8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

Quote taken from the MicroStakes LIMIT (not NL) Guidelines/FAQ v1.0:

[ QUOTE ]
What is an appropriate bankroll for the stake X/Y?

Poker is not a game of predictable expectations. A winning player will have their losing days, weeks, and sometimes months. Your bankroll must be sufficiently large to survive these wild rides. A bankroll of 300 Big Bets is the standard recommendation. If you are playing $1/$2, you should have $600 available in your bankroll. If this bankroll cannot be replenished, then you should often have more than 300 BB's available for your current stake. You can certainly take shots at a limit with less than 300 BB's, but be prepared to drop down if you hit a downswing. If you are playing 6-max tables, you will need an even larger bankroll to survive the higher variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

Almost every player who has ever played poker somewhat seriously has considered the bankroll question. "How much money do I need to play this game?" If you look around at some other recommendations, 300 BB is actually pretty bold. If you're interested in shorthanded play, then 500 BB is a more common number (especially now that games are much more aggressive), and players looking to "go pro" might want to be deeper than 1000 BB plus living expenses for about a year. But this post isn't directed at those players looking to go pro. I wouldn't have much to say about that because that's a jump that I've never taken. This isn't even for the semi-pro, who has a regular job and plays for a little bonus income on the side. Instead, this post is for the semi-casual player. The ones who take the game seriously enough to ask the bankroll question, but aren't really looking to have poker winnings represent any part of their regular income.

But before I start talking about bankroll, let me tell you a bit of my story. My first true step into poker was taken at Foxwoods back in 2001. I had just turned 21 earlier that year and had seen Rounders. I was a counselor for a math program in Boston and another counselor, who was already playing poker, got me interested in the strategic elements of the game. We disappeared for a couple days and took the bus from Boston out to Foxwoods. I think I took about $300 with me and lost $140 of it. Even though I lost what I considered to be quite a bit of money, I also recognized that this game was loads of fun and I believed that I could learn to play the game well enough to win. This started me down the poker road.

A few months later, I deposited $300 at Paradise Poker and started playing $.50/1 Limit Hold'em. Why $300? Because of the 300 BB rule, of course! If my memory is right, the smallest game at that time was the $.50/1 game, and I had made the decision that I would deposit once, and that would be the only deposit I would make. If I lost it all, I would be done with online poker. Needless to say, that didn't happen. According to my data, I lost about $142 that year (including the Foxwoods trip). And from there, things have been up and up:

2002: +$466
2003: +$459
2004: +$1000
2005: +$2112
2006: +$2741

The 2007 poker year isn't over yet, but the chances of me ending up ahead is quite small.

2007: -$3325

Some of that is because I took $1000 out of my bankroll to get an early start on making car payments (cutting the long term cost by paying off principal early and therefore reducing the amount of interest I pay), but the rest of that is due to running cold playing $15/30 at the Bellagio.

If you told me back when I deposited that first $300 that one day I would lose $3000 in a matter of a few hours of poker time, I would have thought you were a little bit nuts. Then when you told me that I would lose that $3000 and would still have another $3000 with which to play, I would have thought you were completely crazy.

Playing poker has a way of skewing your sense of the value of money. When I was still a poor graduate student, I would look at the price of something and think, "Hmmm... $30... that's a little expensive for me right now." But then later that night, I would sign on and play $2/4 with an $80 buy-in and willing to rebuy for another $40 or $80 if I was getting unlucky but the table conditions were favorable, and not think too much of it if I lost it all.

And that is the transition from my story to the topic at hand. What is a bankroll and what does it mean to semi-casual players like myself?

Bankroll Lesson #1: Know Thyself

Why play poker? There are lots of good reasons and a few bad ones. But a more pointed question is why do *you* play poker? If it's a get rich quick scheme, read this. If your answer is something along the lines of "it's fun" or "it's interesting", then you're on the right track.

What do you plan to do with your winnings? This is worth asking before your bankroll gets too big. The reason why is that your reasons for playing can subtly change if you're not careful. For example, if you start pulling from your winnings to support a new habit or lifestyle (maybe going out more often), then your bankroll has suddenly become "income" and the way you handle your bankroll changes. Now a losing month becomes associated with not having enough money to do things you want to do. This usually doesn't mean that you *don't* do those things; usually what happens is that you start to justify the expenditures and blame it on variance. Now it's true that variance had a role, but it's not necessarily the role you think it played. (You could actually be a losing player and not know it for quite a while simply because you've been on the good side of variance.) But it's important to be aware of this when your bankroll is small (when you're pulling $10-20 at a time) so that when you're playing bigger in the future, you will be careful not to start pulling $100-200 at a time and driving your bankroll to busto, but still justifying your withdrawals in terms of variance.

My answer to the question of winnings is that my bankroll exists to support my ability to play poker. Except in one situation, I don't use any of the poker money to do anything else but play poker. The only exception in my life has been my car payments, and I am only using poker money to put in *ABOVE* what I planned to do in the absence of poker money. By treating my bankroll in this manner, I keep myself from getting tricked into thinking I have more money than I actually do. If I had not been "protecting" my bankroll from being spent, I would not have been able to afford the 100 BB downswing that I've experienced. I would have been busto and it would take me a while to put aside the $1500 I would need to take another shot at the 15/30 game.

Bankroll Lesson #2: Know Money

I'll be honest. If you bankroll is smaller than $50, you don't have a bankroll. You have a slush fund. If you're in a place in life where you cannot afford to reload $50 if you go busto, then you probably shouldn't be playing poker. Putting aside $50 is less than giving up one specialty coffee a week for two months. It's less than $1/day. It's not much money.

For those of us who are managing bankrolls starting from the mid-low hundreds and going up to several thousand, you actually have something to lose. But that's the whole purpose of a bankroll for the semi-casual player! It's there so that it can be lost. I'm not saying the goal is to busto your bankroll, but the reason it exists is to allow you to play poker without hurting yourself financially, which means that if you lose it, you'll still be financially okay. (This doesn't address the emotional battle, but I talk about that below.) This money is part of your entertainment budget, to be blown on the entertainment of poker. Therefore, your goal is to make your bankroll last for as long as you want to play poker.

Bankroll Lesson #3: Know Variance

If you haven't played poker for at least a couple years, you probably don't know variance that well. You may think you do, but you don't. I can't help but laugh at the posters who do things like "OMG I lost 100 BB in my last 1000 hands. Here are my PT stats. What are my leaks?" I'm not saying that variance is any fun when you're on the unhappy end of it, and I'm not denying the cathartic value of complaining about it to others. But you must keep your perspective straight when the hard times (plural) come.

Unfortunately, experience is the teacher here. You can read all about other people's hard times, but until you're in the middle of it yourself, you don't really know what they're talking about. On the positive side, you can help keep your perspective straight if you know yourself and know your money. Why are you playing poker? Because it's fun? If it is no longer fun, don't feel obliged to keep playing. Take your money and walk away from the game. Because it's interesting? Then you should be focusing your energy on finding mistakes and not worrying about your bottom line so much. The game is interesting on its own merits, not on the outcome of the games you play. What does it mean if you lose a chunk of your bankroll? Not much. It doesn't hurt your real life at all since your bankroll exists because it can be lost. Keep these fundamentals in mind and you'll be much more likely to make it through to the other side.

Can variance be managed? Sort of... You cannot realistically prevent yourself from being on the bad side of variance (except by not playing). However, you have some control over the size of variance. As an extreme example, you can reduce variance essentially to zero by folding 100% of your hands. (But then you would also lose money because of the blinds.) Without going into the details of the math, every hand where you put money in the pot increases your variance compared to if you did not enter that pot. So you can keep your variance low by not entering in as many pots.

This will not stop your downswings, but it will decrease the expected size of the of the downswing. It is much more rare for a 16 VPIP, 1 BB/100 full ring player to hit a 300 BB downswing than a 22, 1 BB/100 VPIP player. So by stealing less, you can cut down variance a bit, but then you pass on some +EV experiences. Decreasing your preflop equity raises will also decrease your variance, but again it comes at the cost of some EV.

I believe that if you're playing in a way to reduce variance to protect your bankroll, you're probably playing too high and should move down. If you're worrying about your bankroll when you play, you probably aren't playing your best poker. You're much more inclined to play weak and scared postflop because you're not as focused on the poker as you should be. Consider your style of poker and move down as far as you need to in order to play the style that you want to play without having to think twice about your bankroll if you have a moderately bad run of cards.

Remember that your goal is to protect your bankroll from busto, but the purpose of the bankroll is to allow you to play poker.

