Oh--I forgot we had a dedicated thread for this. I'd posted this in a different thread, I'll copy and paste:
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I’ve just made the decision to quit my (stressful!) full-time job and replace it with a (stress-free!) part-time job, but to supplement the income with poker winnings. I plan on playing about 15 hours a week.

I play Hold’em with blinds of $1-$2 but with a “spread-limit” of $2-$100: the most you can raise is $100 over the previous bet. (So if I bet $50 on the River, you can only raise to $150, and I can only reraise to $250, etc). Max buy-in is $300.

I want to get to a spot where I literally never have to worry about my cash “bankroll,” and every Friday I'll just put that week’s poker winnings into my family’s joint checking account. (Or, on weeks when I lose, the next week’s winnings will go to first replenish the cash bankroll and then the rest to checking.)

My two questions are:

Is this how most people do it? And,

If so, what should my starting cash bankroll be? I currently have $3000 in cash—my main concern is I never want to have to *withdraw* money from our joint account ever again.

Thanks.

Right I have read your thread of playing full time etc. I was mainly just wondering if a player hypothetically could go to casino with only 1 bi per session not top up and still turn profit long run. And if so how much ev they are losing if any? Assuming they don't stop when winning

This is one of the strategies I always use. I bring no cards or extra cash just 2 buyins but usually only use 1 of them. Im a big winner by live standards and I would strongly argue that bringing 1 BI is going to increase your EV not lower it since most players severely underestimate how badly they play when down money. Having 1 BI also makes you play tighter since you dont want to drive out to a casino just to leave after 5 minutes and usually people play too many hands so thats another bonus.

I agree I have had winners tilt where having multiple BI I play hands every rotation 3betting etc winners tilt can definitely cause me to pop off the chain. Having 1 BI I seem to nit up and look for the best ev spot to commit. It's just sometimes you have to fold leaving you at 33 bb and playing short which doesn't feel great at all especially in rake + bad beat promotion.

This hypothetical is mainly how I want to built my bankroll and keep adding 300 to 400 to it once I start running better.

How deep do you usually buy in? Do you seek out the super gamble-y games and embrace the variance?

I play a lot of 2-100 at Canterbury and I wouldn't feel super comfortable with keeping less than like $10k in your situation (if not more). I semi-often have += $1500-2k sessions.

Running Aces has a max buy-in of $300 for the 2-100 game.

Oh wow, yuck. Max buyin in a limit game is just wrong. I hope Canterbury never goes to that.

I think I'd be keeping at least $6k before withdrawing from the bankroll in your situation and then maybe going 50:50 increase bankroll increase liferoll after that until at least $9-10k.

This is exactly how I do it. I withdraw on a monthly basis. At the end of the month I take a portion of my profits for myself and add the rest to the bankroll. I have a full time job however so monthly may not work for everyone.

I rarely ever bring more than one buy in. If I’m having a losing session it’s typically because I’m not playing well. When that happens I need to be able to call it quits and not reload just to continue playing bad.

This approach seems like a way to try cover up a mental leak to be honest. I mean, the variance in this game is huge and bringing 1 buyin is just nothing. You being down 1 buyin (or 4 buyins for that matter) doesent automatically have to do with you playing bad. It can just be negative variance making you lose several big pots in totaly standard spots.

Now, i can see some reasoning behind a stoploss after losing 3 buyins-but even that isnt an optimal approach if you take the game seriously and is playing for profit. The game might still be good,and you might still play reasonably well even after being down 3 buyins.

Sure, if you find yourself on tilt or not playing reasonable +EV poker anymore then by all means call it quits. But just having a strict rule for yourself to always just quit if you lose 1 or 2 buyins is a mental leak. You will never be able to develope yourself as a player if you keep doing that approach imo,because you always pull out when things get challenging or difficult. There is a saying that the magic is found where your comfortzone ends, and it is some truth in there.

