[bav]

5 buyins won't do the trick if you hit a perfect storm, or if you're an action junky. We've all seen someone drop 6 buyins in 2 hours. We've probably all lost 4 buyins over the span of a few hours ourselves while playing correctly. So how important is not busting to you? And do you REALLY want to keep playing poker if you're losing your rear?

How much you need to avoid significant risk of ruin depends on how many hours you intend to play, how well you play, what stakes you intend to play ($200 cap, $300, $500, or maybe Wynn's NL1/3 uncapped game buying in for $2000 a shot), and what sorta variance you have. I would need to suffer the streak of my life to lose 8 buyins in 24 hours of play. Something like 3 buyins plus one more buy for every 4 hours I'm gonna play would probably put my risk of ruin into the <1% sorta range. I'm pulling these numbers outta my rear, of course. YMMV.

Or just bring $1000 to $1500 and figure if you lose it you shouldn't have been playing, anyway. I kinda like that approach.