8k Post - Microlimit bankroll: The misunderstood game of poker (tl;dr)

[vixticator]

Forgot to answer these questions.
[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?

[/ QUOTE ]Deposited $100 about 4 years ago and somehow managed not to go broke before learning anything about bankroll management. But have been practicing it for the last 3 years or so. Ever since I discovered 2p2. I cashed out $1000 at one point. Left $200 to gamble with and rebuild a roll, I regret doing this immensely to some extent but building it back has been a challenge. I'm now hovering between $650-$1k and have grinded up from $200 last year mostly in SNG's at $5nl. Recently became interested in getting back into limit due to struggles tilting at 25nl.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?

[/ QUOTE ]I agree. To some degree I want to just deposit like $5k and take a shot at playing 3/6 semi-professionally or whatever but I don't really have that kind of money laying around so I'll try building from the micros up instead. It's taking quite a long time which is why I regret cashing out $1k last year. Also I have no idea if I could actually beat 3/6. Probably not.

[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]Dealing with the worst variance in my 4 years right now actually. It's quite stressful. But I have also been on the other side and winning basically every pot I played for a week. So, I understand the swings. Just have not entirely come to grips with it. The last 5 months or so have been my most active ever, I am taking the game more seriously now and trying to build it up and hopefully get to a stake that I could make decent money with each month. I do play for entertainment but winning is very important to me, or getting better I should say. Ideally I am not still playing .5/1 or 1/2 this time next year but if so, I can live with that.

[bennyhana]

Here is my start from this old thread.

[ QUOTE ]
2005 My first major poker year.

I had a back injury at work on Jan 12 2005, and that put me working nights. I'd just been playing recreationally for about a year online. Jan 23 I get home from work at 12:45 and play in a $2+.50 MTT on Pacific @ 1am. 300 players and as soon as I made the money, I was on a rush from hell. Had my first (and only) Royal. I won that for a cool $300. That was about 1000% of my online BR at the time. I donked around with that for about a month while working nights, then withdrew $200. Feb 23 was my last day of nights, so the next day, I decided to do this limit thing, and do it right. Bought Poker Tracker, SSH and deposited $100 at Paradise for my first Bonus Whoring venture. I played about 6K hands of .10/.20. When I got to $150 I moved up to .25/.50. I played 10K hands of that and cushed it for 5bb/100. I hit the $500 mark and moved to Empire and a r******k deal.

Since I wasn't working, I kind of treated Poker as my 'job'. My wife just loved that. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] Anyway, since I was losing about $200 a week on workers comp, I made it my goal to earn $50 a day. Either from bonuses or winnings or unmentionable. That wasn't hard to do, so to help out at home, I paid my boat payment with poker money. (still my only real concrete goal)

May 9 I had surgery on my back. This is about the time I moved to Empire. I had been posting a lot here and knew I was learning more and more. I had dabbled a bit at .50/1, but didn't like my results. So I started following my stats from then on. What a difference. I knew I could beat that game, I just needed to get my head on straight.

I hit the 300BB for 1/2 around June. I'd heard about how 1/2 was a rock garden, and how 6 max was the way to go, so I played a little of both. I won more at 6 max, but didn't like the swings. So I played around 10K of 1/2 and hit the 6 max tables occasionally and took some shots at 2/4.

I had a few MTT cashes along the way, and did well in SNG's, so my roll was growing quite nicely. I went back to work on Oct 19.

Then November came. I'd played about 80K hands of cash game poker. Read about downswings, but never had one. Then November came. I couldn't win a hand to save my life. I was totally lost. 2 decent tourney cashes made me break even for poker for that month. Thank God for bonuses.

I spent most of December trying to get out of my funk and decided to play 2/4 exclusively. That is a horrible limit for clearing bonuses, but i stuck it out and made good.

All in all, 2005 was an awesome poker year for me. I met some awesome poker players on this site, played in some fun 2+2 games, and got paid for my favorite hobby. Not to mention all the quality poker swag. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

I have proved to myself that I am a winning poker player. Does that make me in the top 5% of players? I don't know. I know I know more about poker than my buddies I play with once a month. But I don't think I know half as much as some of the posters in this site.