Bankroll Lesson #4: Moving Up

If you are a semi-casual player, you don't ever need to move up. Moving up is a matter of keeping the game "fun" or "interesting" and the size of your bankroll. If you are having a good time playing where you're at, that's great. Don't lose track of that for the lure of making more money. After all, the bankroll exists to continue existing. So if moving up increases your risk of busto and you don't have any reason to move up, don't do it.

But some of us do like to move up and take shots at the bigger games because that's part of the challenge. It's "fun" to play bigger games. There's a little extra adrenaline in taking that step up and to be a part of the next higher "class" of poker player. But whatever, it's still about the game. What rules should you take when moving up? Keep it simple: Know how much you can lose before you need to move back down (See Lesson #5). That's it. If you hit a bad run of cards, that's fine. Move back down, play the lower game for a while to hone your skills and rebuild your bankroll. There's tons to learn at all levels, so keep studying and get better.Y

ou want to know whether you're "ready" to move up? This question comes up over and over again. The truth is that there is no highly accurate measure of how ready you are that doesn't involve tons of hands. So looking for the ultimate green light to go up is a bit of a dream. But if pressed to come up with some numbers, I think a winrate of 2-3 BB/100 over at least 10k hands is a reasonable place to be if you're thinking of moving up. This will give you at least 100 BB at the next level (plus your pre-existing bankroll), so that you aren't likely to busto if you run bad and have to move back down. But you're never forced to move up. If you don't feel comfortable moving up, then don't.

Bankroll Lesson #5: Moving Down

If you are a semi-casual player, you don't ever need to move up, but you might need to move down. If your bankroll is in the low hundreds, you can play in such a way that it's basically impossible to busto. Just keep moving down until you're playing $.02/.04. As long as you move down early enough, you should never hit such a bad streak that you cannot recover (unless you're just a losing player). But even then, if your bankroll gets that small, you fall into the realm of "not a bankroll" and now you're just donking around with some loose change.

There is only one thing that prevents someone from moving down: EGO. Yeah, you were once a winner at $2/4 and now you're playing $.25/0.50. Embarassing, isn't it? Not really. The game is so boring because all the players suck. Yeah, maybe, but you can still be on the lookout for areas to improve, and the most likely candidate is working on developing your reads and making adjustments. There is more than enough variation between players that you should always be watching someone do something. There's an immediate benefit of helping you crush your current level, plus there's the future benefit of being better prepared if you try to move up again.

When should you move down? If you feel like you should move down, then move down. That's the easy one. The harder one is when you feel like you can beat the game, but you feel as if you're a victim of bad luck. How small should you let your bankroll shrink before you move down? 100 BB? 50 BB? 10 BB? I would recommend that you look at 100 BB at the level below (or about 50 BB at your current level) as your "Move down NOW" benchmark. I think it would be better to move down when you have about 150-200 BB at the level below (75-100 BB at your current level) to be safe. If you're playing below 100 BB at the level below, you're a couple bad beats from the ultimate busto. If you want to move down sooner, that's okay.

Bankroll Lesson #6: Cashing out

In Lesson #1, I warned about cashing out on a regular basis, especially if this cash starts to pay for regular expenses. But I think there are good times for a semi-casual player to cash out. Here are a couple examples:

<ul type="square">[*] You have an unexpected expense and your bankroll is the best source of money to pay the expense.[*] You have a planned expense that is better served to be paid off rather than continuing to play poker (paying off debt is a good example).[*] You have a lot of money in your bankroll (relative to the stakes you're playing), and you're taking out a relatively small about (no more than 20%) to cover a one time expense or to move it into savings.[/list]
In the first example, I think it would be pretty clear. If you're in a car accident, you need some cash to pay for the repairs, and you don't want to go into debt because of it. By the way, if your savings small relative to your bankroll, you should consider moving it into savings (but that's example #3).

The second example is something that I hope isn't overlooked by poker players, but could be. If you have $3000 in debt with a $1000 bankroll, you might consider taking $200-400 and paying down that debt, especially if you're playing small enough that your roll isn't threatened by the withdraw. Paying down your debt by a $300, especially if it's high interest credit card debt, will actually be worth $400-$500 because you reduce the amount of interest that you pay. This is what I did with $1000 of my $5000 bankroll. Again, this is a payment *above* your normal payment, not part of your regular payment. If you're relying on poker money as part of your regular payment, you're not a semi-casual player anymore.

In the third example, you're taking your bankroll like a Christmas bonus. This is money that you've stumbled across in the process of doing the things you were wanting to do anyway (ie, playing poker). I want to urge the younger players to seriously consider the size of your savings relative to your bankroll. If you have no savings but a $1000 bankroll, you should start saving. Your money is worth so much more than face value because you have time on your side. At the age of 25, $1 grows to over $20 by the time you're 70 (ie, retirement age) at a modest 7% return. Open a Roth IRA (US players only), find some no-load index funds, and start investing. Turning $200 into $40000 by simply taking a slice out of your bankroll makes sense to me because you're not likely to make $40000 playing poker in your lifetime. Even if I'm wrong and you do make $40000 playing poker, the $200 that you put aside at the beginning will be such a small expense to the amount of money you make that it's not going to matter anyway.

Moving on from here

Now that you've read my thoughts, I think it's a good idea to open up the floor for responses.

What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?

What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?

What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Well done!

tl;dr but what I did was well done!

edited for content
I used a variation on the 300BB rule when I played seriously. This was the end of the glory days of Party and I would wait till I had 800BB then cash out half, this worked well until I went busto. Currently have about 200 on Stars that I occasionally play with and when I hit 300 will move up to .5/1, but my tolerance for loss is much less now and would drop levels before I hit 200 again.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Aaron great post.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

I also intended to only make one deposit in '04 but it didn't work out as well. Lost a little on UB, then $400 on Party. "WTF? Everyone on 2p2 says Party is super soft. I think it's rigged".

So I put $100 in Paradise wanting a fresh start &amp; moved down to $.25/$.50. Moved up w/ the 300bb rule to .5/1, 1/2, 1/2 5max, and 2/4. Then I moved to Stars where I've played shorthanded ever since (until FT recently).

Big B/R nit. I feel like I have to be because I have tilt problems. I throw stuff against the wall when I'm losing because I shouldn't lose because I'm better than my opponents. Lost 400bb's in my first 35k hands of 5/10. So I want 1000BB's before I move up. $14k right now - I can't wait to hit $16k so I can play 8/16 because I've played the same limit for over a year. My only withdrawl was $10k a year ago to pay for a car. I'm not sure I really have a point here.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Great post Aaron, I agree with everything said above. Great post to read if you are starting out in Poker, and have questions about BR.

A+

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Very good post Aaron - thank you. I find I agree with what you wrote, but your post articulated what I feel about why I play poker very well, better than I could have done. My prime reason for playing poker is that I find the game fun and interesting, and a challenging competitive activity that I can take part in (ill health means I am physically fairly limited these days and so have had to give up sports and the like).

My bankroll, spread across three sites, is about $800-$900 at the moment and I play 25c/50c mainly. I have played some 50c/$1 but for some reason I do worse at the lower limit, so am concentrating on that at the moment. Although I *could* reload if I busto, I would much rather not do that as my bankroll was started from a $350 or so deposit with some 'found' money (a bonus from work, this about a year and a half ago) and I have an agreement with my wife not to redeposit if I lose it all. I think she is less worried these days about the possibility of me becoming a losing degen addict and running up £Ks of debt!

The bolded comments in the OP: "your goal is to make your bankroll last for as long as you want to play poker" and "your goal is to protect your bankroll from busto, but the purpose of the bankroll is to allow you to play poker" really struck a chord. I had been perhaps worrying a bit too much about the ups and downs of my bankroll. The better state of mind is not to worry explicitly about the ups and downs - as long as my bankroll enables me to carry on playing.

Sorry for the rambling tl;dr reply. I think I have addressed the ops questions at the end - apart from what I have done with the winnings. The answer is nothing yet, they are still deposited.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]
Bankroll Lesson #5: Moving Down

[/ QUOTE ]
Right on mate, that's what I'm doing... 0.02/0.04!

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

ty Aaron. nice post. Ill try and answer the questions u pose when Im not busy (ie monday morning at work. lol).

To marverickai, 2c/4 wtf? You are better than that AINEC. You need to move up. EVery limit at stars up to and including 25c/50c is crushable with simple ABC123HowDoYouDoValueBet poker. What is your BR? is it replaceable?. PM me a screenshot of your stats pronto to confirm what I think and Ill take a look. ozi.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Great post Aaron. I have made a lot of bankroll posts in the past because I think it is the most mismanaged skillset of many poker players.

