What is a Poker Run?
A poker run is when you incorporate the rules of poker into your daily life. It is an opportunity to exercise, to earn a little money and mentally brighten up whenever you run into stress, weakness or trials.
Basically, the rules of poker that you must follow during a poker run are:
a) Allocate a fixed number of hours to run your poker session. Each poker session is like a mini tournament and you must make sure you do not exceed this hour.
b) During the run, stop the poker software to prevent cheating, and start again when you are certain that you can play 100% clear.
c) Do not drink alcohol during the run. It will cause you to lose your concentration and confidence.
d) Do not play with more money than you can afford. Ask friends or settle for cheap cards.
e) When you make a mistake, learn from it and try again to correct it.
There are a lot of resources available to poker players that will help them improve their game and make a living from it. But, to make a living from poker, you need to lose less money and have a greater customer database. You need to be able to identify which books, videos and talks give you the edge when you make your daily selections and put together your daily strategy.
Counting a win as an hour where you cash out is one thing. But when you actually cash out the money from your bankroll, this win count becomes very unforgiving. The higher you go in these win/loss scenarios, the more you cash out – these win/loss scenarios are where the percentages are in your favour. So that is why my poker bankroll strategy is built around keeping the variance of a session low so that bankroll management can actually work.
However, you can actually work around these variance adjustments if you want to do so. You will have to start with a bankroll of say $100 because you want to have enough money to ride out the inevitable ups and downs of poker.
Also, you will not want to ever have to chase a run of a single a-hundred-dollar sessions, so you may want to start your first ever session at $50 buy-in. Hold tight during the first few levels while you learn the trick.
If you take a shot at the higher limits with your first five buy-ins then you can work your way up to the $10-$25 games in the $2, $5 and $10 blind level. Most poker rooms play the $2, $5 and $10 games and as long as you are playing safe you can work your way up.
Just remember that as you build your skills, patience will be a very important part of your poker game. You will not want to make more mistakes as the money goes up against you.
It’s best if you start out in the low limit games before you start to play for big money. If you have the skills then you can take the mid-high limit games if you want to risk a little bit more.
But you can also take a shot at the higher limits with your first hundred dollars. I would recommend you start out in the low limit games before you take your chance with the high limit games.
Good luck on your poker journey and may the best man wins.