I see some games online that are pretty sweet, and I'm thinking of "going pro". The work and play option doesn't really work for me as I'm tired after work and play suboptimally. I was a losing NL player until I quit my job and focused on it, just to avoid any lectures...

I've done some reading online and the recommendation seems to be 100 to 150 buy ins? Do you think 50 would be more than adequate or is PLO really more swingy than I realize?

It's not that 50 is my life savings, but I might want to rethink things if I am really going to see such huge swings. Ideally I wouldn't want to be down more than 20-25 buy ins due to things outside of my control.

Based on playing roughly 50,000 hands recently, it seems losing more than 10 buy ins is tilt, although from my memory of significant all ins I would say I ran about average EV, I didn't get beaten up like I've experienced in NL where my sets got beaten by lower sets getting quads and the like.

If this is going to be your primary source of income, then 100 to 150 seems about right.

It is not uncommon to see 20+ buyin downswings, when you are playing fairly well. There is no doubt that many people experience these swings because of tilt, but as a rec, I've had seemingly solid 50 buyin bankrolls hit by a run of hands not going my way that travelled across limits and ended up knocking me back down a few levels.

You want to be able to avoid those swings and keep playing at the level that you feel profitable and comfortable at.

Should probably have some savings set aside too for the usual expenses, so that you are not paying for those out of your roll. Sounds like you might already have that.

Wow it really is a lot more swingy than NL. I have millions of hands at NL and the worst I ever had was a 30 buy in swing, and there was a bit of tilt in there.

Omaha pros must have stronger mental makeups if they can take a 50 buy in hit and keep on going. How many hands would you say would be sufficient to get a good picture of the swings in Omaha? In NL, I found 30k gave a pretty decent picture and by 200,000 I pretty much knew what I was in for, not that I ever mastered it completely, but I was able to drop four buy ins with little surprise at repeatedly getting drawn out on in a short period.

Thanks for commenting by the way.

50 BIs is pretty aggressive for PLO and it can go very poorly very easily, if only in terms of mental game.

In PLO, you end up all-in with a relatively small edge fairly often and I know that I can't handle that without being extremely comfortable with my bankroll management.

I'll play live, full-ring PLO more aggressively re: BRM for a variety of reasons (less RoR due to playing live infrequently, primarily), but for online games I play with any regularity, I need 100+ BIs just to be mentally comfortable with the inevitable swings. MAYBE as few as, like, 80... but that still feels pretty aggressive to me.

You should take a look at the PokerDope variance calculator, using an accurate PLO std dev.

It's really not hard to play perfectly and drop 10+ BIs.

50k hands isn't that much in PLO, btw. (It's not nothing, but it's not especially significant.)

I know you don't want a lecture, but based on personal experience as well as pure statistical facts of PLO variance, I would strongly recommend against playing PLO full-time professionally unless you "back into it" (that is, you're playing and making money at it and suddenly it makes loads of sense to not do something else for money).

The long run in PLO is extremely long for a lot of reasons, and I honestly think that a full-time PLO grind can be more stressful than a full-time MTT grind (depending on average field size).

Putting in enough volume to "outrun" variance in PLO is an enormous task, and playing optimally throughout all of that is a huge challenge. It's only going to be harder if you're on a somewhat short bankroll.

Very discouraging but helpful at the same time. Omaha may not be for me. When I was doing NL full time, I only had a single losing week, and that was enough to get me to take a week or two off (after tilting off 5 or ten buy ins).

Omaha is so much more fun than NL though, I wish more casinos spread it, although recs would probably get cut up really quick.

Why would recs get cut up really quick if pros are expecting 10bi+ downswing regularly?

yeah the casinos really should push PLO, idk why O8 is more popular in casinos

omaha variance works in your favor too. the downswings are hard, but the upswings are so great. if your playing correctly than you are going to be the winning side of this equation more often than not. many good PLO players achieve epic win rates

The recs would get cut up because they'd overvalue hold'em hands like two pair or sets on straight boards, or non nut flushes, things like that. You can lose money very fast in omaha by moving all with bad kings, never folding a set, things that are correct in hold'em.

yesterday I was up 8 BIs in EV in 400 hands at plo. In $ terms, I was down 4..PLOLOLOL. food for thought. 50 BIs is a joke.

^ Sorry about the runbad. I'm sure it will even out if you live infinite lifetimes.

But seriously, do you think 100 is good enough? Obviously at my age I'm not going to end up homeless if I were to lose it all, mostly the worst problem I'd have is a wife saying "I told you so...."

More opinions would be great, at some point it would be too much mentally. IF I can be down 100 buy ins due to my wraps not coming in and my sets getting taken down by flush draws etc, at some point it would be too much of a swing for me. Might have to stay at the grind at work, not good enough to beat midstakes NL online anymore and frankly NL bores me to death now after playing it for 15 years.

