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Author : Andrew Dickens aka SonnyChiba on THF
Article Written : 15th August 2006
I will tell you as briefly as I can how I managed to obtain a bankroll for nothing, then more importantly how to maintain it once you have got one.
To start rightly or wrongly I've never read a book and what’s more to the point I'm not going to now.....Find out how to play poker yourself, not how somebody else learned to play poker......don't follow their guidelines, come up with your own......Books that tell you the Odds/Percentages etc do have their uses I'm sure, but I cannot get my head around being able to read a book to teach you to play this game.....which is a as much down to the individuals personality how they play as much as the cards they are dealt.
Freeroll yourself....doesn't matter where really but you will need multiple sites and you really should multi table these games 2 or 3 at a time and make sure you always have at least one game going at a time.......
Play as many of THF Freerolls that you can
You are not so much playing these to win, but to watch the hands, you need to see 1000's of hands so you can start to work out how hands play out, this may seem a tad strange but if you really do watch enough hands being played you really do start to get an understanding of how str8s are made, how often when there are 4 suited cards on the board that no-one/someone makes the flush, how often a full house gets made.....I'm not 100% sure with how clear I'm being here but the point of it is see as many hands as you can, without it costing you a penny....take in and compute all the information that this gives you.....and then with a little luck you should have at least a few dollars scattered around from any FR wins/placings you have had......So now Cash games.
Start small.....I mean micro's and not ring games, SNGs 50c tables (On AP the quality of play in the 50c SNGs is better than that of the $2 and $6 SNGs IMO) not all micro game's are crap, I say play SNGs as this will be a faster turn around on your money than playing MTTS all the time, also as you would have just been playing nothing but FR's for the last 3months solid, SNGs will make a pleasant change for ya'....
Do not multi table these games
The reason you now need to start watching and learning how "OTHERS" bet and what they bet with, now I will say at the start of the SNG you need to play tight/passive, let the idiot chances bet themselves out before you start playing your game....you need to be sitting there when there are only 4 or 5 players left (9 seater table) in order to be able to play better poker than what was going on at the start of the SNG.....also this will give you a chance as you sit back to watch these players and work out their betting and their style, i.e. the passive ones, calling stations the aggressor etc.
Also I'm now hoping that something you picked up during the FR section was, nobody wins a game on the 1st hand....you need to be there at the end in order to win and/or make money and as I hope you learned patience from playing all the FR's and that you apply this same philosophy to your SNG games....strange maybe but at micro level you will always on a table of 9 get 3 idiots all of which are either out first or one of them will go on and win it, 2 wanna be pro players a couple of average players and maybe one other who is learning the game such as yourself in order to learn from this SNG section you have to be left on the table with average players the one who's learning and maybe a wanna be pro (just so you learn what not to be like on a poker table). So now all the hands and situation you come across in the FRs will appear in a SNG only this time your there to see how people bet/bluff/check with them and IMO regardless what people say about micro play, if you are there at the end of the SNG you will learn a lot from it, and while your learning its still only costing 50c+10c if you lose it's all free money you gained from FRs anyway.....all that said though I don't think you will lose many.....you only have to place 3rd to get your stake back plus some change.
Once you get yourself a BankRoll of around $20 it's time to go back to the MTTs, still micro ones but get yourself in a $1 MTT and if the site is anything like AP or PS and you have a few 100 players in the tourney with a very nice return on your money for a final table placing win.........
Quick re-cap so far :-
- Play as many Freerolls as possible and learn them hands you will need to see 1000s of hands played for this so multi table.
- Play Micro SNGs, study the players and the betting be patient and aim to place in the money.
- Return to MTTs still at a micro level and apply all you have learned so far from the hands you have watched and how the players played them hands.
Remember: PATIENCE
Stay at micro's until you feel comfortable to move up a level i.e. even if your B/R is starting to look quite healthy that does not mean you "HAVE" to move up a level.....I know where my levels are, I still twitch at a $10 MTT or SNG so I'm quite happy playing $5 MTTs/SNGs where I don't twitch on my buy-in therefore not affecting my play at the table.
As for ring games IMO you need to really be playing in the 50c/$1-$1/$2 (I don't do limit so this would be regarding NL tables) in order to get decant players and as you don't want to sit at a table with $40 and if that's gone so has the bulk of your B/R, IMO you really need at least $200 in your account before you even consider a ring game, so you can sit at a table comfortable in the fact that you are not playing with the last of your B/R therefore allowing you to just get on with your game...........
It took me a little over 6months to be able to afford (IMO) to sit down at a ring game without worrying about a hit, but I would quite openly confess I'm a better MTT/SNG player than I am a ring player however I'm sure my ring game will come along the more I play them as with every aspect of poker.
Small Tip : Learn all the other forms of poker, stud/omaha/razz and all the H/L versions of these games as the more you see the better your knowledge becomes.
Conclusion
This may not work for you, it was just how I knew I had to learn the game and backed up with all the help and support that I got/get from THF my poker has come a long way......I still swear that I won't deposit and that's why the above advice worked for me....also the not reading a book thing is also a personal thing to me and I am in no way telling you not to read books I just merely gave the reasons why I wouldn't read a/any books on poker.
Hope that in any way at all this can help you gain a B/R and more importantly help you to keep hold of it.
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