hey guys,

i just need some quick advise, im now rolled (22bi's) for the next stake but ive only played 7k hands at my current stake but have won 15 bi's. is it ok to take a 5bi ish shot or grind out a bigger sample first.

fwiw my current stake is 10z and i would be moving up to 16z.

thanks

It depends from your BRM strategy. Lets assume you are having a 30 + 4 BI BRM strategy. This means you are having at least 30 BIs for the current level (NL10: 300$) and additional 4 BIs for the next upper limit (NL16: 64$), then you can take a shot. Taking a 4 BIs shot is considered as aggressive shot taking. I would advise you to create such BRM strategy and then stick to it.

I'd recommend taking a shot. You can always just move back down if you lose 3 or 4 BIs.

Shots are definitely worth it, especially when you feel stuck at a level and want to move up.

Now a days i think people have tighter BRM like i see people who won't move up until they have 50 BI's or so for the next stake, maybe coz they also withdraw and play for a living but anyone else have opinions on this as well?

If you've never played 16nl b4 i would prolly recommend a very tight BRM strat because u don't know if u can beat it so ur risk of ruin is greater, @ the lower stakes like micros it's fine to be a bit looser with BRM tho

You can always split your games - when I was moving up in STTs way back when and getting towards where I could play a higher level I'd do a set with two at my current stake and two at the higher one

I always use:

(standard deviation ^ 2) / (winrate x 100) = the min number of buy ins needed

(This can be extremely swingy)

As soon as I have the minimum needed to move up I do so. I see a lot of people saying to take a few buyins worth when taking a shot, but I don't agree with that. As soon as I lose the buy in amount of my previous level I move back down.

For example

*I need 20 buyins as my minimum.
*I was playing at 25nl and my bank roll just went up to $1000 which is how much I need to play at 50nl
*if I drop $25 ($975) I drop back down to 25nl

The reason I drop down at that point is so I only need to win one buy in at 25nl. That way I can try taking a shot at 50nl quicker than if I lost multiple buyins. Yes, I could try and grind out a few extra dollars at 25nl before taking a shot, but once again that just prolongs how much time I'm at 25nl when I want to be at 50nl.

On a side note as it wasn't mentioned in your op, but I feel like it should be included in BRM, I suggest keeping money you have designated as profit but not yet withdrawn out of BRM equations. If I have $1000 in my roll, but I know I'm taking out $200 soon, I'm using $800 as my effective bankroll. How much to withdraw though is another topic and I digress.

Awsome post haha

Think this is a good site, haven't had time to use it http://pokerdope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

So if you dropped 1/2 a buyin at 50nl you'd move back down to 25nl? Doesn't seem like much of a shot. That said I would never knock anyone's approach. Just seems like a limiting way to structure it. At the same time you're not far away from you next shot attempt so that's a plus.


I've always been extremely aggressive working through the micro stakes. Whenever I've been in a position to move to the next limit I like to give myself 4-6 buy-ins. That's just personal preference. The key is if I lose that amount I want to be left with around 30 buy-ins for the level I'm dropping back down to. That way if I'm on a downswing I still have a buffer between the previous level and the one below that.

Yeah I think people get overly conservative with their BRM. I can't fault them too much about it as it is at least a safe way to play poker, however it just makes more sense to have flexible BRM. With a flexible BRM, you can move up more quickly and it just doesn't make sense to get caught in the rake traps.

Moving up to a stake at 20Bi and then moving down when you lose one is a bit insane. It forces you to adjust too often to the players at two different stakes and creates a more difficult situation. Plus, you can lose a buyin in a heartbeat.

I like the idea of just making sure I always have 20BI-30BI for the next lower stake. On my last downswing I dropped down at 15BI (which was 30BI for the next lower stake), once I got my crap together at the lower stake then I moved back up. I had less than 20BI's for higher stake, but I had over 30BI for the next level down so I felt fine.

It doesn't make sense to not be flexible. The worst thing that can happen is that I end up at the lowest stake with 20-30BI and then go broke, and that would take a lot of bad luck once I've moved up several stakes.

To the two replys above:

By using the formula above I'm currently running with 9.4 buyins minimum needed to advance to the next limit. I wouldn't call that conservative haha. Losing 2 or 3 buy ins at the new level is enough to drop me down 25-33% of my roll.

As I said previously, using variance/winrate can be very swingy. A 10 buyin up or down swing is not uncommon and can easily move one level 2 limits in either direction. Limiting how much I put towards taking a shot helps reduce that swing a bit.

I know I said I wasn’t going to go into withdraws, but I feel like I should since it does go with this. There is a lot of talk about BRM, but not much is ever mentioned about withdraws. Some players lose it all and have nothing to withdraw. Others hold on to every cent trying to move up limits quicker and never withdraw after bouncing at whatever buy in they get stuck at. I see other players with huge rolls for the limits they play at where they withdraw funds but never try taking shots anymore.

My goal is to reward myself for the time I put in, through upswings and downswings, while still being able to take shots even after I found the level I’m skill matched for.

The way I pay myself is to withdraw half my win rate multiplied by the number of hands played at each level since my last withdraw. Excel makes this easy. This way I get paid during upswings and downswings. At the same time I am always putting money aside to add onto my roll so that I am able to take shots at the next limit.

Obviously this only works if you have a positive win rate.

I've wondered how people who play poker as their primary source of income go about this. As a recreational player I keep a minimum amount of buyin's for the level I'm at, say it's 40 BI. At the end of the month anything above that amount I pay myself with. So If I'm up 20 buy-ins for the month I'll deduct those and I'm back to my 40 BI starting point. If I end below my 40 buy-ins I'm paid nothing. Fortunately I'm at the point where I'm ready to start paying myself.

I didn't read your post very closely, but your example poses a relatively odd attitude by moving up @ 20BI and then back down at 19BI. I wasn't sure what the normal SDs were in particular so I couldn't correctly assess the normal amount of BIs that you'd use to move up and just assumed per your example. So, whatever, just a misunderstanding of the normal size of standard deviations.

I do however think however that normally having some type of buffer range between limits is smart, so that you don't have to move back down after losing a single buyin. It may be a consequence however of that formula that you are forced into eliminating a buffer.

Anyway, just ideas. I find most people's ideas of BRM are without compromise between being too risky and being flexible enough to move up at a faster pace. It is obviously more important to move up quickly when you are stuck in high rake micros as opposed to higher level games that can produce substantive profit.

I try not to withdraw much money while I am building a bankroll for the simple fact that it isn't the time. I can withdraw money when my bankroll is large enough to sustain withdrawals.

also you would like to playsame numbers of tables and games as you did in the level below imo