I looked at all the sections and could not figure out where to post this so I am posting it here. If it is more appropriate in another section, a mod should feel free to move it.

PokerStars just gave me $5.00 with the proviso that I have to play one hand or buy in one tournament and the buy-in can be as low as ten cents to keep the money. I looked at the lists of tournaments and it seems like the ten cent tournaments only occur at 4AM. Is this correct?

If this is correct, is it worth staying up (or getting up early) and playing them?

I see 3 different times for the .10 cent tourney. 04:00, 10:00 & 16:00.

No. Just play an orbit of NL with a $0.02 big blind. Those games are running constantly.

sit down at a micro micro stakes table with 1 dollar and play until you lose it or win some

If you are going to build that, you are going to have to sit down at a table at some point. So yeah, sit an orbit of .01/.02, but really should should play with a buck or so and keep moving from there until you have a roll. I actually started with two bucks on Stars from a freeroll and I am currently at about $150 and about to start takin' down $5nl. With $5, the sky is the limit, hehe.

How long did it take you to reach $150, nsight?

I just don't see the point of playing with $5 and building it up. Seems pointless and a waste of time.

Better off to make a decent deposit and work from there.

I also started my poker bankroll (which I initially separated from my gambling bankroll) with $5. At that time, one network gave a few bucks to the first person to get a royal flush for play money/pennies in each 90 minute period, and I hit a royal flush at a play money table in my second week of play, giving me $5. I don't recall how long it took to reach $150, but I had $600 after about 6 weeks, put $500 on Party for a bonus, and hit $1k on the first day there after reaching the final tables of my first two multitable tournaments.

That may be true, but it is not clear.

I didn't have much confidence in my poker playing initially, which is part of why I didn't just deposit $10k from my gambling bankroll. (You can use the same bankroll for all games where you are confident that you are a winner, but you may want to separate your bankroll or set stop-losses if you may be a loser.) So, I wanted to start at the lowest stakes, so that I would win and would get rapid feedback on whether I was playing well. I still recommend that new players start out at the lowest stakes available, even if they could afford losing at higher stakes for some time.

If you are outplaying your opponents by a lot, then it may not take long to double your bankroll, even using proper bankroll management. It can take far longer to build up the skills needed for the next level. So, the size of your initial deposit may not be a big factor in how rapidly you reach higher stakes games.

Some people have a hard time taking playing for pennies seriously. These people may need to play at higher stakes to learn, and learning may be much riskier for them. I had no problem taking those games seriously, and learning lessons which helped in much higher stakes games.

It's also nice to be able to say that I built a large poker bankroll from nothing.

When I posted, I had actually already played a hand of .01/.02 and thus secured my right to the $5. I was interested in people's opinions of the ten cent tournament. Sorry for not making that clear.

While I was muddling about with a <$10 bankroll I played a grand total of 18 of them. The smallest field was 1655, the highest 5318. I only managed to hit the money 3 times, with my highest relative finishing spot being 348 of 5318. It took around 2 and a half hours to get there and I got a whopping $0.41 payout. Obviously that's a tiny sample size but for me I felt that the combination of my less than stellar MTT play and the large number of players per tourney was not a good recipe for building my bankroll.

The 0.10$ toureys have a HUGE variance, because the bilnds grow so fast the pressure becomes extreem very fast and everybody will start pushing all-in soon. This kind of tourneys is VERY HARD to play. It will take a lot of experience getting in the money with a high requenzy. Better look for some sideaction. You can win more money there with less variance thus less danger to your smallish bankroll. If you like tourney I'd rather stick to the freerolls than paying for a speed-tourney.