.jpg "How to Go From $100 to $10,000 Quickly in Poker")
This article was written by blackrain79.com contributor Fran Ferlan.
Having a $10,000 bankroll is a huge milestone in any aspiring poker player’s career.
It allows you to play in more serious games comfortably and potentially make a decent amount of money.
But is it possible to build up a 10k bankroll from scratch?
The short answer is yes, but it will take a fair bit of patience and dedication.
In this article, you will learn how to build a $10,000 bankroll starting with as little as $100.
Let’s get right into it.
1. Build up Your Bankroll
In poker, you need money to make money.
So if your goal is to make any substantial amount of money playing poker, first you need to have a decent bankroll.
Your poker bankroll is a certain amount of money you set aside for playing poker.
This means you don’t use money in your bankroll to pay for rent or groceries. You use is only to play poker.
Having a healthy bankroll eliminates the risk of going broke due to the short term “bad luck”, aka negative variance.
The amount of money you can earn in poker over the short term is not entirely within your control, no matter how well you’re playing.
Even if you play perfectly, you’re bound to experience prolonged losing periods due to the short term luck element involved.
But if you have a proper bankroll, you can ride out the negative variance and mitigate the risk of losing all your money.
The idea behind a bankroll is that you’re always playing with only a small percentage of your overall bankroll.
The more money you have in your bankroll, the lower the chance of going broke.
Of course, it’s worth mentioning that bankroll management only works if you’re a winning poker player to begin with.
If you’re currently losing at poker, the biggest bankroll in the world is not going to save you.
It will just take you longer to go broke.
This has to do with the concept of gambler’s ruin.
In statistics, the gambler’s ruin means that a player who plays a game with negative expected value will eventually go bankrupt, regardless of their betting system or “strategy”.
For example, let’s say you play roulette (a game with negative expected value) and bet on either red or black.
Keep playing long enough, and you will eventually go broke, no matter which “betting strategy” you employ.
The chance of the ball landing on red is only 47.34%, not 50%, since there is also a green zero on the roulette wheel.
This tiny edge is what makes the game profitable for the casino, and unprofitable for the players over the long run.
However, unlike most other casino games, poker involves skill, meaning it’s possible to win over the long run.
That’s because you’re not playing against the casino, but against other players.
The bigger the skill edge you have over your opponents, the more likely you are to win over the long run.
So when you’re first starting out with poker, you should focus on improving your skills, i.e. your technical knowledge of the winning poker strategy.
Focusing too much on the results (i.e. how much money you can potentially make) is often counterproductive, because
a) you can’t control your results in the short term and
b) you are likely to make a lot of mistakes when first starting out, anyway.
These mistakes shouldn’t discourage you, because they’re a natural part of the learning process.
Nobody was born a pro, and every successful poker player was a fish at some point.
So instead of focusing on jumping up the stakes as soon as possible, you should take your time to gain experience and learn as much about the game as you can.
The results will take care of themselves.
So let’s suppose you’re already confident enough in your playing abilities.
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2. Play Low Stakes Cash Games Online
If you only have $100 to your name, or if you’re just not comfortable putting more money on the line, the best way to start building up your bankroll is to play online cash games.
Unlike your standard brick and mortar casinos, online poker allows you to buy in for very small amounts, starting as low as $2.
Online cash games with $2 buyin is known as NL2, $5 buyin is known as NL5 and so on.
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If you haven’t played a lot of poker so far, online cash games are arguably the best place to start for a few reasons:
A) Convenience
You can play online poker in the comfort of your own home, and you don’t need to spend any time or gas money to actually physically go to the casino. Pants are also optional.
B) More affordable and accessible games
In most brick and mortar casinos, the lowers limit you can play is $1/$2 cash games, meaning the blinds are 1 and 2 dollars, respectively.
In online poker, you can buy in for as low as $2, which makes online poker a lot more accessible.
C) Faster pace of action
If you play a $1/$2 cash game at your local casino, you’ll be lucky to play around 30 hands an hour on average.
In online poker, you can play more than 100 hands an hour, and on some tables it can go as high as around 200 hands an hour.
And that’s only if you’re playing one table. If you play multiple tables at once, you can multiply the amount of hands played.
