Are They Rolled or Risk-Seeking

[PartyGirlUK]

OK you were 75% in almost all of them. Lets just create a simple model where you were 55% to win in all of them. So the chances of loses them all are

.45 ^ 60 or

.0000000000000000001558657976916843360832062017400 8 %

Can you see why I think you are exaggerating?

[Triumph36]

raptor,

I don't agree. 10k is not a bankroll for 3/6. You have a well above 0 chance of going busto. I've had -5k days at NL600 - not saying I played well on those days, but I've had them.

cero,

I don't doubt you've had a sicko downswing before. What I doubt is that you lost '60 all in showdowns in a row, almost all of which I was a favorite.' Someone on the probability forum could work out the particulars I'm sure, but that is such an incredibly bad run. And yes, I have run bad before - not for an incredibly long time, but I had one negative month this year and one where I ran in the red for almost the whole month, plus extended break-even stretches. I'd say I ran about average for the year.

[raptor517]

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there is NO doubt in my mind, i could play 3-6 nl and maintain at least 3 ptbb on 10k, with less than a 1% chance of going busto, and probably a LOT smaller chance. zero doubt whatsoever. it really doesnt matter how bad i run.

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Playing 3/6 on 10k w/ no moving down ever sounds very risky to me. You can definitely have a 6k+ downswing even if you're winning 5ptbb+ and then you're gonna have serious problems multitabling. And 6k is only 10 buyins, worse swings do happen.

However, if you're willing to move down if you drop to like 6-7k then yeah, risk of ruin will be very close to zero assuming you're still playing good poker.

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without moving down i mean. i could short stack buying in for 120 at 3-6 without ever dropping 10k. there is no doubt in my mind, and it would easily get 3 ptbb. which is PLENTY to build on. once the roll hits a bit more you can start full stacking and stretch it to the 6-7 ptbb range and be right back on track to robustoness. holla

[cero_z]

Hi raptor,

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without moving down i mean. i could short stack buying in for 120 at 3-6 without ever dropping 10k. there is no doubt in my mind, and it would easily get 3 ptbb. which is PLENTY to build on. once the roll hits a bit more you can start full stacking and stretch it to the 6-7 ptbb range and be right back on track to robustoness. holla

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This is an interesting approach that I hadn't thought of. I have no idea what the variance is playing this way, but it does make sense to me that 83 buy-ins or whatever would carry an extremely low risk of ruin. Good point.

[raptor517]

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Hi raptor,

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without moving down i mean. i could short stack buying in for 120 at 3-6 without ever dropping 10k. there is no doubt in my mind, and it would easily get 3 ptbb. which is PLENTY to build on. once the roll hits a bit more you can start full stacking and stretch it to the 6-7 ptbb range and be right back on track to robustoness. holla

[/ QUOTE ]

This is an interesting approach that I hadn't thought of. I have no idea what the variance is playing this way, but it does make sense to me that 83 buy-ins or whatever would carry an extremely low risk of ruin. Good point.

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haha yeah if u use any game selection at all you can find the tables where ppl reraise a dece bit pf, and get your money in good wayyyy more often than you should. i thought about being like 'o rly i cant have better than 10% with 10k at 3-6? really? i bet 2095802938958295 that i can.' blah blah blah, then mentioned short stacking. coulda been entertaining seeing everyone argue with me then i drop it. but yeah if i really went busto i would have no problem whatsoever shortstacking. but ill never go busto so w/e. holla

[shaniac]

Raptor, you are just describing how easy it would be for YOU to rebound if you ever go broke.

But your tone makes it sound like you speak for all winning poker players, when there are tons of pros who don't have your discipline, your stamina, or your skills. We know you're an exceptional player, but it's almost like you're not aware of that. The kind of stuff you have accomplished, as well as the pitfalls you seem capable of avoiding, don't come as second nature to all players the way it does to you.

You also seem to forget that you were able to enter the poker world at a really young age, when you were able to absorb tons of information and process it correctly, without having time for bad habits to form. You seem like a good kid, but you are either unaware or chose to not ackowledge that poker (including b-roll management, etc) amounts to a struggle for a lot of people who don't fall into the Under 21-y.o. Genius 2+2er category.

[cero_z]

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OK you were 75% in almost all of them. Lets just create a simple model where you were 55% to win in all of them. So the chances of loses them all are

.45 ^ 60 or

.0000000000000000001558657976916843360832062017400 8 %

Can you see why I think you are exaggerating?

