Let's build some bankroll - who's with me?

MGiani said:

Ouch.....thats really rough Chris. I've had terrible stretches like that. It feels like you trapped losing. Just stick with it.

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The problem is, no matter how I play, I just can't win. I see people pushing AK all-in preflop and win a stack. I can't do it with KK vs. QQ or with AA vs. QQ or with AA vs. AK.
Of course, when I'm on the coolered side, I still lose, such happened in QQ vs. KK and KK vs. AA twice.

In fact, I can't win a stack, period. If I make a big hand, there's always one of three options:
a) everybody else in the pot folds
b) somebody else has a better hand
c) somebody else turns or rivers a better hand

The sad truth is that I'm sitting with just over $2K in my bankroll. Here's how it went down:
I had dropped to $2,900 once again and was going to move to NL200 as soon as I hit $2,800. Then I got dealt QQ in the SB and 3-bet a button raiser. He pushed all-in, I called. He turned over AK. The Ace came on the river obviously, and I was down to $2,500.

So I moved down to NL200 and played for about 45 minutes. That's how long it took me to lose two more stacks.
-> 99 vs. a shortstack's 66, he made a set
-> My 44 made a set on the flop, the other guy made runner runner 4-flush
-> I held the nutflush with AJ, the other guy rivered a full house

I haven't really won any significant pots, so these kinds of pots drag me down pretty hard.
In fact, in the last three days I think I have doubled up only two or three times. When I have the best hand I miraculously don't get action, but when I have second best hand, there's always someone with the nuts willing to put in his stack.

Oh yeah, no graph because it would freak me out too much.

Oh man that sucks. I kind of know how you feel about a bad run, but as mine was at 10nl I only lost like $50 from it rather than several thousand. Good luck on your rebound. Your best hands will begin to hold up eventually.

P.S. I am making this Day 1 and Day 0 Yesterday because I didnt play after my deposit because I was busy.
Day 0 - 100%
Day 1 - In progress

hey i build my bankroll i deposit $50,000 which i waited for while. at poker stars tables $1/$2 $2/$4 $3/$6 15 tables after that i take nice break watch tv and food, work out, after that tourneys and sit and gos heads up and single table ,multi table medium stakes. tourneys medium stakes and do that 5 days a week
it really nice i did that and i'm done for day

avg. $6,200
overall week $31,000
year $1.5

Chris, I have really enjoyed this thread, but I would like to make a few comments to you. You have done some great work, and have had some really amazing results. Unfortunately of late though your downswing has been really catastrophic as you are only too well aware. If you decide to continue with this challenge, please take some advice on BR management. I don't wanna teach you to suck eggs but you are, IMO, playing at too high a stakes given you BR. I realise you may have a aggro stance to building up your BR, but cash games are really all about grinding. Putting in a decent volume of hands per month and slowly building that roll.

Playing at levels with only 20 BI's whilst multi tabling is a recipe for disaster, even if you are short stacking. I really think you should be playing with at least 30, preferably somewhere nearer 50 BI's. I know a lot of players look to have anywhere upto 100 BI's at that level (real BR nits ). Also set up a stop/loss limit for the day. 3-4 BI's and get out and come back another time.

I really hope this doesn't sound too condescending, coz it's not meant to be. I really hope you carry on and rebuild it back up to your previous highs and beyond, gl m8.

Day 1: 100% ($100)
Day 2: 104% ($104)
Day 3: 108% ($108)
Day 4: 105% ($105)
Day 5: 122% ($122)

What a day. Started out at the $10 NL tables and did o.k - then decided to multi-table with limit. Could not get anything going and the table was dead (unless I was trying to make a move). So I was flat for most of the day until I entered a $2 buy in MTT I played the most patient, solid tournament game in a while and ended up 14th out of over 2000. One bad call late in the game put me short stacked and I hung on as long as I could.

Even more bad days. I am playing within my bankroll management levels, though. Today was the first up day in 12.

24 107.8%
25 102.4%
26 099.6%
27 105.7%

atleast it is back on the up pig
and dufferdevon i dont think u should be playing $10 nl with a 100$ roll

Day 0: 372.81 (100%)

Day 1:287.31 (77%)

An awful lesson in BR management today. Went to a soft 1/2 PL on FT I know of which had some nice fish on it, got stacked twice when aa lost kq and then when ak lost to a6. In 5 odllar knockout, doin good but gonna stop after taht, bad awful run in the ring.

edit: im at 297.09 so that puts me at (80%). Bad day overalll but got 22nd in 5+.50 KO so that made me feel a little better.