I have to say I am probably in a unique position versus many of the micro players on these boards so that is probably why I take bankroll management issues to heart so much more than most.

I am disabled with very little chance of being able to ever work a full time job. Luckily I have a good family, will have a home completely paid for in August, and am getting a pension of $2600 a month for living expenses.

Poker is a hobby for me that does a few things: It keeps me from going completely bonkers with coping with pain and fatigue, it is an opportunity for me to contribute to our family again and its first and foremost fun and challenging.

I have made many bankroll errors in my 2+ years of playing. I cashed out once after moving up too fast and losing half my stack so that poker became 'free'. I then cashed out again because I needed the money for some expenses and lost my motivation to play as I wasn't having fun anymore.

I left $5 in just in case and after taking 4 months off, I decided it was worth playing again. That was 7 months ago.
I am currently playing good games between .50/1.00 1/2 and 2/4 6 max at FTP and a bankroll of $900. I also am currently playing some other games to both improve my play and break up sessions so they remain fun.

After 2+ years of playing, over 200k hands of 'money' poker, 500k hands of play money poker, 20+ books in my poker library, hours of reading and posting on these boards and just recently adding 6 months of time to be a member at deucescracked I can now confidently say that I will be able to play $1 6 max limit for the rest of my life.

A year and a half ago I could say that at the 10 cent level. I have very strict standards by which to judge my level of comfort because of my situation. Essentially I need 921 bb of a stake where I can beat it 99% of the time at 1bb/100 profit with a deviation of 20. At 6 max $1 limit I need 218 bb to beat it 99% of the time at my current win rate and deviation. At 1/2 I haven't made a profit yet so no bankroll will cover me here. So I will continue to dally along these levels as long as my bankroll is above 218 dollars.

Rakeback and bonuses can keep you playing at levels you may not be able to beat so moving up prematurely is probably something that strikes a lot of microers.

I set my bottom bankroll to the requirements of a pro because essentially that is what I have to consider my poker risk to in order to justify playing at all.

While above my bottom I play up to two levels above but I have to establish a new bottom before I move up again. I also play other games like NL and Horse and tourneys and stuff to keep poker fun.

While my long term goal is eventually being able to establish an 'income' that offsets my pension, that is a long way off.

It is doubtful I will ever be able to play more than 10 to 15k hands in a month. If my bottom remains capped at $1 6 max limit (and I hope it doesn't) then I have to be content with that.

Nevertheless, poker is great if I can have fun and enjoy the experiences I have with it as a hobby that pays me to play.

Knowing I can do that is a pretty good accomplishment.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

[ QUOTE ]
instead, this post is for the semi-casual player. The ones who take the game seriously enough to ask the bankroll question, but aren't really looking to have poker winnings represent any part of their regular income.

[/ QUOTE ]
That is my category



[ QUOTE ]
Therefore, your goal is to make your bankroll last for as long as you want to play poker.

[/ QUOTE ]
That states my goal more succinctly than I could have.

I agree with everything you said about variance and how it affects your choices and style of play; but I continue to choose a somewhat suboptimal win rate in order to keep variance under control.

[ QUOTE ]
If you are a semi-casual player, you don't ever need to move up.


[/ QUOTE ]
I think this is right on target. While I still play at relatively lower stakes (relative to most in this forum) I am playing at 3 or 4 times higher stakes than I was a year ago. I never did “move up” as in: goodbye .05/.10 hello .50/1.00. I still play at all the levels I previously have, just not as often, and I also play some at $1/$2 just not a high percentage. I am mostly .25/.50 and .50/1. I don’t know where I will be in a year because that’s really not an issue for me.

[ QUOTE ]
When should you move down? If you feel like you should move down, then move down. That's the easy one.


[/ QUOTE ]
I agree this one is easy for me. I don’t really “move down” but if I lose 50BB or so, I go recover it in either a lower stakes game or sometimes at a different site. No real plan for this. My instincts just lead me to it. My instincts never lead me to try to recover at a higher limit. That would feel suicidal to me.

[ QUOTE ]
Cashing out


[/ QUOTE ]
I have only ever cashed out from the sites that wouldn’t let me play there anymore ( I am a US player and am thus heavily protected from myself, and from all you poker sharks here in the land of the free. I expect to be continuously protected until my duly elected representatives find a way to get as nice a "rake" from online poker as they do from Powerball, Keno, live casinos etc. Then they will reinstate my “freedom of choice”) I digress. After those cash outs though, I immediately deposited those monies at other sites and now play on 4 sites. My bankroll has grown steadily. It consists of about 4k BB’s spread over the 4 sites. I don’t intend to cash out but you never know. It’s just a hobby after all.

I am very recently enthralled with live poker and have embarked on a separate bankroll building exercise. I decided to “loan myself” 150BB for a trip to Tunica in August (duly reported on) I was pretty happy with results especially the fact that I really enjoyed live play. Since that trip I have played 15 sessions here at our local casino poker room and the experience continues to please me. I expect to be playing 4-8 sessions a month which will probably average 40 hours a month or about 1200 hands a month. Maybe less if time becomes an issue. (or if my win rate becomes a loss rate: heaven forbid) Anyway I have set some bankroll / win rate benchmarks and goals and am keeping sound records because I am a nit that way. My live poker only, separate from on line, bankroll is now 285BB but still includes the 150BB I loaned myself. I keep it separate and safe. My plan is to let it accrue until I can pay myself back the original “loan’ while still retaining a 300BB+ bankroll. After that it will be a matter of accumulating net winnings until the bankroll looks like I should do something different. I don’t know if I will be a long term winner at this or not but it appears to me I should. My opponents playing errors are pretty frequent and identifiable. As long as they insist on making more mistakes than I do, they will continue to support my goals. I have no aspirations, at this point, about moving up in stakes level just so I can find better players and get beat up. I expect I will set benchmarks in the future for leaving a certain percentage of any winnings in my bankroll and using any excess in some fun way. Perhaps there is a cap on what bankroll I might choose to accumulate but I really haven’t thought about that. From here it seems like a remote possibility since I have only “broken the seal” on the deck of live poker, so to speak.

Yours was a very nice post Aaron. I hope to accumulate a knowledge base like yours (and the wisdom that accompanies it) faster than I accumulate bankroll. That would make me successful at poker.

My ultimate objective is to enjoy poker while I learn to play well and confidently. To do so as a hobby that doesn't cost me any money. If I make some money; all the better.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

aaron good post and it touches on some of the things i'm putting into my 5k post. good to see we have similar thought processes on some things. keep on truckin!

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

aaron,

very nice, well-written post. this covers a gap in the Micros literature and we are proud to have it.

three major factors in my upbringing have given me at least a little competence in life money management: college education, middle-class family life, cheap/tight/hard-working father. i am always shocked to encounter people who don't understand very simple things about money:

- if you buy that TV, you will not be able to afford rent next month.

- buying that car means taking a loan with worse interest than your credit card.

- lending a bunch of money you cannot afford to a person just as broke as you is not smart.

there are *a lot* of people who struggle with these concepts. poker seems to draw out many of them. OOT (if you'll pardon the example) is filled with threads about problems that could have been solved by appreciating the truthiness of sentences like the ones above.


anyway, to respond to the specific questions at the end of your post:

my attitude towards poker and my bankroll has been a lot like what you described. i have no extra professional income to speak of, so my bankroll exists to support my ability to play poker.

my poker career began with a 2/4 game at Binion's during a vacation in 2004. i invested a few hundred in pocket money (this was when i still had a Real job) in the 3/6 games at Bay101 and Lucky Chances. a few months later i quit my job and moved to South Lake Tahoe to ski at Kirkwood, read WLLH and SSH, and play 3/6 at Harvey's. i moved to vegas in may 2005.

my bankroll has taken me through 4/8 to 6/12, down to 2/4, up to 8/16, and back to 4/8. it has bought me countless dinners, several plane tickets, a few boat dives, and tires for my car.

there were a couple months when i first moved to vegas where i was relying on my bankroll for rent and bills and food. i thought of myself as "playing professionally" and i was shocked at how much it made me hate poker. losing sessions were painfully frustrating, and winning sessions felt like merely making up ground. i was glad when this period ended.

the closest i have been to busto was 150bb for 2/4, the smallest live game available. i was pretty sure that i was crushing live 2/4 (lol), so after going through various emotional stages (frustration, anger, numbness, resignation), i just hoped that it would turn around. eventually it did.

interesting that all my answers have to do with emotional and psychological aspects of bankroll. macguyv's post above me also does this. try as we might, poker players are human and humans are results-oriented. while we always train to divorce ourselves from the results of any given hand, that our value raises will work "in the long run", the bankroll *is* the long run. it's hard to watch your bankroll shrink and think, "i am making good decisions. i am a winning poker player." all of us take pride in our bankroll as proof that we have accomplished something.

i waited overnight to post this in hopes that i would come up with a good conclusion in the morning, but, uh...