Many thanks to all the higher limit guys, who still slum with us in the Kiddie Pool. I couldn't believe it when I found this site, that people were so willing to share their knowledge of the game. The micros really do rule.

In 2006, I want to play 5/10 with a decent winrate. Will it happen? I don't know. I've got to get through 3/6 first. I also plan to play in more tourneys this year. I would like to cash in one of the big Sunday tourneys at least once. Oh, and get an iPod for my daughter with Stars FPP's. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

<font color="white"> this BTW is my longest post ever. </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, what a difference 2 years can make.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?


[/ QUOTE ]

Most of these answers are up there.

Right now I am enjoying rb at FTP, playing 2/4 3/6 and 5/10 on a limited, but reloadable, br. (~1300)

With my winnings...lol. vacations, computers, electronics, boat, wheels for my truck, golf gear and green fees, yada yada.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?


[/ QUOTE ]

My br philosophy is the classic, don't play with money you can't afford to lose. Poker is a game, it's supposed to be fun. If you aren't enjoying yourself while you play, you probably can't afford to lose what you are playing with. I got a small stake earlier this year from a friend in another hemisphere. I was glad he had enough faith in me, as well as trust, to loan me the money, and I hope he would do it again if the need arose. I got to play again, but it was kind of tough playing with someone elses money. I didn't know what I would do if I went busto, and I was fing close a couple of times. Anyway, I grinded (??) it back up and settled with him and decided to play on my own dime.

I look at poker money like it is bonus money. I don't need it, but it sure is nice to have. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img] If it all went away, no big deal. I would miss playing, but I've made a ton more than I have deposited.

[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't had many huge bad variance runs. I think the 300bb rule is a pretty sound rule to follow for a newer player, or someone who can't reload and depends on the $$. I've pretty much played on 200bb since I moved up to 2/4. I think having too big of a roll made me play too loose. If I put some pressure on myself, being on a short roll, I played better. This is still true.

My online roll went to 0 after the Fristing, but I was kind of burned out anyway and didn't really care. I had taken most of it out for the micro Vegas trip anyway.

Still only one Royal Flush. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[scpi10]

I'm definitely the person this post was intended for. I have been playing online for almost 10 years. I've made 9 or 10 deposits of $200 on 4 diffrent sites. I went bust every time because I never used BR management.

When I started there were no microstakes. I was fresh from playing 3/6 at Turning Stone Casino in upstate NY, so I decided to deposit 200 onto paradise. I sat at a 3/6 table, played for a few weeks then busto. I redopsited, sat 2/4 but it was the same outcome. This time I decided to quit.
I took a few months off but got the itch again. For the next 2 years I'd do the same thing 4 or 5 times.
I quit but couldn't stay away. I tried pokerstars instead. Same thing excpet this time I was playing NL instead of limit.

I never actually new what real BR management was until I found 2+2. Actually I never new what PT, rakeback, or bonus whoring was until last November when I met another 2+2er who pointed me in the right direction. He got me to play limit again after I explained I couldn't take the large swings of NL.(I was still playing too high so it was really hard to cope with the losses.)

I never considered how big your BR should be in relation to the stakes you're playing. I've always wanted to make money doing this but I've never been good enough. In fact while writing this I've realized I'm playing at a level my BR can handle but that it's above my skill level.

As far as BR philosophy I had none LDO. I do think yours is perfect for anyone who plans on playing online.

[Smarazza]

Great post and wonderful replies. Thank you guys.

[neurotiq]

[ QUOTE ]

Still only one Royal Flush. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't gotten any. Aren't those things only supposed to come around once in every 650K hands?

I'm doing better in the straight flush category; somehow I managed to get two of them in on 70K hands (statistically, I should have only seen one, I think). [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[TimovieMan]

First of all: SUPERB post, Aaron! That stuff really is golden, and a must-read to anyone playing poker semi-seriously.


[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?

