[Dazarath]

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How averse are you to losing your bankroll and reloading?
The plan is to make money playing poker, not spend it, right? Right… but a fact of poker is that EVERYBODY loses sometimes. I was fortunate enough to get a good run of cards very early in my ‘career’, thus giving me confidence and keeping me from going broke. I could have just as easily started out on a losing streak, and quitting out of frustration. My point is, your initial deposit should give you a bankroll large enough to endure a streak of bad cards. Of course, if you don’t mind having to reload, feel free to play on a shorter bankroll. These numbers are based on my own experiences, and have worked pretty well for me.

For conservative limit hold’em players, I would recommend a starting bankroll of around 200 big bets (ie. $100 to play 25c/50c). For those who don’t mind reloading, feel free to shorten your bankroll to 100 big bets or even 50bb.

For conservative no limit hold’em players, a bankroll of about 20 full buy-ins should be fine (ie. $200 to play $10NL with 5c/10c blinds). Again, feel free to adjust this number based on your desired risk of ruin.

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I would like to comment on this. Many 2+2ers argue that for full ring limit, a proper bankroll is closer to 300 BB and 500 BB for short-handed. For NL, some argue that you should have 30 buyins. 200 BB/20 buyins can work, but if you are risk adverse, it would be better to follow the more conservative rules I listed above. I think this is especially true after all of the recent occurrences with Party/Neteller/etc, and the decreased quality of games.

About bankroll management:
The stakes you should be playing are a function of the following three things:
- Your "money" bankroll (AKA, what most people refer to as your bankroll)
- Your skill level
- Your "psychological" bankroll

The first two are pretty self-explanatory. The third one refers to the amount of money that you are comfortable playing for. As an example, imagine a player who has a $3,000 bankroll, and is strong enough to play 5/10. But if the swings at that limit cause him to lose sleep, he'd be much better off playing 3/6 or even 2/4, until he's comfortable with the larger swings.

I also think the mentality of, "hey, I'm willing to reload, so I can play on a short roll" is dangerous. By playing on a short roll, and always moving up stakes ASAP, you're setting yourself up to go bust, either due to a bad run, or because you move up until you're incapable of beating a certain set of stakes. For the more mathematically inclined, everytime you work your bankroll to a size where you have a reasonable risk of ruin, you're moving up and substantially increasing your RoR again, which is just a formula for BUSTO.

Bankroll management is a very important aspect (IMO) that many players ignore or overlook. Sure, it's fun to read about the people with tons of gambool, who run hot and work their way up fast. But it's a formula for disaster. For every success story you hear, there's 20 other players who went bust trying the same thing. Don't be afraid to move down if you feel that you can't handle the swings, or that you don't have the skill to beat the current stakes for a reasonable amount. There is no shame in playing lower to rebuild your confidence and your roll.

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Table Selection

Another often overlooked concept in poker. To make money in poker, you have to force your opponents to make mistakes. When they make mistakes and misplay their hands against you, you profit (see Sklansky’s book below for more info on this very important poker concept). Take this concept a step further: play against players who tend to make the biggest mistakes, which translates into a bigger winrate for you. We’re trying to maximize our winrate by using every advantage we can find, so why are many players content to sit at tough tables? Maybe they’re lazy.. or maybe they want to improve their game, and that’s great, but here’s an example of the benefits of table selection:

Ray and Jay are of equal skill in 6max limit games.

Ray routinely sits in the first open seat he can find at a $5/$10 table, and grinds out a winrate of 1bb/100. He spends 100% of his poker time actually playing the game.

Jay spends 90% of his time playing, and the other 10% looking for tables with higher than usual see-the-flop percentages, and/or known weak players. He plays at soft, fishy $15/$30 tables that are about equal in skill level to Ray’s random $5/$10 tables. Jay earns the same 1bb/100 winrate.

Assuming Ray plays 100 hands an hour, and Jay plays 90 hands an hour (table selection), do the math yourself and see the difference in hourly earn. Seeking out softer tables / soft opponents is well worth your time.


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Table selection is huge, and I think many players underestimate how important it is. It is especially important for marginal winners, and even more important for marginal losers. Imagine a player whose winrate is somewhere around 0.00-0.25 BB/100 when he randomly opens tables and sits. I would wager that if he practiced very good table selection, his winrate would be more like 1 BB/100 (this is just from experience), and definitely at least 0.5 BB/100. That's a 2-4x increase in winrate. For a marginally losing player, it could mean the difference between -0.25 BB/100 and 0.25 BB/100, which is the difference between losing and actually making money.

Raze, thanks for making this post. I'm sure many new players will find a lot of useful information in there. The next time someone asks me to teach them poker, I will point them in the direction of this thread. It's also great to hear a success story from someone grinding free money into a sizable bankroll. After hearing stories of all the people who got lucky (no disrespect meant to them, I could probably be considered one), it's refreshing to learn that hard work still pays off in poker.