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

Wow Aaron, you have allways been a poster I look for and read religiously but you have outdone yourself on this one.

I haven't played in a while for a lot of the reasons that you "warn" about in here.

-Wanting to get rich quick
-Ego
-Sense of entitlement
-Distorted view of money that comes with a bigger roll

These are all things that made me a losing player (along with no skill) when I started in early 2004. Unlike some of you I dug myself a good hole at the start, and for a while was a degen with -2.5K bankroll. To make a long story less long, I found 2+2 in late 2005 and with what I swore was my last $150 climbed out of that hole back into the black, thanks to a lot of hard work and help from you guys and some whoring (back when the whoring was good).

When I reached the black something clicked in me and I went back to my old ways. The difference was this time I had enough skill to sustain and even build on it for a while but that does not last when you're cashing out for "toys" and playing to high. Thankfully I have also become self aware enough to recognize it this time. Hence the stop while I was still in the black. So I decided to take hiatus and get things together. Cashed out a bit to cover some medical bills and car repairs the last few months, but left enough in there to rebuild from. Though on your scale it's near the petty change area.

I guess the above covers most of the first and third set of questions.

My bankroll philosophy is something that I've been giving a lot of thought to these past few months. I wanted to take time and know what I was doing with poker and why. Your post has put into words the conclusion I had been comming to. So at the risk of seeming redundant by quoting your OP I will throw out some of the ideas that stood out to me.

[ QUOTE ]
This isn't even for the semi-pro, who has a regular job and plays for a little bonus income on the side. Instead, this post is for the semi-casual player. The ones who take the game seriously enough to ask the bankroll question, but aren't really looking to have poker winnings represent any part of their regular income.


[/ QUOTE ]

I had gotten into thinking myself semi-pro, when I really just want to be semi-casual. Never thought of it in those terms but that idea alone has opened my eyes to my motivations.

[ QUOTE ]
Therefore, your goal is to make your bankroll last for as long as you want to play poker.


[/ QUOTE ]

The paragraphs above that quote and that phrase totally changed the way I will look at my bankroll in the future. It will probably be printed and taped somewhere to keep me focussed.

I hope I've given a decent response. Though I must admit this post has been more for me to work some of my thoughts of the last month out. But I thank you for starting a thread that allowed me to do that, and helped me flesh out those thoughts to give me a starting point to step off from this time.

Again I would like to thank you good sir for a well thought out post on a topic that really doeasn't get the attention it deserves.

Now I'm of with my one Benjamin to take some dimes off suckers [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Peace
Thomas

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Thanks for the post, Aaron. It came during a time where--until just yesterday--I was on a $230 downswing. Fortunately, yesterday treated me very well, and it's now only a $150 downswing. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

In response to your question, I do tend to very much agree with your conceptions of bankroll management. I've never withdrawn a dime from my poker bankroll and have built up a pretty solid (at least in my opinion) bankroll as a result. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Paradoxically, even though I don't use my bankroll for anything other than poker, I still think of it in terms of actual dollars. When I was on that $230 downswing, I just couldn't stop thinking about all the nice things I could have bought myself with $230. Rationally, I realize this is completely illogical since I never had any plans for using that $230 for anything other than poker. And, yet, I still think of it in terms of such things. I wonder why?

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Don't think of downswings in terms of $$$ that's just going to cause you a lot of problems in the long run. I try to think of them in terms of BB, or best yet, ignore the results and play the best game you can. I just pay closer attention to my game during downswings.

This is coming out of a small 100BB downswing that came at the worst possible time, when I decided to move up. Nearly had to drop back down for the 3rd time.

Thanks for the BR tips Aaron, I know this knowledge was hard earned through some painful experience.

When I started, I started with $100 and a plan to 1) hopefully make some money, and 2) have fun playing poker. I started with the boss media sites, because the bonus whoring was good there and ran it up to $300. Then, the UIEGA was passed and I deposited my whole roll into FTP and played .5/1 until I made it up to $400. Withdrew $200 to bonus whore and ran into a nasty downswing that made me lose faster than the bonus would compensate. I really doubted my poker ability at this time, and coupled with the UIEGA, I lost interest and focused on other things. The site lost its cushy bonus so I ended up cashing out for $189, my only cash out to date, and I eventually started playing again at FTP. I'm slowly grinding my way now at .5/1 after having to drop down again and again. Hopefully I'll be here for awhile. I was using the 300BB rule, but I think, since I'm playing 6-max I'll probably move up once I hit 500BB for the next level.

I don't really think of poker money as money. I tend to think of it as points, poker is a game where the better you do in the long run, the more points you will have. So I just try to play my best game, and hope that's enough to make money.

I've never really been close to busto, but having a 200BB downswing was maddening and made me take a break from poker. I think I'm better equipped emotionally to handle these things, but you never really know until you're in one.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

:grunch:

Nice post.

FWIW, I've always been in the same bankroll philosophy boat. My bankroll pretty much just sits online and does nothing except let me play poker when I want.

However, the reasoning is differnet for me. Being Australian (and this goes for other aussies i think), is that it's alot harder for us to cash out. (imo) the most reliably methods are through either party or stars and since I'm not always playing on those sites, it's a pain to transfer money via neteller, onto the site, play the required number of hands to cash out, then cash out. So as a result, over the couple of years i've played, i've only made a few cashouts and these were big (in proportion to my limits) to cover one off expenses, as you mentioned.


To answer some of the questions you asked:

I've played for about 3yrs total, I started playing semi-casual -&gt; semi-serious about 2 yrs ago.

I first deposited $50 on stars. I donked around for a year or so, playing a few weeks at a time here and there. I made 2 more $50 deposits after going busto a couple of times.

When I started my "semi-casual -&gt; semi-serious" phase, I had $10 in an account on crypto and somehow mannaged to run good enough with that playing 0.25/0.50 FR to clear a $100 bonus I had pending. That set me up to play the micros and I havn't gone busto since - not quite.


[ QUOTE ]

What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?


[/ QUOTE ]

Funny you should ask this, because that is where I am at right now... I'm just coming back after more than a month off.

A few months ago, I cashed 4k, which was about half my roll. I of course instantly went on a massive downswing. I kept moving down and kept losing until I got to about $600, so I decided to take a break. I'm back now playing 0.50/1.00 to rebuild.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

Great post, one of the top 5 I've read on this site imo. I'll post more thoughts later maybe but good work.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

One of the things I struggled with in moving up is the timing of when to do it.

As I have read others here post sometimes a move up corresponds with a downswing. This is an important factor to consider.

The psychological impact of losing on a move up is significant because your brain is conditioned to the smaller movement of cash. Essentially a swing of 100 bb is a swing of 200 bb. I ran into that on my first cash out experience.

In reviewing the play I made, I actually was playing better than I was at the lower level but I ran into horrible beats. It happened so quickly but because of the short roll for the level I made the mistake of staying too long.

It would seem logical therefore that we don't move up until we have a roll for the next level but I think that may be a mistake for some of us. Let's face it, building a roll takes time and patience. When we have double the roll for the level we were just at it is a worthy accomplishment. Our tolerance for loss at this point is slim because of the high investment cost of the money we are gambling with.

We are most of us willing to gamble with serial numbers on a 5 dollar bill with 6 other people or spew a dollar into a 14 million to 1 lottery draw in the hopes of winning 5 million because it has a low investment cost and a high reward. When we are supposed to drop down 2 months of salary to buy someone an engagement ring or drop down a few thousand as a down payment for a house we are hesitant but are aware of the fact that the future reward is still great in doing so.

With poker we don't know that we will be getting any future reward. We haven't played at that level we have no history of experience and even if we did it is no guarantee that history repeat itself. For some that may be a good thing because the experience may have been damaging. I for one am likely going to run into some hesitancy when I try and play 5/10 again.

So where does this lead us? Well for me it lead me to two solid conclusions.
First I decided that I would set a bottom bankroll limit for when I would drop down back to a level I had a positive history with. My second decision was that I would not make definitive moves up. In other words I would not wait to play a higher level until I had the bankroll for it.

