Yup. The more I think about this idea, the more I think I'll do it and start a thread on it.

a $2/$5 player looking to make their 'sole' income from poker should have ~$25K in their BR (+ living expenses for 6 months)

yeah was thinkin 20K but maybe that's too low

a lot of figures being thrown out there with no justification.

justification comes in the form of numbers, not experience.

$25K follows the standard 2% rule. Remember, we're talking about our only source of income here

Bankroll advice on this site amuses/bemuses me because it so rarely has any point of reference to winrates. WITHOUT A WINRATE ESTIMATE, YOU CAN'T ESTIMATE A BANKROLL REQUIREMENT! It just doesn't make sense.

So a first step would be to estimate your winrate at $2-5. You've provided some clues (i.e. your reasonable-sample $1-2 wr) but we really haven't nailed that down.

Anyone who tries to answer the bankroll question any other way is putting the cart before the horse.

Soooo.... what's the cart-to-horse ratio?

I'll bite...

7bb per h
40h per wk
(+ 5h study)
(-$125 expenses directly related to poker)
...and u have to live off of what u win (and survive on the weeks u don't win or break even.)

amuse us all with this scary formula...

...btw: 1 BI = 2% of ur BR is a formula professional sports gamblers have been using for years (actually 1-1.5% is more the norm.) now they have winrates between 54-58% but they also get their money in play a lot more often then poker players.)

...u also realize that 'most' online BR 'nits' want 100-150 BI for their level of choice (and I'm not talking about when they're 'coming up' in their parents basements.

It will also be intersting how u get a good 'risk to ruin' figure when if u played 40h per wk, 50wks a year and averaged 30 hands per h u only get ~60K hands per year (which is lofty.)

I'd def recommend Poker Income Pro over Poker Journal for Iphone. Poker Income is alot quicker/easier to use and can do most everything Journal can

I think they are probably both great tools. It all comes down to price preference. As long as one of them gets used (or one of the other ones) they are on the right track.

I personally have no other use with other apps, just PJ. I think if we want to compare apps though we should move it to the chat thread. Lets leave this to Winrates, BR, Finances.

+1 to AKQJ10, thats why I opted to have them in the same thread. They go hand in hand.

Its really silly to state a general 1-2 win rate is X and 2-5 is Y as there are so many factors that go into it, including:

Average buy in levels (and average cash on the table) - playing the same stakes with the same edge over the other players you will win more money if there more money to win.

Quality and style of the competition. Win rates will be higher in a pool of bad loose players than bad tight players. This also shows why win rate is not enough to calculate bankroll because that pool of loose bad players may or may not have much higher variance - higher variance means more bankroll needed.

Those first to points are why game/table selection is everything!

Personal tilt. Will your winrate go down if you take a big hit to the roll and you start to nit it up? Will your variance go up because you try to gamble it back? Each person is different and this cant be captured in a formula or rule.

Willingness to move down if BR gets hit?

Alternate income sources that you may not want to rely on but can if you need to make a huge difference, esp if it changes how you play when BR gets hit.

Overconfidence on upswings. Do you move up too soon or start taking more risks? This can be either a big positive or negative to WR. Personality type and risk taking matter in the long run for calculating BR requirements and WR.


So please, don't take any formula for WR or BR and blindly apply it and assume you will be ok.

Also - please don't assume that because someone has a WR at a game size that seems high to you that its ok to shout them down with arguments their samples size is to low etc, - they may just plain have different games than you are used to.

How is it easier to use? What can Poker Journal do that Poker Income can't?

I've been decided on buying one for a couple days now, but have been frozen up because I can't decide which. I need to track a mix of tournaments and various ring games.

Live play=swings, small sample sizes = several months life expenses saved seems not only reasonable but a necessity.

Reason why I'd need to be making double at poker than real world? Job security. Variance free. Pension etc. Can always play poker a certain number of hours a week to supplement. Not so easy other way around. Etc. I don't know what justification you are after.

I'm pretty that Bart Hanson and Citizen James are making $100-$110/hr at the Commerce 5-10 500-1500 game. Limon is probably in the same neighborhood. From what they say that game is ******edly soft though.

After doing some searching I found www.pokercharts.com, so far it seems to be good for online tracking of your poker wins and losses. I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about this site if you have used it or if you know of something similar and possible better.

