I've been a decent Newbie at my local poker room playing 1/2 NL Hold Em. I read books, listen to podcast, watch games on TV, and talk to other players daily. Right now, I want to try to build a $5000 bankroll from playing live 1/2 NL starting with $200. I use a poker income tracker program, so I honestly know I can do it with patience. My biggest problem is I don't have too much room for variance ( I also loan people too much $ from winnings). Any thoughts or comments on how you built a bankroll by starting so small? Thanks.

You're going to have a hard time avoiding variance a) with that level of money and b) those stakes. You're going to have to wait for super-premium starting hands, and still not go "all in". This means that you open yourself up to more variance because you can't try to push the table around with your small stack. You have, at best, 2 buy-ins, so you don't want half of your bankroll at risk on any one hand. This means pocket aces that don't hit a set on the flop will have to fold to aggression. Can you do that? I can't without a board that calls me by name to tell me I'm beat. Therefore, you cannot avoid variance.

So, play tight and accept that variance sucks.

Well you have 1 buy in. The chances of you running that into 5k are very............. very small. So either save up more money, play smaller, or hope you run like Jamie Gold for a few months.

First things first, you cant avoid variance.. You can reduce it by making better decisions more often but you have to face the fact that sometimes they are gonna suck out on you or your just gonna be card dead.

If you wanna build a bankroll live, your gonna have to find some micro/low stakes games so you have a decent bankroll with your 200$. Compared to online poker i dont think you need as many buyins for live poker.

What the alien above this said, good advice.

One BI is simply not enough to play, even live. In another thread similar to yours we calculated a few players Risk of Ruin (going bust and losing your BR) even for winning players with some experience was over 22% using only $200 roll. It would be much higher for a break even or learning player.

You can get by with less BR playing live, mainly because you can stop loss easily by only taking a small part of your BR with you each session. But you still need far more than you have to play those stakes, so try finding some alternatives that you can play with $200 and have 20BI like online 10NL or maybe a live $1 Limit game somewhere

Great advice. I'll play tight and use position as much as possible. I need to set a good stop limit with each session. I usually buy in with $80 and re-buy with the same. I play about 3.5 hrs. and leave with $250-$350 usually. I have built a rep as tight-aggressive, so that plays in my favor (I think). I'll post some HH after my next session.

Just finished an unsuccessful session of 1/2 NL live. I played tight, using position as much as possible. Unfortunately, the table was tight also, so no big hands or too many showdowns. I lost with hands like KJs with 2 suited flush draw flops only to miss on the remaining streets. Then I lost with a set of 5's to a full house. Not fun.

Can't do the math right now but your RoR is huge and the chances of you going busto with only $200 is huge. Even if you're +EV doesn't mean you're a favorite to not go broke.

If you want to take this seriously you need a larger roll or smaller stakes.

Or you can just gamble for fun.

http://www.evplusplus.com/poker_tools/risk_of_ruin/

Your risk of going broke will be around 90%.

The numbers are greatly against me. New Plan! I live in South Florida with daily tourneys ranging from $30-550, so I'll try to cash my way to a bankroll.

Beware of DAYTIME tournaments during the workday. They are usually filled with older players who seemingly have nowhere to go. They will play uber-tight and aren't leaving. I'm not going back to a poker table during a weekday until I'm old .

@DamienT great RoR calc.

Loads of links to articles about building a bankroll here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/69...hreads-430489/
(Includes threads on building a bankroll using strategy, and also some inspiring stories on what others achieved).

Thanks, I'll look them up.