Rather I would continually take 25 bb shots at the higher levels. In other words I would play 1/2 when I had my minimum bankroll for the lower level plus 25 bb for the level I wanted to take a shot at.

Sometimes this meant I took 5 or 6 shots at the level before I made any head way into it, but grinding up 50 bb at the lower level was not a big deal, even if in fact it turned out to being 300 bb.

By doing this, I actually reduced the psychological impact of the higher level's money flow so that I could justify the dollar swings more readily and detach the purchase value of the money from the investment value.

By looking at the money as investments into opportunity instead of purchasing power we do a lot to diffuse the significance of the money.

By using a bottom management bankroll instead of a minimum bankroll system we free up a lot of the impact of moving up and instead are able to focus on the opportunities.

When I take a 25bb shot at a table and think of it as an investment I actually take my time and decide where the best opportunity is. Sometimes there is no opportunity in relation to the opportunity I would have by playing at the lower stake.

I have no stigma of playing at the lower stake because it is in fact the stake I am rolled for. In fact, I can even take a 25 bb opportunity shot at a level that is 2 levels above my current level if I find a huge opportunity investment.

This process has done a lot for me in terms of removing the challenges I struggled with in moving up for the last 2 years.

Its been 7 months using this method starting from 5 bucks and now I have 1000 in my roll.

For some that means I am rolled for 500 bb at 1/2 but it doesn't mean that for me. I still consider myself rolled for $1 because I haven't won enough at 1/2 to justify any roll being enough to stay there.

It is only when I meet my bottom bankroll requirement that I consider myself having moved up.

My definition of bottom bankroll is simply the bb required to never run out of money 99% of the time at my current win rate and deviation.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]

Big B/R nit. I feel like I have to be because I have tilt problems. I throw stuff against the wall when I'm losing because I shouldn't lose because I'm better than my opponents. Lost 400bb's in my first 35k hands of 5/10. So I want 1000BB's before I move up. $14k right now - I can't wait to hit $16k so I can play 8/16 because I've played the same limit for over a year. My only withdrawl was $10k a year ago to pay for a car. I'm not sure I really have a point here.

[/ QUOTE ]

hah, that applies to me at moments too, i mean the throwing of things against the wall. I've moved down to 0.02/0.04 at UB, then currently at 0.05/0.10 at PS. Seems to be doing well, at least the small bet size is not affecting my playing decisions. Hope to make it up the 'class' of LHE within this year!

And yes Aaron... very good post. Thank you.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

The one thing about moving up is a lot of the time you just get cold decked, sucked out on, basically endure a ton of short term variance and immediately lose say 150 bb's from the level you were just playing within 500-1k hands. That happened to me last night actually. Didn't feel like I was spewing, called a few river raises too many but overall think my session was played reasonably well. And, I just got crushed every hand. Counterfited, river put straight on the board when I had the nuts numerous times, everyone hit two outers and got another bet out of me. Just a dreadful experience. And these things happen and are expected. But when they happen right when you move up it shatters confidence. This is tough to deal with.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Big B/R nit. I feel like I have to be because I have tilt problems. I throw stuff against the wall when I'm losing because I shouldn't lose because I'm better than my opponents. Lost 400bb's in my first 35k hands of 5/10. So I want 1000BB's before I move up. $14k right now - I can't wait to hit $16k so I can play 8/16 because I've played the same limit for over a year. My only withdrawl was $10k a year ago to pay for a car. I'm not sure I really have a point here.

[/ QUOTE ]

hah, that applies to me at moments too, i mean the throwing of things against the wall. I've moved down to 0.02/0.04 at UB, then currently at 0.05/0.10 at PS. Seems to be doing well, at least the small bet size is not affecting my playing decisions. Hope to make it up the 'class' of LHE within this year!

[/ QUOTE ]

I used to play 15/30 live exclusively and I made the mistake of never building up my bankroll thorugh play. I started off by giving my self a bankroll of $500 for 2/4. After only 20-30 hours of play i had accumulated about $1K. Instead of playing longer at that limit I decided to give myself an additional $2K and move up to 4/8 immediately. I saw the same terrible play here but I didn't run as hot. I played about 100 hours at this limit and then convinced myself that I could play higher even though I had only broke even over that time. This is when I began to lose touch with reality and gave myself another $5K and told myself that it was a surefire investment. I moved up to 10/20 and 15/30. It took only another 100-150 hours and I had completely used up my bankroll. After that I took a one month break and read every poker book I could. Then I gave myself another $5K and lost..... and then another $5K...... and then another $5K. In the end I had lost $21.5K over about a year and a half in addition to some deposits I had made for online play. During this time I convinced myself over and over that I was running poorly.

Anyway, I took a six month break from poker after this and decided earlier this year to give it another try but this time I would start low and only move up when I had earned an adequate bankroll to do so. I started at .10/.20 with a $100 roll and from there I have moved to .25/.50 where I am currently. I have taken a more conservative approach and vowed not to move up in limits until I have at least 1000BB. I am now taking the approach that Aaron mentioned in OP of having a bankroll only for the purpose of being able to continue to play, where as before I had the get rich quickly mindset.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Fantastic read. Many thanks.Good to read something aimed at the casual player.

Bankroll History:

Playing online poker came when the players in my then regular home game started saying things like "I won fifty pounds playing poker last night online". This intrigued me and I wished to subcribe to their newsletter.

Because the money was only part of the issue for me, I started out small. My first (and so far only) deposit to a poker account was £35. Enough to get me $50 of chips. I played .05/.10c NL. I crushed that game. I can still remember my first $5 pot. Jacks full.

I've never felt the mad pressure to climb up limits to earn more cash money now. In fact, I've usually lagged in the shallow end for ages.

More often than move up limits I've switched from STT to MTT to FL to NL to PL to omaha to keep myself learning and interested. When I get back to the "old" game and find it easy, I might give a higher game a try.

My Maximum Bankroll was around $4k. That was playing a mix of micro NL, MTTs, 1/2FL and STTs. I didn't want to use it to step up at the time, so I cashed out about $3k to spend on a trip to South Africa. Then I got up to $2k and cashed out again to buy a computer and big TV, which took me all the way down to $700.

Right now I'm playing $10 STTs and full table $1/$2 limit with a $1.5k bankroll.

Bankroll Philosophy:

I play for enjoyment, for mental stimulation and to make some money doing the above. So building a bankroll, while Important isn't my primary motivation.

I have a bankroll to allow me to play poker, I don't play poker to build my bankroll alone. Oddly, this makes me quite conservative. I want to make sure my Bankroll isn't a worry to me, so I play within decent margins.

Second, I want to enjoy the fruits of my labour. My poker profit is the bonus I get for playing well so I use it to reward myself. I think In addition to OPs decent cashout reasons is the idea of cashing out for a specific pleasure based target. I don't want to open a savings account with poker money (though it's a good idea) but I do want to use it to visit somewhere I've never been.

To put it another way, my initial deposit was play money, so I use my winnings to fund pleasures i wouldn't justify otherwise. This retards limit climbing, but helps me stay disciplined and motivated.

I suppose the key is be aware of your motivations.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]

Then I gave myself another $5K and lost..... and then another $5K...... and then another $5K. In the end I had lost $21.5K


[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. Just wow.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]
The one thing about moving up is a lot of the time you just get cold decked, sucked out on, basically endure a ton of short term variance and immediately lose say 150 bb's from the level you were just playing within 500-1k hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is not true and probably just being results oriented. Short term variance is just as likely to win you 150BBs as it is to lose it.

Most players that lose drastically when they move up, do so because they are playing poorly or too timidly because they are thinking about the money. If a player drastically changes his game (incorrectly, and usually playing too weak/tight) when he moves up, his losses are typically due to psychological issues and play, not variance.

When moving up from one level to another (single level jump 1/2-&gt;2/4 or whatever), there is seldom any reason at all to change your playing style as the play itself is not very different at all. This is not true though if you jump from a .25/.50 straight into a 5/10 game. These games will differ greatly and most people can not make that jump even if bankrolled for it and currently winning 6BB/100 at .25/.50.

