Hey guys,
After living the dream poker wise the last 3 months, I want to cash out some of my bankroll.
I wanna leave however enough for me to continue grinding the 3,50, 7$ 45 man as well as the 2.50$ 180 man.
After reading on the subject, I came up w/ a bankroll of 700$ which should do the job just fine IMO?

What are your thoughts?

leave enough money in your account that you still have those 700$ left after two complete -100% ROI sesions.

The kelly Criterion is useful for bankroll management purposes.

It is mathmatically sound in principle but is derived from sport betting so has some shortcomings in regards to poker.

1. ABI effects expectation ( we can expect lower roi in higher buy in tournamanets due to better competion, this is not true in sports betting if you bet 10x the amount your expectaiotn doesnt change)

2. Some bad variance may effect your game and make you play worse. ( this could happen to a sports better but far less likely to be significant)

3. The formulae needs an expected roi. If you have been grinding 3 months you can have no idea what your true expectaion is. ( forgetting changes to player pool and our own game througth the sample).

ok its not perfect but still useful is estimating required BR. I mean look at the shortcomings of icm we coould least ten probably and still damn useful.

More improtant then the math -Do you have another source of income? Do you have dependents? are you prepared to ruin? Could you rebuild if needed? What effect would the process of either coming down in stakes or busting have on your expectaiotn and over what period?

You probably wont find a reg on here to say $700 is enougth but it depends on you and your circumstances.

I was massively underrolled for a while I did all the math but assessed my likely risk of ruin as not being that significant to me and wanted to maximise my expectation. I work full time as well as we have no mortgage. Im now slightly underrolled again as bought a laptop to play through a period where PT4 failed on my computer. Not being able to play was effecting my expectation and i also wanted to ensure i could play through my 2 weeks of work. These were my circumstances and effected my BR decisions.

IMO. Most regs B.R. opinions and guild lines they quote on here assume poker as only source of income.

Whats your average BI and do you have other source of income?
I would say that 700$ is enough, but then i again i suppose 50+ BI downswings are not uncommon in either of these formats even if you have positive expectation, and what happens then to your confidence/BR/do you move down. How prone are you to losing and running bad?
Whatever you decide, gl

It is good that you are thinking about BRM. A BRM plan is going to be quite personal and suitability will depend on quite a few factors that will vary from individual to individual.

You haven't given anywhere near enough info but before providing any more use the search facility to look up lots of other BRM threads.

One point in your OP is that you imply you have been playing for 3 months and this is too short a time to get anywhere near to an precise roi for you. You will likely need a decent estimate of this to decide on a plan.

I would assume that so far you have been on a bit of a heater, I don't want to sound disrespectful but it is the most likely reason for doing well in the early stages of a poker career. I don't mean to say you are a fish on a heater it's just that you may be good but have hit a nice streak at this early stage.

One of the general BRM issues and important to remember is that on such plans you should drop down in stakes if you hit hard times. Typically the more willing and faster you are willing to do this the more you can push your bankroll. The sooner you drop the less time you need to recover and bounce back to the higher level.

Any sized bankroll is not enough mathematically to get through the worst possible downswings.

$700 gives a br of 280 BI's for the 180's, As a warning a player with 20% roi (this is very good nowadays) will hit a 280 BI downswing somewhere in any new 5000 block of games 10% of the time. If this occurs at the wrong time eg shortly after you cash out it will wipe out this BR. (If a player is only 10% roi this chance jumps up to 35% in 5000 games, 180's are brutal for swings)

I know this has been covered in numerous threads, but a lot of them date back in the time. What do you think would be somewhat decent sample to input in Tournament variance calculator to calculate possibilities of swings u mentioned? 1k, 2k, 5k games?

The more games the more likely you are to see such a swing, just be aware that they will happen and react well to them. Some players do spiral down due to hitting a bad stretch, but if you drop levels if necessary and also check your game you can get through them and usually come out stronger.

I did some calc's for how likely they happen and these can be found for many sizes through this link page here
http://www.deucescracked.com/blogs/b...ability-Graphs

Thanks for the link, i usually use PokerDope calculator, but these graphs look nice too.

Perhaps something I should add is that if you want to know your roi with a confidence and calculate it by using your return over x thousand hands it works out that to get about the same level of accuracy in 180's as STTs you need about 12x the amount of games.

If you think 5k STTs games gives you a decent estimate for roi then 5k x 12 = 60k games for the same accuracy in 180's. 180's are variance monsters!
5k games gives about your roi +/3% CI(90%)for STTs
60k games gives about your roi +/3% CI(90%) for 180s

Every time you get 4x the number of games you will half the CI, so here 20k games of STTs would give ~+/-1.5%, again12x ie, 240k games would be needed for 180's to get such a narrow CI.

