Sounds like 20 Buy Ins is a reasonable number. I agree that I would not like the feeling of losing 3 BIs on a bad night when I am only working with 10BIs in my poker bankroll.

I am transitioning to playing live from online and want to have enough saved up so I can move up to 2-5 as soon as I am comfortable with the live arena.

Thanks for the feedback

Johnny

he said hes an online player, so im assuming he has to somewhat decent. 3k is enough for 1/2-1/3 now for 2/5 and higher i think he would need more then 10BIs unless hes buying short or something

Holy **** you are a HUGE nit

The higher your edge the lower your bankroll requirements need to be. If you think you're making 10bb/hr over the long run post rake variance will of course have less of an impact on you than if you are making 1bb/hr online.

I'd say like $12-15k at the bare minimum personally if you aren't working/have a fallback, but you should probably look for an in depth guide on this (It's a common topic so I'm sure there's something explaining all the math somewhere.)

how many hours of play before an hourly becomes representative of your true hourly?

These sorts of comments are usually based on personal experience, and personal experience isn't much use in calculating BR requirements. By definition BR mgmt is about minimizing the probability of catastrophe, not weathering standard swings common to everyone.

It's a bit like saying that i played Russian roulette a couple of times with only one bullet, and i'm here, so obviously one-bullet Russian roulette is completely safe.

According to http://www.evplusplus.com/poker_tools/risk_of_ruin/, the RoR with:

• wr=$10/hour, SD=$150/hr, BR=$3k is 7%.
• wr=$20/hour, same SD and BR is 0.5%

I'm going to need more evidence that $30/hour is attainable at $1-3 before even thinking about that number; "Many regulars are making..." doesn't convince me very much, because i have no reason to think that regulars are sharing reliable information about their finances.

Age old problem with live poker: By the time you have data to estimate wr well, everything's changed.

Hey, AKQJ10,

I notice this calculator is based off bb/100 hands. Shouldn't you convert your win rate and standard deviation per 100 hands as opposed to ~30?

When I do this, however, my numbers come out quite similar. Which suggests to me it either doesn't matter, it's a coincidence, or I'm botching something somewhere.

I'm averaged $25/hr with a $125 SD/hr over about 30K hands. If I plunk those numbers in, I get a 6 buy in (50 bb) bankroll with a 2% risk of ruin. Of course, this is as a short stacker.

Your thoughts?
Flux

Hmmm, see, this is what i'm trying to get clear on. As long as you're consistent in units, i don't think it matters whether you replace "100 hands" with "hour" or "bb" with "$".

So i would put in the numbers 9, 25, and 125 respectively on the left side, and get 5.61%. I use 9 to mean $900 because you're talking about 6 * 50 bb * $3. If i divide wr, SD, and BR by 3 to represent bb instead of $, it comes out the same.

Hi AKQJ10:

I think you are correct.

I know when I used to count cards at BJ, I used a simple formula to determine bankroll requirements. You squared the standard deviation, divided by your win rate and the result was a (fixed) Kelly bankroll which amounted to a 13.5% risk of ruin. You could then double this figure for a <2% risk or ruin (.135 x .135), a "Half-Kelly" approach which was generally recommended.

It seems this formula mirrors this.

Anyway, I dusted off some formula for converting SD over X amount of hands to Y amount of hands:

Hands: 25/hr
Standard deviation: 62.5 bb/hr

sd_100 = 62.5 x sqrt(100/25)

standard deviation = 125 bb/100 hands
Win rate: 50 bb / 100 hands (12.5 bb x 4)

Now, if I plunk those numbers into the calculator I get:

6.11 buy ins.

And if I plunk in the original numbers:

Standard deviation = 62.5 bb/hr
Win rate = 12.5 bb /hr

6.11 buy ins.

****************

Well, thank god that's solved, lol!

I did make a mistake, however, in the earlier post. The buy ins are for 100 bbs, as I buy in for 50 bbs, I need 12 buy-ins for a 2% risk of ruin. So to play my 1-2 game, assuming my numbers are correct, I need $1200 for less than 2% ROR. $600 if I'm content with a 13.5% ROR.

(This is all assuming, of course, that my win rate and standard deviation remain static for the next billion hands. That may be a big assumption, heh.)

