Bankroll for NL Holdem Cash Games

Dennis187

Here is the question guys. With limit poker, you can always figure out your bankroll size relative to the size of the big bet in the game your playing.

Example: You should have at least around 300x the big bet in a game that you are playing just so you can take the swings that come with poker.

However with NL cash games this is different since there really is no big bet. So how do you figure out the size of your bankroll now? This is the question I am asking, feel free too respond... thank you.

ConfusedONE

i dont have an answer

but i certainly like to see this question in a future copy of the CPP :canada:

regards,
CO

yubyub1978

I like to have a minimum of 40 with 60 being ideal. Unfourtunatly the no limit at the river rock only allows you 33x big blind, so a set buy in eliminate your decision and most online site have a limit set around 100 personally i dont feel theres anything you can do with 100 bets that you cant do with 40.

ScottyZ

The OP is about bankroll, not buy-in.

FWIW, I have no clue since I hardly play NL cash games, but I'm interested in hearing ideas about this one from people who do play a lot of NL.

ScottyZ

Munchkin5

I play NL Holdem at the rock about 4 times per week. Depending on the blind structure and buy-in amount your bankroll would very. For my game $3-6 NL I would say $5000 roll would due well for the swings. With poker getting so big and new players wanting to play NL it's more likely to have very good runs and very bad runs even if your playing well. $5000 would be 833 Big Blinds. Mceovy says in NL holdem book that you should not limit yourself to just 1-2 buyins that actually 3-4 buy-ins would give you fair oppurtunity to make some hands. Also having a well funded bankroll will help in your play, someone having a roll of a $1000 is going to be much more timid in the way they play then someone with $5000. That shorter roll could miss out on some hands and play to tight having missed oppurtunities because they don't want to risk there stack on marginal hands. Where as the bigger roll will play those drawing hands taking down some big pots.

This comes from experience as I started with a small roll and missed to many big pots that should have been mine. I was always concerned about losing my buy in and how much I would have left if I lost today. Actually today does not even matter now because it's the week, month, year that counts to make a profit. Just my thoughts.

arkose

i play a lot of live NL at the same 3-6 tables that Munchkin plays at (probably averaged ~80 hours a month, 80-90% of that is NL), and i have also logged a lot of hours playing $100/200 NL tables on Party and UB...

I think the most important thing to determine for yourself is what blind/buy-in amounts you are comfortable playing at (as munchkin stated)....you absolutely cannot play scared in NL, it'll kill you and you won't win as much as you should, or worse, you'll lose more than you should

i found that my play in certain situations was too weak when i was first starting out because i had never played a live NL game and I had never been involved in big pots (which were starting to occur), and i had to correct that....now, granted, its easier to correct these leaks now that i've made a bit of money and increased my bankroll to a more comfortable level...

you can always go up in limits as you increase your bankroll....but for the here and now, i would say go with a bankroll of approx. 25-35 buy-ins....its important to consider the actual buy-in amount that you plan to play with, and not the blind size, because that is what will be at risk every time you sit down.......you also need to consider what could be the worst run you experience for your particular game....ie. if its a tighter table, in general, then you probably don't need as many buy-ins as you would for a loose table because you are going to suffer less bad beats and unpredictable opponent cards

for me, the river rock table varies quite a bit...some weeks its quite loose and crazy, other weeks its tighter...but its usually a fairly loose game....if i look at my worst month as a poker 'pro', it was last month, my first negative month, and i finished down about ~1200 over 78 hours....and this includes two good days i had early in the month where i made ~1000 on each.....so lets say i take those out of the equation and make them break even, that means i would finish down 3200 for the month which is 16 buy-ins......last month was one of those horrible months where all your big hands seem to break; this month has been the opposite, i have had no losing sessions and i'm up 4400........so i guess the bottom line is, if i didnt have those extra buy-ins in my bankroll, its possible that i never would have recovered from one bad month, and i wouldn't have had the great month i'm having now...

i've only been a 'pro' for half a year so i definitely don't have a tonne of experience to draw on regarding proper bankrolls that you'll never go bust with (like sklansky/malmuth try to determine in various papers for limit play)....but i really think you'll be hard pressed to go broke if you have >30 buy-ins, assuming you are a good player who shows good results and can make up losses that occur in those bad months you run into

arkose

oh, and one other thing, i highly recommend not bringing tonnes of money with you to the casino....you need to limit those *really* bad nights that everyone has occasionally......myself, i bring $800 (4 buy-ins) and this seems to work well....i don't use my 4th buy-in very often, and there have been a few times when i was down to my last $200, and then rebounded to show a profit for the night.....there have only been a handful of times in the 4 months that River Rock has been open that i've actually lost all or most of the $800 (maybe...3 times?)

so ya, bring a certain amount with you, and try to resist going to the bank machine....chances are, after losing a number of buy-ins, and playing for many hours, you are no longer playing your A game, and you should quit.....tomorrow is, after all, another day