Wouldn’t it be great if you had thousands of dollars to spare on starting an online poker career? Yea….sure it would, but the reality is that most people don’t even have $100 to spare for their poker bankroll. In any case, poker players are constantly wondering what’s the best way to build a bankroll. And the answer all depends on your specific situation, which we’ll discuss below.
Freeroll to a Bankroll
The most attractive way to build a bankroll in most poker players’ eyes is by playing freerolls. After all, freerolls don’t cost anything to enter, so you’re essentially playing for free money. Of course, the money is only yours if you win/cash, which is certainly a big roadblock to going this route. Furthermore, most freerolls contain far more players than your average poker tournament, which makes it much harder to cash.
Long story short, freerolls are great for people are who looking to have fun with poker, and/or don’t have much money to spare on a bankroll. However, it’s also the most time-consuming way to build a poker bankroll because of the high player-to-prize-pool ratio. If you’re going to play freerolls to accumulate a bankroll, try finding ways to enter exclusive tournaments where the ratio is smaller.
Depositing
Seeing as how I’m writing on behalf of an online poker room, you knew this one was coming. But honestly, your best shot at “building” a bankroll is to make a deposit right off the bat and practice good bankroll management. By making a deposit, you avoid all of the crowded freerolls, and jump right into the heart of the real money action.
But even with this being said, many people are still scared of depositing a couple hundred dollars, then burning through it right away. And while this concern is certainly valid, the best way to avoid this scenario is by continually learning poker strategy, and managing your bankroll correctly. Expanding on the bankroll management concept, you should have at least 20 cash game buy-ins (for No-Limit games), and/or 70-80 tournament buy-ins for the desired level.
With all of this being said, don’t deposit $200, start playing $1/$2 No-Limit Hold’em, bust out right away, then start crying about how poker is rigged. If you’ve only got $200 to start with, you shouldn’t be playing No-Limit cash games at stakes any higher than $0.05/$0.10; this level gives you 20 cash game buy-ins (100 big blinds per buy-in), which should be enough to survive variance and learn the game.
Bonuses/Freerolls
While freerolls might be a long, slow road to building a bankroll, it certainly doesn’t hurt to continue playing in them when you have time. Furthermore, you should be looking to take advantage of bonus opportunities whenever possible as well.
Far too many players overlook bonuses and freerolls when trying to sustain/increase their bankroll, which robs you of a lot of opportunities to turn a profit. After all, you could be a break-even player on the tables, but turn poker profits by adding bonus/freeroll money into the mix.