I have been playing at a local poker club for the past few weeks and with the exception of the first night there, I have cashed out every night with either tournament or 1/2 NL winnings. I don't bring more than $200 with me ($30+15[add-on] for tournament + $80-100 for cash game if I lose the tournament or I take what ever I won from the tournament to the cash game). They only have 1-2NL and usually have 1-2 full tables, usually just one though. One night I had to re-buy 3x for a total of $260, other than that one $80-100 buy in is more than enough.

I am trying to keep a good record of everything and I'd like to do it as if it were a business with Cost (or Buy-Ins), Wins (Profit), Losses, & Expenses . With pokercharts, I noticed that when it says, "I am ahead $XXX.XX for X days", it does not calculate my EXPENSES. If given the option I'd like it to say, "I have $xxx.xx in my bankroll". So I guess my question is, how can I do this properly. Of course I want to know how much I'm ahead, but I really want to know how much I have (and not have to actually count my cash, but to have the number and be able to verify it).

Obviously if I take the number I am ahead, say $100 and subtract what ever my expenses are, say $15, my profit would be $85 for that session. But if I fill everything out on their forms like this, "Buy-In: $100 / Cashout: $200 / Expenses: $15" it would still say "I'm ahead $100.00" but that's not whats in my bankroll, my bankroll would be $185. I am ahead $100.00 and that's great to know but I'd also like to see you know, how much in buy-ins am I spending to be ahead X amount or how much in losses I have or a certain period of time etc. I like the format they have on their site, it also gives you really good statistics, but I'm thinking maybe an excel spreadsheet might give me what I need. Something along the lines of,

Buy-In: $100
Cash O: $200
Expenses: $15
Profit: $85
Total BR: $185

"I spent a hundo to make a hundo minus $15 for gas so I walked away with $85 in profit bringing my bankroll to $185 total.

I've just been deducting my expenses from my cashout amount so that when it says I'm ahead X amount, that it is actually my bankroll amount BUT it pretty sure that will affect my win rate %, roi %, avg % of this and that etc.

I was barely able to file my own taxes online this year, so If this confuses anybody, sorry, and yes I know cocaine is one hellava drug and somebody will reply to this post with this paragraph in quotes and say, rofl, haha, lol, fish, or some other forum troll comment.

But, for playing a soft 1-2NL cash game or a small 1-2-sometimes 3 table tournament for $45 where 1st takes $270 with 3-6man tables (6 because sometimes people show up late and they can won't have to break a table, they can just sit down) and I have won 1st place 4 out of 6 tournaments that I have played + with a $80-100 buy-in with OUT re-buying I'm leaving there every night with about $300 profit in my pocket after paying myself back for my tournament/cash buy-ins, its easy money and I need to figure out how to keep track of it so I don't get ahead of myself or decide to play above my limits elsewhere.

I went there once with $40 to check this place out and lost. I came back two days later with $60, enough to play a tournament and cover my gas. Right now, I have $1800 cash. I've only used pokercharts for the past 2 days worth of sessions and these are some of my stats:

Win Rate:$29.09/hr
Avg. Win Rate:$57.92/hr
Win Rate Std:$54.13/hr
Time played:13h 45m (includes tournament/cash)
Avg. Session: 3h 26m
ROI:58.82%

(of these pokerchart sessions, i played 5h @ cash and gave it all back except what i bought in for, other sessions just had slow nights with hardly any action or money on the table, and these stats are with my expenses/withdrawals deducted from my cashout amount to show me my exact bankroll number so these rates should be a little higher, i make $10/h at my day job and to see a avg win rate over $50 over the past 2 days knowing i've made what I make in a 40h work week in less than 1/2 that time has me a little surprised... and i want to keep it that way.)

100% DIGRESSION - NOT AN ANSWER

I feel duty bound to post in every thread remotely about bankroll a reminder that bankroll depends on winrate.

I don't think it's that relevant to your post about the tools you use, but I'm going to mention it anyway, because this will digress into a thread about "Speaking of bankroll, how many buy-ins do I need to play such-and-such?" And a lot of bad advice will be posted, because we won't know anyone's winrate.

Use a small notebook. Period.

I believe the tax code says you need to use pen and paper anyways for live play. And if you are truly as computer illiterate as you say, it will be the easiest solution.

your "expenses" should be separate from your view on poker and your statistics as far as win rate etc.......

why don't you keep the two separate and keep your expenses receipts--- at the end of the month you make a deduction from your bankroll for the total sum of the expenses

also, i think cardplayer.com's "stat tracker" is a better site for tracking all this stuff

Theres already a big thread on this that I am sure Kurt will move this to.


Kurt- Maybe you can give the winrate, broll, finance thread the ***Official xxx *** label?