Check out my multitabling guide to learn how to become a multitabling beast.
This lightning fast speed allows you to put an insane amount of volume in a short amount of time.
This means it’s a lot easier to gain valuable experience through sheer repetition.
You can also use different tools and programs to help you improve your game, like PokerTracker 4.
If you’re only starting out with $100, that’s more than enough to play NL2 comfortably.
NL2 games are usually very soft, meaning you can start winning and building up your bankroll fairly quickly.
After you build up your bankroll to around $150, you can take a shot at NL5.
It’s advised to have at least 30 full buyins for the stakes you’re playing.
So $150 for NL5, $300 for NL10 and so on.
However, even if you adhere to strict bankroll management rules, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to climb up the stakes on your first try.
Chances are, it may take a couple of tries to really stick to a higher stake, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t land it on your first go.
As you start climbing up the stakes, you will start encountering more difficult opposition, and players will start to take the game a bit more seriously.
This means you will encounter more regular players who actually take time off the felt to improve their game.
There will also be less recreational players around, i.e. players who just play for fun, and make little to no effort to actually improve their game.
The good news is that you will still encounter recreational players, even when you climb up the stakes.
And they will usually be just as bad at poker as recs on lower stakes!
A poker fish will play badly at any stake they play.
That’s not the case with regular players, though.
As you climb the stakes, you will likely see more competent and aggressive regs.
You won’t make as much money from these players, as they simply won’t make as many costly, fundamental mistakes as their fishy counterparts.
If you're struggling to win against regs in your games, check out my other article on how to beat loose and aggressive poker players.
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3. Play Low Stakes Live Cash Games
If you want to build a 10k bankroll a bit faster, your best bet is to play live cash games at your local casino.
Live cash games are arguably a lot softer than their online counterparts.
Most players at low stakes cash games play purely for fun, and they often have a very poor understanding of winning poker strategy.
They are likely to make all sorts of costly, fundamental mistakes like playing too many hands, chasing every draw, bluffing at inopportune moments and so on.
You can easily beat most of these players by following a simple tight and aggressive strategy and arming yourself with patience.
That’s because live poker plays significantly slower than online poker, so it may take a while to get accustomed to it if you’ve previously played online.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you should just tune out when you’re not directly involved in the hand.
You should use the downtime to observe the action and try to pick up on tells from your opponents.
Physical tells are a big part of live poker, so you should still try to pay attention even the game seems to be moving at a snail’s speed.
You’re likely to encounter a couple of regular players at live cash games, as well.
While these players won’t make as many fundamental mistakes as recreational players, they are still likely to have some leaks in their game if you know where to look for them.
Since live cash games are likely to have a softer player pool and the pace of the action is a lot slower than in online poker, you can probably get away with playing with a smaller bankroll.
Provided you’re currently a winning poker player to begin with, of course.
With that in mind, you should still have enough buyins in your bankroll to weather the negative variance and reduce the risk of going broke.
If you want to play live cash games comfortably, it’s advised to have at least 15-20 buyins in your bankroll.
So if you’re playing $1/$2 cash games, you should have at least $3000 to $4000 in your bankroll.
This may seem a bit too steep, but again, the point is to eliminate the risk of going broke at any moment.
Also, having a decent bankroll will give you a piece of mind to keep playing your best despite how you’re running session to session.
You may get away with a smaller bankroll like $2000, for example.
But this means you only have 10 full buyins, meaning you’re drastically increasing the risk of going broke.
If you play poker for long enough, a 10 buyin downswing is nothing unusual, even for winning poker players.
This is also true for live cash games, even though they play at a significantly slower pace than online poker.
If you don’t believe me, I suggest playing around with a poker variance calculator to see how long you can break even or lose, even with a solid winrate.
This is not meant to be discouraging, but to highlight the importance of adhering to proper bankroll management rules.
Building up your bankroll the right way can take some time, but it’s more preferable to unnecessary risk for the prospect of a quick profit.
But if you follow the right strategy, you should have no trouble beating your local $1/$2 cash game.
Check out my full breakdown on how to beat $1/$2 cash games if you want to know more.
4. Play Low Stakes Poker Tournaments
If you don’t want to put a lot of your own money on the line to build up your bankroll, there’s an alternative to cash games you can try: multitable tournaments (aka MTTs).
