My bankroll challenge is now breaking new boundaries

A short while ago I undertook to do something in poker that I had never done before and that was to see if I could convert $100 into $10,000. After quite a substantial struggle to overcome the almost “peanuts” like micro levels then I have finally pushed through that mental nightmare and my bankroll now stands at a very healthy $1146. After starting in $2 games with a $4 buy-in and $0.01-$0.02 blinds then I am now playing $50 games with $0.25-$0.50 blinds.

For the first time I am playing poker at a level that I can respect which is helping immensely to keep my head in the game. But what all this shows is that even though you can play badly in poker then you can still make money with good bankroll management. Let us say that you buy into a $50 game for $50 and you do so on two other tables.

You also have a 20 buy-in bankroll and in one particular session you start badly through making some very bad plays. Let us also say that you lost $40 in that time. That $40 may hurt you but it is only 80% of a single buy-in. So in effect your bad play has only lost you 4% of your total bankroll. You can then get your head back into gear or at least try to and then start afresh with what has been very minimal damage.

This is the power of bankroll control because it protects you from your greatest enemy which is yourself. If you play with control and discipline then you can give yourself every possible chance to make money because the patience aspect of playing poker cannot be underestimated. There will be countless sessions where nothing happens or you are slowly losing money but you are not losing money at all and that is an illusion that is eliminated the longer you play.

Let us look at a player who has an hourly rate of $36/hour over 275k hands at NL100. If they have a losing session and lose $140 then this does not make them a losing player and they shouldn’t try to recoup that money by forceful play. A session loss merely lowers your hourly rate by a fraction over a sample of that size which more than likely will readjust the next time that you play anyway.