Bankroll Management Basics

[diebitter]

The standard line in no-limit full-ring holdem is to play at a level where you hold around 20 buyins. So at nl2, it's $40, at nl5 it's $100, and so on. That's if you're a 'winning' player. A losing player can't have enough, he'll always go broke.

This 20 BI protects you against variance. Whilst NLHE is a game of skill, it still relies on random cards, and it is possible to be a great player, and still come away empty handed from a session - because of the cards. The river can be cruel. Example: I was all-in against a guy, I was holding QQ, the board had Q77, and he flips over 88. Unbeatable, right? Nope, the turn gave an 8, the river brought another 8. It happens. With 20BI, this is an annoyance, but not too hard to move past. With 6 buyins, this is enraging. Stick to your 20 buyins.


I would suggest a semi-conservative strategy of moving up when you have 30 buyins at a given level, and dropping if you lose 5 (maybe less) of those shiny new buyins. At nl100 and above, I'd move up with 40 (or more) buyins, and drop if you lose 5 of those new buyins. Higher, you probably want even more buyins to stop you playing scared poker. Here's what it looks like:


LEVEL Bankroll
nl2 0-60
nl5 50-150
nl10 100-300
nl25 250-750
nl50 500-1500
nl100 1000-4000
nl200 3000-12K
nl400 10K-


and so on. If you're looking above 400, you already know what buyins you want.

This is all relative, and some play with buyins way above this. I've heard of guys playing nl200 with a $50K roll. I personally will be back to nl200 when I hit 2K, but that's me, I don't feel scared at that level. (I only single-table at that level, which also makes playing underrolled not too big a deal).

This is more for the multitabler, and single-tablers who do well at it can do it on slimmer numer of BI, as long as they are disciplined and move down when they need to.


One thing to note among you micro-guys. Be extra careful moving from nl10 to nl25. The games are much different. In my experience, the difference between nl10 and nl25 is bigger than the difference between nl25 and nl100, it's that big a jump. So do lots of thinking, studying and stick to single-tabling when you move from nl10 to nl25. You're going to see way less multiway pots, way more Heads Up.


One other thing, an alternative strategy for moving up the micros is to move up on a slim BR, but 'pull the ladder up behind you' if you do okay. An example is if you're playing nl10 and hit $150, you might want to try taking a shot at nl25 (taking a shot means trying it for feel, as opposed to permanently moving up if BR allows). Okay, do that at your peril, but say you get lucky, and find yourself winning and climbing up to $220 (say). Here, don't make $150 your fallback to nl10 limit, increase it to $200, so if you drop below $200, you go back to nl10, and you're still ahead, right?


For those of you playing shortstack (who haven't gone crazy yet), then the buyin you use here equates to your buyin as listed. For example, if you buyin short in nl200 for $50, use the buyin range for nl50.

Comments, questions, corrections, additions please.

[Landlord79]

QFT!

How long have you been working on that one, it was very thorough and well organized.

[Steelerman]

Nice job Carter. I think the most important thing is to just be comfortable. Everybody has their own comfort level. Me, I'm super conservative so I toil away at NL25 even though I could play much higher according to my bankroll. I simply don't have a high enough winrate at NL25 to have confidence that I am ready. The key is to just know yourself.

[the_main]

I've never shortstacked, but I think the variance would be higher because you'll find yourself in a tonne of coinflips.

I'm ignorant of the subject, but I'd think I'd want about 50buyins.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
I've never shortstacked, but I think the variance would be higher because you'll find yourself in a tonne of coinflips.

I'm ignorant of the subject, but I'd think I'd want about 50buyins.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's wavy, but if you play it without deviating from core standards, the trend is ever upwards. The lower the game, the less wavy it is, and the steeper the upward graph is.

If you deviate AT ALL, you introduce a ton of variance (say you start including raising with AT from middle cos the game is so right, that's a big relative jump in the number hands you're playing). This means a significantly bigger BR to handle.

I would never deviate for this reason.


I only play it for 2 reasons. To keep me really keyed in to proper Shortstack play so I can spot and kill those shortstackers that don't play properly (most of them), and to build BR in a steady, boring way.

[King Spew]

Thanks Carter.... nh.

[ QUOTE ]
I've never shortstacked, but I think the variance would be higher because you'll find yourself in a tonne of coinflips.

[/ QUOTE ]

Shortstacking is a profitable way to take shots. The higher you go, the LESS likely a full stack will tangle with you on a draw or small pocket pairs so you have a TON of extra FE. Use it, abuse it.
Shortstacking does require a better than average skill in hand reading IMHO. But it's only one street of hand reading (PF and flop) making this easier for the guy moving up.
One of the MAIN FEARS OF MOVING UP is that villains are more likely to be playing air/making moves. <font color="blue"> While this is true </font> , it is not something to fear as a shortstacker! Villain KNOWs he can't bluff you out of a hand because there isn't the "Hammer of Future Bets" hanging over ever decision as there is if everyone is deep. So villain is in a tough spot.... his CARDS have to talk for him and 7 times out of ten, he knows he's behind if he gets in a pot with you. AND HE WILL HAVE TO SHOW.

While I agree with Carter generally here, I believe playahs need to constantly take shots. Set aside Tuesday as Take-A-Shot day.

Take shots if you currently hold 10+ BIs at your current level.... you really need to have this much behind to avoid playing with stupidly scared money.