In multitable tournaments, you buy in for a certain amount, and you play until you run out of chips or eliminate all the other players and you win the tournament.
MTTs are extremely popular due to their hefty payouts, which are usually extremely top-heavy.
This means the first 3 places usually get a disproportionate amount of the prize money.
So if you win a poker tournament, your bankroll can get a significant bump in a matter of few hours!
Another advantage of poker tournaments is that they usually attract a lot of recreational players due to the juicy prizes they offer.
So poker tournaments often have a softer player pool compared to cash games.
Also, poker tournaments usually have a lot shallower effective stack sizes compared to cash games, especially at the later tournament stages.
This makes tournament poker arguably easier than cash games, since there’s not much post flop play involved.
While this all may sound good in theory, there is a catch.
MTTs are extremely fun and potentially very profitable, but it’s actually really hard to win a poker tournament.
The first and most obvious reason for that is the fact that MTTs attract A LOT of players.
The player pool in an MTT usually consists of hundreds, if not thousands of players.
And winning an MTT means being the last player standing.
So in practice, there is only one winner, and hundreds or thousands of losers.
Of course, more than one player is actually entitled to the prize money, but again, the prizes are very top-heavy, so you should always aim for the top if you’re playing MTTs.
Another problem with MTTs is the fact that you may not have as much of a skill edge compared to cash games.
Remember the fact that MTTs have shallower effective stack sizes compared to cash games?
This means that you don’t have as much space to actually outplay your opponents post flop, even if you have a skill edge over them.
Also, due to the nature of the tournament format, you are likely to experience a lot more variance in tournaments compared to cash games.
In other words, your results are likely to be much more swingy.
Your graph is likely to steadily trend downward, with an occasional spike if you actually manage to make it “in the money” from time to time.
That said, MTTs can still be wildly profitable if you don’t mind the swings in your results.
In fact, players like Daniel Negreanu have made millions in MTTs specifically.
After all, you only need to win one.
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5. Focus on the Process, Not the End Result
Building up a 10 bankroll may take some time, so don’t get discouraged if you have to drop down in stakes a few times.
Winning poker is all about the long run, so the best way to build up your bankroll quickly is to simply work on improving your skills.
At the end of the day, how much you win depends entirely on your winrate.
Your winrate is the number of big blinds you can expect to win over
a) 100 hands if you play online
b) 1 hour if you play live.
If you play tournaments or sit-and-gos, your winrate is expressed as an ROI (return on investment).
It expresses the percentage of your winnings compared to the amount of money you spend on tournament buyins.
For example, an ROI of 20% means you’re winning 20 cents for every 1 dollar you spend on buyins.
Your winrate or your ROI are directly correlated with your skill level.
However, it’s worth noting that having an insanely high winrate means you should probably move up in stakes if you’re beating your current stake over a significant sample size.
When you’re first starting out, however, you are likely to have a negative winrate.
As your skills improve and you eliminate leaks from your game, your winrate will naturally improve as well.
Aside from your skill level, your winrate will depend on other factors like the games you choose to play, your opponent’s skill level, the rake structure and so on.
You can only have a positive winrate if you have a skill edge over your opponents.
If you’re the sixth best poker player in the world, but always play against the top five players, you will still lose over the long run.
This is why proper game selection is crucial if you want to build up a proper bankroll.
It may seem that jumping up the stakes will allow you to build up a bankroll more quickly, but as you jump stakes, you will face tougher competition.
This means you can expect a lower winrate as you climb up the stakes.
So if you have a very low winrate to begin with, you may want to increase your winrate first before jumping up the stakes.
Low winrate means more variance, meaning your results are going to be a lot more swingy, which can take a toll on both your bankroll and your confidence.
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6. Slow and Steady Wins the Race
Even if you employ the right strategy and adhere to strict bankroll management rules, building up a bankroll can take time.
One of the common pitfalls for aspiring poker players is getting impatient, especially during prolonged losing streaks.
In times like these, it can be tempting to chase the action and jump up the stakes to try to get “back to breakeven”.
This is one of the quickest ways to burn through your bankroll, so it should be avoided at all costs.
Building up a bankroll can take time, but you can completely obliterate your bankroll in no time.