Day 0 100%
Day 1 100.4%
Day 2 143.4% - Put 10 into a rebuy sat to DFG and won over 100 in it and played good everywhere else.

Jagsti said:

Chris, I have really enjoyed this thread, but I would like to make a few comments to you. You have done some great work, and have had some really amazing results. Unfortunately of late though your downswing has been really catastrophic as you are only too well aware. If you decide to continue with this challenge, please take some advice on BR management. I don't wanna teach you to suck eggs but you are, IMO, playing at too high a stakes given you BR. I realise you may have a aggro stance to building up your BR, but cash games are really all about grinding. Putting in a decent volume of hands per month and slowly building that roll.

Playing at levels with only 20 BI's whilst multi tabling is a recipe for disaster, even if you are short stacking. I really think you should be playing with at least 30, preferably somewhere nearer 50 BI's. I know a lot of players look to have anywhere upto 100 BI's at that level (real BR nits ). Also set up a stop/loss limit for the day. 3-4 BI's and get out and come back another time.

I really hope this doesn't sound too condescending, coz it's not meant to be. I really hope you carry on and rebuild it back up to your previous highs and beyond, gl m8.

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jag, I second this. Chris would never think I am too condescending

Chris_TC said:

The problem is, no matter how I play, I just can't win. I see people pushing AK all-in preflop and win a stack. I can't do it with KK vs. QQ or with AA vs. QQ or with AA vs. AK.
Of course, when I'm on the coolered side, I still lose, such happened in QQ vs. KK and KK vs. AA twice.

In fact, I can't win a stack, period. If I make a big hand, there's always one of three options:
a) everybody else in the pot folds
b) somebody else has a better hand
c) somebody else turns or rivers a better hand

The sad truth is that I'm sitting with just over $2K in my bankroll. Here's how it went down:
I had dropped to $2,900 once again and was going to move to NL200 as soon as I hit $2,800. Then I got dealt QQ in the SB and 3-bet a button raiser. He pushed all-in, I called. He turned over AK. The Ace came on the river obviously, and I was down to $2,500.

So I moved down to NL200 and played for about 45 minutes. That's how long it took me to lose two more stacks.
-> 99 vs. a shortstack's 66, he made a set
-> My 44 made a set on the flop, the other guy made runner runner 4-flush
-> I held the nutflush with AJ, the other guy rivered a full house

I haven't really won any significant pots, so these kinds of pots drag me down pretty hard.
In fact, in the last three days I think I have doubled up only two or three times. When I have the best hand I miraculously don't get action, but when I have second best hand, there's always someone with the nuts willing to put in his stack.

Oh yeah, no graph because it would freak me out too much.

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Chris, please don't say that!

It will come back to you. I have faith in you!

well chris i havent watched this thread until recently but like 3 days ago u were at 10k and now ur at 2500. U need to set urself a low limit for ur sessions and if u go to it u stop. U also must not be doing proper BR managment.

heatfan03 said:

well chris i havent watched this thread until recently but like 3 days ago u were at 10k and now ur at 2500. U need to set urself a low limit for ur sessions and if u go to it u stop. U also must not be doing proper BR managment.

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I agree. Chris, please use the 1% rule until I come up with some numbers regarding optimal BR management. PLEASE!

You have around $2k ish, that gives you around 40 or so BI's at 50nl. I'm around this with my BR and feel fairly comfortable with it. However if I lose 5 or more BI's i'll be dropping back to 25nl. $2k is not enough to play $100nl and is most definately not enough for $200nl. 4 tabling at $100nl and you will have apprx 1/4 of your roll at the table. Scary! Grind it out m8.

Cheetah said:

I agree. Chris, please use the 1% rule until I come up with some numbers regarding optimal BR management. PLEASE!

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You may not like to hear it, but there's no way I'll start playing 20NL, absolutely no way.
There's two main reasons for it: Playing 20NL and winning ten stacks would make me a profit of $200. That's just way too slow a rate. When that upswing comes, I want it to have some impact cause the downswing sure did.
What's more, I'd have an incredibly hard time taking 8 cent preflop raises or all-ins seriously, maybe to a point where I wouldn't be playing my best game.

I know that I'm playing on the edge right now, but I'm not completely nuts or anything. I have 10 buy-ins for NL200, and if I drop to 7, I'll play NL100.

Also, thanks to everybody for offering advice, and thanks to everybody who's joined in on the progress reports!

