Building a bankroll in under a month
Hello everyone,
I recently saw and was inspired by Linus's old thread here and figured I'd make my own to hold myself fully accountable and share progress.
I am a college student from the US and turn 21 this month. I don't live in a very poker-friendly area (St. Louis) so I cannot play live until I turn 21, but playing and being bankrolled for live poker by the end of May is my main goal at this moment. In the past I have not taken bankroll management seriously which led to very high highs and very low lows; I'm betting on myself to start anew and make this work.
I mostly play NLH, PLO5 and PLO6 cash games, and small-field NLH MTTs on CoinPoker. Once I have a more defined view of my winrates I will narrow in on only two of those three, but for now I'd like to keep my options open.
May 2 (Starting bankroll $37.56 after $40 deposit and fees):
- NLH cash (.01/.02): 13hr 6min of tables (Usually 4-6 table so roughly 3hr of time), 818 hands, $19.35 won for 118.28bb/100.
- PLO6 cash (.01/.02): 10hr 25min of tables (Usually 2 table so roughly 5hr of time), 695 hands, $6.95 won for 50bb/100.
- PLO5 cash (.01/.02): 18min of 1-tabling, 13 hands, -$2.14 won for -823.08bb/100. Table broke shortly after.
- MTTs: Two bullets of a $1.10 and one bullet of a $2.20, cashed the $2.20 for $4.20, PNL -$0.20.
- Rakeback: $4.84 of rakeback, not counting daily cashback which processes at ~2:30 AM my time.
Total: +$28.80, EOD BR: $66.36
Eager to jump to NL5 because on CoinPoker, you get the most relative rakeback at NL5, NL50, NL500, and NL5000 due to the leaderboard structure. Aiming for a $125 bankroll before I shot-take.
Thank you for reading, any advice and encouragement is greatly appreciated!
5 Replies
Gl mate
May 3:
Didn't put in too much volume today, had to study for some finals. Today felt really rough but results-wise wasn't that bad, slight losing day. Lowlights include running 2nd trips into top trips (not really avoidable), getting bluffed off by a tagged maniac (avoidable, I was pretty indifferent between call/fold but shouldn't have been), 3bet bluffing flop vs a player who I thought was capable of XR-bluffing (avoidable, shouldn't play like this against relative unknowns), flush-over-flush (I'm not sure, config was rare so not worried long-term), bluffing into the wrong hands (somewhat unavoidable given preflop lines and SPR), etc. Highlights include correctly weighting villain towards missed draws and finding hero calls, getting max value for rivered straight in a limped pot, etc.
The stats:
- NLH cash (.01/.02): 16hr 52min of tables, 1,196 hands, -$2.94 won for -12.29bb/100
- Rakeback: $2.18 of rakeback, counting daily from yesterday but not from today.
Total: -$0.76, EOD BR: $65.61 (magical penny appeared, not sure where it came from, possibly fractional returns from rakeback.)
Total bb/100 at NL2: 40.74. I think this is a decently sustainable winrate and relatively close to my actual winrate in these soft fields. Tomorrow I have final exams so won't have as much volume, aiming for 800 hands which should on average net $6.52. Excited to book a win tomorrow (hopefully).
Thanks man, we're all in this together, the encouragement is much appreciated.
May 4:
Didn't put in too much volume today, had two final exams. Performance was hindered by sleep deprivation. Not proud of it, shouldn't have played at all today.
The stats:
- NLH cash (.01/.02): 1hr 10min of tables, 89 hands, -$1.37 won for -76.97bb/100.
- PLO5 cash (.01/.02): 5hr 14min of tables, 374 hands, $2.51 won for 33.56bb/100.
- PLO6 cash (.01/.02): 1hr 15min of tables, 80 hands, -$2.67 won for -166.88bb/100.
- Rakeback: $1.38 of rakeback, counting daily from yesterday but not from today.
Total: -$0.15, EOD BR: $65.46
Total bb/100 at NL2: 35.76. At PLO5 (.02): 4.78. At PLO6 (.02): -15.63.
Looking forward to putting in a ton of volume tomorrow, going to aim for ~5k hands tomorrow and maybe an MTT if the field is particularly soft.
May 4:
I think the 5k hand goal was pretty unrealistic, ended up just under 3k with what I thought was a good amount of volume. Started off the day with a horrendous PLO5/6 session. Lowlights include top boat against quads, piling in money with turned nuts and getting a board-pairing river, and slowplaying flopped top boat only to run into turned top boat. Took a break, reset, and hopped into an NLH MTT where 5 hands in I value-owned myself with trips for a stack. Played some NLH cash for a while and tried to 12-table, but I think my max might be 8 or 9 as I quickly realized I could not follow 12 tables' actions. Ended the day with a redemption in PLO5/6. Highlights include getting the money in on the turn against two opponents with 91% equity (I took the EV cashout as always) and finding some good hero calls against spewy opponents.
The stats:
NLH cash (.01/.02): 22hr 32min of tables, 2,064 hands, -$0.11 won for -0.27bb/100.
PLO5 cash (.01/.02): 12hr 57min of tables, 750 hands, $2.27 won for 15.13bb/100.
PLO6 cash (.01/.02): 1hr 42min of tables, 62 hands, -$1.95 won for -145.52bb/100.
MTT: One bullet for -$2.20.
Rakeback: $4.32 of rakeback, counting daily from yesterday but not from today.
Total: +$2.33, EOD BR: $67.79
Total bb/100 at NL2: 17.91. At PLO5 (.02): 11.61. At PLO6 (.02): -13.84.
I made a mistake yesterday when calculating PLO6 winrate, it's correct now.. Probably going to avoid MTTs until I'm rolled for one greater than $5 entry. Going to put in similar volume tomorrow.
The Coinpoker tracker's graph is awful, so I coded my own manual tracker. Here's my graph so far:
I was trying to build my bankroll in under a month and was staying active every day, but unfortunately my account got suspended by the administrator. I’m honestly frustrated because I was putting time into learning strategies, managing my bankroll carefully, and following the platform rules as far as I know.
Now I can’t access my account, check my balance, or continue my progress. I’ve already contacted support and I’m waiting for a response from the admin team. I really hope this issue gets resolved soon because I was genuinely interested in growing my bankroll step by step and improving my gameplay.
Has anyone else experienced an account suspension while actively building their bankroll? How long did it take to get resolved?
