Sure thing TheDefiniteArticle but I wanted to find out how.
Maybe they have a specific strategy such as playing short stacked or deepstacked and applying a certain strategy.
Or maybe they know a way to do it better such as the 0,1USD SnG or a certain Tournament where the risk is lower than in a cash game.
Thanks.

It does apply. I've done it twice. Actually I started my first grinding with 3€, 1.5 buy in.

But what you have to understand is that with such a small bankroll you can very easily fail even if you play perfectly.
And if you are afraid of taking risks, then you are certain to fail.

With 2.5 buy ins left in your bankroll you can't overcome variance and it's just a matter of luck now. I got lucky when I grinded from 1.5 buy in, but you may not.

FR cash games have lower variance. They are a good way to start.

You could play perfectly, make the best decisions and bust a roll that is too small due to variance. As a beginner you should be over rolled because you will make a lot of mistakes while you learn and so your decisions are not influenced by results as yours clearly are. Anyone who has started with $0 or severally under rolled and succeeded in building it up got lucky in the beginning, even if they are good.

To put this into perspective even if you get it in preflop with AA you will only win around 85% of the time. If you only got your remaining roll in preflop with AA you did nothing wrong and could bust to that 15% because of how under rolled you are.

Thank you for the reply Babarberousse.

Can you please be more specific?
I am wondering if when you went from 3 to 40 if you had to adapt any strategy at a latter part or early part or had same strategy,if you grinded x a day or how did you planned to get to it, if you played short stacked, deepstacked or 100 buyins, if you grinded only Cash games or played tournaments aswell.

Thank you.

OP. If you want to view poker as a different game b/c of your roll then either cash out what you have left or deposit more. The way you approach the game shouldn't be affected by your BR. If you have TPTK against a SUPER AGGRO LAG on a dry flop and LAG reraises you all in and pot equity gave you only 10% equity to make a break even call... you can't fold with the reason that your BR is too small.

There is always risk involved in poker. If you are unwilling to take on the risks involved in poker then are you also reluctant to get your chips in preflop with aces? It doesn't matter what your BR is, if you can't put in the chips when you are certainly ahead then you can't ever win long term or short term.

Personally I took advantage of new member bonuses + freerolls in the beginning to try and build my BR

At nl2 I went from 3€ to 100€ on stars.fr before moving up stakes.
I've always played with a full stack and obviously started with a heater by winning a few buy-ins.
I don't know if we could say that I "changed" my strategy. I started with the few basics I knew, took risks and got lucky. Then, I gradually improved my strategy by reading tons of articles, watching vids (though I don't think they are that helpful) and reading a few books. I started with a very laggish style which gave me some downswings later, and I gradually became much more of a tag.
I didn't put a heavy volume per day as I started by playing only one table like you. The main problem when playing one table is that you are much more likely to go on tilt when you don't hit anything or get coolered. You have to be psychologically ok with the inherent variance of poker.
I didn't start with a HUD but that might be a good idea as it will help you spot the fishes you can make money from. It will also help you a lot for hand reviewing.


But one of the main difference with you was that I didn't care about going broke. I actually started during holidays when I was pretty bored and had nothing else to do (hadn't played that much poker before), I had no bankroll pressure and decided to just try to play +EV after reading a few articles.

The point of being rolled is that you don't care about the impact of a hand over your roll. You can start with a 3$ roll if you want, but only if you are not scared of taking +EV risks. If you fail, put 3$ more and start again. It's better to have a real 40$ bank roll to start with though.

OP this thread is going around in circles. Deposit $40 and stop playing under rolled. There is no 'strategy' that accommodates playing under rolled. There is a huge probability of you going broke with 1.5 BI playing optimal poker, nevermind playing scared poker.

Gamma thank you for all your criticism.

But you're missing the point.
This is adressed towards players who took the challenge of starting the bankroll from scratch or a very small amount of money.
Not towards players who deposited and played with a full stack.
Moreover, I am interested in finding information from these type of people.
Thank you.

Thank you Babarberousse for getting into much more detail.

In your journey of leveling your bankroll have you experimented with other type of NL, say SnG?Are they more profitable, easier to approch?
Another question would be what type of safeguards would you take?
Say you lost a buyin, what would you do?Stay at the same table?play with the same people another buy in or take a break and review the losing hand?
When would you stop?If in 30mins-1hour you'd find yourself at the same level, maybe 2,1 or 1,8 would you stop? When would you leave the table?
When did you started multitabling?20USD?30USD?40USD?What were the objectives of multitabling?Were you successful and if so how?
How would you deal with Tilt?Say you had 40USD and in same day-unfortunately -you got down to 30, would you stop playing or would you change the strategy?Maybe play deepstacked?Shortstacked?experiment with these?
Appologies if these are a lot of questions but I really believe in this and want to understand better from someone who actually done it, and didn't deposited and took the easy way but fought hard

LOL. In b4 lock. Just go play some Husng hypers op.

OP you don't understand. If you make decisions based on being scared money, you will lose unless you get lucky. Period.

If instead of wasting time in this thread you were studying the game, you would be in a much better position to actually start to profit. Stop wasting your time here and start learning to play poker.

