How is it that after playing for so many years, I never learned to protect my bankroll?
Bankroll management is definitely my Achilles’ heel. I’m not sure why, but the donk in me always wants to move up in level, before my bankroll is ready. If I’m successful at the new level, I try to move up again, until I reach a point where an inevitable bad run leads me to a point where I have ruined my bankroll.
This happened again. Due to my recent success at the $10 and $25 entry, NL Sit ‘n Go Double-up Tournaments at Cake, I decided that I could accelerate my winnings by moving up in entry fee. I’d like to say I fought the good fight, and was just cold-decked into a small string of losses, but that wouldn’t be an accurate depiction of my demise.
Truthfully, I was probably too tired to be playing (another problem I should address, since most of my bad decisions come when I am fatigued), and donked off several entry fees at the $50 + $3.50, and $75 + $5 levels. I managed to put about a $400 dent in my bankroll, leaving me with just a little over $200. It is time to admit that I need help. Not “I have a gambling problem, and am going to lose my home” type of help, but nonetheless, I need to set acceptable limits relative to the size of my bankroll.
Now I’m not going to cry over losing a few hundred bucks, but lets look at the mission at hand again—trying to turn a small stake into enough to cover an entry to the Main Event at the World Series of Poker. I know it is doable. Anyone who is familiar with Thomas “Boku87″ Boekhoff has probably heard how he won his recent proposition challenge to turn $100 into $10,000 in 15 days. I’m not saying that I’m anywhere as skilled as this young man, who is featured on YouTube multitabling 51 tables at the same time, but it proves that the goal is feasible if you aren’t going to hamstring yourself by making bad decisions.
Takeaways: Build a bankroll management plan, and stick to it—Decide which levels I can play at, depending on the size of my bankroll, and publish it here for me and everyone else to see. Also, stop playing when I can barely keep my eyes open.
Tags: Add new tag, Bankroll Management, Boku87, Double Up, low-limit, Main Event, online poker, World Series, WSOP