One thing Aaron touched on a bit, but not directly, is that if you are playing within your roll, it doesn't matter if you play 3/6 or .5/1 around the same time. I will frequently play various levels from .5/1 - 3/6 depending on how you feel, how good the tables are, and what you are trying to accomplish. If there was some part of my game that I wanted to work on, I would often drop 1-3 levels to work on it. For instance, if I felt my post-flop play was lacking for whatever reason playing 3/6, I could easily drop to .5/1 or 1/2 and play looser to work on post flop play without feeling I was spewing too many chips. Also, If I you see a super juicy .5/1 table compared to the 1/2 game you are currently in, by all means hit it up! This of course is all relative as is your bankroll in general. The main point I am conveying here is just like Aaron's point about ego.... don't play a certain level just to satisfy your own ego, especially if it affects your overall play.

For me personally, I've always been somewhat of an online BR nit. I think this is because I just don't want to 1. go through the hassle of having to reload and 2. tilt control. We all tilt to various degrees, and even though I think mine is pretty decently controlled, it is there. My live "bankroll" on the other hand is very different. I frequently play in games that my BR really can't support. I initially started w/ a $500 "roll" playing 6/12 and 8/16 (30-40BBs LOL), and was playing 20/40 with only about $3K handy, but was not concerned. Why? Because this was not really my live BR... I could easily replenish this roll at anytime. I just happened to have $500 loose to put directly into live poker at that time. Well I've never had to put any more money into that live roll at all because I ran good early on. I've used that money for trips to vegas and other fun stuff because it was handy, but have never had to dip into that money for anything.... but if I wanted to go and play in a NL5K game or whatever, I could, and if I lost it all, well then no big deal, I'd just replenish and start anew. This is why is is all relative, and if you have no problems redepositing, then you can play as big as you feel comfortable playing w/ no bankroll concerns. As an example, Buzz was razzing Benny in the NC thread for playing under-rolled. While true, his "current online BR" prolly was not advantageous for playing an 8/16 game, if he blew a large portion of what he had online, it would not have been a devastating blow to him... also in that same weekend, he was playing a bunch of 2/4.

so...
1. when you fret over every decision at the table and are constantly thinking about the money involved and the size of pots in dollars/euros/whatever and not bets, you are probably playing "under-rolled" even if it is only under-rolled mentally.

<font color="red">Being mentally under-rolled is the worst thing a player can possess because it will 100% distort your play for the worse!</font>

2. 300BBs is just a guideline to reduce your risk of ruin. If they money does not have a big impact on your well being and how you actually play, then play whatever game you wish, even if your whole roll is on the table. Again 300BBs is just a guideline.

3. Have fun irrespective of the limit you are playing.... it is a game after all!

and oh yeah... nice post Aaron.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Aaron's post and the whole thread that is ensuing is one of the best things I have ever read about poker... and I've read a lot. Thinking about making some extra 200$, Aaron? You should send it to the 2+2 mag. Or any poker mag... amazing!
The responses have been excellent, too. Good job micros!

I don't have that much to add. I play live 4/8 - 20/40, but only micros online due to tilt issues and bad BR managment. Around the beginning of September, when I started like really posting here, I realized a good chunk of stuff that Aaron mentioned in the post. If he had written out this stuff 2 years ago and I would have read it, I would have probably saved around 3k [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] Realizing that my opponents have the same BR/tilt issues is probably the #1 winning factor at limits beyond 3/6 online (not that I have been able to beat those games myself, lol). The play is quite good, but is the psychological factor?

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Bella- You copped out a little here. How do you manage your live play bankroll and/or what do you recommend?

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]
Bella- You copped out a little here. How do you manage your live play bankroll and/or what do you recommend?

[/ QUOTE ]

My copping out is that I'm not comfortable of telling anybody what to do, when I've done so much wrong myself.

For live, I started with a 3000$ bankroll to play 3/6. I was probably way overbankrolled, but it was extra BJ money and I didn't know a thing about bankroll and probably about poker either. Err, my live bankroll now has grown to 5k. Yes, that is way underbankrolled for a 20/40 game, but well, I don't play it that often (prolly 1-2 times a month) and I enjoy it much more. I don't mind losing it all, it was extra money to begin with. But I don't advocate anybody jumping in there underbankrolled. I had a funny experience at Bay101 a few months ago. Some decent playing guy after some hours at the 20/40 (away from the table) just couldn't believe, when I told him my BR was 5k. He was like: "You play so well, yet you have so poor BR managment". After a while I responded: "Look, I'm not a pro, I don't do this for a living. If I lose this BR, I won't cry if I don't play poker again. And if it's really that important, I'll save some money from my real job and pay it off then." Cop-outs, I know... [img]/images/graemlins/crazy.gif[/img] So, please, you'd be better off following Aaron's advice and not mine [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Hello BR Nits! You make me feel at home.

I made my first deposit semi-drunkern in 2004 xmas period which was a few months after I returned from 6 months in the USofA. I deposited $50 into stars using my Visa card....I only tried it on a whim and didnt really think it would go do through. It did. I donked around for a while at NL and 0/8 and lost $15 and wanted to cashout only to discover that that cashing out for an ignorant Aussie was all too hard so I left it there and used it as fun money. I managed to back up to $70 and took a shot at 25c/50c LHE. I was a total donk and lost3 months of winningsd in 100 hands and was pissed. Then by chance found 2+2 and lurked for a while whilst running up to $80 bonuses whoring UB 5c/10c tables (yes you read that correctly).

I then bonus whored (Paradise, Stars, UB and Party) all the way up to about $2000 playing 0.5/1. I probably made about $500 at the table and the rest was whored...lucky me not livin in the States.

Now, as many of you will know, Ive got 2 young kids and Im very conservative when it comes to my BR which allows me to be very aggresive at the table. I hate to lose. I also only get to play no more than 3-5K hands a month and I find that this means that I feel wins/losses more because I have more time to reflect on a previous session. Theres something to be said for getting right back in there the next day because for me that helps me get over a bad session.

So basically ive been playing overrolled and I decided that I wanted to start rewarding myself which means withdrawign excess Bankroll and buying stuff. I set my base BR at $1500 which is 750BB for my current limit of 1/2. So far Ive withdrawn somewhere in the vicinity of 2k. I really consider myself lucky to still be able to bonus whore. Bonus whoring at the lower limits can really be significant. If you non-Americans cant find decent bonuses playing 0.5/1 or 1/2 out there that can supplement your BR to the tune of AT LEAST 1-2BB/100 then you arent trying hard enough. I actually dont know how much of my total winnings is whored but it is probably well in excess of 50% (for a while I abused SSHE principles and spewed money but still managed to increase my BR with easy bonuses).

As I said, Im pretty conservative and whilst I'd love to play and beat 5/10+ I am realistic and whith a family with 2 young kids Im probably going to stick around at 1/2 and hopefully 2/4. I know Ive got the game to beat 2/4 but thats not the point. The point is that I enjoy poker and I enojoy winning and whilst Im leaving money on the table by not moving up as fast as others I really dont care that much.

All in all Ive taken $50 and turned it into thousands of dollars doing something that I enjoy (or love to hate at times)...this is as opposed to other people I know who prefer to pump money into games like Warcraft. I make a little money doing my hobby...they spend it to do theirs. hehe.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]
Thinking about making some extra 200$, Aaron? You should send it to the 2+2 mag.

[/ QUOTE ]

I emailed Bryan the other day and asked him if they were interested in this type of content. I'm not sure what the response will be because this is an article that doesn't really fit the descriptions of things they are interested in. It's also too long to be a single article, so maybe it's worth $400? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Anyway, I'll probably hear back in a couple weeks whether he thinks it's good content, and if so, I could probably clean it up pretty quickly (Christmas break) and resubmit it. We'll see what happens.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Great post Aaron, imho br management is one of the most important factors to consider as a poker player.

[ QUOTE ]

What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?


[/ QUOTE ]
I never jumped straight into poker, I decided to research the game a bit 1st hence why my first deposit included money for both PT &amp; PAHUD, which was $300 back in Sep 05. Started off doing the bonus @ bet365's 0.25/0.50 tbls. For those that remember it this was decided after reading Homer's br post, which I followed closely 'cause Paradise $200 bonus was the next stop.

Now days after having a brief moment @ 10/20, I'm grinding out the 5/10 6max tbls. A few of the things I've spent my winnings on are; with my 1st withdrawal I placed a deposit on my home, took my GF to QLD for a holiday soon after. Since then I've bought a few toys such as surround sound, 24" monitor, upgraded my PC, etc. But I've generally tried to keep building my BR I like the comfort of being over-rolled.

[ QUOTE ]

What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?


[/ QUOTE ]
Ur br philosophy is similar to mine, &amp; I think ur spot on. Personally I've never been afraid to move down or up, I enjoy the challenge of moving up but I make sure there is enuff br buffer to cover me if anything goes sour. Moving down is just a part of ur experience in poker, I've felt often if I was uncomfortable @ a certain level no matter of whether I'm adequately rolled or not I would move back down. For me it's all bout my confidence in my game &amp; confidence to make money.

