what do you use for a minimum bankroll? i know that the old standard was 300 bb's, but that doesn't take into account actual winrates and std dev's and accepted ror. and the online br calculator takes those things into account, but doesn't take dropping in limits into account. with the abilty to drop through, 10-20, 8-16, 5-10, 4-8, 3-6 and 2-4 (online), what would you recommend for a min br for a 1bb/100h winrate?

BR is a personal thing. What does ruin mean to you? Do you withdraw? How hard is it to come up with buyins?

If you're a rec player who can move down, check out a case for aggressive BRM by Xhad. If you're playing for a living and want to see how paying rent affects your RoR, Leader had a great post on sssh. Hope it is in the faq.

To calculate your RoR you need WR and SD. You didn't mention fr, 6m, or huhu. You did mention 1BB/100, which is likely harder than you think these days.

I made a post about this a while ago. Like Doug said the limit matters. If I was playing small and could replenish my bankroll working than 300 bets is reasonable, although I think 1k bets is best for online games.

Here are some comments I previously made on the issue:

The thing about Brm that lots of people don't consider is their bankroll isn't their true bankroll. For example, lets say we play live 100-200 (easiest limit for math) and have a healthy 100k bankroll, we really don't have a 500 bet roll because we would never lose 500 bets straight without moving down. Assuming we always want to have at least 500 bets, once we lost 60k we would be playing 40-80 (but by same factor We would only have 20k before we move down to 20 so let's say we want to have 60k to play 40 with). This means even though we have 500 bets for 100-200 once we lose 40k were drastically moving down in limits. As its pretty feasible to lose 15-20k in a session were essentially 1 bad week from turning what most would consider a very healthy bankroll into one for a limit 60% smaller.

What I've always tried to do is keep x bets for my usual limit and then use the extra as a bankroll. So lets say x = 500 and I play 20-40 and I have 25,000. I would have 5,000 20-40 bankroll to comfortably gamble it up with.

Dropping down (live) is way more problematic than many people realize. If you played around the same hours, it will be very hard to make enough to rebuild as you will likely only be making enough to stay afloat if things go well (assuming bankroll=life roll).

From experience, I start getting pretty nervous when my bankroll is hovering around the 550BB mark and really anxious when it goes below 500BB.

That's why all br answers depend on who is asking. A pro who has to cover expenses from his roll has one set of answers. A rec player could be unable to replace his roll easily, but not need to withdraw. Another could moderate his wine budget and easily replace his poker roll. It is the one advantage of the high income rec gambler - never going broke. Where our OP sits on that scale matters. Unless you know the details (which tend to personal) it is hard to say.

I would comment that many micros online players stunt their own growth by having silly versions of brm. The absolute $ in their rolls are small. They read good advice to live pros, like yours. Then they develop this misplaced br virtue. To speed up the process, they start playing too many tables to hit their silly 1000BB targets. They don't understand the key differences between their situation and a full time pro. For a rec player in a rake trap, getting out is more important. Thus the Xhad post makes so much sense. It is a function of ruin mattering less to them.

Have a big one. 'Nuff said. :-)

i don't think it's safe to assume 1 bet per 100 hands winrate really in anything online these days. low stakes are highly raked and mid/high stakes are tough games.

i'm definitely not assuming 1/100. used that # just for simplicity. i honestly have no clue what my wr is and won't know for a long time (only around 25k hands tracked online). i would be stoked to have anywhere near .5/100. right now, online i'm using a 600bb min bankroll.

So, having read the Xhad PSA and after digging up Leader's post, what do you think?

Is it even reasonable to think someone could beat a live mid-stakes game like 20-40 for more than .5-.65bb/hr for a considerable amount of time?

Yes.

However many fewer than think they do or would.

To beat the game for more than that you have to win nearly 1.5bb/hr. It's $14 an hour just to play at 20/40. If you win on average 4 hands an hour and restrict tips to $1 per hand that brings it to $18 an hour. If you tip for a drink once it's now brought a player who could earn 1bb/hr down to .5. I think it's much tougher to earn more than .75bb/hr live in these games considering what is payed to play live.

Where are you getting these numbers? Also, by "Yes" I didn't mean 4BB/hr is easy. I just think >0.65BB/hr is possible for decent players. Not much more though. I would not attempt it for a living.

i'm think most decent live mid-stakes games are beatable for around 1bb/100 in decent games (after rake and tips).

You guys are freely mixing bb/100 (big blinds per 100 hands) and BB/100 (bet bets per hundred hands). In the limit world, BB/100 is the more common measure. After rake and tips is assumed in all cases. If we were talking online, we could argue whether rakeback is included -- typically not, though it should be in your yearly earn. Honestly, if the cage gives you $2/hour that you can use as normal live promo, I'd count that in my earn.

Assuming 30h/hour, you're talking .33bb/HR or .17BB/HR. No live pro would stay sane with the swings that their 12BB/HR SD gives them. The hourly measure is more standard as is the BB for big bet. I'd guess 0.75 to 1 BB/HR is what most people are using. How often people get near the 1 vs. how many run 0.75 is open to debate.

Using online terms is strange. The games are different. Also, you do have full time pros who post around here who have 1500 to 3000 hour per year samples (yes, people insane enough to get near 3K hours at the table). While we're not talking 99% confidence intervals, you're in the world of "big sample".

yeah, sorry. i never use capitals in posts. i should have though. in limit, i just always assume wr in big bets and, and in big bet games i assume big blinds. sorry about the confusion. BB/100!

"I helped my Uncle Jack off a horse."

vs.

"i helped my uncle jack off a horse"

How does tipping for one drink an hour cut a 20/40 winrate in half? If u can't make more than 1 big bet/hour in live 20, then you are either not very good, or not playing in a very good game.

my basic advice: play one limit lower than you *think* you can and have 500 Big bets your not doing anything otherwise with. then, dont play stupidly.

It doesn't. Time paid on the east coast is $14 an hour plus $1 tip on average per hand won. Trust me it factors in once you play enough hours live. I've been a winning player since 2008 playing mostly 20/40 and sometimes 40/80 and it definitely factors in your win rate.