Ray Zee on NL bankroll requirements

[VivaHate]

I suppose that experience shows you that you can get through a downswing and still bounce back. Do you think being overrolled helped you to cope during the tough weeks? ie not missing out on +EV situations due to fear of getting sucked out on.

[JackAll]

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71/2 buy ins wow guess times have changed in six years.

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Not really. As Pzhon will tell you, the conventional wisdom of 20 buy ins at NL is very conservative for a solid winning player.

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roflburgers. you have no clue or are levelling. I can't tell which.


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I hit a 20 buy in downswing. Up until this point, in 3 1/2 years of playing full time (30+ hrs/week), the largest downswing I had ever had was 10 buy ins, and this happened once.

Sometimes, rarely but sometimes, you just run siiick.

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Yes, sometimes you have 20 buy-in downswings, particularly in tough games. However, did you break even in all of the years of play before that downswing started? A solid winner should have been up over a thousand buy-ins at that point, so you should have been prepared for a 20 buy-in downswing. If you started with 10 buy-ins, that 20 buy-in downswing should not have busted you.

A bankroll is not supposed to be larger than the largest possible downswing. A safe bankroll gives you a low risk of ruin, but part of that comes from saving some of your winnings.

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Your roll should be separate from other money you have - whether you got it from poker or anywhere else.

Who cares if you are up a thousand buy-ins. If you spent it, it's gone. It has no relevance on your current bank roll.

It's what you have as a current roll that matters. If you have 10 buy-ins and lose that, you are BUSTO. This should never happen, which is hy 25-40 buy-ins is a basic minimum in no limit. The laggier you are, the closer to 40-50 it should be. A nit can stay at 20.

[Gonso]

Assuming you don't ever want to move up, and I think that would be a bad assumption in most cases. A lot of players are trying to turn grow their BRs to the point where they are BR'd for the next limit. A player constanty cashing out everything in excess of his original BR will bv have a higher RoR

[JOHNY CA$H]

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I suppose that experience shows you that you can get through a downswing and still bounce back. Do you think being overrolled helped you to cope during the tough weeks? ie not missing out on +EV situations due to fear of getting sucked out on.

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Yes... and how. I mean, even if I just had 30 buy ins, a 20 buy in downswing would probably have driven me to find new work, and I'd be manning the Mickey Dee's drive thru right now or something. Again, I want to stress that this type of thing is RARE... but if you are playing full time for a long period of time, it very well could happen to you at some point. Ive heard of many pros talking about hitting that ""monster downswing", and I think I get it now. That's the psychological test. I think I would keep a 50 buy in roll, but that's just me.

[BankItDrew]

i have a 113 buy in roll

[pzhon]

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71/2 buy ins wow guess times have changed in six years.

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Not really. As Pzhon will tell you, the conventional wisdom of 20 buy ins at NL is very conservative for a solid winning player.

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roflburgers. you have no clue or are levelling. I can't tell which.


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I'd bet a lot of money on neither. Your rudeness is far out of line.

20 buy-ins is overly conservative for solid winners in low stakes game. Binions should have restricted the statement to that context, but in this context, low stakes games include the vast majority of poker games, and include levels where people make $70/hour (with normal, not outrageous multitabling) and total over six figures for the year.

People often mention 20 buy-ins and 300 BB in the same breath. However, 20 buy-ins is much more conservative for a solid NL player than 300 BB is for a solid low stakes limit player. It depends on the stats, but the analogue may be 10-12 buy-ins. I believe that most of the people parroting bankroll guidelines they have heard do not realize that these are so different.

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I hit a 20 buy in downswing. Up until this point, in 3 1/2 years of playing full time (30+ hrs/week), the largest downswing I had ever had was 10 buy ins, and this happened once.

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Actually, if in over 1 million hands of NL$200+ those are the worst downswings he encountered, then he is a great poker player or was quite lucky. Possibly both.

This doesn't mean someone playing NL $25 needs $500 to have a low risk of ruin, or can ignore a 5 buy-in downswing. Even 5 buy-in downswings at NL $25 should be rare.

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Who cares if you are up a thousand buy-ins.


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Just about everyone.

A 20 buy-in downswing will happen eventually. It matters whether your first 20 buy-in downswing will probably happen soon, or after you are up a few hundred buy-ins, so that saving even a fraction of your winnings will probably keep you safe.

[binions]

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71/2 buy ins wow guess times have changed in six years.

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Not really. As Pzhon will tell you, the conventional wisdom of 20 buy ins at NL is very conservative for a solid winning player.

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roflburgers. you have no clue or are levelling. I can't tell which.

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I should have resticted my comment to most live full ring games. There is more variance in short-handed games.

Plus, the top players win more per 100 hands in full ring live action than they do online full ring at the same blinds. Corollary: the same player would likely be a more marginal winner online than live given the same stakes. Marginal winners need more bankroll than a solid winner.

Based on my current live ring game stats, my quarter-Kelly Criterion bankroll for 5-10 NL/PL holdem would be ~$7200, right about the $7500 Ray Zee suggested.

[JLimbs]

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i have a 113 buy in roll

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...

[binions]

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i have a 113 buy in roll

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Some marginal winning players might need this large a roll or larger.

For losing players, no roll is sufficient.

[JPFisher55]

For online poker, how about 15 buy-ins per table played? I am winning player about 2-3 BB (4-6bbpt)/100 hands. Games are $.25/.5 and $.5/1 NLHE.