Your Online Pill Shop

Every online poker player who has moved past the recreational state has but one goal in mind when he or she is first starting out: Build a viable bankroll and build it fast.

Of course there are different ways to accomplish this. Some have regular jobs that allow for discretionary income to be put into the bankroll and thus have an instant bankroll and ability to replenish it as needed. But I find that these players often tend to get stuck at the level they bankroll themselves for since they have a continual security blanket in case they go bust.

Others work on freerolling to a bankroll. They find as many freeroll tournaments as they can on as many sites as they can and play them religiously until they have a big enough roll to start to branch away from freeroll poker tournaments. And I prefer this method over the latter. It’s simply more viable in the long run. If you’ve ever played in a freeroll online you know that there’s a hoard of donks, and fish, and generally every other type of bad poker player out there trying their “best” to win your chips. This usually leads to a very skewed final table, with the one who won the most coinflips dominating everyone else.

But if you can win a freeroll, or even consistently place in the money in them, you could be well on your way to building a strong sense of the game. That is, you’ve become the donk dodger.

At this point you should be more than ready to start bankrolling in small SnGs. With such tournament success under your belt, the play at these levels will be like walking in the park on a sunny day. You’ll have far better reads than the insta-rollers who just deicide to jump in and start playing, and you’ll have a far better grasp on the game and how to bet what and when to do it as the blinds progress.

So if I had to give advice on how to build a bankroll given the two choices, either seeding it with a little money or freerolling your way there, I’d choose freerolling. Not because it’s free, but because it’s more difficult and will vastly improve your game. Keep this in mind when you play poker online.