Borrowing money to play poker is a terrible idea. In addition to all the standard risks of borrowing (sickness, injury, unemployment, random bad luck, etc.) you can and will have long stretches in which you lose.

There's no mathematical reason you need to save up your entire bankroll before you start playing. However, some caveats apply:

* If you play differently because you don't have more bullets, that's a problem. I suspect most people basically can't play properly without reserves, but you know yourself better than we do.

* You must quit or correctly alter your strategy if you dip below a full buy-in. I would guess there's some minimum point at which you can't play positive EV: the blinds are too large relative to the amount you can win. Not sure what that point is; as a reasonable approximation, I wouldn't play less than, say, 30 BB. It can't be emphasized enough that this must be with a good short stack strategy.

Those caveats are critical. Unless you're absolutely sure you play your best game knowing that if you lose you're going to have to go home, definitely save up first. And if you drop below a full buy-in, either modify your strategy or go home. Your win/loss results don't care about how frustrating that is or how far you had to drive.

Consider starting with a short stack strategy. First, find and understand a good short stack strategy. Then take a couple of min buy-ins and play the strategy. If you lose your buy-ins, go home, save more, repeat. If you win, change tables to reset to a short stack (or go home if that's not allowed or will generate heat). If you can't win short stacking, you probably are also going to have a hard time winning playing full buy-ins.

As you build up your bankroll, you can start to play full buy-ins, with the appropriate strategy.

Don't make the mistake of thinking you actually have a real bankroll too soon. I've seen suggestions from 20 to 50 or more buy-ins to really have a fully sustainable bankroll, and that assumes you don't ever take money from your bankroll for anything else.

Keep meticulous records of your sessions and wins/losses. Don't pay for food/drink out of your chips unless you also record that meticulously.

Run good!

I'm guessing OP is using some available Wi-Fi.

Indeed.com

Part of being a good and successful poker player is having the bankroll to handle the inevitable upswings and downswings otherwise you will never be able to play optimally. I’d suggest trying to get a job or second job that can be used to strictly save for this endeavor.

If you earn the bankroll to start with you will be more responsible with it and take it more seriously and therefore be more successful in my opinion

there are a ton of places where i can use the internet such as the libraries, universities, human resource centers, etc. and I can play poker using non-downloading poker software such as 888.com, but no hud. I play ok at the 1/2cent so far.

Thanks everyone for your answers. I got a ton of good info.

take care.

I think there's a good chance this is a joke, but just in case, please, for the love of God, ignore every word. If your parents offer you a 0% interest loan, even then, don't even think about taking it.

If someone offers to STAKE you and understands they could easily lose and you won't feel too bad about losing, maybe that's worthwhile.

I say, buy in short, be conservative, never top off. Pick a number, probably $400 or $500 max and always leave when you get there. (Obviously, you can also leave with less) This is how I've built a roll a few times.

As a tourney player, you must have some short stack skills. Learn more about short stacking cash from reading and experience.

Your win rate short stacking is lower, but your edge on the money you play is much bigger and can often be huge. That's how you build a BR: by investing with as big an edge as possible.

I still like to shortstack pretty often, especially if I get bellow the minim buy in. If I have 25BBs or something, my edge is so big, I'll take a lower hourly in exchange for the sharply reduced variance. Plus, I think it's fun and satisfying to build a nub into a decent stack. Plus, it's a safeguard against tilt.

I've heard you can make a lot of money selling drugs, so that is prob a good way to build a roll.

Breaking Bad 2:

A man looking for a gambling bankroll sells meth using gambling as an explanation for his newfound wealth.

One option people haven't mentioned is finding a home game in your area. Not all places have them and they aren't always easy to find but home games are perfect for a limited bankroll. They are usually super low stakes and allow for small buyins. If that's not an option then save up at least 600 and go play 1/2 at a casino on a Friday or Saturday night. Buy in for 200 and play TAG poker

$14k give or take 95% at 2/5 nl. Wow at plo...

I don't know why people are so averse to borrowing money if you're a winning player. The poster did say 100% or 90%+ certainty. People borrow money to go to school with way less certainty of getting a job than that.

That said, for most, I think saving up money, and playing micro stakes online while you're saving up, is probably the best bet. Remember, while you're saving up, your goal is to get good, not make money, so try your hardest to improve. Once you've saved up 2.5k or so, it's okay to take a shot here and there. That's a year long plan, but probably the most realistic. If you want to be in the poker world for long, you have to learn to not give in to short term desires. Sometimes that means waiting.

Also, confirmed whining about runbad is +EV, I just won 15k~ in an hour.

LoL

The home games that I know of are *bigger* than the local casino and charity games. Although they are also a lot better.

Damn, nice hour! That makes +$15,000/hr your new winrate.

Well the only way OP would know if he is a winning player with any certainty is if he had won before. In which case he'd have the BR and wouln't have posted the question.

Yup. Most people who don't have records to prove it vastly overestimate their poker skill, past results, and chances of success. Heck, even those with records tend to overestimate.

