Big Slick Poker

Any frustrated student of the game of poker would be wise to avoid listening to the story of Florian Langmann’s career. The talented young German took to poker like a fish in the water. After getting a bit of a late start compared to others who have enjoyed his degree of success, Langmann began tearing up the poker world almost immediately.

He started playing in 2005, and by 2006 won the German Poker Open for nearly €40,000. Florian began traveling the world playing poker tournaments shortly following that win. After recording several modestly sized cashes, he finally caught his big break in the 2007 EPT London Main Event. He finished 2nd in that event and collected a massive £346,528 payday.

Although 2008 was probably a bit of a disappointment for Langmann (even though most of us would have traded places with his results in a heartbeat!), he has already gotten off to a great start this year. At the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in the Bahamas, Langmann got knocked out of the Main Event and joined 272 others in a $5,000 buy-in “second chance” tournament. He notched another big second place finish in that event collecting a healthy $184,000 to get his year off on the right footing. The only player who could stop Langmann from winning the whole thing was none other than reigning world champion Peter Eastgate.

This young man clearly does a lot of traveling. Less than a week after that nice finish in the Bahamas, he showed up in Mississippi for a World Poker Tour event with 283 players. Of course, the finish was probably a disappointing one for Florian: 18th place. *Yawn* just another money routine finish in a $10,000 buy-in tournament!

Perhaps no other German poker player is as dedicated to traveling the live poker tournament circuit as is Florian. For that reason, it’s hard not to expect him to be considered the best German player in a year or two, if he isn’t considered that already.

On a personal note, I played with Florian in the WSOP Europe event. At the time, I had no idea who he was, but it quickly became apparent that he was quite possibly the best player at the table which is really saying something since Barry Greenstein and Nenad Medic were among us. His stone-faced demeanor and endlessly aggressive betting style make him a serious force to be reckoned with in the poker world.

One of the big advantages of online poker over brick-and-mortar poker is the ability to play “small ball”, so to speak. Understandably, casinos don’t want to deal with spreading penny-ante games and they certainly aren’t going to take the time to run small freeroll promotions. However, online poker rooms are able to do these things since they don’t have the overhead costs associated with running a casino. It cost an online poker room almost nothing to run a $.01/$.02 Texas hold’em game, whereas a casino would have to give up precious floor space, hire a dealer, etc. In effect, no casino wants to deal with minuscule games and promotions.

Thanks to online poker, it is possible to build a nice gambling bankroll from next to nothing. Some players have built massive bankrolls from a start of literally $0! Of course, going from, say, $50 to $10,000 is much, much easier than going from $0 to $10,000. If you’re serious about trying to accumulate a big bankroll via online poker without making much of an initial investment, it is still advisable that you commit at least a hundred dollars or so to the quest. Trying to win a handful of change through tiny freerolls is a pain-staking, time-consuming process.

Find Good Promotions

Several poker portals offer exclusive online poker promotions. These are a great way for a beginning player to get good value off of their first-time deposit at an online poker room. Online poker rooms don’t take their customers for granted. They’re usually willing to give up a little something in order to get your business. Do some research and find an online poker room that offers some competitive sign-up initiatives.

Usually these sign-up initiatives are found at large poker information websites. You won’t see anything like that on this site because it’s quite small. But for example, PokerTips.org, which is a large poker strategy site, has a deal with Pacific Poker that awards their readers with two weekly seats to the $140 buy-in Deep Stack tournament. Look around for deals like that before signing up directly with an online poker room. The added value in promotions like this can be the make-or-break difference for a player trying to get on their feet with a small deposit.

Play Within Your Limits

In order to build a big bankroll from a small investment, it is imperative that you play within your limits. Even the best online poker player in the world could go busto from a $50 start if they were immediately jumping into $10 buy-in tournaments. Leave yourself some room to absorb the inevitable variance of poker. If you’re playing tournaments, you should have a bankroll of 50-100 tournament buy-ins. For cash games, leave yourself at least 20 maximum table buy-ins (but preferably more).

The most likely way to move up the ladder is to make yourself earn your way up the ladder!