*Play normal level for your first hour. Play as close to nitty TAG as you can. Be aggressive IP, fold just about everything OOP.
*Second hour, buy-in short at your next level. But I recommend a modification to the "Official" shorty strat. Buy-in to about 40BB. It really is No-Man's land... a place where you don't want to normally play.... it will help you focus a bit better because there IS (but just a little really) a chance of The Hammer. Play tight nitty just like the past hour. NO FPS. Just focus on reading the table. Run goot/run bad.... doesn't matter. I prefer running goot.... SO I PLAY LESS HANDS. It's amazing how 'well' you play when you play the least. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Now here's the key... and I'm not great at this one. After an hour, up or down, get out and go back to your normal level. Don't stay because you are on a heater. Don't stay to chase your losses. Get out, Get out, wherever you are. Then look forward to next Tuesday when you can rinse and repeat.

Here's some math. You play 25NL with $250.00
You play 50NL one table BI for $20. Within the first fifteen minutes, you lose your stack set over set. You BI for $20 and play the next 45 minutes OK, catch a coupla hands and end with $32.00
Your total BR is now $242.00 You lost $8 that hour. No big deal really. You've played 25NL with less [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Let's say you lose both BIs. Well, it's time to limp back and regroup. You still have 8+ BI for 25NL, not great, but playable IMHO. Regroup, profit alittle over the next week and try again.

I think taking shots improves play as long as you try to remember that everyone can have FPS,,,, just not you.

[Done like Dinner]

I totally agree with the 20 BI limit before jumping up into another level. I just went through a very poor bank management session this week where I had cashed out about 4 weeks before and short stacked myself down to 50$ from $1300. Variety of reasons I cashed but mostly because of bills and I had been running really poorly and wanted to get money off line before I got caught "making it up"
Started $50 and ran it up to about $600 (playing real solid pkr) on 25 and 50 NL (I dont find 50NL different from 25 as the skill level is the same). Sat down last night and said "Let's make a shot at 200NL." I know I can play there as I have made a significant amount of money this year in that stakes. However KK vs 22 equals 600 &gt; 400. Tilting a bit I miss a flush draw with AQ suited (flop 2c3c5H bet pot, 2 callers, turn 4, push two callers again for 800pot, and one 67 str and one 6 high str with my flush draw missing riv) and down to 200 in about 1 hour. Now a few more hours and I am busto online.
Take it from Carter, even if you are running hot make sure you build up your bankroll before making your shot. You will be sorry if you dont! Just ask me.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
You will be sorry if you dont! Just ask me.

[/ QUOTE ]

And me. I've built up $100 to 1K three times in several weeks, and then bustoed back to the hundred by jumping into nl600 games. I am very cross with myself, cos I could have been rolled for nl100 or nl200 by now. How terrible at BR am I?

This is really a thread of 'do as I say' not 'do as I do'.

[raistlinx]

I think it is important to distinguish between bankroll management for maintaining and bankroll management for moving up. For example, suppose you had to withdraw 95% of your bankroll to cover some emergency. Should you start grinding it out at NL2, then NL5, then NL10 building up and moving up when you have 20 BI for the next level if you were previously playing NL200? Of course not.

When your goal is to move up in level (and you feel you are ready) it's important to take shots ASAP. I like following Chris Ferguson's idea of having no more than 10% of your BR on the table at any given time. With a $2000 bankroll, you could 1-table NL200, 2 table NL100, 4 table NL50 and so on. If you follow this 10% rule and are diligent about never putting more than 10% of your roll on the table at once I think you will fare better.

Now, once you reach a level you plan on maintaining (at least for the present time) we can do better than the "20 BI rule" or the "I like 50BI" thoughts. We can mathmatically calculate how big a bankroll we need based on how willing we are to go broke.

Suppose your win rate is 2ptBB/100 (a moderate win rate) and you have a STDDEV of 40ptBB/100. You now need to ask yourself how willing you are to go broke. Let's say you are single and play poker for a living and decide you would accept a 5% chance of going broke. The formula -(SD^2/(2*WR))*ln(RoR) will give us this.

For this example: -(35^2/(2*2)) * ln(.05) ~= 900 BB so you would need about 18 buy-ins to ensure you only go broke 5% of the time.

What if we play for fun and would accept a 25% RoR? -(35^2/(2*2)) * ln(.25) ~= 425 BB or about 8.5 BI

What if we support a family and want even less risk of going broke. Say we will only accept a 0.5% RoR: -(35^2/(2*2)) * ln(.005) ~= 1600 BB or roughly 32 BI's

How much of a bankroll you need depends on a lot of different factors. You have to consider how much risk you are prepared to accept and how good a player you are.

Also note than this formula assumes you know your true win rate. Since you don't your BR requirements will fluctuate so you have to use your best guess at win rate. There is a formula in The Mathmatics of Poker that deals with uncertain win rates if anyone wants to look deeper.

Also note that if you are prepared to drop down in levels your BR can be much smaller.

[TheProdigy]

I was going to tell you that you should be watching your own advice, but I guess you already know that [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Well done though! I am one of the nits with bankrolls and play 100NL with 100+ Buy-ins(Although only 80 on the site as I constantly cash out since I don't really need it all on the site..I am going to cash out 2k more and then I am just going to keep the rest in there and keep building instead of cashing out, and then I can comfortably play 200, 400 etc)

Edit: Was responding to Carter btw