I mean, there are ways to know if you're a winner other than results, and tbh results are one of the worse ways to know if you're a winner anyway.

And anyway I'm not suggesting OP can be sure he's a winning poker, just saying the suggestion is entirely reasonable based on the assumptions. It's the assumptions that need to be questioned.

For real?

Sent from my SM-G955U1 using Tapatalk

Yes of course for real.

The number of players who have historic winning results that can't beat a game is fairly notable. Known of 100k/year winnners that can't beat 5/10 anymore, and that's not including people who ran good to win in the past. All these tournament pros have won tons in the past but are completely awful in this day and age.

The variance in poker is pretty staggering sometimes. I feel like I can fairly easily tell if a player is a clear winning player (vs potentially marginal, or losing) by playing 10-20 hours with them and talking half an hour of hand histories with them. Obviously if I think a player is probably a slight winner then I can't be as sure which side of breakeven he's going to be, especially if he has tilt leaks, though I can make guesses, and I think the guesses, depending on how much info I have (like more hours and talking more obv more accuracy), could be more accurate than 1000-2000 hours of results.

This is intuitive though, I suppose. Hard to have proof about this sort of thing.

I feel like when you've gone up and down and up and down stakes for almost 10 years, you get a grasp on these things, and even just being able to tell if someone can make it as a pro.

I think Sol Reader's point is that a game can change and get tougher quicker than the speed at which a person can get meaningful results?

A lot of the very good players theoretically I know often have horrendous tilt/boredom/punt habits that prevent them from winning or winning as much as they should in certain games. Guys who know ranges and sizings very well who don't adjust to the exploitative nature of live games (i.e. some online guys) may struggle. I think mental game stuff is somewhat overlooked here.

I know a guy who used to be one of the best 500z crushers in the world who is one of the losingest players in a 2/5 PPPoker NLH game - granted he's probably just gambling for fun now instead of for a living, but still. Adjustment is key.

That's a big part of it, yeah. I think you can know get an idea of how a person plays by witnessing their current play, and listening to them talk about hands right now, even if not an entirely clear picture, but when you get previous results, well, that could mean anything. Results just mean you've won money, it doesn't show you how the person plays.

That's true, but I did qualify that tilt is a factor, and why I said playing with someone for a bunch of hours, not just talking hands. Also fair enough, you might catch them on a good day, perhaps let me change that by saying, someone I've played 10 sessions with over 10-20 hours total, and whatever, let's say this is a bit low, someone you've played 15 sessions with over 30 hours would be ample, or you can go higher, whatever. It's obviously not a static barrier where once you've played this much with a person you know or don't know. If the player is good you need fewer hours, if a player is marginal you might never know, or need a huge sample.

I EXTREMELY doubt that. People don't actually know ranges and sizings if they can't adapt; they're just playing cookie cutter "you do this in this spot hurr durrr" that's not understanding ranges.

I don't know this guy, but nobody who actually crushes 2/5 the last 2 years could be a losing player in a live game. They might not adjust maximally, but there's actually no way he can't beat live games. Like at worst they play like an extreme nit and don't win a ton, but there's actually no chance. In fact, not even a player who broke even at 2/5 zoom over large sample would be able to lose unless they are not playing seriously.

Like quite a few of 5/10 or even 10/20 NL players wouldn't be able to beat 1/2 zoom at more than 2bb/100 without extensive studying. 2/5 is a lot tougher than 1/2.

Live players don't even know basic cbet sizings on common boards in single raised pots, and not just fish or bad regs, even otherwise good regs don't know a lot of this stuff. It's fine live, but it's not fundamentally sound.

Obv if you're an online crusher, you'll be able to win at live games. I'm saying initially there's a learning curve and can take a while for people to adjust to a completely different game. Optimal sizing in a 500z pool is going to be far from optimal in a 4-way bloated live pot. Not uncommon for online cash players to play very suboptimally for first couple hundred hours give or take til they sus things out.

I thought we're talking about beating the game, not beating the game "optimally". Of course, live poker stuff is going to take a lifetime to learn, but it's not like online players don't know how to exploit, I feel like that's a pretty weird assumption, if that's true why would online players use HUDs at all? HUDs are inherently about exploitation.

Also, like, not explo sizing is going to lose you EV, but your bb/100 winrate using a GTO focused strategy is still going to be extremely high vs bad players, higher than most of the winrates posted by most live regs.

People just got into their heads at some point that GTO means cannot be beaten, but also can't win much, and that's not even remotely true. Libratus absolutely crushed the human players, and they're some of the best players that exist in NLHE.

Nobody knows GTO etc blah blah blah, I'm just saying people shouldn't use these assumptions. People who know equilibrium strategies have the best tools available to knowing how to exploit because they have better handle on what is exploitable.

The online regs of today are very different from the regs 2 years ago, or 4 years ago, or 6 years ago. Learning for online players accelerate at an extremely rapid pace.

i thought we were talking about a 1/2 player with zero experience playing cash games trying to build up a roll ???

everyone playing their C game tonight