Never Going Busto

[flippetyflop]

Hi Folks, Just A Quickie.


Basically about 7 months ago I went on a really sick tourney/cash game run and spun up my bankroll of $190 to $15000 in the space of about 2-3 weeks. However due to playing above my limits/impatient and tilt I went BUSTO in an even shorter space of time.

7 months later I have now $4000 dollars in my bankroll and am intent on not making the same mistake again. I've gained a little bit more exeperience, play better than I did before and I tilt a lot less.

The question is I want to only play at levels which ensure that my risk of busto is near minimal....should I be playing 1/2 dollar heads up cash games with only 23 buy ins..is this advisable?

If I decide on mainly playing MTT's what sort of buy in should be my maximum? Is it advisable for example for to be playing in 69 dollar tournaments?

[TrvChBoy]

One good measure to avoid getting broke is to always play for 5% of your bankroll. If you roll is $4k, play $200 tourneys. If your bankroll goes up to $10k, play in $500 tourneys. If your bankroll goes down to $1k, play in $50 tourneys.

I play in $2 tourneys, so you know what my online bankroll is... but hey, I have not gone bust!

[TrvChBoy]

Oh, and if you want more sophisticated advice, read Fortune's Formula (Poundstone) which talks about the Kelly Criterion for maximizing profit with minimal chance of getting broke in +EV situations.

[dfwdevil]

[ QUOTE ]
One good measure to avoid getting broke is to always play for 5% of your bankroll.

[/ QUOTE ]

Woah now, slow down. The rule isn't "always play for 5% of your bankroll" it's "never play for more than 5% of your bankroll." And that 5% isn't some figure carved in stone. A lot of players would recommend 2%, especially considering that the OP, no offense, has already pissed away a 15k roll once before. He pissed it away like it was nothing so I think he should consider himself as being on probation, big time, and that means he's going to, if he knows what's good for him, resist his natural tendency to play higher and higher limits in search of the next biggest score. He's going to do the opposite, and purposefully force himself to grind it out for a little bit, until the idea of having a few thousand isn't so exciting to him.

OP, it's the deer in the headlights syndrome. Don't lose your 15k roll before you find out what it's like to play poker correctly with a 15k roll. And don't lose your 4K roll trying to make it a 15k roll. Don't "do" anything with your 4K roll. Immediately upon making a big score is not the time to switch limits or change your game. Play small and if you're going to make moves, do it a few weeks or months down the line.

[Gonso]

[ QUOTE ]
The question is I want to only play at levels which ensure that my risk of busto is near minimal....should I be playing 1/2 dollar heads up cash games with only 23 buy ins..is this advisable?

[/ QUOTE ]

Phzon will probably pop up anytime now, but before he does, 23 BI for HU NLHE is a disaster waiting to happen. I suspect you grossly underestimate the variance for HU of all things.

There are more than enough occasions where 23 BI might do for regular FR or 6-max games, and others where it's not nearly enough.

I'm okay with 23 buy-ins because I'm doing ok at my current limit, I'm able to drop down if need be, and I don't depend on the income anyway. I can replenish if I ever get short with outside income easily.

[ QUOTE ]
If your bankroll goes up to $10k, play in $500 tourneys. If your bankroll goes down to $1k, play in $50 tourneys.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think this is bad advice as well, especially if you're talking about MTTs.

[Vetgirig]

To insure one nearly never go broke I suggest a 1% rule. I.e. play with buy-in of 1% of ones bankroll and never ever play for more than 5% of the roll on a day.

Playing $200 turnaments with a $4K bankroll is a disaster waiting to happen. With a $4K roll an average buyin should be $40 and one should never play tournaments for more than $200 per day.

Even though I myself has an ITM% of over 20% it does happen that I have 10 turnaments without getting ITM at all remember normaly 10% gets ITM every tournament so 9 out of 10 players get OTM every tournament. So if one play for 5% of ones bankroll every turnament - its very easy to have lost 50% of the bankroll in a week. With a 1% rule one just lost 10% of the roll in a 10 OTM turnament period - and one can still continue to play the tournaments one are used to playing.

The bigger the bankroll is compared to ones buy-in the less one need to go down in levels when one is on a losing streak.

As for your question regarding playing $69 turnaments, it's not something I would normally do with a $4K roll. But I would play them from time to time say like once per week or so.

[TrvChBoy]

[ QUOTE ]

Woah now, slow down. The rule isn't "always play for 5% of your bankroll" it's "never play for more than 5% of your bankroll."

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the Kelly Criterion says when you have an advantage (you are +EV), you can maximize your profit by putting a carefully measured, yet substantial portion of your roll in play every time.

That is why I sugggest players always play 5% of their bankroll when they know they are +EV. If they are negative EV, or they don't know the EV, they should not play at all, or they should play very little and consider the losses as "tuition".

It depends on a player's motivations...

Players interested in increasing their bankrolls and moving up to bigger games should invest a decent amount in each +EV game they are in. Not investing enough in a +EV situation is an error that will cause them to have lower winnings in the long term. Not investing enough is kind of like Warren Buffet buying US Savings Bonds. Sure, he won't go broke, but he will give up billions in profit by investing so timidly.