So what you are saying is, that most players will probably never play enough games to know their true ROI and some might be simply running hot/cold?
Encouraging, aint it?

Damn!!! didnt know it was as high as that i thought 10k sample would give a really good idea of ROI. That means we never have a good idea of our ROI in 180's as our game will of changed as will the player pool over the time it takes to play that many games. Makes me think that by the time a 180 player played enougth games to mathmatically assess with any accuracy his expected ROI all he is really assessing is what hes roi has been on average over that period of time and that would therefore still only be a loose indicator for the future?
What about ways to assess expected roi with acceptable error bounds? Not a maths wiz but like accepting a greater level of inaccuracy? Say i dont need to know my roi just say show there is a 95 % chance my roi is between 10-35%?

or even something like this

95% chance that our roi is between 10-35%
80% // 14-28%
65% // 18-21%

Think a series of indicators like this would still be really useful. im thinking a bar with a green yellow red yellow green. or even more zones.
Reading this im sure you will have no idea what im talking about but i dont have the lingo to express my thoughts any clearer. for the first time in my life i wish i went to A-level math instead of dropping out after 2 weeks doing nothing but playing cards in the common room.

Well, in a way we all will never truly know this and it kind of depends how accurate you want to be and what information you use. If you are a bruiser with 30%+ roi you don't mind too much as at least over a few thousand games you are very likely to be positive although bad runs still hurt. See the blog posts referred to below.

If a good player reviews your play then they can often give a good indication of likely roi by analyzing a large group of the hands played.

If you also monitor things like your allin 'luck' factor you may be able to narrow the confidence interval a bit. Running hot and not doing well for roi would indicate your roi in a normal luck state is lower.

Using just the game results will never be very accurate and most 180 regs probably don't know quite how variable 10k+ games can be.

If you only use the info of your actual results it depends how good a confidence interval you use - 90% CI is fairly common. If you played 10k games of 180's the 90% CI will typically be around +/-8% and this would mean if you repeated this 10k game experiment again from scratch you should expect your roi to be within this band 90% of the time, occasionally being either higher or lower. It will always be very hard to be precise and in practice the field of players get better over time, you improve hopefully.

Another eye opener about big field Mtts is to read NoahSD's fab blogs about life as an Mtt grinder!
http://www.nsdpoker.com/2011/01/mtt-pros/

I am stunned by what I have read today.

While I'm on a roll but still drifting off topic.
I'll give some more info that might help with some general decisions.

Which is better for 'smoothness' over time, playing 10 tables simultaneous at 10% roi or 20 tables at 5% roi?

The tl,dr answer is 10 at 10% and I'll try to explain why.

Lets say we play 10 games per hour or 20 games per hour, as we get 2x return per game for the first we make the same amount 'in the long run' so does it matter?

Well if we play a block of 5,000 180 games at 10% roi per hour we should see (from the graphs earlier) 50% of the time a 240BI downswing.

In exactly the same time period we will play 10,000 games at this faster rate and in this case at 5% roi we see a 370BI swing 50% of the time during this time period.

Overall we are earning at exactly the same rate and so typically you will see a bigger swing also it will actually take longer to earn your way out of it. It takes 370/240 times as long to recover.

Don't think that I am against playing many games just aim for max roi per hour and even then it maybe better to hold a game or two per hour in reserve. The other advantage for this is you can usually learn more by playing less. Oh and I guess this will prove I cannot possibly be considered a shill for Pokerstars as playing the maximum for break even would be perfect for them. Even if you get back some in the VIP scheme they are the ones taking the lion's share.

If you swap 10 for 20 but still earn the same you are effectively increasing the gamble - sometimes you will get lucky and do well and sometimes you won't. It is a way of increasing your variance and as a 180 player I guess many of us really like high variance!

Ive read through that blog from Noah SD you linked basemetal.

Very interesting and very scary. One thing baffles me he has filtered for field sizes of 181+ but no where does he mention average field size. Unless i missed it but cant see it. Surely this information is particularly relevant when assesing ones Variance?

And now im realising how good ive been running, and there is a very good chance im just a fish on a heater.

remember from Inglorious Basterds how Cristoph Waltz aka Hans Landa says

BINGO!
I mean, i am by no means a crusher, but there are some games i can beat on a regular basis, but since i have only played like 3k of them, i might just be a fish on a heater hehe

I think OPR only puts results into 46-180, and 181+ bands. I guess in order to show how crazy it can be he used the 180+ data and reasonably narrow but high buy-ins $55 to $216. I don't think he could get any more precise data.

Shaun is clearly a proper full on bruiser and during the set of 3049 tournies he got a fabulous 81% roi.

But from the post earlier we know 3k tournaments are a pretty small sample even for 180s so there is a pretty good chance Shaun was on a bit of a heater (still great though - the 90% CI for this is about +/- 20%). Apparently he is excellent at the HU stages though and he also does manage to get HU quite often.