All the best,
Flux

Oh, and to put the final nail in the coffin ...

I compared:

Win: $100/100 hands
SD: $250/100 hands

with

Win: $25/25 hands
SD: $125/25 hands

And got identical Sharpe Ratios of .0400

***

For those interested in comparing their live game results at 20-30 hands per hour with online win rates via Sharpe ratios, check out this link:

http://livinginvol.com/?p=234

Best,
Flux

So, then, what are typical SDs for different games? (I know it's highly style dependent; let's say, pushing every edge a typical 2+2-caliber player recognizes, but not pushing thin edges that only an expert recognizes.)

Hey guys I mostly just lurk around here but I think this would be a good time for me to pose a bankroll question.

I'm a 21 year old college student working in Texas this summer. I play ~15-20 hours of 1-2 NL at home games in my area and will be taking more than one trip to the Winstar casino and one trip to LV this summer. As a college student, my bankroll isn't what it should be. I make a very good amount of money for someone my age and I can afford to take 1.5 BIs/week out of my paycheck to replenish on a downswing. I am recently coming off three losing sessions in a row, {-10, -400, -280}, and I have about $1500 in my roll.

I have ~150 hours logged and have a winrate of ~$16 at 1-2NL. (lol sample size)

The main question I have for the forum is this: When I go to Winstar (June 24-26) the games are going to be super juicy at 2-5 and 5-10. The reason I planned on this weekend is because the resort is sold out due to a huge concert, and they also have a big satellite to The River Main Event ($2200 1M guarantee I think) and those satellites bring in all kinds of donks.

Do you guys take major issue with me taking $2k to winstar and taking a 4BI shot at 2-5 while I'm there? In my past experiences I've played 2-5 and have had lots of success between the hours of 8pm-4am and poor results during my daytime sessions (lol sample size again). I generally do see a big difference in the softness of the games between those two shifts, though.

My plan is this:
Play 1-2 or MTT satellite to their River ME during the day (12:00PM - 8:30PM)
Shot take 2-5 during the night session when more drunks come in (9:00PM-4:00AM)
In the event of a big session at 2-5 (say turning 1 BI of 500 into 1500) take one 1kBI shot at 5-10 (profit from 2-5)

Would it be better for me long term to just continue my 2-5 play in the event of a big session there?
Is it dumb to take this shot at all even though I have disposable income I can dip into to continue playing poker comfortably?

-TX

It's about your priority and choices.

Playing above your BR with drunks is a major recipe for busto. Drunks are +ev but high variance.

It just depends. If you are OK with going busto your first day, then I'd say go for it. If you'd be depressed and wished you'd played more sensibly then stay at lower levels.

I, personally, would play 1/2 until I won a BI for higher level, then take a shot with that. Maybe rebuy one time if I have super good table/reads, otherwise just drop back to 1/2 if I lose.

If you get a paycheck you don't really need to "manage a bankroll". You are choosing how to use money you have to play poker for fun.

You're spot on about high variance with drunks.

If I have built up a 2-5 BI from my day session I'd probably implement a 2BI stop loss which would put me -$500 or so. Otherwise I think I'd just take a 1BI shot per night, maybe 2 if I have a super good table.

Table selection the crap out of the room. Mark your fish and remember who your targets are when you're at the particular table.

Play smart, avoid high variance spot, toss away your ego, and know when to quit.

Pretty much it.

Hey guys. FINALLY played some poker where I was actually dealt some hands. I played about 26 hours since last Thursday, and in each session I was dealt AK a few times and big pairs a few times. What a relief, before that I had gone 8 hour stretches with no pairs higher than 77 and no AK or AQ.

I made zero sets during these last 26 hours, but made some good hands like str8s and flushes and boats. Ended up with a profit of a little under $700.

Hey TX,

I respect the numbers, I play within my means and abilities. I see people play over their heads, beyond their emotional sensitivities, then play badly and consequently bust out. So in the past, were someone to ask me if they should move up, my first question would be whether they were winners, what were there results, then we could speculate on some x amount of buy ins required for the next level before they made the move. But I just read bankroll management in The Poker Blueprint, and I found the advice compelling. Compelling enough that I think my previous thoughts on this matter are wrong.

