How much $ for a learning experience?

[Jesse K]

I started out with a small $30 dollar depoist before i became interested in poker and watched it go down gradually.. Then as I became more interested in poker (ex: reading books, learning strategy, etc) I put another $50 into my account. Im still losing money and not winning as much as I could when I do win. I make stupid mistakes as letting opponents see free cards when drawing to a straight or flush. I've been fine tuning my game to cut back on mistakes like this. I recently got killed when I had Jacks over 3's just to find out my opponent was calling preflop raises with a 63o. Its breaks like this that discourage me a little and set my bankroll back.

My main question is how much did you guys lose in order to gain experience? I hope I'm not the only one starting off at a lose.

[TheDoc]

i lost a lot of money online but my live wins covered it thank god lol.

[FishMagician]

I lost about 200-300 bucks, discovered ftr, broke even for a while, and I just started winning consistently about 3 months ago. If you know what you're doing wrong, you're on your way. It just takes discipline to fix it. If someone plays 63 against a pfr and makes trip threes, that's just part of poker. They'll get theirs in the end. Just make sure that your bankroll is big enough that when bad stuff starts happening you can cover it.

-Fishmagician

[SteveO]

$30-100 just won't cut it unless you play at micro-limits of .05/.10 or .10/20. Some people deposit that first 50 or 100 and never look back but those are the exceptions not the rule.

I started w/ $700 and lost at least $400 before I became a winning player and turned everything around at limits as low as .25/.50. I also had absolutely no poker experience so your learning curve might be a bit better.

I now consider myself a solid player with lots of cash game profits, SNG wins and MTT wins in all venues including home games, online and B&M, and still experience -200 swings.

[|~|ypermegachi]

it's different for everyone. it depends how fast you learn, how fast you can adapt, how correctly you use your strategies....etc.

royal vegas gave me $10 free when i first started, and within 3 weeks i grinded to a profit of $120. i was playing the 0.05/0.10 NL ring games, and i thought i kicked some serious ass. the beauty was i learned how to play before i played. so ABC poker worked out for me.

but of course, i still busted. either i had an usually long string of cold cards, or probably from a bigger reason...i was on tilt.

i think one of the main reasons most people go bust is because they've never experienced "tilt" before. they will lose a large percentage of their bankroll, say 20%. they start to panic and go into "must win it back mode" and usually it doesn't go as expected.

this is the biggest lesson that any poker player must be able to learn. emotion management. keep your emotions in check!

to answer your question, i believe the mass majority of poker players will bust once, and if they are able to cope and learn from their mistakes, they will eventually become winning players.