I asked for an explanation of this...

$2/$5

7bb per hr
40hrs per wk
5hrs of Study per wk
-$125 expenses per wk (directly related to poker)

...and ur planning to live off ur poker money with no auxiliary income (and not rent free... home, car, food, phone, utilities, insurance, benefits, etc.)

I highly doubt its "easier" or "quicker" to use. They are simple app's designed to do simple calculations. I like PJ just because its tracks actual time (you press start, pause, and end) and filters some good info. It also allows you to deposit and withdrawl without messing with your rates. I cant tell you what Poker Income can do. I have seen screen shots of it though and honestly PJ looks way nicer. Either way you cant go wrong.

Just real quick... Gonna post a relatively small "live" sample. ~250 hours of play of .25/.50,1/2NL, 1/2SL, 2/5NL, and some random smaller HU's matches.







Will discuss and answer ?'s later.

they should if you have your bankroll completely segregated -- which is optimal.


But most people playing lower stakes live professionally or semi-professionally are, to some extent or another, living out of their bankroll.

If you do this, then you definitely have to take your expenses into consideration when determining the nec. bankroll for your stakes and winrate.

Why all these win rate discussions are flawed for live play:

Since I win X dollars per hour, THEN if I play 40 hrs per week, 52 weeks per year ...
Yes, I understand that X dollars per hour figure was compiled over 80 billionty hands using 92.5 millionty hours, and is statistically significent to 5 and a 1/2 decimal places, with a standard deviation of less than .025 nickles per month.

First, that X dollars per hour figure really doesn't mean squat.

That X was derived from past play and in the past you probably played in prime hours. Drunk Friday and Saturday nights are the best and most profitable times to play. That X dollars per hour is probably sqewed with a lot of the most profitable sessions of the week. Those Friday and Saturday nights are going to be represented more normally when moving to a 40 an hour week play mode.

Second, 40 hrs a week, really?

Being a good player, you probably realize when you aren't on top of your game. Keep your sessions short, stay fresh, etc. Yeah, you can compile a X per hour win rate playing short sessions, paying full attention, staying sharp. 40 hrs a week means A LOT of short sessions, several per day, and maybe a long session or two thrown in. Losing in that 7th hour of that long weekly session is something that probably very rarely occured when you compiled your X. Now it happens every week.

Also, the 40 hours a week means you aren't just playing during wild and crowded weekends. Tuesday at 10am plays a lot different and with a different win rate as Saturday 3am. Even Saturday 10am plays different than Saturday 4pm. And don't forget Thursday 2pm, which if you didn't have to get in 40hrs, you probably would rake up at 1pm. Was your X compiled with an equal amount of time played on each day? Or is it weighted with time playing the wild late night drunk fish?

52 weeks in a year, since when?

It is funny when people think for some reason that since they are now playin da poka they do not need anytime off.
School comes with a spring break, summer vacation, Christmas break, and even the easiest job in the world probably gives you two weeks vacation off. Then factor in 4th of July, and Labor Day, and about 6 to 7 other days off. Of course playin da poka, you will probably want to be 'working' on those days and three day weekends, so you will have to create your own Mondays off. In order to maintain the 52x40 hours per year, those days off and two week vacations will have to be made up by playing even longer on other days. See 40 hrs a week, really - above.

Also, Bob the super fish and Joe dead money are probably quite happy to lose a stack to you a couple of times a week. Start grinding Bob and Joe 40 hours a week, 30 days a month, and you might not be able to find them after a couple of months. Gee, your X dollars per hour was compiled with Bob and Joe donations in it, and now they never come around to the card room anymore.

OH, NOES!!! I HAVE THE ULTIMATE X DOLLARS PER HOUR CALCULATION YOU NON-MATH DONK!

Okay, let's assume you have compiled an hourly win rate that takes into consideration disappearing fish, fish replenishment rates, and properly weights all types of game conditions, game times, and even accounts for the time you don't feel good and play lousy because 'you gotta get your hours in'. The ultimate smoothed deviation proof dollar per hour win rate.

Still no good. The games aren't as juicy now as they were. The economy stinks right now. People aren't rich with home-price inflated net worths. A lot of people don't have jobs that they had a year ago. They just aren't throwing money into games like they used too.

So unless your dollar per hour win rate also accounts for a 30 year business cycle (or maybe adjusts itself to GDP and T-Bill Interest rates) it's going to be further and further off the mark when you try to use it to project the future.

Did you have a better idea?