Hey Chris
My questions is about brm
At the beginning of your career did you ever struggle with bankroll management?
What did you do to fix or attempt to fix it?
And yes we all know it's about control. What was your biggest factor for your brm success? Besides being a winning player
Thanks and welcome to CC
hog123(ACR). A.K.A Allen
I haven't ever really struggled with bankroll management in terms of the desire to play too high, though there were times in my career when my expenses were really high and making enough money with a small bankroll was a real challenge. This was particularly true right after black Friday when most of my bankroll was on Full Tilt and I had to make enough money to pay a mortgage with the crumbs that I had left.
I have written a lot about bankroll management, and in fact my first really popular article was a piece on bankroll management for pocketfives.com that was read by hundreds of thousands of players. P5s even gave me an award for The 2005 Article Of The Year that I still have somewhere. And I've worked with a ton of students on it and it's usually something we can get handled pretty easily once we find the root of the problem.
I think the key is to figure out why you are having problems. It is usually one of the following issues.
1. You love to gamble and have trouble staying at one stake and just beating the game. If this is true, you have to learn that moving up too fast is guaranteed ruin, you might as well take that money and throw it in the garbage. Then you need to set hard rules that you never break. Like you can not move up to a bigger cash game until your bankroll has 30 buy-ins for that game, and if you drop down to 20 buy-ins you have to move back down.
2. You really want to play big because of the fun, the respect, and the cache that higher stakes players have. If this is the problem, just know that you can't beat a bigger game unless you can beat the game below it. If you can't build up a big enough bankroll to move up comfortably by playing the smaller game, you aren't good enough to move up yet anyway. Stop caring about respect or dreaming about playing bigger games, and start studying to beat the crap out of the game you can afford and moving up will take care of itself when it's time.
3. You are spending money out of your bankroll and constantly shorting yourself. This is like reverse compound interest. It's compound spending. Every dollar you spend means that you earn less because you are short rolled and unable to play games that you could otherwise beat. Sometimes life comes along and eats a big chunk of your bankroll. This happens to all of us. But you must remember the old saying that a printer who sells his printing press to pay his rent will never pay his rent again. Your bankroll is your printing press, and it prints money.
The generally best solution is to set some rules, commit to following them, stop caring about how big you are playing and start worrying about how well you are playing instead, and then work hard to improve. If you do these things the bankroll problem will usually take care of itself.
I'm not sure I have had success with bankroll management. I have never gone broke and have been playing for a living for almost twenty years, but this is because I am so risk averse. I would really hate to go broke. Which has probably cost me millions of dollars because I have moved up slower, taken so few risks, and missed opportunities that made other players a ton of money.
So, one the one hand, I have been successful in paying my bills and not going broke or having to get a job, but on the other hand I watched players with similar skills take more risks and eventually end up with millions.
Good luck building that bankroll!
