MTT Bankroll Management, 180 mans, 45 mans, etc.

[jme1222]

Hey everyone,

I know this has been posted time and time again everywhere on the internet, but I have been having trouble finding good answers through the search feature so I'm posting here.

Last night I scored my biggest cash with a win in a $22 180-man, completely underrolled.

I've had problems using proper BR management in the past and would like your opinions on how to manage my new BR playing 45s, 180s and bigger (300-2000) person tournaments on pstars.

I've heard everything from 30-100 buy-ins for each of these and I would like to start playing right so I don't ever go bust.

What number of buy-ins would you recommend for non-turbo 180 mans? I have 50 for $22s, is that risky? when should I drop down?

I have 90 for the ultra variance $12 turbo 180 mans..

should I have 100 buy ins+ for tourneys with more than 100? 200? 500? players.

and finally the 45 mans, turbos and non turbos, what are your thoughts?

I know this is a lot of questions and answers will vary but I would appreciate anything you have to offer. Thanks much!

-jme

[Quicksilvre]

Someone who has more experience with MTTs will have to give you the complete answer, but 50 buy-ins for the $22s sounds like it's pretty good, as long as you've been profitable playing MTTs at that level in the past.

[nuts]

The bigger your edge the smaller your bankroll cushion needs to be. Obviously a losing player won't ever have a large enough roll.

[Quicksilvre]

[ QUOTE ]
The bigger your edge the smaller your bankroll cushion needs to be. Obviously a losing player won't ever have a large enough roll.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right. Hopefully MTTers will chime in.

[jme1222]

[ QUOTE ]
Someone who has more experience with MTTs will have to give you the complete answer, but 50 buy-ins for the $22s sounds like it's pretty good, as long as you've been profitable playing MTTs at that level in the past.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've had success in 45 mans and small success in 180 mans. My roi in large MTTs is negative, but 10-30% roi in smaller MTTs

[ QUOTE ]
The bigger your edge the smaller your bankroll cushion needs to be. Obviously a losing player won't ever have a large enough roll.

[/ QUOTE ]

winning gradually. 10%?

[checkmate36]

You could always play lower stakes until you get a nice sample size to see if your even a winning player.

If your not a winning player, no bankroll will be big enough and this strategy will allow you to play longer while you learn how to win.

Read the FAQ's of the various MTT boards here at 2+2

[pzhon]

For a wide variety of advantage gambles, you need a bankroll of about c * SD^2/WR.

SD is your standard deviation, which would be about 1.7 buy-ins for a single table tournament, but is higher for a multitable tournament. If you assume that your place is chosen randomly in a PokerStars $11+$1 180 player tournament, your standard deviation is $58 ~ 4.8 buy-ins. Standard deviations also vary based on your skill level. If you make the final table more frequently, this is a good thing, but your standard deviation will increase.

WR is your win rate. You should express it in the same units as your standard deviation, buy-ins per tournament. No one can tell you what your win rate is because it depends on your skills, although you can look at the MTT FAQ for some suggestions of achievable win rates.

c is what I call your comfort level. It depends on your personal risk tolerance and ability/willingness to move down when you hit a downswing. Most people are happy with a comfort level between 2 (aggressive) and 4 (conservative). If you stay at the same level without withdrawing, your risk of ruin is about e^(-2*c) ~ 1/7^c. This is a slight overestimate for this type of advantage gamble, where you risk a small amount for a large potential win. You can actually decrease your bankroll requirements by a few percent from what this model recommends, but this is negligible in comparison with the uncertainties of the other quantities.

If you assume that your ROI is 50%, and your standard deviation is about 6 buy-ins (corresponding to cashing 16% of the time instead of the par of 10%), and you choose c=3, then your bankroll should be 3 * 6^2 / 0.5 = 216 buy-ins.

This is much higher than what is commonly recommended. I'm afraid many of the recommendations are based on unreliable anecdotes involving players with different skill levels and different sizes of tournaments. It is hard for one player to play enough multitable tournaments to estimate ROI properly and to see the swings that can occur.

One way to see how long it can take to see a profit is that the profit of a player with a 50% ROI is roughly equal to the player's share of first place. All of the other prizes go to pay for the entries.

Smaller tournaments have smaller standard deviations, and tend to require smaller bankrolls despite the lowered achievable win rates.