Joined: Aug '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 58 (M)
Posts: 17
These are apparently an easy way to build a bankroll and many pros did it that way, but I guess that was before or during the 2003-2006 boom. Now everyone says it's harder. Anyways I've played 86 total games and am 21% ROI (not good I know) I read up in ALOT of strategy and tips but can't seem to grind out a profit. I just want to gather up enough to transition to $1/$2 games (which are equivalent to a $8/$16 in a live cardroom!) FT is not a fishy site by any means and it is hard, so many players have a knowledge d the game. Any help? P.S. Depositing day by day until I get $100 then will apply the ever so important BRM to help grind out into the hundreds. It's been done before but I guess you need a bit of luck to start out. Forgive me if I sound like a dreamer, I do my best to be a realist. Ask me more if you need to know more for a proper answer. It's a pert time thing and I want to win, not play recreationally - I got up to $100 then went all in in a cash game KK vs AA.
Joined: Apr '11
Location: Romania
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 6669
Sorry to hear that you busted all the profit in just one hand on cash games, i mean even if you play recreational cash game, you should have done it with a less amount of cash...
As for SNG your strategy is good, and i have to agree that FTP is NOT an easy site to build up a bankroll. In your place i wouls try to build up a bankroll on more accesible poker rooms like 888 for example.
Joined: Jan '13
Location: Canada
Age: 45 (M)
Posts: 1066
I started with .80c and a 10 dollar gift last month, I have a 60 dollar bankroll and have found my game and its playing MTT's, cash table always eat my money and with these 4 wins (ITM) out of the last 6 for me.
I play alot of 50/50 sit n goes on pokerstars and im sitting with a 48% or o ITM
Joined: Sep '13
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1564
yea you should definitely not waste your mtt/sng br that easily. Br that took you a while to build too. Much less in 1 cash hand :=)
And you dont need that much luck to start out really, just some relatively conservative brm OR even if you dont want to use brmanagement at all til you hit, lets say $100, you should still have at least enough money to get you into a few dozens of mtts.
Speaking of which, ive read some people have separate rolls for mtts/sngs and cash games. Thats what i love about mtts , you get BI + rebuy (if its not freeze) and you know how much you can lose, unlike cash games which can eat, well your whole br in just a few hands
Joined: Mar '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 7371
You seemed to be doing pretty well just grinding out the sit and go's and i would stick to these games for a while. To risk your whole bankroll on one game is pretty foolish and you should only be risking a small percentage at any one time
Joined: Feb '11
Location: Germany
Age: 31 (M)
Posts: 1859
Posted by AceMilo: These are apparently an easy way to build a bankroll and many pros did it that way, but I guess that was before or during the 2003-2006 boom. Now everyone says it's harder. Anyways I've played 86 total games and am 21% ROI (not good I know) I read up in ALOT of strategy and tips
Sorry but stopped reading here. - 21% ROI is VERY good but far from substainable - 86 games is a totally meaningless samplesize
Maybe you should change the place where you read up such strategy & tips because it doesn't seem to be any good. Also, I wouldn't equal 1/2 online with 8/16 live, live play is ridiculously softer even with that drop of stakes, and from what I've heard not even 1BB/100 is substainbable at these stakes anymore online.
Joined: Aug '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 58 (M)
Posts: 17
it is for the statistical anomalies like Viktor Blom that can risk their whole bankroll at once and come out on top lol. Still thanks for the advice to everyone who replied.
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 2688
Hmm i would advice you to start bankroll management sooner rather than letter because i remember my time when i said that i will wait to get 100 dollars before starting to, but never managed to got 80 to the max and played all sort of games and with no discipline guess what i lost all of them. Anyway you could build a bankroll from freeroll if you patient and have the time for it good luck mate!
Joined: Apr '14
Location: Austria
Age: 54 (M)
Posts: 11
For every game there is an optimal strategy with +EV - and you are right - this unfortunately changes over time. Observe some SNGs for a while and see who ends up winning most of the time. This is probably closer to optimal strategy for that game at that time than anything that you will read in a book or online. To make things worse, variance (or luck if you prefer) does play a role in this, and a much bigger role than most expect. Statistical analysis of a few games that you might have played will not not tell you as much as you might need to have a winning strategy. This is because you need a statistically significant sampling size to determine this. If you want to play around with a calculator to determine this, you can find one here:
It is for taking surveys based on population size, but this does not matter much as the statistics should be the same. So for example if you want:
Confidence level to be: 95% Confidence interval at: 5% (margin of error) Population size to be: 100 (number of games played)
Your sampling size has to be 80 games to have a 95% confidence with a margin of error of +-5%. For 1000 games your sample size drops to 278. All this means is that even with +EV, you need to play a lot of games for things to even out. And to make things even worse - considering the bell curve - there will be some individuals that will never play enough games for things to even out. These are the tails of the bell curve and can contribute both to the positive and the negative sides. That is why it is better to be lucky than good . TTG
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 2688
Hmm isnt sng a solved game i heard lot of regulars say that because if you play it mathematically with push/fold strategy based on maths in the long run you are supposed to be doing the most EV play and therefore should be profiting but sometimes it is huge in variance. But being a sng player i know that variance can sucks and over 1k games you could be a good player but getting killed by variance and you would give up!
