Bankroll Building Tips
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!
