How did you make it?

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 03:43 by kingkai84

i made some decent money while having it as a hobby as a student. one summer i didnt have sumemrjob and just played poker when everyone else was working so i won a seat for a master classics side event. came 2nd. boosted my roll. decided to go pro or try it out for a year at least. never looked back.

here i am. writing on a pkr forum at night telling about the possibility if you have the stamina, will and skill to make it.

glglglgl

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 10:35 by ACEOLE

Nice one Kai and good luck to you to mate in your upcoming major events, hopefully ill get my big win eventually so i can try my skills at bigger events. Anyone else want to comment on how they got to where they are now?
Cheers
ACE

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 14:04 by BokitoNL

Some didnt

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 16:09 by james666

I think you are assuming we all played in a big game, or big tournament, to suddenly get a large roll by utilising a heater... this is not the case for most pro's who have consistently won through many years...

As the saying go's - Tourneys for show, cash games for Dough...

This is used losely, and does not mean you can only grind out a consistent winning daily by playing cash games, there are a lot of top tournament pro's earning just as much money from regularly playing toournaments. What I am trying to say is that most of us started building aour bankrolls over a long period of time 'grinding' the game (being cash games or regular tournaments), whilst learning the game and how to beat it conistently. Winning one big tournament when people start playing poker can be a dangerous thing. Although they can win 6 figure sums or even 7 figure sums, the difficulty comes with skipping the whole proccess of learning the game through experience. Most pro's have been through the winning and losing proccess thousands of times over, winning small or large amounts and losing small - large amounts, and never having the one big score that someone who has been playing for 1 week has done in a WPT event or similar.

The real way to build a bankroll without wanting to gamble $5k of your hard earned money to take down a big score, is to grind out the cash games... Cash games as they are genereally deeper stakced than tournaments, put you in more situations that you will need to learn about for future similar situations, therefore you can really become very experienced to consistently win, and consistently but slowly build a bankroll, rather than investing a hug portion of money into one single event, when you do not hold the fundamental skillls gained from experience to make you profitable...

Start low, and build up slowly is my advice... do not jump in at the deep end! (obvioulsy there are exceptions to this rule in the poker world)...

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 16:17 by Modge

Not that I've "made it" or anything (in fact, far from it ) but it's a common excuse from players that they can't beat the low levels as "people don't know what they're doing" and "they're full of fish" etc.

However, if you can't beat people who have just started out, and by your own admission aren't that good, then how do you expect people who do know how to play?

Learn to adapt to the people you're playing against and how to win consistently at the lower levels, then start to move up as your bankroll increases.

/gl

M.

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 19:37 by ACEOLE

Thanks James for your comments i guess i better start working hard on my cash game as really im a tourny player, i say this as entering a tourny will cost me less but if i win i will win big compared to my stake, where as in a cash game i could loose a big amount straight away and be broke if you know what i mean.

Modge i understand what your saying, but i really do think the higher the level of blinds eg $2 / $4 the guys playing there will fold hands and will be playing a better standard of poker. Now i know with the low stakes cash games if i play only the good hands and wait for the fish to call every bet i could turn a profit but only to loose it again when they suckout in a hand they never ever should be involved in then i find my 3 hours of building a stack can be wiped out in a couple of hands by luck.

Im thinking maybe i should swerve the rule of starting low and maybe try just sitting at a higher limit for a change and see how i go, probably broke lol but i guess if i dont try i wont know.

Thanks for your comments guys and good luck at the tables to all of you too.

Cheers
ACE

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 20:57 by Modge

The problem though mate is that if you're under-rolled you won't be able to absorb the bad beats that will eventually come your way.

Even if you match the skill level of your opponents at 2/4, what will you do when you lose 3 or 4 hands when you were > 80% fav when the money went in?

Those beats will hurt much more than they should because of the dent they'll make in your bankroll.

Read the last page of this thread - it's not just a theoretical risk I'm talking about here; it happens all the time

http://www.pkr.com/en/community/forums/beginner/ringgame-challenge-beginners-400-to--27339/

If you really must play at NL400 just now, try to scrape a roll together by any means possible. Stop going out at weekends, pot noodles for dinner etc but don't play above your roll.

No matter how good you are ,variance will find you in the end.

Best of luck buddy,

M.

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Posted: 24-Oct-2009 22:49 by LockeLamora

amen Modge.

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Posted: 26-Oct-2009 22:31 by MaKivar

ok, i'm no pro but i really have to echo Modge and say DON'T start off in the bigger games! (unless you have stacks of cash to lose)

when i started playing, i played SNGs rather than cash games (i'm still not a fan of cash games 4 years on).

anyways, i grew tired of the "terrible play" at the dollar tables, moved up to the $10 games, and within 3 months of starting, i was playing the $30 sit'n'gos.

my bankroll yoyo'd up and down, and my strongest piece of advice to anyone is don't make the same mistake, where it cash, SNGs or tournaments, start small and build up, it took me years or proper bankroll management to recover!