[/ QUOTE ]

Sigh. I went back to look at my PT data quickly, and I DID EXAGGERATE. This was over 2 days in March of this year. When I sorted for the biggest pots, I found 51 that were 200BBs or more. I was 9-42 in those pots, so you are right; I was wrong by quite a bit when I said that I lost every one. I didn't go through all 51 hands, but I reviewed the first 15 of them, and I was a substantial favorite in every one. I'm speaking from memory, and I recall at the time that I went through every single big pot that I lost, and that I found only a couple where I was less than a flip to win (the aforementioned failed semi-bluffs). I also remember the number of big hands I lost very clearly as 60, so I assume that there were others that were less than 200BBs which I counted at the time.

I apologize for speaking inaccurately; I believed I was being accurate, so I don't wouldn't call it a lie (and I realize that you only said it was untrue), but I'm sorry that I didn't check things more carefully before making that claim.

In any case, I'm going to assume that the odds of going 9-42 in big pots as a favorite in nearly all of them are also prohibitively small, if less than one in one quintillion. That doesn't mean it can't happen to you. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

edited to change "42-9" into "9-42" lol

[Twentysack]

I know people have made this point, but I just want to say that it is REALLY hard to move down in limits after dropping a chunk of your BR at a higher limit.

When I busted a 30k roll last year I had shot up through 5/10 and was playing 10/20 with a 15 buyin roll. After I had dropped 15k of it I had taken a 2 week break, but after I came back went straight back to 10/20. Now I have terrible discipline, but poker players by nature are a very proud group, like someone mentioned some regulars dont have the roll for higher stakes yet still play in the games. Whos to say someone with a huge roll, 100+ buyins cant lose it after getting an extended period of bad luck in a high variance game and then refusing to drop down.

[Matt Flynn]

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I've been struggling with what to put in the-book-formerly-known-as-SSNL volume 2 for a discussion of bankroll requirements and when to move up.

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I'd like to see some definitions of what bankroll is included in your book. Every single time the issue comes up on these boards you get all sorts of different answers because it means different things to different people.

Some examples of if you play X hands/ in Y period of time with Z winrate then you should expect an assreaming of -A dollars every B time period based purely on variance alone. Add in that tilt/bad play and possibly bad game selection usually accompanies said assreaming and its easy to see how particularly bad stretches are possible.

I think its pretty funny that some in this thread dismiss cero's tales of bad variance and woe. Its clear they simply haven't experienced a truly bad run yet - not suprising if you only have a few hundred thousand hands under your belt. Numerous respected posters and top longtime winning pros have noted they've gone thru gigantic losses. time and variance.

-g

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gergery,

Probably a tedious answer for you. I have strong bias about the definition of bankroll. My bankroll is what keeps me in action. That is entirely money that I've earned playing poker. A lot of money flows irrevocably each month from bankroll to house funds. In addition, bankroll has loaned the house money - specifically to pay down a HELOC when the HELOC was in use. House gets the interest savings for free as part of the flow from bankroll to house. But that's a loan. If I go bust, I write a check from House the bankroll to cover the loans.

If I go poker broke, I would not take more than maybe $500 a month out of income to play poker. I would treat it just like a golf hobby. After a few months of losing I would likely quit save for the occasional small-stakes foray. Actually not quite, because several people would stake me. That's important, because I could rebuild far faster with staking.

So in return I ask what is a pro? In effect I have a partitioned financial life: working man and poker pro. Like any pro, if I lose my bankroll, I face a full rebuild. Unlike a no-job-having pro, I do not risk my livelihood or have to get a job and change careers if I go poker broke.

So for me, bankroll is that money which keeps me in action plus the goodwill/respect that would get me staked. I would not borrow, so that sector's out.

For a no-job-having poker pro, I would define bankroll as whatever keeps you from having to get a job. That's clearly whatever funds you would expend and loans you would take before getting a job. Add the goodwill/respect of backers and potential backers.

Liquid vs. illiquid is less interesting. The loan question is very interesting.

That match your definition of bankroll?


As for downswings, I also believe people grossly underestimate what can happen. It's not just the all ins. Opponents have the deck hit them at the wrong time, you miss extra flops, opponents sense your rhythm, you lose all in conflicts, or you run KK into AA an "impossible" number of times playing shortstacked over a few thousands hands (my personal favorite), and you are going to take a massive beating.

So the argument becomes one of optimal dynamic allocation of bankroll. Do you make some fake assumptions about variance and derive from there? Do you approach it heuristically? Do you make a wild-ass guess? Are the three techniques really that different?

One thing for sure, when making a wild-ass guess for bankrolls, you should err on the side of caution.

[PartyGirlUK]

Cero - that instinctively seems possible.

Matt - please clarify what you would define as being properly bankrolled for a level?