Amateur to pro... With very low bankroll?

Amps

I accidently came across poker 18 months ago in a free to play pub league. i quickly caught the bug and soon began playing regularly. It has only been the past few months that i have taken poker seriously. My game has improved so much, and i really feel i have the potential to be even better.

The pub league i play in has some great prizes to be won, but not much scope for taking poker further than a social game. There is a chance to win sponsorship with ladbrokes which i have qualified for, but the problem i find with this, as because it is a free to play league and it is more about the social side for most players, there is a tendency to get calling stations and no respect, consequently a lot of the time causing me to get 'donked out'. I realise that there is a certian element of this within poker and with the pub league this is fine.
 
However, i dont have the bankroll to even enter small stake tournys on a regular basis. I play every day online, i read the poker books and i play in the pub league pretty much every night. Please could you advise me on how i progress from the level i am on at the moment? Fancy giving me a break and inventing a wildcard for the team poker?

Please help,

Annmarie.

The_Don90

Hi AMPs

This is probably best put into the poker clinic you'll get far better answers than what you'll ge off me. Also best to remove the other companies name. However im going to comment because i have a very similar story.


OK small differances, i started playing 5 years ago, when playing just home games with my dad, i found it very difficult to understand and after 3 months of it and playing freerolls online (usuing my dads account on a different website) i gave up.

After a while my mate phoned me up poker is starting up at "PUB A" so after a couple of weeks of thinking i went down to it and havent looked back. I quickly became a tournament director in that pub and took it from 12 players a week to 24-30 players a week.

I stayed with that league till 3 months ago while also playing on sky. Im now a Sub-Franchisee to a different poker league.

Anyways, when i first came online i used to play only MTT's and DYM (which in honesty I wasnt very good at, i tried to take a dym by playing MTT poker. Not a good idea.

Anyways since i then started posting on the forum daily and in the Poker Clinic ive made friends on the site, and i have developed my game considerably, Yes i still get "donked off" playing in the league, however i learnt how to play cash tables. Which is a very good trait to have in the long run. Most MTT players struggle in the long run because of "downswings" however in cash you can run bad and still grind a profit.

Anyways, my advice is get into the poker clinic speak to some people, after a bad beat use area 51 as frustration. These guys are all ready and willing to help, and are absolutley fantastic when it comes to answering honestly.

Best of luck,

Don.

DannyMcs

i dont have the bankroll to even enter small stake tournys on a regular basis. I play every day online, i read the poker books and i play in the pub league pretty much every night.

How are you playing every day if you don't have a bankroll? Or are you only playing freerolls? Even if you're exclusively playing FRs a couple of months should be enough for a few small cashes which you can take to the penny cash or DYM tables and start to build up.

If you really believe you have a solid game I would bite the bullet, stick a few hundred in your sky rather than savings account, and go from there. If you can't/won't do that I would probably go Freerolls /> £0.30 DYM up to £1 DYM (low variance if you play them correctly, and just rail a lot if you can't) then make the move to bigger SNGs, penny cash, the £2 MTTs or a mix of all three until you find what you're most comfortable with.

Great piece of advice I got from stoneface: there is absolutely no rush. Learn to consistently beat freerolls/micro-stakes and build from there.

Amps

In Response to Re: Amateur to pro... With very low bankroll?:

How are you playing every day if you don't have a bankroll? Or are you only playing freerolls? Even if you're exclusively playing FRs a couple of months should be enough for a few small cashes which you can take to the penny cash or DYM tables and start to build up. If you really believe you have a solid game I would bite the bullet, stick a few hundred in your sky rather than savings account, and go from there. If you can't/won't do that I would probably go Freerolls /> £0.30 DYM up to £1 DYM (low variance if you play them correctly, and just rail a lot if you can't) then make the move to bigger SNGs, penny cash, the £2 MTTs or a mix of all three until you find what you're most comfortable with. Great piece of advice I got from stoneface: there is absolutely no rush. Learn to consistently beat freerolls/micro-stakes and build from there.
Posted by DannyMcs

Thanks for the advice guys! i bit the bullet last night and played the £11 main event... made it to final table and cashed £120... so i now have a bankroll! I guess i just thought you needed a lot of money to make a lot of money,. but the plowing on with the freerolls and the micro stakes is the way forward i think!

Thanks alot.

DannyMcs

Superb, well done Amps! Onwards and upwards!

GaryQQQ

If you're good enough to be a pro you will easily build up a good bankroll from almost zero using only freerolls and micro-stakes games. Many pros, Annette Oberstad for example, started with no bankroll at all and began with winnings from freerolls. Good luck.