If you freak out and play bad just because you are down couple of buyins, then i would put in my work right here and working on being able to keep your composure and playing decent poker even though youre down in the game.

Another thing is some players (me included) actually plays _worse_ when i dont have multiple buyins available to me in a game. It makes for fearbased poker if you know youre on just a single bullet, and if you lose that one youre going home. For me ive learned that its alot easier to go for more marginal +EV spots that i deep down know is correct,when i have 5 more bullets in my pocket if i where to lose.

this is results-oriented fish logic

"i got it in with a set vs. a flush draw on the flop for my one buy-in and he hit the flush on the river. i must be playing bad. time to pack it up and come back another night."

A job you hate is just the worst. So I get it.

This is't a terrible plan in general. I've always done best playing part time, as I still enjoy playing and can be completely focused. Of course, you can also play only when the games are best, on Friday and Sat night, most likely. You have to realize that poker gets worse over time and this might not be viable in a few years.

3k seems pretty light to me. Not to be a jerk. But if you're good at poker and were making decent money at your FT job, why haven't you built the BR up to more than that? Hopefully you've been spending/saving the money. But if so, you might want to stop doing that for a while first and build that BR up to more like 7k.

Maybe this is a good time to do stuff like checking account and sports betting bonuses and so forth and whip up a couple thousand.

If this is going to be income you rely on, you need to start studying away from the tables a lot more.

If you're a winning player, it can't possibly be -EV. It just won't be as +EV as it possibly could... assuming you're more +EV deep than you are short (a big assumption for most, imo).

Not so sure I would play any poker if I was cash strapped enough to only afford $300 a week (which can easily go up in flames on just a single hand of LLSNL). But so long as you're cool with torching that money...

My guess is the best way to balance between not going busto versus building up some sort of playable BR is a super nitty shortstack strategy, which will have to become even nittier as your shortstack diminishes. I'm fairly convinced any decent shortstack strategy will be +EV... although I guess someone could convince me a micro shortstack strategy might (?) not be in a typical high raked LLSNL game. Like I guess you could possibly convince me that sitting at a microstack of $45 in my $9+$2+$1 rake/BBJ/tip game (where any postflop HU all-in will be max raked for ~25% of our profits) could be difficult to overcome at the size, but I'm not really sure.

GcluelesstorchedBRnoobG

What fish do you know that analyzes their play and decides if they’re not playing well and making good decisions they stop? Fish chase loses till their flat broke. Playing worse and worse with every reload. If I’m playing well and get unlucky that’s one thing. But if I feel like I’m not playing well and making bad decisions I leave. For me personally if I have to go to the ATM because I still feel good is better than having $1k in my pocket if I don’t. Could be a mental leak but it works for me.

I've made about $13K at poker over the last year--$44 an hour over 280 hours (and yes, I'm aware that's an absurdly unsustainable rate)--but I've had to put a ton of it into the "joint account" to pay for family expenses. If I'd just kept it all in the sock drawer I'd be gold right now!

90% of the population has mental leaks. Acting like tilt doesn't happen at 2 buck 5 buck isn't reality and acting like the vast majority of the population is still playing their A game 1-2 BI down is also not reality. Maybe you don't have these issues but an average player will. The greatest players in the world will tell you stories of the best players tilting off millions. Both Doyle and Ivey quit when they were down regularly. A game being good can easily be offset by a small amount of tilt and most people don't even know if they are tilting or not.

Sure. All i say is that you should aim to work on these leaks if you take the game seriously.

Being able to play decent non tilted poker after being down 1-2 buyins isnt that high of a bar for a serious grinder. If youre looking to play some solid volume as well its gonna be hard to do if you run home everytime youre down 1-2 buyins in a game.

Edit:Also when Doyle or Ivey quits early in a game,its an exception not the rule. They do that if they have an especially bad day,or for x amount of reasons get alot more tilted than usual.

no consistently winning player is incapable of playing their A game after dropping 1 buy-in.

if you can't play your A game after dropping 1 buy-in then you are playing in a game too big for your bankroll. it's as simple as that.