In other words, there are countless steps to success, but there’s only one step to ruin.
So protecting your downside is just as important as maximizing your winnings, if not more so.
This means you should
a) always have enough buyins in your bankroll for the stakes you’re playing and
b) only play if you can bring out your A game.
This last part is crucial, since a lot of players make the mistake of playing long sessions when they’re down.
They try to get unstuck or back to breakeven, which often leads them to lose even more money.
This is the exact opposite approach of what you should actually do.
If you’re in a tough game and you can’t seem to win a hand to save your life, just call it a day and try again tomorrow.
It’s a lot easier to get tilted when the cards aren’t falling your way, so it doesn’t make sense to keep playing if you’re likely to be emotionally compromised.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you should just quit every time the cards aren’t falling your way.
Dealing with tilt head on is a must if you want to make it in this game.
Sometimes you have to keep grinding it out and simply roll with the punches.
But if it gets so overwhelming to the point you can’t play to the best of your abilities, it’s best to just cut your losses and live to fight another day.
Conversely, when you’re running well and the games are good, you should try to play for as long as possible.
When you’re running well, it’s easier to play your A game, and you’re going to be much less susceptible to tilt and frustration.
On the other hand, your opponents may be more inclined to tilt if you happen to run well against them, so you should try to push your edge and maximize your winnings.
However, sometimes you’re going to lose despite your best efforts.
When that happens, don’t feel bad about dropping down in stakes.
When building up a bankroll, you may need to move down the stakes a few times before finally sticking to a higher stake.
If you happen to be underrolled for the stakes you’re playing, the safest option is to drop down in stakes and try to build your bankroll back.
Of course, you can always reload if you want, but if you follow sound bankroll management from the start, it should be the last money you ever need to deposit.
Bottom line: when it comes to building your bankroll, patience is the name of the game.
You can certainly try to accelerate the process by playing higher stakes than your bankroll can handle, but at that point you’re just gambling.
At its core, poker is all about risk management. Some degree of risk is inevitable, but it’s important not to risk anything that you’re not comfortable with losing.
How to Go From $100 to $10,000 Quickly in Poker - Summary
Building up a 10k bankroll is not an easy feat, even if you are familiar with the latest advanced poker strategy.
But it can certainly be done with the right approach and a bit of patience.
To sum up, here’s how to quickly go from $100 to $10,000 in poker.
1. Build up your bankroll
In poker, you need money to make money. Your poker bankroll is the set amount of money you use only for poker.
Having a proper bankroll minimizes the risk of going broke, and it allows you to keep playing your best even if you’re running badly.
2. Play Online Cash Games
Online poker allows you to buy in for a very small amount of money, which makes online cash games the best place to start building up your bankroll.
$100 is certainly enough to play NL2 or even NL5 comfortably, i.e. cash games with the $2 and $5 buyins, respectively.
3. Play Low Stakes Live Cash Games
As you gradually build up your bankroll, you can transition to live cash games.
Low stakes live cash games are usually quite soft, so you can win relatively consistently with a simple tight and aggressive strategy.
4. Play Online Poker Tournaments
Low stakes poker tournaments are another great way to quickly build up a hefty bankroll, but there is a catch.
It’s quite hard to win a multitable tournament because you have to go through hundreds, if not thousands of players to get to the prize money.
Still, you only need to win one, so you should certainly give it a try.
5. Focus on the process, not the end result
When you’re first starting out, you should put 100% of your focus on fixing your leaks and improving your technical game knowledge.
Improving your skills means improving your winrate, which will make building your bankroll a lot easier.
6. Slow and steady wins the race
You should always have enough buyins in your bankroll for the stakes you’re playing.
So if you’re underrolled for your current stakes, don’t feel bad about dropping down and building your bankroll back up.
It may sting in the short term, but it’s a lot better than going broke and having to start all over again.
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This article was written by Fran Ferlan
Poker player, writer and coach
Specializing in live and online cash games
For coaching enquiries, contact Fran at fran.redline@gmail.com
Or apply directly for poker coaching with Fran, right here
Lastly, if you want to know the complete strategy I use to make $2000+ per month in small/mid stakes games, grab a copy of my free poker cheat sheet.