Hey op sorry for the late response
To tell you the truth in my second attempt i went down to 3,5$ i think and rebuilt to 120$ from there but guess what i won when i didn't care any more i just said "**** it i'm either rebuilding or going busto"

to clarify some things. When i decided to learn poker (not so long ago) i said to my self that i'll deposit 40$ and that i can loose them in the process
I lost them playing underroled nl5 & nl10 being a huge fish...
Then i read some books ad went back deposited 20$ droped to 10 end then i start winning.

So my advice
deposit at least 20$ and give yourself the time to learn and the the right to lose.
hear the advice that ppl here are giving it's the best advice for micros
get HEM2 or PT4 (they have 1 month trial versions so you can have them for free for 2 months )and learn what every stat mean.
Come here and post hands and take advice. read other ppl hands and ask your self what will you do in their place.
find some proven winners PGC thread and read hand histories (preferable micro winners)

Last you will only end up broke if you continue your way for many reasons.
1st your 50cc stop loss is nothing. Stop loss must be at least 2 BI.. Some of my best days begin with 1-2 BI down cause of coolers.
2nd there is nothing like No variance poker....
3rd your style is exploitable because there are stats like fold to 3bet fold to cbet etc that every reg can use against you and literally destroy you.
4th if you are afraid to lose then you'll never win (in general treat your bankroll with respect but learn to not count on it.
5 follow the advice you hear and stop treating your bankroll like you have 2K$ playnk NL500 or something

Last. If you want to built a bankroll from 5$ then you must play like you have already lost it (you'll probably lose it anyway :P)

Risk chips when you're probably a favourite and you might lose in the short term. Repeatedly pass up +EV spots and you will lose in the long term.

I have very limited experience with SnGs and MTTs. I wasn't especially interested for two reasons:
- They have higher variance (especially MTTs). With a 5$ bankroll, you could only play 0.1$ SnG (does it even exist ??) and you cannot play MTTs.
- I prefer playing poker deepstacked. In SnGs and MTTs you will always end up being or playing against shorstacks.

But in terms of profitability, this is probably player dependent. The main advantage of SnGs and MTTs is that the player pool is slightly weaker. But then, with shorter stacks you will have less streets to exploit your edge.

It depends how tilt-proof you are. I believe there was a recent thread about this in this subforum.
I used to stop playing after losing 3-4 buy ins. I'm not someone who puts a lot of volume so I didn't mind not playing for a few days. Nowadays, when I'm in a downswing I try to spend a lot of time reviewing my losing hands and see if I could find a better line somewhere. However, you should ALSO review you winning hands and ask yourself whether you could have extracted more value out of it.

And being break even at a table for 30mn or 1 hour is not a good reason to leave. If you see fishes on your right hand side, you HAVE to stay unless you go on tilt. Be aware that you can perfectly be losing after 1 hour at a table full of fishes, it doesn't mean you have to leave.

There are only three valid reasons to leave a table:
- You are tilting
- The table is not profitable (no fishes, or you are the fish)
- You want to do something else than playing poker

Being break-even or losing at that table is not a good reason.

I started 2-tabling as soon as possible (2 buy-ins). Then I started 4 tabling at about 10 buy-ins. Then, I gradually increased the number of tables up to approximately 12. However, I probably wouldn't have gone so fast over 4 without a HUD.
The main objective of multitabling is to increase your volume. Clearly, you have to be aware that multitabling anything over 4 tables will have a negative impact on your winrate. This is especially brutal if you are new to poker. This means that you have to be confident enough that you are a winning player.

Losing 5 BI with a 20BI bankroll would have been enough to make me stop for a day or two. Losing 5BI with a 40BI bankroll is less tilting however.
However changing your strategy is not necessarily a good idea. A huge step in your poker career will be when you will stop being result-oriented. This means that over a small sample you can take the right decisions and lose and make the wrong decisions and win. By "small sample" I mean anything lower than 5k hands. You CAN be losing over 5k hands and still be a winner.
This means that losing 5BI in one day is not a good enough reason to change your strategy.

And in cash games you should always play deepstack if you are serious about learning poker.

You have to understand that it's not only about fighting hard. I got lucky with my 1.5 BI.
If I were you, I'd listen to everyone's advice and deposit 40$. If you really don't want to, you have to be aware that you will probably have to deposit 4 times 10$ anyway. Which is not a shame at all, everyone starts as a losing player.

And again, if you are THAT broke, you can play freerolls and hope to get lucky in one of them.

Hey OP, a while ago I got a free $5 on Stars and tried to do exactly what you are doing. Like you I played weak and tight and scared money. I still got it up to $12 and then I lost it all because I played like you are playing and because of variance.

Then I got sensible, deposited like $60, got a HUD, posted some stats and hands here and rapidly proceeded to beat 2NL all day long. I could deposit $10 on a site tomorrow and play 2NL and there's a decent chance I would go bust but with a proper roll, it won't happen.

Listen to what people are telling you. Get a free HUD trial and post your stats. Deposit $40. Post hands here. We will help you crush 2NL. Or you can just carry on arguing with people who've been there and done that and know much better than you on this topic. But I think only a moron would do that. You're not a moron are you OP?

