Poker Bankroll....
My question is in regards to a poker "bankroll"...
If someone had $100.00, could they sit down and play $1-$2 fixed hold'em and expect not to go bust, if they have any sort of skill of the game and a good understanding of low limit poker fundamentles?
I know personally, when I wager on sports I never put any more than 10% of my total bankroll, and usally it falls between 7%-10% of my total bankroll, money that it's in sportsbook is what I consider my bankroll.
i.e say I had $10,000.00 in a sportsbook, I would in theory never put anymore than $1,000.00 on a game.
Is this the same idea behind having a poker bankroll?
I hear horror stories of a lot of people that have bankroll issues.
Just wanted to know if anybody had any opinions?
H.
If someone had $100.00, could they sit down and play $1-$2 fixed hold'em and expect not to go bust, if they have any sort of skill of the game and a good understanding of low limit poker fundamentles?
I know personally, when I wager on sports I never put any more than 10% of my total bankroll, and usally it falls between 7%-10% of my total bankroll, money that it's in sportsbook is what I consider my bankroll.
i.e say I had $10,000.00 in a sportsbook, I would in theory never put anymore than $1,000.00 on a game.
Is this the same idea behind having a poker bankroll?
I hear horror stories of a lot of people that have bankroll issues.
Just wanted to know if anybody had any opinions?
H.
Comments
Regarding your $1/$2 question, $100 is enough to sit down with for one session, IMHO. If however you plan to play $1/$2 as 'your game' for a prolonged period of time and $100 is your entire bankroll, you may be a little light. Sklansky recommends 300X BB, which would be a $600 bankroll for $1/$2. But he's a paranoid freak too.
Regards,
all_aces
The number that is generally thrown about is 300 big bets. So for a $1/$2 game you should theoretically have $600.
If it is a game where you are playing exceptionally tight you could probably do with less. If it is a wild game, more might be a good idea.
Also, this is assuming that it is your entire bankroll, and if you lose it you will be forced to stop playing. If this is not true then just play.
Keith
That makes senes to me. The problem, of course, is that you have to have a lot of experience before you are able to know if you feel comfortable or not.
Imagine a win rate of one big-bet per hour. YOu start off with $100. You will start out play $0.25-0.50. You would play 400 hours to get to $300. Now you move to $0.50-1. Three hundred hours to $600. Now you play 1-2. 300 hours to $1200. 2-4 for 150 hours to $1800. 3-6 for 200 hours to $3000. 5-10 for 300 hours to $6000. NOW YOU CAN ACTUALLY MAKE A MODEST LIVING. You only played 1600 hours to get there. At 40 hours a week that's 40 weeks.
I really doubt that anyone who TRULY has enough skill to play poker for a living is going to grind out this nightmare for 40 weeks...
That sounds much more realistic.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I built my initial bankroll by moving up in limits--at shorthanded games, no less--every time I had 20 X BB. This is the equivalent of poker suicide, and is usually brought on by a string of bad beats and a willingness to throw away forty bucks.
However, experiments like this do occasionally work, especially if you're hitting. $40 was not my entire bankroll, and I wanted to use it to gamble it up. Imagine my surprise when less than a week after starting at $1/$2 with $40 I was regularly sitting in the $25/$50.
But that is not an ideal way to build a bankroll, or use one. Usually, it's a good way to lose one.
Regards,
all_aces
I think they're going to have to, if they do *truly* have access to only $100 to play poker with and are unwilling or unable to devote more funds to poker than this; and if they are truly quite averse to losing that $100, rather than having a "take a quick shot at building a bankroll, or go home" attitude.
As for "what you're comfortable with", this strikes me as the sort of answer that only people who don't need to ask the question in the first place could possibly use.
However, "comfort level" possibly does raise some interesting points on different peoples' notions of what a bankroll really is.
Another way of thinking about this might be "What is the exact nature of losing my entire bankroll?" Are you going to quit playing poker forever? Are you going to take 2 weeks off and then start again with a "new" bankroll? Are you going to start again immediately with a new bankroll? If you are starting again, where are you going to get this new bankroll? Are you going to get a regular job (if you don't already have one) and begin some kind of savings programme to rebuild your bankroll? Ask a friend or family member for a loan? Ask a bank for a loan? Do you already have a backup poker bankroll stashed away somewhere? Do you have other savings somewhere which you are willing to divert towards poker?
Whatever the numerical size of what someone considers his/her bankroll to be, I can imagine someone feeing a *lot* more or less comfortable with the idea of losing their entire bankroll depending on the which of the above consequences applies to him/her.
ScottyZ
Me: "Yes, I'm here about a loan."
Bank Manager: "Certainly, what will you be using the money for?"
Me: "To play poker."
Bank Manager: "I see, and what will you be using for colateral?"
Me: "Um... nothing... I'm broke."
Bank Manager: "Your broke? You have nothing?"
Me: "Yeah... well I had a run of bad luck... but I'm a really, really good player."
Bank Manager: "Oh, well if your really, really good, I just need your signature here... and here."