50bi for PLO if you play poker for a living is too risky unless you are a huge crusher, but then you wouldnt ask this question

Its not only a problem that you can have a 10-20bi downswing but you also have to cash out money for living expenses every month. So even 2-3 breakeven/slightly losing months can bust your bankroll

if you have 5000$ (50bi for plo100) and your monthly expenses are 1500$, you cant afford even a single losing month because you would now have less then 35bi

If you have xx$ for living expenses for next 6-12 months outside of your poker bankroll then 50bi should be ok

OP why not play stakes ur overrolled for. PLO has more variance than NL, but its not absolute chaos. you can still tame the beast and win consistently. these large downswings dont happen every week. again, the variance also works in your favor. great MS/HS players like cumicon, lautie, and jens K have/had win rates above 20bb/100. as im sure you know these win rates are basically impossible in NL

Let's all cut the crap. 99.9% of players don't use the 100 buyin "strategy". Suggesting that is just useless. It's akin to telling high schoolers that sex is unsafe, so encouraging them abstinence, when in reality kids are gonna have sex, and it's proven that the best teachings are around actionable actions, e.g. use a condom when you DO have sex.

In this case, 99.9% of people reading will never use 100 buy ins as a strategy for BR management. So let's be realistic and actionable.

Additionally, giving a set buyin number is dumb. What happens when you drop to 99 buy ins? Do you need to now drop down in stakes? As in anything poker, RANGES are important and more realistic.

IMO, 30-60 buy ins is adequate for PLO, depending on your risk tolerance and skill level. Many pros are known to shot take with 10 buy ins. For instance, Phil Galfond had a $600k BR, and went to Ivey's room with $60K early in his career.

Personally, I am young and use an aggressive strategy (in all areas of investing), so am comfortable with 20-40 buy ins, comfortable with knowing it is POSSIBLE that I lose my BR with aggressive BR management.

"100 buy ins" is just unrealistic. Forget about that garbage.

I use 100+bi as BRM for my normal games. Depending on the stakes I am playing, I am using 500+bi BRM.

This is just mumbo from someone who's never had a real downswing.

he does have a good point though, many players have very aggressive BRM despite all the 'abstinence' warnings

IMO shot taking as a rising player, and grinding for consistent profit are two different animals, and they should be approached with two separate bankrolls. one of the best pieces of BRM advice i ever got was the idea of taking a 'shot tax' out of any profit, and creating a separate mini-BR

the largest benefit of being 'over rolled' for a stake is that you can play poker the way its meant to be played, and you can totally detach yourself from the money

Mike McDee should've listened to Knish

It is possible to get your head beat in hand after consecutive hand. Having a 100bi bankroll allows you to keep your sanity if you should suffer a 30-50bi downswing--something that can easily happen. You are going to be going all in a lot and a lot of the times it will be with small edges.

These more "aggressive" brm strategies sound good if you can replenish your bankroll outside of poker or move down before you bust. Also, never forget about variance which may be just happen to be on your side, obscuring the fact that you have leaks which need to be fixed.

I think you have a point, but guys like Galfond can probably get staked easily. I remember noting on here years ago when there was an argument about buy ins for full ring NL (if I remember right the average consensus was about 50 with some arguing for 100) that the posters arguing for the higher limits had thousands of posts and had been on here for years, while those arguing for the lower had a few hundred posts or less and hadn't been around that long.

I think I have decided that it is going to be 100 buy ins, that way if I don't end up succeeding there won't be any excuses about a short bankroll. I may revisit this later, but I think from what everyone has said and from what I've read in the archives, assuming I have some success I'll wait until I have at least 50 buy ins ( in addition to the 100) before moving up to the next level.

I have to say it was easier as a 20 year old in some ways. I quit my job, hocked my gold chain to beef up my deposit, got a decent rakeback deal and that was that. My "roll" was every penny I had and if I lost it, no big deal. Now I feel it would be idiotic to take a shot with my whole savings, but I think the 100 buy ins plus living expenses for three months or so should be a good trial.

Smart.

At one point as a winning pro I used 800 buy-in bankroll management for .5/1 so I wouldn't tilt and would never have too much at risk and the losses wouldn't sting as bad. These days as a busto fish I've been known to use as little as half a buy-in management

Playing .50/1 with 80k is ridiculous rofl

Just to re-emphasize some points that have been made more than once (and argued against by one very odd post, imo):

Even just in one session (at one table!), PLO can be a wild ride.

You need to be able to put in volume undistracted by results (and how they dictate the stakes you play), and you need to be able to reload without flinching or thinking twice.

Like, anybody can do whatever they want with their own money and be as aggressive as they'd like to be with their bankroll, but moving up and down in stakes constantly is just an unnecessary and unhelpful distraction. (That is, unless you play poker for adrenaline rushes rather than profit. In which case, ride whatever rollercoaster you'd like. Just, like, keep that gamblers anonymous phone number handy.)

Not to mention the distraction of a high(er) risk of ruin, if you're being super aggressive.

PLO variance is kind of just a measurable reality that you can't deny. Playing poker in denial of any particular fact is generally -EV, so most folks ITT are really just trying to be realistic about what's possible (and, honestly, probable).

Agreed. In business terms, this is the worst deployment of financial capital I have ever heard of for a winning player. (If you were winning???)

I buy in for the minimum 100 bbs and try to come prepared to rebuy 8 times. If poker is your sole income you should be prepared to come home broke up to ten times in a row. Then you need a bankroll after that happens. So 10 x 8 x 2, for me, which is 16000 big blinds. For 1/2 that's $32k. Plus life expenses for 3 months? That's not a minimum but it's for PLO it's a good idea.