+1

I started with 2.5k & played tight. Didn't play but 10% of all starting hands 1st 4 seats past BB. Concentrated on maximizing Button, CO & HJ profits. I still had a 1.1k downswing that scared the shyt out of me.

Built it up to 9k & now I believe a 9k roll reduces my risk of ruin to <5% where I play & I have slowly opened up my game.

I cash out everything over 9k once a month. I didn't get paid in September, as I lost $38.00. First time since February.

Nice!

For the game I play anything over 3-4K, imo, is unlimited BR. I ended up taking out 1k, and broke even over 13 hours played over the weekend but ended up picking up a lot of things to work on.

I am playing tight from EP as well, mostly playing in LP, and blinds if it's cheap to get in or free.

Reading COTM right now. Trying to re-read C-betting and planning the hand out. Planning, as I re-discovered over the weekend, is most definitely a leak of mine.

Hopefully I'm around 2.5-3k at the end of 100 hours 😀

Here's my results from a past month of mostly 1/2, 1/3 (hrs, profit, game): Remove the 2/5 sessions, and it's clear I would have been playing a bit high ror on a <6k roll.

1.5 -500 2-5.
2 -500 1-3.
4 560 1-3.
4.5 1915 2-5.
3 295 1-2.
4.5 -900 1-3.
2 300 1-3.
2 450 1-3.
9.5 -1050 5-10 OE, 1-2.
3 675 1-3.
3.5 -780 1-3.
3 -1400 1-3.
4.5 600 1-2.
4 -70 1-2.
2.5 175 1-3.
5 1900 2-5.
5. -1100 1-3.
4 -385 2-5.
3 195 1-3.
3.5 335 1-3.
3 480 1-3.

Depends on your style and game I guess, because my results look absolutely nothing like that at 1/2 and 1/3.

I'm on the other side of the spectrum. My session $won/lossed is similar (avg. 5hrs though) but my roll is 80something max buy ins.

KbankrollnitpreparedforrunbadanydaynowM

just played a 300+30 (with 100 bounty) satellite to the 1100 buyin. had 125,000 chips (vs. average stack of 70,000) at like 1000/2000/100 level and proceeded to lose AK vs KQ, QTs vs 44, 88 vs T7, 66 vs 44 and finally 88 vs AK within 30 minutes. bubbled at 19 when 18/17 get $900 cash and top 16 get seats.

picked up 5 bounties along the way but i was about ready to punch the nearest baby i saw in the face. hell of time to lose 5 coin flips or better in a row when just one would have likely gotten me in.

this game is teh gay

fold pre

weak

I'm playing from cashflow, which is pretty similar, and yeah the short sessions are necessarily going to be swingier. This was in 2013 during grad school. I just see so many posts that are like:

"Recovering from a scary 5.5 BI downswing, thankfully I have 15+ BI roll so should be ok"

Maybe my game is just higher variance, but I've had at least two 14 BI downswings and an 800 hr BE stretch in the last two years.

I think Bart perpetuated this weird expectation of playing a low variance game when he said (sometime during the deuce plays era) that he'd never had more than a 7k downswing at 5/T....

I just started playing live poker the past 4 months. So far I have logged 600 hours, and in these hours I've had numerous 5bi+- swings, a 5k downswing playing 1/2 and 1/3, and now its been 300 hours that ive been slightly winning but breaking evenish. Yet, I still manage to do well in the games and I am winning at an average 10bb/h. I do believe I have a big edge, but I play a rather TAGish style which I would consider being low variance. However, I have the feeling that a lot of people in this thread have been on the better side of variance and when I see things like 10buyins for a stake is enough if u are a good player I just completly disagree. Variance in live poker is sick, and if you want to play seriously I reckon you need to be ready for the absolute worst. 5bi upswings/downswings will happen often (unless maybe ur playing in the absolute softest game in the world, but even then...), and 10bi downswings, even 20 bi downswings might also happen. The most important thing for live poker is to stay strong mentally.

I don't even consider 5BI a swing. But maybe that's an east vs west coast thing, since BI is 100bb and I'm usually in for 200bb a pop

this is the way to go imo, getting to the point where you're completely unfazed about a 5bi downswing isnt too hard because it happens so often too.

5BI is like two standard sessions...

exactly ... which is why I disagree with people in this thread recommending 10bi bankroll and claiming it to be enough to play a stake.

Its not enough to grind for a living but if you are looking to start at 1/2 I think its enough because you'll run it up more than you'll go bust. 5 BI downswing is pretty standard for a grinder but if you are just starting out and play super tight and low varience I think you can make it work more than not. If you plan to grind and try to play optimal poker than I think at an absolute minimum 10BI is necessary for TAG style and 20+ for a more LAGish one.

For reals. If you have enough chips to get AIPF and lose 5 times and bubble, you have plenty of chips to fold into a seat. Consider this an expensive and largely useless lesson in ICM.

thats just wrong. A grinder will be a better player then your player who is looking to start. Playing super tight doesn't necesarilly mean low variance. Variance will depend of your edge in the game you play in. The higher your edge the lower the variance. By playing super tight you might pass out on +ev spots. Saying that by player super tight 10bi in enough for a stake is wrong imo.

Right. It's important to understand that "risk of ruin" really means "risk of not being able to play poker any more until you scrounge up some more cash." If you want to play poker as a serious hobby, but you have a day job, the "bankroll" you need is basically the amount of money you have to put on the table. If you lose it, you can't play poker until you find some more poker money, but that's not really ruination.

Bankroll is much more relevant when you're talking about sums that you can't readily replace. If you are rolled for a T/25 game, putting yourself out of the action is something that's going to cost you a lot of earning power and may well not be something you can readily fix. Not so for a 1/3 game.

^This is so true and so overlooked :thumbsup:

"Replaceable amount" is different for everyone - but for me, I always say I can never go bust for 1/3. As long as I can scrape together a few hundred bucks, I have all the bankroll necessary.

And great point about the cost of being knocked out of bigger stakes and the importance of a BR as you climb. Another player once taught me "the edge is being able to be in the game" when discussing the sporadic high stakes sessions with whales.

There is a $100 bounty component at play as well. And by the last two I am largely in sink or swim mode as M was ~$17,000

M at the last level jumped from

2000/4000/500*8 = 10,000

3000/6000/1000*8 = 17,000

Edge and variance have nothing to do with one another

run better

Compare it to online, do you think a 5bb/100 crusher will have the same swings to a 1bb/100 marginal winner? no. same applies to live cash games.

You think that variance means downswing.. common confusion. Variance is simply the range of results.