Of course if a player's primary goal is to not lose their current bankroll, then they should play as low as possible. Ideally they would only play freerolls.

Disclaimer: OK, I'm going to go play in a $4 SNG now.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
To insure one nearly never go broke I suggest a 1% rule. I.e. play with buy-in of 1% of ones bankroll


[/ QUOTE ]
The number of MTT buy-ins you need to have a fixed ROR is not a fixed number. It depends on your ROI and the size of the tournaments.

A general rule which applies to a wide variety of advantage gambles is

bankroll = comfort * SD^2 / ROI.

SD is your standard deviation. For MTTs, this dependds a bit more on your playing style than it does in STTs. A 9 or 10 player STT has a SD of about 1.7 buy-ins across a wide range of skill levels. A 180-player tournament may have a SD of about 5 buy-ins for an average player, but 6 buy-ins for someone who cashes evenly 16% (to have a 50% ROI) instead of 10%.

ROI is your win rate, which is hard to know exactly, but can be estimated. You should use the same units as the SD, so you can express both in $, both in % of a buy-in, or both in buy-ins.

Comfort is a factor which depends on your person risk tolerance and your ability/willingness to move down when you have a bad streak. Most people are happy with a value from 2 (aggressive) to 4 (conservative). Comfort is the reciprocal of the Kelly fraction. If you stay in the same game without withdrawing or changing stakes, then your ROR is about e^-(2*comfort) ~ 1/7^comfort.

For examply, if you are playing 180 player tournaments with a ROI of 50% and a SD of 6 buy-ins and use a preferred comfort level of 3, then your bankroll should be at least 3 * 6^2 / 0.5 = 216 buy-ins. 100 buy-ins would be extremely aggressive, giving you a comfort level of 1.4. Generally, you should prefer not playing if your comfort level is below 1/2 of your preferred amount, and you should often play something else when your comfort level is just about 1/2 of your preferred amount.

[ QUOTE ]

and never ever play for more than 5% of the roll on a day.


[/ QUOTE ]
There is little reason for this. It's all one session. The number of hands/tournaments per day should not directly affect your chance of busting out.

The number of hands/tournaments it takes to make breaking even 2 standard deviations below par is what I call the long run. Limiting the amount you play in a day does not change the number of tournaments in the long run. It makes the number of days in the long run longer.

Actually, it can harm you if you are drawing fixed expenses such as a monthly rent out of your bankroll. One way to account for this in the formulas is to decrease your win rate. If you decrease the amount you play, you have to decrease your win rate from each tournament by more.

[ QUOTE ]
As for your question regarding playing $69 turnaments, it's not something I would normally do with a $4K roll. But I would play them from time to time say like once per week or so.

[/ QUOTE ]
Again, this doesn't agree with expected utility. Generally, you should have a range of bankrolls where you would be happier playing rather than not playing, and a smaller range where you would prefer playing a $69 tournament over a $30 tournament, it both are available. If you would be willing to play one $69 tournament, then unless you are within a few hundred dollars of the boundary of the range, you should probably be willing to play 10 $69 tournaments, even in the same day.

I follow this when I play satellites. The main question I try to answer is whether they are worth playing or not. Generally, if it is worth playing 1, it is worth playing 20.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Woah now, slow down. The rule isn't "always play for 5% of your bankroll" it's "never play for more than 5% of your bankroll."

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the Kelly Criterion says when you have an advantage (you are +EV), you can maximize your profit by putting a carefully measured, yet substantial portion of your roll in play every time.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, the Kelly criterion says to maximize the expected logarithm of your bankroll. Consequences include that if you can scale your advantage wagers, then you should scale them to about edge/variance. That is not a fixed amount. It depends on your win rate and standard deviation.

Putting 5% of your bankroll into play is conservative for an expert if that is a full buy-in in a low stakes NL game. Putting 5% of your bankroll into play is exttremely aggressive for an expert in a low stakes SNG, and even more for a MTT expert. For 5% to mean the same, then if you win 7.5 PTBB/100 in a full ring NL game, you need to have a SNG ROI of about 60%, more than triple what the SNG FAQ says is achievable in very low stakes turbo SNGs.

A marginal winner, or a player in tougher games, can't safely risk as much as a solid winner or a player in softer games.

[ QUOTE ]
That is why I sugggest players always play 5% of their bankroll when they know they are +EV.

[/ QUOTE ]
The amount by which you are +EV matters a lot.

If you use a fixed number of buy-ins across all stake levels, you are essentially saying that your ROI is the same whether you are playing 80% fish or 80% semi-professional players.

[ QUOTE ]
If they are negative EV, or they don't know the EV, they should not play at all, or they should play very little and consider the losses as "tuition".

[/ QUOTE ]
I agree. Bankroll management is for winning players who don't want to redeposit. If you aren't a winning player, you should set a budget.

[ QUOTE ]

Not investing enough in a +EV situation is an error that will cause them to have lower winnings in the long term.


[/ QUOTE ]
I agree. Bankroll management is not about minimizing your risk of ruin. To minimize your risk of ruin, quit poker. Bankroll management is about finding +EV opportunities with acceptable risks.

[BLdSWtTRs]

if u dont want to go busto cut out multitable tourneys and start multitabling .25/.50 NL online