[/ QUOTE ]
I've only started playing poker earlier this year. I knew the rules of draw poker and the hand order, but that was it. I knew enough to understand what was going on in Rounders when I first saw it, but that was long enough ago to have completely forgotten about Texas Hold'em since.
And then it hit me again in Casino Royale. It looked like I'd never seen Hold'em before (Rounders was but a distant memory), but I got the rules after the first ten minutes of movie poker.
Since I'm a real moviegeek (hence the nickname), I spend lots of money in the theater and buy lots of DVDs each year. So I started thinking: "what if I invest only a small amount of $, and gamble it up to something that can sustain my DVD and other movie-expenses without actually having them "cost" me a good month's salary each year?".

And there you have it: my entire motivation for learning and playing poker: paying for the further expansion of my DVD-collection.

I started with an amount I was very much prepared to lose without it hurting me. But I only started playing for real money when I was convinced I could beat the game at low stakes AND clear some bonuses on the side.
So I started with reading and studying before I took real money to the online tables. (Live tables are impossible for me to find in Belgium, and I really don't feel like driving a good couple of hours to poker rooms in Breda, Holland, so online's all I got...)
When I played my first real money hand, I had already made sure I had PokerTracker and PAHud running, as well as a good knowledge of SSHE (I'd already adopted Ed Miller as "my personal hero"), and I was already lurking here. This was in July.

I took 200$ to Pacific, played for a few weeks, but found it impossible to clear the deposit bonus, so I cashed it all back out, and went to Stars.
I played a lot of .25/.50 in August and September. Maybe some of you have seen me there - same nick and avatar and everything (yes, I'm one of those dumbasses that doesn't change them). When I cleared my deposit bonus, I'd made a small bit of profit, and figured that was enough to attempt .50/1.00. Needless to say, I was underrolled, and got my ass handed back to me, raped. Fortunately I knew when to call it quits and I basically only lost what I had won at .25/.50 + my deposit bonus. So again I cleared everything out and now made my move to Everest (thanks to the wonderful 5 Free 2+2 Books bonus).
That was near the end of September and that's when I got real serious about the game. More learning, more analysis, plugging some leaks (getting my WtSD% down for instance), etc.
That's also when I starting noticing I was actually improving. It was no longer just tight play.
So I saw my initial 100$ (I kept 100 back for other sites) grow, and when I reached 250, I cashed out 150 and kept playing with the rest (which is now 250).
When my bonuses were all cleared (and I got my books!), I put 100$ at PokerRoom, for an additional 5 books... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Now I've got 250 at Everest and 160 at PokerRoom.
The idea is to go incremental: when I reach 1000, I plan on cashing out 500, then when I reach 2000, cashing out 1000, then at 4K, cashing out 2K, etc.
But that's still a long way to go, and I'm not planning on moving up soon. I'm enjoying myself at .50/1.00 at Everest and .25/.50 at PokerRoom (though I'm not staying at PokerRoom, just 'till I clear my bonuses).

And the winnings are still intended to go towards my DVD-collection, although I must admit that watching DVDs has been moved to the background ever since I started playing poker more seriously... [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]


[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?

[/ QUOTE ]
I totally agree with everything in the first post. My own philosophy is that everything I win should be seen as an "extra", I'm not planning on using it to pay rent or whatever, that's what my job salary is for.
I'm also trying to stick to a bankroll table I made, telling me at what bankroll I should move up or down. But I think I'm gonna go with an overroll from now on.
Last month I experimented a bit with NL, 6-max, SnGs, MTTs and the likes, and although I broke even with SnGs and MTTs, and I won at NL more or less the amount I lost at 6-max, I'm definitely sticking to full ring limit. It's what I enjoy the most, and that's still the most important part.
It was a good thing that I cashed out my initial deposit at Everest (+ some profit). At that moment it became less "playing with money" and more "playing with chips". I'm now less edgy when the bets go up, or I have a bad session. It's no longer MY money, it's now just winnings and thus FREE money. That in turn has made me (hopefully) a bit less weak tight at the tables...