Me: "That's great... (signing forms)... wait... these don't look like loan forms????"
Bank Manager: "Oh, there not. Actually its a power of attorney form... I plan to have you commited... you're CRAZY... GET OUT!!!"
I am not so sure that experience is going to tell you whether or not you should feel comfortable at a certain level. People are pretty bad at estimating probabilities, and the math that you use to get to these numbers (I'm talking "risk of ruin" here) is pretty complicated. Mason Malmuth has done the math (not sure where.. the first place I'd look is "gambling theory and other topics" but I've never actually seen that book) and with reasonable values for win rate and standard deviation, a 300-350 big bet bankroll with give you about a 5% chance of going broke... this is NOT insignificant (anyone who thinks that a 5% chance can't happen hasn't been rivered enough) So although you may "feel" comfortable at a certain level with a certain bankroll... you chances of losing it might be a lot higher than you think.
Of course, there is always the Mike Caro argument that you should gamble with small bankrolls and play in a bigger limit because they are easily replacable (I guess one could define a "small" bankroll as one that is easily replacable... if you can't replace it, then it's not small to you).
Also, if you are a good player, the effects of "going broke" are truly devastating. Say that, if you lose your bankroll, you won't be able to play for another 2 months. At 1BB per hour, this is A LOT of EV that you are throwing away.
Mike Caro has some interesting thoughts on this... but poker1.com has been down for a while. Do a google search for "Mike Caro bankroll requirements" and go the their cache of the first page that pops up. He has a chart and explains it kind of well (I'm not sure what his fluid acceleration factor and diminished acceleration factor are exactly)
Keith
Personally, I think the 200x level is a pretty comfortable one and is what I've used to guide my jumps in limits so far (though I still haven't taken the jump to 3/6 that this rule would dictate)
But, with $100 you can definitely sit at a 1/2 and make an attempt. But, there is definitely a possibility that you will go broke with that, even playing good poker. You need to be able to survive through a possible bad run.
My point is that I am VERY doubtful that many poker players are disciplined enough to stick to the 300xBB rule. How big will your bankroll have to be to take a shot at the $10K WSOP event? Bah! At some point, you have to take a shot. Just don't take a shot with your WHOLE bankroll. Leave enough behind that you will be able to play at the minumum level at which you are comfortable.
Also note that (as Mike Caro has pointed out many times) if you are a pro then your bankroll consideration are much more important because if you go broke you ... well ... go broke in a very real sense. If I lose my bankroll I have the ability to "pilfer" some money from my "other" life and re-start. A pro has no "other life."
Also note that I STRONGLY advocate getting and keeping a bankroll. The cycle of "make money player poker, buy a couch, lose the small bankroll you have, and the borrow money from life" is no fun. Having a bankroll to back you passion without worry of losing it makes poker more fun and makes you a better player.
FYI -- I keep keep a bankroll of $10K USD (I want to play the WSOP again) plus $10K CDN (more than enough to let me play in all the Canadian tournaments I want to play and play as high as I want to -- every now and then). I would like to see my CDN account get up to $20 K since that would be TRUE comfort. Anything over that gets moved over into my wife's hands for crazy stuff like groceries and curtains.
You're trying to talk me into it, aren't you.
all_aces
If you are moving down when you lose then things are a little different. Note that someone playing 50c-$1 with $100 has nowhere to move down TO.
If you are willing to move down when you lose a certain amount then you are essentially just "taking a shot" at the higher limit. I do this too. What I like to do is have a full (300 bet) bankroll at a smaller limit that I am comfortbale playing. Then I will take a single buy-in for a higher limit and play. If I lose it I can move down to the lower limit at have a full bankroll to play there, until I build enough to take another shot. But the key is that I always have the full bankroll at the lower level.
For example... say I am playing online. So $300 is a "full" bankroll for 50c-$1. Now, if I have $350, I can take $50 and go play a session of $1-$2. But if I lose I don't rebuy... I go back to 50c-$1 with my full bankroll. Similarly when I get up to $600 that is my full bankroll for $1-$2... if I get up to $700 I can take $100 and go play $2-$4. Or if I get it up to $800 I might skip a level and take $200 and go take a shot at $5-$10. But if lose that $200 I will not dip into my $600 for $5-$10... I'll go back to $1-$2 to rebuild.
So, I am playing the bigger game without having a bankroll for it.. but I DO have the bankroll for the smaller game. So I am not risking going broke.
Tourney bankroll is a little bit different.... I'm not sure that it is really the same concept, particularly for once-a-year tourneys like the WSOP. I'm sure that you'd agree that if $10k was all the poker money you had (ie it was TRULY your bankroll), it wouldnt be a great idea to go play a single tourney with it.
Oh for sure. But, really, if you have the ability to get more money if you lose what you have in front of you, then what you have in front of you is not truly your "whole bankroll". I would say that your "whole bankroll" is the maximum amount of money that you are willing to put towards poker... ie, the maximum amount that you can lose before you stop.
Keith