How can you not go busto?

[frozenfear]

Lets say you just move up to nl200 with 20 BI, 4K

lets say your first session pretty standard you get noobed left and right and lose 8BI

Your roll is now 2400, you say ok w/e Ill play tomorrow

You play a swingy session and end up down 3 BI
roll - 1800

1 more shot, sick downswing 5BI...

obv at some point in time you might drop to nl100 but I dont ever see how 20BI is enough for any lvl above nl50

( no did this not happen to me )

[Watai]

I think 20 buy-ins is minium, when you drop below it you move one level down too.

[grouchie]

If you are not a winning player then you will go busto.

If you are a winning player, a smart player, when you suffer a downswing you drop down for a while.
So, you have 1800 in your example, you drop back down to NL100 and grind it back up.

Hell, i'm a nit, so I would have dropped down when I hit 2400 instead.

[CybrPunk]

General recommendations are to move down when you've lost a few buy-ins after taking a shot at a new limit. Proper bankroll management is probably one of the most important factors when it comes to moving up in stakes.

[NU Star]

I move down before playing with 20 BI on the first day.

[LionelHutz00]

The key to moving up is running hot immediately.

[KinkyKid]

[ QUOTE ]
Lets say you just move up to nl200 with 20 BI, 4K

lets say your first session pretty standard you get noobed left and right and lose 8BI

Your roll is now 2400, you say ok w/e Ill play tomorrow

You play a swingy session and end up down 3 BI
roll - 1800

1 more shot, sick downswing 5BI...

obv at some point in time you might drop to nl100 but I dont ever see how 20BI is enough for any lvl above nl50

( no did this not happen to me )

[/ QUOTE ]

20 buyins as a roll has gradually increased to where people would like thirty or more. In any case, you should have a comfort point at the level below you where you are very confident you could rebuild from. When you hit that amount of money, you need the discipline to move down.

Also, after you lose 8 BIs. The next day you only have 12 BIs left. If you stick to the 20 BI rule, you aren't playing that level anyway...And you have 24 for the level below you.

[Quanah Parker]

How to not go bust?

Google Kelly criterion

[Mike Haven]

This is an interesting philosophical question, in a way.

The point is that if you are a basic winning player, playing against the same opposition, then it can be calculated, before you start playing, that you are very unlikely to go busto if you have 20BI.

However, once you have lost a few BI, like the roulette wheel that has no memory, it is only in respect of future games that you are very unlikely to lose 20BI. If you start a new game with a remaining bankroll of only, say, 12BI you are far more likely to go busto in the future. It would obviouly be lunatic to think that although you started with 20BI and are down to, say, 3BI that it is still very unlikely you will go busto.

Therefore, if you cannot add to your bankroll from other income, I'd go with the school of thought that suggests having a 40BI bankroll to start, and moving down to the appropriate level if you lose 20BI, (which is very unlikely), in order to start again with 40BI. In effect, you have a double standard bankroll to allow for one "very unlikely", but possible, busto at each level you choose to drop down to before giving up poker as a profession. (If you have lost two of the standard 20BI bankrolls, it's time to start thinking you may not be a basic winning player.)

[excession]

'The point is that if you are a basic winning player, playing against the same opposition, then it can be calculated, before you start playing, that you are very unlikely to go busto if you have 20BI.'

I recall that Brian Townsend (far better than a basic winning player) went on a 20BI downswing at Crypto £80/160 (dumping $320,000) when working his way up.

I had a 28 buy-in downswing in my first 6 months of playing, and have had a 15 BI downswing as recently as May, and I pretty much fit the 'basic winning player' category exactly. The issue of course is that after a downswing of, say 8BI's, which is trivially likely at some point, your A game is often pretty much gone and tilting off another few BI's is pretty easy. Then if you only had 20BI's to start you're in busto range.

Of course the easy answer is always to sit down with at least 20BI's for the stake you are playing and get up and drop down if you lose say 5BI's.

I always use 40BI's+ to be honest. Actually at the time of my May 15BI downswing I had over 70, so it didn't hurt me as badly as it might have done BR wise.