[ QUOTE ]

What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?


[/ QUOTE ]
I've always played with a decent sized br, tho lately a lot of that is to do with not withdrawing due to a horrible exchange lol (but it did drop 2c 2day yay!). But I do feel due to the times I play the games seem tougher during my evenings hence my br requirements generally need to be a bit higher as there can be often not a great selection of games going. Even to an extent I'm considering playing less 5/10 during weeknights (which I guess is also influenced by my current downswing!). As I mentioned having a decent br has helped me accept downswings, I'm currently experiencing a 400BB downswing @ 5/10 (which happened in 4 days of play). This is not fun but it also has helped me realise some areas of my game which I need to fix.

I've never been close to busto, in fact after in my 1st 21 months of poker I never had a losing month (/brag lol!) However I made sure my 1st losing month was worth it -$6K [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img] This was after I had moved up to 10/20, @ the end of the month I decided it was time to move back down to 5/10! I guess 'cause I don't withdrawal very often &amp; I don't take shots at limits too high (sometimes I take shots @ limits that I'm rolled for but haven't got the confidence to play as my main game) as well as not wanting to be below a 1000BB BR is why I haven't been close to being busto.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

Forgot to answer these questions.
[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?

[/ QUOTE ]Deposited $100 about 4 years ago and somehow managed not to go broke before learning anything about bankroll management. But have been practicing it for the last 3 years or so. Ever since I discovered 2p2. I cashed out $1000 at one point. Left $200 to gamble with and rebuild a roll, I regret doing this immensely to some extent but building it back has been a challenge. I'm now hovering between $650-$1k and have grinded up from $200 last year mostly in SNG's at $5nl. Recently became interested in getting back into limit due to struggles tilting at 25nl.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?

[/ QUOTE ]I agree. To some degree I want to just deposit like $5k and take a shot at playing 3/6 semi-professionally or whatever but I don't really have that kind of money laying around so I'll try building from the micros up instead. It's taking quite a long time which is why I regret cashing out $1k last year. Also I have no idea if I could actually beat 3/6. Probably not.

[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]Dealing with the worst variance in my 4 years right now actually. It's quite stressful. But I have also been on the other side and winning basically every pot I played for a week. So, I understand the swings. Just have not entirely come to grips with it. The last 5 months or so have been my most active ever, I am taking the game more seriously now and trying to build it up and hopefully get to a stake that I could make decent money with each month. I do play for entertainment but winning is very important to me, or getting better I should say. Ideally I am not still playing .5/1 or 1/2 this time next year but if so, I can live with that.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

Here is my start from this old thread.

[ QUOTE ]
2005 My first major poker year.

I had a back injury at work on Jan 12 2005, and that put me working nights. I'd just been playing recreationally for about a year online. Jan 23 I get home from work at 12:45 and play in a $2+.50 MTT on Pacific @ 1am. 300 players and as soon as I made the money, I was on a rush from hell. Had my first (and only) Royal. I won that for a cool $300. That was about 1000% of my online BR at the time. I donked around with that for about a month while working nights, then withdrew $200. Feb 23 was my last day of nights, so the next day, I decided to do this limit thing, and do it right. Bought Poker Tracker, SSH and deposited $100 at Paradise for my first Bonus Whoring venture. I played about 6K hands of .10/.20. When I got to $150 I moved up to .25/.50. I played 10K hands of that and cushed it for 5bb/100. I hit the $500 mark and moved to Empire and a r******k deal.

Since I wasn't working, I kind of treated Poker as my 'job'. My wife just loved that. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] Anyway, since I was losing about $200 a week on workers comp, I made it my goal to earn $50 a day. Either from bonuses or winnings or unmentionable. That wasn't hard to do, so to help out at home, I paid my boat payment with poker money. (still my only real concrete goal)

May 9 I had surgery on my back. This is about the time I moved to Empire. I had been posting a lot here and knew I was learning more and more. I had dabbled a bit at .50/1, but didn't like my results. So I started following my stats from then on. What a difference. I knew I could beat that game, I just needed to get my head on straight.

I hit the 300BB for 1/2 around June. I'd heard about how 1/2 was a rock garden, and how 6 max was the way to go, so I played a little of both. I won more at 6 max, but didn't like the swings. So I played around 10K of 1/2 and hit the 6 max tables occasionally and took some shots at 2/4.

I had a few MTT cashes along the way, and did well in SNG's, so my roll was growing quite nicely. I went back to work on Oct 19.

Then November came. I'd played about 80K hands of cash game poker. Read about downswings, but never had one. Then November came. I couldn't win a hand to save my life. I was totally lost. 2 decent tourney cashes made me break even for poker for that month. Thank God for bonuses.

I spent most of December trying to get out of my funk and decided to play 2/4 exclusively. That is a horrible limit for clearing bonuses, but i stuck it out and made good.

All in all, 2005 was an awesome poker year for me. I met some awesome poker players on this site, played in some fun 2+2 games, and got paid for my favorite hobby. Not to mention all the quality poker swag. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

I have proved to myself that I am a winning poker player. Does that make me in the top 5% of players? I don't know. I know I know more about poker than my buddies I play with once a month. But I don't think I know half as much as some of the posters in this site.

Many thanks to all the higher limit guys, who still slum with us in the Kiddie Pool. I couldn't believe it when I found this site, that people were so willing to share their knowledge of the game. The micros really do rule.

In 2006, I want to play 5/10 with a decent winrate. Will it happen? I don't know. I've got to get through 3/6 first. I also plan to play in more tourneys this year. I would like to cash in one of the big Sunday tourneys at least once. Oh, and get an iPod for my daughter with Stars FPP's. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

<font color="white"> this BTW is my longest post ever. </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, what a difference 2 years can make.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?


[/ QUOTE ]

Most of these answers are up there.

Right now I am enjoying rb at FTP, playing 2/4 3/6 and 5/10 on a limited, but reloadable, br. (~1300)

With my winnings...lol. vacations, computers, electronics, boat, wheels for my truck, golf gear and green fees, yada yada.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?


[/ QUOTE ]

My br philosophy is the classic, don't play with money you can't afford to lose. Poker is a game, it's supposed to be fun. If you aren't enjoying yourself while you play, you probably can't afford to lose what you are playing with. I got a small stake earlier this year from a friend in another hemisphere. I was glad he had enough faith in me, as well as trust, to loan me the money, and I hope he would do it again if the need arose. I got to play again, but it was kind of tough playing with someone elses money. I didn't know what I would do if I went busto, and I was fing close a couple of times. Anyway, I grinded (??) it back up and settled with him and decided to play on my own dime.

I look at poker money like it is bonus money. I don't need it, but it sure is nice to have. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] If it all went away, no big deal. I would miss playing, but I've made a ton more than I have deposited.

[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't had many huge bad variance runs. I think the 300bb rule is a pretty sound rule to follow for a newer player, or someone who can't reload and depends on the $$. I've pretty much played on 200bb since I moved up to 2/4. I think having too big of a roll made me play too loose. If I put some pressure on myself, being on a short roll, I played better. This is still true.

My online roll went to 0 after the Fristing, but I was kind of burned out anyway and didn't really care. I had taken most of it out for the micro Vegas trip anyway.

Still only one Royal Flush. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

I'm definitely the person this post was intended for. I have been playing online for almost 10 years. I've made 9 or 10 deposits of $200 on 4 diffrent sites. I went bust every time because I never used BR management.

When I started there were no microstakes. I was fresh from playing 3/6 at Turning Stone Casino in upstate NY, so I decided to deposit 200 onto paradise. I sat at a 3/6 table, played for a few weeks then busto. I redopsited, sat 2/4 but it was the same outcome. This time I decided to quit.
I took a few months off but got the itch again. For the next 2 years I'd do the same thing 4 or 5 times.
I quit but couldn't stay away. I tried pokerstars instead. Same thing excpet this time I was playing NL instead of limit.

I never actually new what real BR management was until I found 2+2. Actually I never new what PT, rakeback, or bonus whoring was until last November when I met another 2+2er who pointed me in the right direction. He got me to play limit again after I explained I couldn't take the large swings of NL.(I was still playing too high so it was really hard to cope with the losses.)

I never considered how big your BR should be in relation to the stakes you're playing. I've always wanted to make money doing this but I've never been good enough. In fact while writing this I've realized I'm playing at a level my BR can handle but that it's above my skill level.

