Learning Poker Together Part 6: Bankroll Management

[Luvepoker]

If you happen to watch Daniel Negreanu’s blog this year at the world series of poker unisaw man who took small profit after an early deep deep run suddenly down several $100,000 to win over $1,000,000 in one shot end to end up losing money for the World Series of poker. After the World Series over he talked about how certain events I think it was something like 8 of them if you remove those events he had a really good summer. This is where bankroll management becomes important to players like us as we are not professional players like he is who can handle $1,000,000 swings and not really worry about playing a set level of games.

I have listened to multiple professionals give their advice on what is the best way to play poker and use good bankroll management. I have also heard very varying ideas including one professional saying it's OK to have a small bankroll and being super aggressive and trying to move up. The idea of having a small bank roll is only used if you're OK depositing again and again if needed and the money doesn't hurt you. So let's say you have $2000 and you wanna play $100 games, if you feel you're good enough to play $100 games and you can deposit easily and it doesn't affect your life it's OK to move up to play those games even though you're only bankrolled for games way lower than 100.

The reason I'm bringing this question in today is I know people always ask me when it's good to move up or down so I figured it'd be a good conversation to get everybody's opinions on this. I turned to follow my old coaches idea but I will talk about that in the questions answered section.



Questions today.

• Do you follow bankroll management?
• If you do, what do you use and why?
• If you were teaching someone a good strategy what would it be?
• Have you moved up in stakes and down when required?
• Do you use this strategy for live or just online or both?
• So what do you think about the one professionals idea if you can afford to deposit at any time taking that highly aggressive approach and moving up stakes much faster then you would if you did it properly or at least properly to what most people think?

 

[Luvepoker]

1)I do believe and did use a bankroll strategy, the problem is where I live and due to legality issues here I tend to just stay at a low limit because I play for fun. At this point I am way over funded to the level I play but when you're playing just for the enjoyment of it and the challenge it's OK.

2 and 3) When I do use one I use a very conservative bankroll management system. I have 150 buyins to the level I started at. If I order drop 25% I would seriously start looking and thinking about moving down the level to bring my bankroll back to 150 big lines at the new level. On moving up as soon as I was up 50 buyins I could start taking chances if I wanted to or if there was an in between level I could move to he'd be also allowable. What do I mean when I was playing on poker stars I used to play at one point the 1.10 events But they also had the 1.65 events so I was able to move up before I got enough to go to the 2.20 level. The reason I used this type of strategy and I believe it was Jonathan little well I got this from. If you started I'd say a $5 level and you followed the strategy he felt as long as you were improving you would almost never go broke. You would move down before you were too badly damaged but you would not move up until you were a bit safer even though you were allowed to have chances. This worked well for me when I first started as I never went to broke before finally playing better and becoming a winning player.

4) I still move up and down while playing at the lower states So what I'm gonna downturn I'm not afraid to move down well when things are going better I don't mind taking a few shots and moving up to.

5) I only use this strategy online as to be honest trying to get 150 buyins to play live a lot of money. I also again play for the fun and challenge of it so it's not like I'm going out there all the time playing either. If I ever had the opportunity to be properly rolled I would definitely do that.

6) I won't mention the professionals name of using the aggressive strategy. what I actually see is a lot of value in it. If you're not playing with money you need to live and you don't have a problem reinvesting into your bankroll, if you can afford to play higher games and take that shot why not? In some ways that's what I do with my live game. I honestly am nowhere near bankroll for anything in the live game anymore since COVID but I do take several shots each year and if God forbid I ever win one of them I would actually be properly bankrolled at that point. The thing is anything I'm playing has personal reason for me to play and if I lose the money it's not gonna break me

 

[fundiver199]

• Do you follow bankroll management?

Yes.

• If you do, what do you use and why?

For MTTs I usually have at least 100 x my highest buyin sitting in the poker account. For STTs its 50 x my highest buyin and for cash games (which I rarely play these days) at least 30 x the full buyin.

• If you were teaching someone a good strategy what would it be?

I think, the above is pretty reasonable, although a more conservative approach also has merits.

• Have you moved up in stakes and down when required?

Yes.

• Do you use this strategy for live or just online or both?

I only play online.

• So what do you think about the one professionals idea if you can afford to deposit at any time taking that highly aggressive approach and moving up stakes much faster then you would if you did it properly or at least properly to what most people think?

If you can afford and are willing to make additional deposits, then the money in your poker account is not really a bankroll. And its fine to play without a bankroll, if you only want to play now and then. Like if you want to play a weekly flagship tournament like Sunday Million or go to Las Vegas during wsop, you dont need a bankroll for that. What you need instead is a budget.

But if you do want to play regularly, and especially online, where games run constantly, and you can multitable, then you need a bankroll. Its very easy to lose 20 BIs in MTTs, and if this mean, you cant play again until your next paycheck, thats not ideal at all. Also how does anyone know, they are good enough to beat $109 online MTTs, if they dont have a track record? Building up a bankroll online generally goes hand in hand with building a track record and getting experience, and I think, moving up to fast is generally a recipe for losing.

In live poker I can see more merit to the idea, since it takes forever to get volume, and you generally get raked to death at the lowest stakes. So if you are ok taking a break from poker, if you lose, then sure go ahead and try out the local $2/$5 cash game, even you only have $6.000 in your bankroll and "should" stay at the $1/$2 game to follow bankroll management. Then maybe add $500-1.000 to the bankroll from your paycheck every month, and with a bit of luck eventually you will have a reasonable bankroll for the games, you want to play.

 

[Mr.$t0k]

I use bankroll about 150 buy ins and I think for SNG and MTT it is a good idea less then 100 buyin is risky. Totalize the more buyins the better for stable poker game
Good luck