Poker: First Deposit Strategy

You have beaten your friends in the home game, trounced those donkeys in play money, and you have just decided to make your first real money deposit. First off congrats, I remember my first deposit and I hardly ever looked back since. Here are some tips to get the most out of your deposit. Let’s say you deposit 50 dollars.

1. Are you playing professionally or for fun?
   Generally if you deposit 50 dollars it will most likely be for fun, but possibly a start to a professional career, there is a big difference in what you can play on this 50 dollars if its for fun (you can redeposit if you lose) or professionally (you want to make it last and move up)
2. Cash games.
   I would suggest leaving yourself some outs as they say. If you lose a session you cannot go broke ideally. So with 50 dollars id probably leave myself with at least 20 buy ins to the game, so you could buy in for $2.50, but let’s just say $2. So you could play 1-2 cent cash games. These have a buy in of 2 dollars, and you can move up if you win.
3. Tournaments.
   I normally suggest having 100 buyins for tournaments if you are playing professionally. If you are playing for fun, you could probably play 2-5 dollar tournaments. I remember when I started I had 55 bucks or so, played a 3 dollar buyin with 1700 people and won it for like 700 dollars, was a huge boost.
4. Play tighter.
   I’d suggest playing tighter when you start because that’s your best chance of building your bankroll slowly. If you do this right, later, when your bankroll is bigger you can start playing more aggressive if you think that’s the right way to play.
5. How to spot a fish.
   Generally, while playing cash or tournaments people who limp generally are not too good. When I see a limper in my games, ill usually try to isolate him and play pots against him. For example, I was playing a 2500 satellite to a WPT championship a few days ago and there was one guy who had shown down 92s after he limped and hit a hand. He limped and I isolated 3 times in a row, the third time getting his stack.