Even though there's no graph at the moment, I'm not broke. My bankroll is just over $2,200, and I've decided to play 6 tables of full ring for a while instead of my usual 4 tables of 6-max.
The idea being that variance is lower at full ring, and the slight change of pace (i.e. being much more nitty) may do me good.

Jagsti said:

Grind it out m8.

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I'd probably do this if I had reached $2K for the first time. But I started with this amount 3 months ago, and grinding it out is not an option now because I'll have lost all that work.

Think about it. I dropped about 10 buy-ins at 600NL alone. That's $6K. If I were to play NL50 now, I'd have to win 120 buy-ins just to make this same amount of profit.

Chris_TC said:

You may not like to hear it, but there's no way I'll start playing 20NL, absolutely no way.
There's two main reasons for it: Playing 20NL and winning ten stacks would make me a profit of $200. That's just way too slow a rate. When that upswing comes, I want it to have some impact cause the downswing sure did.
What's more, I'd have an incredibly hard time taking 8 cent preflop raises or all-ins seriously, maybe to a point where I wouldn't be playing my best game.

I know that I'm playing on the edge right now, but I'm not completely nuts or anything. I have 10 buy-ins for NL200, and if I drop to 7, I'll play NL100.

Also, thanks to everybody for offering advice, and thanks to everybody who's joined in on the progress reports!

Even though there's no graph at the moment, I'm not broke. My bankroll is just over $2,200, and I've decided to play 6 tables of full ring for a while instead of my usual 4 tables of 6-max.
The idea being that variance is lower at full ring, and the slight change of pace (i.e. being much more nitty) may do me good.

Click to expand...

no matter how good u are ur not going to succeed if ur playing with 10 buy ins
but fine if u dont want to move down in limit because of pride/ego, go broke,
if u want to still have money u need to move back to 50nl and grind it out for a few months to get back to a comfortable roll
building a BR is not about doing it fast but about doing it steadily and not risking too much in 1 specific game
would u prefer to have 0$ in ur account or to play 50nl?

when u toss BRM out of the window ur roll goes with it
just giving my oppinion

Chris_TC said:

I'd probably do this if I had reached $2K for the first time. But I started with this amount 3 months ago, and grinding it out is not an option now because I'll have lost all that work.

Think about it. I dropped about 10 buy-ins at 600NL alone. That's $6K. If I were to play NL50 now, I'd have to win 120 buy-ins just to make this same amount of profit.

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Firstly, can you afford to go busto? If the answer is yes, then by all means enjoy yourself and go for it. If the answer is no, then you really need to take a long look at this and take some time before going back to the tables. Because if your in a downswing, there's no telling when its gonna end and before you know it the unthinkable will happen. Forget whats previously happened, you can get back to the levels you were once at, it may just take a little longer.

Don't mean to sound like i'm preaching, just some friendly advice. GL.

Chris do you mind if I join in on this if it's not too late?

I'm also building a bankroll that started from nothing. I got it up to $30 bucks so far. It took me about a month. Let's see how much I can build it up.

pantin007 said:

no matter how good u are ur not going to succeed if ur playing with 10 buy ins
but fine if u dont want to move down in limit because of pride/ego, go broke,

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This has nothing at all to do with pride. It has only to do with not wanting to lose months of work.

I don't know why everybody assumes that playing with ten buy-ins automatically means I'll go broke. I do move down with seven buy-ins, so how am I going to go broke? Ok, I will go broke when I run out of levels to move down to, but I'll take that risk.

This kind of BRM is not a viable long-term strategy because three buy-in swings are so common you'd have to switch levels a whole lot. It's just something I'm doing right now for reasons I explained earlier.

Jagsti said:

Chris do you mind if I join in on this if it's not too late?

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Sure, you can join in anytime!

Chris_TC said:

Ok, I will go broke when I run out of levels to move down to, but I'll take that risk.

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Actually, we can do some math on this. Assume a $2K bankroll, we're playing 200NL. The lowest stakes I would play without redepositing is 10NL.

200NL: 2000 -> 1400 (3 buy-ins)
100NL: 1400 -> 700 (7 buy-ins)
50NL: 700 -> 350 (7 buy-ins)
25NL: 350 -> 175 (7 buy-ins)
10NL: 175 -> 70 (10 buy-ins)

I will go broke if I lose 34 buy-ins from here on out. I'll take that risk all day long.

They say that you should never Chase money to win.

You can use all the "reasons" for your actions you like Chris, but from an outsider it "sounds" and "looks" like you are chasing to get "your" money back.

I personally think its a bad idea to do this, but wish you good luck.