Marten Roosileht

The Numbers, As Promised

Started July 2026 with exactly $1,000, playing NL10 six-max. The rules are written down where I can see them: I move up only when the roll holds forty buy-ins for the next stake, I move back down the moment it drops to thirty, and the daily stop-loss is two buy-ins — the rule that came out of the tilt night, and the one I trust most.

First logged update, end of week one: 4,120 hands, +$118, roll at $1,118. Nothing dramatic — which, four entries into this site, I've learned is what a good week actually looks like. Updates land here as the challenge moves; the losing weeks get logged with the same font size as the winning ones.

The Bankroll Challenge: My Running On-Site Series

Three buy-ins left and a decision to make — that's where this online poker bankroll challenge actually started, not with a spreadsheet or a plan. I'd dropped from a comfortable cushion to something thin enough that the next session mattered, and I decided to write the whole thing down instead of quietly fixing it and moving on. This page is where I log that challenge as it runs: the starting number, the rules I set for myself, and every update after. It's not a strategy pitch — it's closer to a running receipt of what a poker bankroll challenge actually looks like when nobody's editing it for a highlight reel. (see Kelly criterion).

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I log every session in The Poker Diary, mostly because I don't trust my own memory of a bad night. These pages are the tool sitting underneath this whole series — not because it's flashy, but because it keeps the numbers honest when I'd rather not look at them.

Want to Log Your Own Bankroll?

The same session tracker I use for this challenge — buy-ins, results, and the boring middle stretch.

See NZT Poker

What a Poker Bankroll Challenge Actually Tracks

A lot of people ask how much bankroll for 1/2 poker, and the honest answer depends on how much variance you can stomach without changing your decisions. I run this challenge at a fixed number of buy-ins for my stakes, and I don't add money mid-series if it drops — that's the entire rule. It's less a strategy series and more a poker bankroll building record, updated whenever something changes. The number itself matters less than whether I actually stick to the rule when a session goes sideways, which is the part most bankroll advice skips over. (see BeGambleAware).

How Much Bankroll Do You Need for Poker

How much bankroll do you need for poker isn't a single number — it moves with your stakes, your game, and how much you can lose without tilting into worse decisions. For the cash games I play, I keep well above the bare minimum most guides quote, because the challenge itself is the buffer that lets me play my normal game through a downswing instead of shrinking my bets out of fear.

Some sites run what's called a bankroll builder poker tournament — a structured event meant to grow a small stake fast. I don't play those as part of this challenge, but I'll cover one honestly if I ever enter it, cons included, since fast growth usually means fast variance too.

Every session gets logged, win or loss, so the bankroll number is never a guess
Fixed buy-in count forces a real conversation with myself before I move up or down in stakes
The series stays public, so I can't quietly edit a bad month out of the story

It's slow — real bankroll building rarely produces a dramatic weekly update
A single bad stretch can make the whole series look worse than the underlying game actually was

If you want a shortcut on how to build poker bankroll instead of following a running series, the short version is: pick a buy-in count you can lose without changing your decisions, and don't touch it. I still needed the record to actually follow that rule myself. A few players I know use a rougher spreadsheet for the same job — it works, it's just easier to skip a bad night when the log lives only in your head.

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Next update goes up after the current stretch settles one way or the other. I'm not promising a comeback story — I'm promising the actual number.

Marten Roosileht Mid-Stakes Online Grinder & Diarist

I'm Marten. I play mid-stakes online poker from Tallinn, and this is where I write down what actually happens — sessions, tilt, money, and the long flat stretches nobody puts in a highlight reel. I started at twenty-two, badly, on a bankroll I had no business risking, and spent about four years learning the same lesson repeatedly before it finally took. Two years in Malta taught me that moving somewhere for the poker does not fix the poker. I came home, cut my stakes, kept a spreadsheet, and got boring — which is roughly when it started working. What I write about here is the part of the game that isn't strategy. How I decide whether a bad week is variance or a leak. What tilt feels like from the inside, thirty seconds before I do the expensive thing. The bankroll rules I keep, and the two I have broken. What playing alone at three in the morning does to a person, and what I do about that now. When I play live I write about reads, carefully, because I think most tells content is confident nonsense. I'm not a coach and I'm not selling anything. I'm a working player with a decent record and an unremarkable one, keeping an honest log. Some entries end with me getting it wrong.