You are young, have a solid job, losing this money will not impact the quality of your life that much, so I think there is far more to be gained by moving up as quickly as possible while you are fresh, eager, and enjoy learning the game. Burn out happens pretty quickly, we get older, responsibilities stack up, and you don't want to waste your youth stuck grinding away at 1-2. I see a few regs in my casino that just stayed at 1-2, and they are a miserable lot.

I highly recommend reading the bankroll management chapter in Poker Blueprint for young players. It's by Tri Nguyen and I think it's just brilliant. He's talked to high stakes players, and they all say they wish they were more aggressive with their buy ins. This is from folks that were playing off 15, lol!

If the shots fail, you can rebuild. A few thousand here or there isn't the end of the world, particularly in your situation TX. Tri recommends giving yourself three buy ins for a soft game, the next level up. If you crash and burn, so be it. Drop down a level. The point is you are capitalizing off all the factors you currently possess (youth, freedom, desire, etc ...) to give you the best possible chance of maximizing your return and bettering your game before settling down and grinding away.

Best,
Flux

If you have the ability to replenish, and you feel tolerant of the variance, then i see no good reason not to take this shot. There's supposed to be some theoretical argument against taking shots, but no one's ever explained it to me and i don't think it would apply to replenishment situations where you'll essentially never have to move down below $1-2 (as if you could).

Earlier post prompted a question for me about variance and average expectations. Does anyone have a good resource or good information on:

For a period of 100 hands how often you should get good hands (EG aces/kings, sets on the flop, flush draw flop, oesd flop, etc.).

I'd love to see something like that which gives indications of what you'd get if you ran "average".

I like Tri’s take in the Blueprint also, but there is one major issue here to consider.

You really have to be winning at your current limit on a consistent basis for a statistically significant period of time before you should take a shot. And then unless you are jumping 2 limits, you really should just build up your bankroll rather quickly. Which brings us back to point A and we wonder why bother taking a shot now if in 2 months you will be able to play in the game and be properly rolled for it?

I mean how much do you really expect to win in 2-5? Say you run super hot and make 2k profit. So what? Now you have 4k in bankroll, which is now just enough to play 100bb 1-2. What did taking a shot accomplish for you?

For a recreational player (which he is) it's also about what games you like to play.

If you don't think you can consistently beat 2/5 I wouldn't play at that level. I would do what simrud suggests and build up a bit of BR at 1/2. If you can't build a BR at 1/2 you probably shouldn't be playing 2/5.

But for me the difference in 1/2 and 2/5 is not that much. I actually pay attention more in 2/5, find the game more interesting, and can actually make moves that 1/2 players wouldn't "get".

If you want to be a really good player, you should challenge yourself and play higher levels for the experience. 1/2 is kind of a dumb game most places. Just wait for hands and valuetown. Cbet and barrel scared players.

Whoever said about table and villain selection that is also KEY.

Remember you are not playing everyone at the table. You want to find the couple/few folks who you really have a read on and feel you can get value from.

Often focusing on the worst players at 2/5 is going to be better than mixing it up with the best players in 1/2.

And again, pick the good 2/5 table where you can see how you'd make money over the 1/2 of folks you can't really read or who are too solid/boring.

To the guy asking about bankroll. My suggestion is do what's makes u most comfortable. I'm an online mtt pro and I was super conservative w/my roll for one major reason it made me very comfortable. When I'm comfortable I play a lot better. iirc ur married to a wife w/a job. I would think having a few months living expenses saved up is enough since if things go bad for u she still has an income.

As far as bankroll goes if ur gonna be conservative probably 20-30 bis is a good place to be imo.

[IMG][/IMG]

I've recently made the switch to live 1/2 since black friday, found the live games very beatable, but havent been keeping good records..

So what is good hourly rate for like 100NL live? 200NL? I know you guys talk a lot in terms of bb/100, but please do break it down for me... Also, if any of you guys want to reveal how long youve been playing live, and your overall rate, that would be appreciated, losing and break even players too..!

I think most people agree that a 'good' player can make 5BB/hr. At 10BB/hr you start hearing disagreement; some people say it's not sustainable, others say it is.