Hard disagree on this. The 20BI rule is to minimize risk of ruin in case of a bad run of variance. OP has a full-time job and can afford to replenish his BR weekly. He doesn't really have a RoR, or a bankroll. He has a poker budget. And that's fine. It may lead to him playing a style that is a bit too risk-averse, as losing a flip means stopping playing for a week, but that hardly counts as "ruin."

Sure, as long as you can handle it mentally. It may take a few tries to build up a reasonable bankroll, but I'd be shocked if it took more than five months.

I have some quite nostalgic memories when it comes to building up a bankroll totally from scratch/zero. Its many years ago now, but i still remember that i builded my first bankroll in this fashion. I was dead broke at the time, and couldnt afford to play any poker. My friend wanted me to come to a game, he staked me in the game with a 50/50 profit deal. Then i binked a couple of buyins for myself, and had my first 10K ish roll in a short period of time due to going on a heater.

If i hadnt managed to ran up that bankroll at the time there is a legit chance i would have quit poker all together. Since then i played thousands of hours.The variance in life is pretty sick indeed.

Yes, but he is also moving from a stressful job, to a lower paying PT gig, and poker is to make up the extra income. It sounds like the deal with the wife won't allow too much dipping into the liferoll.

I think a $1500 downswing is going to feel pretty uncomfortable on a 3k BR. On 7k, it's NBD.

I think you're thinking of davomalvolio's issues, not KCniteGambler's

Last year, in July, my company laid me off (a prelude to their going out of business—the mortgage industry is a fickle mistress), so I went on “funemployment” for 6 months, basically intending to play poker every day (while collecting unemployment benefits). I had a $2,000 severance package and used *that* as my cash “bankroll”, and every time I got over I would deposit the overage into our joint checking account.

Surprisingly, I managed this for four months, until…one week I ran and played bad and had a $2,000 downswing and had no money left in my sock drawer, and was too ashamed to withdraw money from our joint account. EVEN THOUGH I COULD PLAINLY DOCUMENT THAT I WAS UP OVER $9,000 OVER THAT TIME!!!

*insert Worm “in the poker game of life, women are the rake” quote*

It seems to me you are doing a ton of mental gymnastics over this.

The way i understand it is you are bending yourself into a pretzel doing some variation of left pocket right pocket accounting.

you have a bankroll
you seem to be a winning player
Advantage players have a bankroll so they can withstand variance and not go busto. Your bankroll doesnt care if its in the sock drawer or the checking avccount.
Your bankroll is a tool like a hammer and it seems to me your are trying to hide your your tools and are unwilling to have them available
You need to have a sitdown with your woman and explain this to her as well as internalize it with yourself.

As a pro gambler I have a working roll that I keep in my house so I can gambool at a moments notice. I have a bunch in a deposit box that i have ez access to. If I need money in my checking ill plunk some in but I always have a surplus of cash so I dont have to worry about a lack of tools.

He asked this same question in BQ and he seemed to like my answer so I’ll clarify here.

It seemed to me when I read OP’s question that the real issue here is that he doesn’t want to mix his bankroll and life roll. His joint checking account is clearly “life roll” money that he co-manages with his wife. He wants to spare his wife the angst of having visible evidence of short-term losses even though he is a long-term winner. (This is something I am very familiar with—my wife gets very anxious anytime I tell her I’m in any size downswing. She has learned not to ask and to trust me that I’m a long term winner.) Also, he probably wants to make sure his wife knows there is no danger of money she was planning on using for essentials being pulled from that account for gambling.

The easiest way to solve this problem is just to have a separate bank account where he keeps bankroll money in excess of the cash he wants to keep in the house. Then the only time money goes into joint checking is when it actually goes into the life roll permanently—which is the most responsible way to handle things anyway.