50 tables? Convoluted, but do you get what I am saying? When multi-tabling do you have to count the buyins per table or per session?

as far as quality of play goes, you'd be better off playing freerolls than learning to play with the types of players you'd encounter in these tournaments. your guide is great, but this particular part of your advice is ridiculous....

You have to learn how to beat the worst of the worst players first.....

it doesn't matter if you play the tables one after another or all at once. variance doesn't care. With $100, play as many $5-buyin tables at once as you want to. Remember 20-buyins is a generally-recommended minimum. multitabling will probably increase your variance, and larger variance argues for a larger bankroll.


Also, +1 to the comment that your bankroll and your account balance are two separate things. You could keep half your "roll" in a bank, and only transfer it online as needed, and it would still all be one roll for variance-handling purposes. Likewise, if your online balance is $1200 but you are unwilling to play if the balance drops below $1000 because you've earmarked the money for tuition or whatever, your roll is really only $200.

I wish you had posted this before I deposited most of my tiny tiny roll on FTP.