[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]
I made a table telling me at what roll I should attempt to move up or down. I have difficulty staying true to it. I know I can beat .50/1.00 so I start there immediately, even if I've just deposited and am underrolled for it. I haven't had any downswings yet (fingers crossed), so it always worked out. I am however sure that I'll really move down when things are bad. I know I've got a huge ego, but I can still command it... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
And I'm not attempting anything higher than .50/1.00 until I've got some decent roll to support that. Last month there was a particularly juicy 2/4 game at Everest, lots of fish from the .50/1.00 stakes, 45% VP$IP, and I took a shot at it with 50BB (200BB at my normal stakes). And then I got outdrawn every single time, missed my draws, went with Kings against slowplayed aces, basically one seriously messed up session and I lost my entire buy-in.
If that didn't hit the "don't go up until you have the roll AND skill to stay up"-button, I don't know what does...

As for now, I intend to keep clearing the "5 Free 2+2 Books" bonuses until I've got an entire 2+2 library, and then I'll probably keep playing at Everest, Pacific and Party, slowly building my roll, and cashing out parts of it whenever I hit a certain mark.
Moving up will depend on how confident I am that I can beat that specific limit, even if that means playing overrolled at a lower limit for far too long.
It's still all meant to be fun - and slightly lucrative on the side. I'll see...

If I ever get good enough to consistently win more at poker than I make at work, I'll be happy to go pro, but I'm not counting on it.
One can dream, though... [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]



Well, did THIS end up being tl;dr, or what??? [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

[tiltaholic]

aaron, good post on many levels.

ooh questions are fun:
[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll experience? When did you start playing poker semi-casually? How much did you start with? Where are you now? What have you done with your winnings?

[/ QUOTE ]

started w/$150 at party in the beginning of 2004. lost $125 at 5+1 limit SNGs (lol) and .5/1 full ring games.
somewhere found 2+2. stuck to lhe ring games. had a lucky winning streak @ .5/1. got better. won monies. moved up. quit playing almost entirely after that law, and also to find a real job. never spent my bankroll, except to buy a wife (er, ring) and fund a retirement account.

[ QUOTE ]
What is your bankroll philosophy? Do you agree with me? Disagree? How do you look at your poker money?

[/ QUOTE ]

i viewed my bankroll as a way to finance my moves up in limits. thus, it was never spent.


[ QUOTE ]
What are your struggles with your bankroll? How have you dealt with bad variance? Have you ever been close to busto? What did you do about it?

[/ QUOTE ]

i never really had these problems. i think i was extremely lucky. i also think i stopped playing/moving up around the time i reached a limit where most of the players were better than me otherwise i would have experienced a "move down".

[JavaNut]

Very nice Aaron.

I began playing about 2 and a half years ago, loading an account on PokerRoom with $100. Within 3 months this was gone (after being up to $200+). Added another $100 cleared the bonus and have not looked back since. I have withdrawn about $1.500, lost about $300 playing live, so I have a net withdrawal of about $1,000. I have a current roll of $800 spread over several sites. Plus I have got 5 2+2 books as bonus, sweet. A good portion of my winnings is bonus about $850.

Of course have I dreamt of playing professional, but I don't think I will ever be in a situation where it will be a real choice for me.

I was at one stage trying to build a larger bank roll, but now it is not that important to me, I am comfortable playing at levels suited to my roll. So I guess that when (or if) my roll gets above a certain level I will just cash out a bit of it.

So to put a point on it, my roll is only there to allow me to play poker (in principle without paying for it, other people pay me for playing) therefore I take care of my roll as I do not want to have to add money.

My current project is to improve my SNG play, trying to increase $60 by playing $1.20 SNGs. The aim is to be killing $5.50 SNGs, $109 SNGs is far out of my aim. At the same time clearing small bonuses here and there.

So all-in-all I agree with you all the way but I would like to add one little thing, and that is the initial investment. Unless you want to be a 'burn $50 once in a while' player you need to risk something in the region of $200 to have a solid initial roll even playing at very low limits, to prevent you from going broke while you adjust to playing real poker and to taking care of your roll. It will take time, you will tilt, you will leave tables too late etc. so you will need a big roll not to go busto before you learn how to handle both up and downswings. That initial investment is needed to be able to become a casual player. (You can of course sacrifice a small amount before trying to become a casual player to get a feel of if you are even close).

[elindauer]

Hi Aaron,

Really fantastic post. Well done.

-Eric