As far as BR philosophy I had none LDO. I do think yours is perfect for anyone who plans on playing online.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Great post and wonderful replies. Thank you guys.

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

[ QUOTE ]

Still only one Royal Flush. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't gotten any. Aren't those things only supposed to come around once in every 650K hands?

I'm doing better in the straight flush category; somehow I managed to get two of them in on 70K hands (statistically, I should have only seen one, I think). [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

First of all: SUPERB post, Aaron! That stuff really is golden, and a must-read to anyone playing poker semi-seriously.


[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?

[/ QUOTE ]
I've only started playing poker earlier this year. I knew the rules of draw poker and the hand order, but that was it. I knew enough to understand what was going on in Rounders when I first saw it, but that was long enough ago to have completely forgotten about Texas Hold'em since.
And then it hit me again in Casino Royale. It looked like I'd never seen Hold'em before (Rounders was but a distant memory), but I got the rules after the first ten minutes of movie poker.
Since I'm a real moviegeek (hence the nickname), I spend lots of money in the theater and buy lots of DVDs each year. So I started thinking: "what if I invest only a small amount of $, and gamble it up to something that can sustain my DVD and other movie-expenses without actually having them "cost" me a good month's salary each year?".

And there you have it: my entire motivation for learning and playing poker: paying for the further expansion of my DVD-collection.

I started with an amount I was very much prepared to lose without it hurting me. But I only started playing for real money when I was convinced I could beat the game at low stakes AND clear some bonuses on the side.
So I started with reading and studying before I took real money to the online tables. (Live tables are impossible for me to find in Belgium, and I really don't feel like driving a good couple of hours to poker rooms in Breda, Holland, so online's all I got...)
When I played my first real money hand, I had already made sure I had PokerTracker and PAHud running, as well as a good knowledge of SSHE (I'd already adopted Ed Miller as "my personal hero"), and I was already lurking here. This was in July.

I took 200$ to Pacific, played for a few weeks, but found it impossible to clear the deposit bonus, so I cashed it all back out, and went to Stars.
I played a lot of .25/.50 in August and September. Maybe some of you have seen me there - same nick and avatar and everything (yes, I'm one of those dumbasses that doesn't change them). When I cleared my deposit bonus, I'd made a small bit of profit, and figured that was enough to attempt .50/1.00. Needless to say, I was underrolled, and got my ass handed back to me, raped. Fortunately I knew when to call it quits and I basically only lost what I had won at .25/.50 + my deposit bonus. So again I cleared everything out and now made my move to Everest (thanks to the wonderful 5 Free 2+2 Books bonus).
That was near the end of September and that's when I got real serious about the game. More learning, more analysis, plugging some leaks (getting my WtSD% down for instance), etc.
That's also when I starting noticing I was actually improving. It was no longer just tight play.
So I saw my initial 100$ (I kept 100 back for other sites) grow, and when I reached 250, I cashed out 150 and kept playing with the rest (which is now 250).
When my bonuses were all cleared (and I got my books!), I put 100$ at PokerRoom, for an additional 5 books... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Now I've got 250 at Everest and 160 at PokerRoom.
The idea is to go incremental: when I reach 1000, I plan on cashing out 500, then when I reach 2000, cashing out 1000, then at 4K, cashing out 2K, etc.
But that's still a long way to go, and I'm not planning on moving up soon. I'm enjoying myself at .50/1.00 at Everest and .25/.50 at PokerRoom (though I'm not staying at PokerRoom, just 'till I clear my bonuses).

And the winnings are still intended to go towards my DVD-collection, although I must admit that watching DVDs has been moved to the background ever since I started playing poker more seriously... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]


[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?

[/ QUOTE ]
I totally agree with everything in the first post. My own philosophy is that everything I win should be seen as an "extra", I'm not planning on using it to pay rent or whatever, that's what my job salary is for.
I'm also trying to stick to a bankroll table I made, telling me at what bankroll I should move up or down. But I think I'm gonna go with an overroll from now on.
Last month I experimented a bit with NL, 6-max, SnGs, MTTs and the likes, and although I broke even with SnGs and MTTs, and I won at NL more or less the amount I lost at 6-max, I'm definitely sticking to full ring limit. It's what I enjoy the most, and that's still the most important part.
It was a good thing that I cashed out my initial deposit at Everest (+ some profit). At that moment it became less "playing with money" and more "playing with chips". I'm now less edgy when the bets go up, or I have a bad session. It's no longer MY money, it's now just winnings and thus FREE money. That in turn has made me (hopefully) a bit less weak tight at the tables...


[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]
I made a table telling me at what roll I should attempt to move up or down. I have difficulty staying true to it. I know I can beat .50/1.00 so I start there immediately, even if I've just deposited and am underrolled for it. I haven't had any downswings yet (fingers crossed), so it always worked out. I am however sure that I'll really move down when things are bad. I know I've got a huge ego, but I can still command it... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
And I'm not attempting anything higher than .50/1.00 until I've got some decent roll to support that. Last month there was a particularly juicy 2/4 game at Everest, lots of fish from the .50/1.00 stakes, 45% VP$IP, and I took a shot at it with 50BB (200BB at my normal stakes). And then I got outdrawn every single time, missed my draws, went with Kings against slowplayed aces, basically one seriously messed up session and I lost my entire buy-in.
If that didn't hit the "don't go up until you have the roll AND skill to stay up"-button, I don't know what does...

As for now, I intend to keep clearing the "5 Free 2+2 Books" bonuses until I've got an entire 2+2 library, and then I'll probably keep playing at Everest, Pacific and Party, slowly building my roll, and cashing out parts of it whenever I hit a certain mark.
Moving up will depend on how confident I am that I can beat that specific limit, even if that means playing overrolled at a lower limit for far too long.
It's still all meant to be fun - and slightly lucrative on the side. I'll see...

If I ever get good enough to consistently win more at poker than I make at work, I'll be happy to go pro, but I'm not counting on it.
One can dream, though... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]



Well, did THIS end up being tl;dr, or what??? [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

aaron, good post on many levels.

ooh questions are fun:
[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?

[/ QUOTE ]

started w/$150 at party in the beginning of 2004. lost $125 at 5+1 limit SNGs (lol) and .5/1 full ring games.
somewhere found 2+2. stuck to lhe ring games. had a lucky winning streak @ .5/1. got better. won monies. moved up. quit playing almost entirely after that law, and also to find a real job. never spent my bankroll, except to buy a wife (er, ring) and fund a retirement account.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?

[/ QUOTE ]

i viewed my bankroll as a way to finance my moves up in limits. thus, it was never spent.


[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

i never really had these problems. i think i was extremely lucky. i also think i stopped playing/moving up around the time i reached a limit where most of the players were better than me otherwise i would have experienced a "move down".

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl
 

Very nice Aaron.

I began playing about 2 and a half years ago, loading an account on PokerRoom with $100. Within 3 months this was gone (after being up to $200+). Added another $100 cleared the bonus and have not looked back since. I have withdrawn about $1.500, lost about $300 playing live, so I have a net withdrawal of about $1,000. I have a current roll of $800 spread over several sites. Plus I have got 5 2+2 books as bonus, sweet. A good portion of my winnings is bonus about $850.

Of course have I dreamt of playing professional, but I don't think I will ever be in a situation where it will be a real choice for me.

I was at one stage trying to build a larger bank roll, but now it is not that important to me, I am comfortable playing at levels suited to my roll. So I guess that when (or if) my roll gets above a certain level I will just cash out a bit of it.

So to put a point on it, my roll is only there to allow me to play poker (in principle without paying for it, other people pay me for playing) therefore I take care of my roll as I do not want to have to add money.

My current project is to improve my SNG play, trying to increase $60 by playing $1.20 SNGs. The aim is to be killing $5.50 SNGs, $109 SNGs is far out of my aim. At the same time clearing small bonuses here and there.

So all-in-all I agree with you all the way but I would like to add one little thing, and that is the initial investment. Unless you want to be a 'burn $50 once in a while' player you need to risk something in the region of $200 to have a solid initial roll even playing at very low limits, to prevent you from going broke while you adjust to playing real poker and to taking care of your roll. It will take time, you will tilt, you will leave tables too late etc. so you will need a big roll not to go busto before you learn how to handle both up and downswings. That initial investment is needed to be able to become a casual player. (You can of course sacrifice a small amount before trying to become a casual player to get a feel of if you are even close).

Re: 8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)
 

Hi Aaron,

Really fantastic post. Well done.

-Eric