You’ll Never Be The Next Durrrr Unless You Take A Shot!

If you look around various online poker sites, you will find a lot of articles on poker bankroll management – and most of them will be telling the same tired old story… You need 20 buyins for cash, 50 for SNGs and 100 for tournaments or, or, or – you’ll go BROKE!

My problem with these articles is that they are written by small stakes pro grinders with aspiring small stakes pro grinder in mind. These articles are not for recreational players who can reload if they go broke, they are not for the stars of the future who might be willing to take a couple of chances to hit the big time… they are for people who aspire to becoming multi-tabling robots in the small to mid stakes.

If that is your goal, then that’s fine by me! If you would prefer to take a little risk with your leisure money and give yourself a chance of moving up into the league of poker pros and celebrities then repeat after me:

You’ll never be the next Durrrr unless you take a shot!

Right, lets define taking a shot – after all putting your entire bankroll into a single game you are neither skilled nor experienced enough to be playing in is not ‘taking a shot’ at all… it is poker suicide.

What I mean here is some measured risk, giving yourself a chance of taking a big win that will make you comfortable at the next level up… yet will not devastate you if you end up losing the buy-in.

For cash games, maybe someone is bankrolled and beating 25c / 50c – why not cut down the number of tables you play and add a $1 / $2 game, do it at peak time, check your opponents to minimize the number of grinders you play against and have a go… a couple of good sessions and you are now rolled to move up to 50c / $1 and use that as your platform for the $2 / $4 games a little way down the line… if you lose a couple of buy-ins then, hey, at least you gave it a shot – back to the 25c / 50c tables to rebuild and try again in 2 weeks.

Stop focusing on volume, on rewards and rakeback and take that shot – I have seen so many people burn out messing around at the small stakes and then leave poker when they could have been the next superstar it is fvcking untrue.

Taking A Shot In SNGs / MTTs.

Same logic applies to these games, with the MTTs it is easier to find a bigger game and take your occasional shot there. SNG Players should really be using these games as builders for something… to have an end game in mind whether this is cash or tournaments… you might love grinding out the profits for now… just look at how many players actually stick those games out for more than a year or two (hint, it is probably under 0.001% !!).

Right, that is my rant over… come on folks, stop taking lectures from high volume grinders – this is not the life that most of you aspire to anyway. Take that shot, if you do not make it then at least you tried – and hey, 1 or 2 of you just might get there!

Gl at the tables.

PS: I started a new weekly column over at Killer Holdem looking at the latest poker promotions... check it out now!