the bankroll rule of thumb

[rogue8]

do you like 300BB in limit and 10max buyins for NL?
or 500BB and 20buyins? or more?
ive heard many say more, but to me if you lose more than 300BB chances are you are doing something wrong. more than 500? thats 20buyin loses with no wins! thats alot. what do you think?

[Gonso]

Three easy steps, no math involved:

1. Figure out your winrate with Pokertracker, preferably over a sample of hands 60k or so at a given limit. You have to be a winning player, of course, or no bankroll is safe. If you want to plug in a safe number -again, assuming you're not a losing or breakeven player- use 1/100.

2. Find out your standard deviation/100, again found in PT.

3. Figure out the risk of ruin you're willing to accept. 5% is fine if you're not playing for a living. This reflects the probabilty that you will still lose your bankroll due to variance. The lower your RoR, the "safer" you will be, but will require greater bankroll.

Plug it into a decent online calculator, such as this one. Then you'll know where you're at.

The more accurate your WR & SD figures are, the more accurate your BR figure will be. I used to accept a fairly high RoR to move up limits, but have stopped moving up in order to bring my RoR to 2%. You might be fine at 10%, it depends.

If you have doubts about your WR, or if it's even positive, don't sweat it... it might take a few bustos to get the hang of it. You can replensih anytime if you have to/

J

[Gonso]

Cliff's Notes:

Your BR requirements depend on (1) the variance you encounter in your play, (2) your level of ability, and (3) the amount of risk you're willing to take. 'Rules of thumb' for BR's are based on someone else's situation, and may be wrong for you. If you play micros, you might even want 50+ buyins.

[rogue8]

i play 3060 but have been reading about high limit players are experiencing 600+BB downswings. more than once. to me thats sick. i havent experience anything close to that in 3 years in the middle limits. but its making me think about dropping back to 15/30 to be extra safe. but seriously, i think if anyone lost 24 standard buyins without winning, something is wrong.

[Gonso]

[ QUOTE ]
i think if anyone lost 24 standard buyins without winning, something is wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well you don't have to lose all 24 sequentially to go busto. Also keep in mind there are micro limit games where players could have insane standard deviations (like 100BB/100 SD insane), where 24 buy-ins might be a little light for a modest winner. Other guys can go to town with a dozen buy-ins.

[rogue8]

lol yeah good point they dont have to be sequential. but it seems odd you can be a winning player with that big of a downswing. in lower looser games i can see that bc of the variance, but losing like 20k playing 15/30 for example, something is wrong. also i understand that high limit games the edge is much smaller, and the players experiencing these huge swings are online players multi tabling. im sure that has something to do with that. but i can believe losing 1000BB is normal or expected eventually. even HU LAG players. (well maybe)

[Gonso]

Well I don't know how 15/30 plays since I don't play that high, but I can't imagine it would be all that hard to drop 20k just due to variance alone. I'll leave that to higher limit guys to comment on, I don't know.

I wouldn't be comfortable at 10/20 with a 20k roll, though, let alone 15/30.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]

in lower looser games i can see that bc of the variance, but losing like 20k playing 15/30 for example, something is wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is backwards.

The variance per hand is not much different between typical small stakes games and typical mid-high stakes games. Multiway pots increase variance, but in looser games, players also tend to be less aggressive, which decreases variance. These factors may not precisely cancel, but it's close enough.

The main issue is the decreased win rate expected by winning players in tougher games. The same is true for 6-max games; the variance is only slightly larger, but many people don't know how to win as much/at all in short-handed games, so they experience large downswings.

[ QUOTE ]

also i understand that high limit games the edge is much smaller,


[/ QUOTE ]
That explains it. You might be able to pound a $0.50-$1 microstakes game for 5 BB/100, but don't expect much more than 2 BB/100 in some small stakes games, or 1 BB/100 in some high stakes games. For the same variance per hand, cutting your win rate in half doubles the number of BB required for the same level of safety.

It's bad for people to apply stories of high stakes downswings out of context to try to tell low stakes players that they need ridiculously large bankrolls, and that a 200 BB downswing could easily be just variance. It depends on the win rate and whether your balance is really most of the money you can afford to put into poker. If you lose 200 BB to players who don't know the rules at $0.50-$1, this is a strong indication you have huge leaks in your game, but it's also not a life-changing disaster, so a competent player doesn't need more than 200 BB on hand at that level.

[El_Hombre_Grande]

I wholeheartedly concur regarding the nonsense of comparing micro-limits to high limits with respect to the possibility of going BUSTO and the RoR. An ABC player with some potential can form themselves by reading 5 great books and committing themselves to playing right, and probably never have a 200 BB downswing in the .50/1.00 world simply because their winrate should be comparatively high and their opposition relatively weak. And, to go busto only means an extra shift or two at Taco Bell, and then you are right back to the Books and right back in action. And I agree that anyone who looses 300BB at microlimits should first look to their game before crying variance.

At the upper limits, it is a different ballgame entirely. You simply can't (or mere mortals like myself) can't achieve winrates like a microlimit God, and thus variance is huge, real, and omnipresent, especially if you have come to actually rely (gasp!!) on the real money successful real stakes play can provide. And thus the overall necessary bankroll is huge, real and omnipresent as well, and success means existing on this razor's edge. Most of your leaks are tiny compared to the ones you first fixed, are far less obvious. But more inportantly, the RoR is REAL, as opposed to pretend. You would have to work your "shift or two" as the third baseman for the New York Yankees to replace your proper 30/60 or higher roll. And I can't hit a curveball, so it would be back to Taco Bell permanently for me. So the next time you hear a completely mathematical analysis of RoR, please kindly smile at the wonk providing it and ignore him accordingly.

[AKQJ10]

I think the whole thing is entirely a subordinate topic to the question of what stakes I (or anyone else) can beat.

It's not that it's not a valid topic for a theoretical discussion -- it assuredly is -- but so many people focus on the wrong questions that I don't even find them that interesting.