OP the thing is, what you're trying to do has a large amount of luck attached to it. There's a good chance even Phil Ivey would go bust at 2nl if he only had 1.5 buyins.

Though if you really can't deposit, then I can suggest the plan that has worked for me so far. I'm under no illusions though I've still been lucky, though not quite as lucky as you'd have to be starting with 1.5 buyins.

- Go sign up to 888poker. They'll give you $16 worth of tournament tickets, and $2 cash to play in cash games.

- Play the 9 man/40 man tournaments, no higher. They're pretty soft, if you stick to playing premiums at the start, then gradually expand your range as the blinds expand, you should be able to get ITM in one or two of these tournaments at least. Hopefully out of $16 worth of tournament tickets you'll get about $10 back (I'm assuming you're a losing player at tournaments). Hell it could be more if you have some run good.

- That will give you about $12 to work from. Now you might be able to grind up from there. I say might. You'll still be massively underrolled. In truth though, pretty much all poker sites (including 888) will match your first deposit. So if you just deposit $10 at this point and find a voucher code, they'll give you another $10, and you'll have $32, which is a much lower risk of ruin. Trying to grind up from nothing is a very high variance strategy. To put it into perspective, Chris Ferguson, who is one of the poker pros you see on TV occasionally, took 7 months I believe to go from $0-$100 while playing freerolls and 0.01c cash games. It's pretty much a given he was the best player at the table in all of the games he was playing in, and it still took 7 months to make $100. Now think about your own skill level compared to his and how long it'll take you to do the same. Bottom line is: just deposit a small amount of money, read the forum, and work on your game.

you actually see less hands per hour at FR than 6max....however you should be playing FR as a losing noob because villains ranges are easier to identify and you can learn and hopefully win before expanding the range of cards that you play.
thats a pretty terrible answer . It would be better if you had said 1 because thats all i feel comfortable playing so that i can watch how other people play, learn whether people bet big or small with different strength hands etc.
I regularly do build from mini roll challenges , usually over the summer when i rarely get time to play . this summer I had cashed out of Titan and they gave me a free 10$.bottomed out at 3.50 and ran it up . bought in half stacked at 2nl FR on as many tables as i could and when i doubled up left the tables and bought into two more tables until i was 10 tabling. once bankroll was above 12$ started increasing the buyin so that i was buying in with all money on thee tables and a bit left for auto topups to initial buyins.once above 20$ just bought in full on 10 tables and ground it up.
Difference between you and me is that i am comfortable multitabling and I can crush 2nl for a huge winrate, can hand read etc and can bet size to exploit opponents.
HEM and PT4 both have 1 month trials , though to be honest 1 tabling FR 2nl you hardly need to have the HUD. There is a free alternative called FPDB which you could use initially but i've never used it. HEM and PT4 both have an option to get it free by a room signuip but could take a long time if you are only single tabling.
thats the attitude of a loser. Your intention should be to maximise your wins and minimise your losses.Nothing wrong with having bigger losses in a situation if you are likely to be having even bigger wins as a result most of the time.
you are playing poker , not trading. start and use poker strategy rather than trading strategy.If villains are folding to cbets , cbet, if they never fold don't cbet your air , but cbet when you hit bigger and exploit there calling .
2nl FR cash games are easy. do you play at stars. I had a similar discussion to this at another forum and demonstrated it after the summer when i got back to playing.this was the graph laying 2nl 5nl and some 10nl
http://crushonlineholdem.com/wp-cont...-all-hands.png. read my blog if you want some ideas, quite a few hands posted in there showing how i made the money which should help you with bet sizing etc. Page 13 onwards is where i ran miniature roll up.
http://crushonlineholdem.com/crush-o...wtopic&t=15.12

At my live $10 NL game I had one guy who always came with one buy-in. He know he was going to lose it, but he just wanted to have a fun night and try to hang on to his single buy-in as long as possible. Obviously we loved having him at the table. You sound like that guy.

It sounds like your goal is not to win at poker, it is to not lose your roll. Well, if that is your goal the best you can do is cash out and spend your money on something else.

If you only have a $5 roll, my advice would be to play microstakes SnGs (6 mans, 10 or 20 cents or whatever the lowest buy-in is at your site) and build up your roll to something like $20 before diving into 2NL. If you ever dip under $15 go back to microstakes SnGs and rebuild your roll to $20 before going back to, rinse, repeat. Make use of freerolls and bonuses to build your roll.

Very wise advice Zaiga000.

Thank you.
I just got very interested in this leveling from scratch because I read some posts here of people who have done it.
But maybe they didn't do it as complete starters but players with extensive experience.

Well,

Thank you everyone for the helpful answers, especially to those who have been a bit rough on me such as Bubble_Balls and for the info from Babarberousse.
I have made arrangements to deposit 50USD to Pokerstars so that I can play more serious and downloaded PokerTracker4.
Asap I'll start posting hands that are troublesome on FR micro forum.
Have to say its a bit more revealing when I see the stats below the name of each player.

I think this particular discussion has run its course.

OP, by all means create new threads to discuss particular hands or specific strategies.