The graph on the first Noah article for 1000 Shaun Deebs does show what would happen if he did have an 81% roi and even with this there is a decent chance of some really bad years.

This just goes to show that big field games are very tough variance wise and you should prepare yourself for some bad times if you are going to try to use these as income.

I think another thing that sometimes gives people an overly optimistic view is that the top pages of the leader boards have some players with 40%+ scores. The thing about leader boards though is that you either have to be at genius level or lucky or preferably both. At a true 30% roi and playing 10k games the 90% CI spread is +/- 10% so if there are 200 players at this quality the leader board will be filled with the lucky ones showing an roi of say 35% to 40% while there are the same quality players also playing 10k games but down at the 20% to 25% level.
Well it's great to be on a heater, and I'm sure you aren't a fish, with the work you put in you will be able to survive through any lean times.

I still am also pretty bad at MttSng's although it is still early days - I am currently trying to climb my way out of a 600 BI downswing in 180's. Well I say downswing, I haven't actually played enough to know if I am truly +ev in them but I am back to positive again. As yet I have only put in about 10k games and during the first 5k I did slip 5 million chips under adjustedChipEv, I think this does account for some of the -600BI's although it is quite difficult to be sure.

Thanks for all your posts Basemental as I am obsessed with poker if I ever decide to pursue it as my main income i will now have my eyes wide open.
Im hoping when the inevitable bad patches come using hrc to analyse the push fold parts of my sessions will mean the bad swings wont effect my game to much. Also knowing all this means I wouldnt take poker on as only source of income untill i was seriously rolled including life rolled, and these reserve funds will help me through the lean times (hopefully).
Im looking for a new job more 9-5 and less hours so hopefully i can increase volume which will give me a better estimate of what my expected ROI and also fingers crossed increase my roll. (As well as i will be able to play at the softer times.)
My C net is above my adjusted c net yours does seam seiously sick man congrats on perservering and playing through it.

I'm trying to cut down on 2p2 posting but what you are looking for are called "confidence intervals". Hope that helps you find something.

Yep thats is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking of. Just not displayed the same as in my head. I think they allow people like myself who have other incomes to make better BRM decisions. And also stresses the difference using poker as only source of income would mean.

Im happy to make BRM decisions based on a CI of 70% but if its was my only source of income i would be looking at 95% CI at the very minimum when making BRM decioson's.

hey,

I don't want create new thread but want hear what you guys think about theses bankroll rules with my results. Mainly worried if not too aggressive for expected swings and going broke/needing stake. 90's ko seem pretty high variance, however not sure if higher then 180man using same BRM as 180man, not sure if that true. 200bi for 45man and 300bi for 90/180man.
How common is more then 200bi swings? I have been on 200bi swing at 2.50 once but i have heard moshman on PS saying there is good players nowadays loosing 1k on downswing in 2.50 games in his stable.



Results:


I believe my re-buy results is closer to true because mix of non re-buy/1 re-buy strategies additional to full re-buys.

Cheers.

I checked post "Kelly Criterion for MTTSNGs" and based on it my BRM seem pretty conservative.

Im no expert especially on BRM but yours BRM approach seams decent to me. I mean if this is your main source of income then a conservative approach is the way to go right? And like i say im no expert but it doesnt seam all that conservative to me.
I would roll myself similair to this if playing for main income, assuming adequate life roll.
I personally wouldnt read to much into unknown stabled guys going down 400BI. I mean they may be ok but having a high roi makes you much more resilent to downswings. They may have people in stable who have a theoretical say 10% expected roi. Personally ive found lots of people who are stabled at the 180 man who have leaks or are exploitable because they play in a very straightforward manner and dont seam to adjust to well to table dynamics. I may be being unfair and they may be playing 24 tables but i doubt it and that doesnt really change the point im trying to make as either way they have a lower roi so are more susceptable to a downswings.
Are you sure your ABI on the 3.5 rebuys are accurate? Mine is defo higher but i do double buy in always add on and double rebuy if do go busto.
Take everthing I say on BR as opinion based only I think BRM decisions should be particular to the individual. yes a knowledge of Variance and how significant it can be is important but equally important are other factors.
Are you able to accept some risk of ruin? Do you have any other incomes? do you have large living expenses? are you sole earner? do you have dependents? do you have reseve finaces? and if so for how many months could these support you? How susecptable do you believe yourself to be to downswing tilt?
Just my 2 cents and ive only been studying BRM strategies and variance calculations for a couple of months. I wasnt going to comment but as no one else has thought i would give my thoughts.

Hey URagnatha,

Thanks for input. Great information and lot things to think about.
It make sense that theses 400-500bi swings is for staked 24 tablers and if i play 12 tables there is lot lower change getting that high swings.