Bankroll building, monthly earnings and cashing-out

Atm I am playing 10NL 6max, 6 tables at once with a $370 bankroll. I'm getting 2x $50 VIP rewards soon, so it should be around $500 in a week or so.

I really enjoy playing and am constantly improving - in the near future I think I will be able to make a reasonable amount of money/month. My long term goal has been to be able to withdraw $200-300 per month to supplement my income. Of course, more would be even better but if I get there it's a good start.

So I looked up how much you can make per month at different limits and came across the following page:

http://www.thepokerbank.com/articles.../how-much-win/

I also pasted the relevant bit for the micro-stakes at the end of this post.

I have 3 questions:

1) Do you guys think the numbers given below are reasonable?

2) I want to move up to 25NL or even 50NL when I have 40BI for the relevant level but I was thinking of cashing out some along the way. So my idea was to cash out half of the profit each month (unless that amount is less than $100) and use the other half to increase my bankroll. What do you think about that as an idea? I know some of you will say that I should use it all for BR building until I can play 200NL or something. But it would be nice to have a bit of extra cash each month and it would mean that I don't reach a level before I am ready for it in terms of my skill/ability.

3) I'm not really comfortable leaving more than $500 or so online. Maybe I'm being overly worried about this, but I was thinking of either getting a Neteller account and keeping part of my BR there, or just withdrawing to my current account and leaving it in an unused online savings account I have. What do you guys do about this?

Thanks



How much you can win from different stakes games?

Let’s assume that at each of these levels, you are playing at 4 tables at a time and winning 6bb/hour from each table, which is a fairly conservative winrate.
Maintaining this winrate will get more and more difficult as you move up the levels (and near impossible at the higher stakes games), but we’ll stick with it for the most part.
The average play time for each player type will be as follows:

• Casual player = 0.5 hours a day.
• Semi regular player = 1 hour a day.
• Regular player = 2 hours a day.
• Grinder = 4 hours a day.

$2NL - up to $57.50 a month.

• Casual = $7.20 /month.
• Semi regular = $14.4 /month.
• Regular = $36 /month
• Grinder = $57.50 /month.

$5NL - up to $144 a month.

• Casual = $18 /month.
• Semi regular = $36 /month.
• Regular = $90 /month
• Grinder = $144 /month.

$10NL - up to $288 a month.

• Casual = $36 /month.
• Semi regular = $72 /month.
• Regular = $180 /month
• Grinder = $288 /month.

$25NL - up to $720 a month.

• Casual = $90 /month.
• Semi regular = $180 /month.
• Regular = $450 /month
• Grinder = $720 /month.

$50NL - up to $1,440 a month.

• Casual = $180 /month.
• Semi regular = $360 /month.
• Regular = $900 /month
• Grinder = $1,440 /month.

After $50NL it will become a lot trickier to maintain a 6bb/hour winrate across 4 tables. So, to keep things conservative, I will use a 4bb/hour winrate for the next set of stakes games. This is still whilst multi-tabling 4 tables at a time.

I just want to say, downswings are brutal. You might want to have a large bankroll prepared for when it happens.

Interesting thread though.

Yeah I plan for 40BI before moving up, that's pretty conservative/BR nit

The sample sizes you're looking at rather small; e.g. 4 tables x 50 hands per hour x 2 hours per day x 30 days is only 12k hands per month. This means your results can be relatively inconsistent from one month to the next. Mentally and emotionally, you want to be prepared for such inconsistency, meaning the swings up as well as down. A key aspect here is having the self-discipline not just to have enough of a roll before moving up, but also of being able to move back down when appropriate.

The numbers you have are interesting, but don't count on them ever happening. Sometimes you sit down and win 5 BI in an hour. Sometimes you lose 5 BI in an hour. It might average out to 6 BB an hour, but it will be full of swings. There will be losing months, break even months, and some huge winning months.

in order:
1) no, they are not reasonable, i think. 6bb/hour is like 6bb/100 in 6max (perhaps slightly more), and you would probably not average that; otherwise you would not be playing 10nl for long, and then you would be making less bb/100 on the level above. all i am saying is this winrate implies a good skill edge, which probably will not happen for you or for most people on this site (me included), don't take it personally.... personally, i would say you should be happy with about 4bb/100, but be prepared for the variance.

2) it is your money, you do what you want with it. moving up is awesome (read: better for everything) if you are going to win there, but as anyone who has ever failed a shot will tell you, do not count on that happening right away and every time.

so if you think you are not ready to move up yet, sure, withdraw some and build it again. but i would suggest to keep your money in your BR until you reach some level and just then withdraw, so as not to have your "pocket money" hinder your development as a player.

3) perhaps i am not the best person to give advice about this, as i have/had about 2.6k on tilt once that closed, but imo it is absolutely impossible to play any level above 25nl with only 500 in your account/immediately available funds. it is perfectly fine for now to keep some of your funds outside the poker site as a precaution, but be prepared to change that view once you move up stakes a couple times. (also, even if the money is not on the site, make sure you count it as bankroll and not as spending money)

one final note:
by the tone of your writing i guess this realization has not hit you yet, and once it does it will be an epiphany of a sort. i also know there is absolutely no point in saying this since whatever your reaction is, you will not have grasped the point. yet, here it is: money in your bankroll is a lot more like play money than any sort of real funds. you MUST think of it this way to play any level above 25 (maybe 50) with success. if a couple hundred matter to you, you have already lost the mental game at those levels. this is similar but slightly different from the "scared money" concept, which calls for solid BRM and which it seems you already have incorporated to a degree. good luck!

If you follow this plan are you going to withdrawal (spend) any of your bankroll as you are jumping levels? Or are you going to keep all winnings in your bankroll until you top out at some level?

Variance is a bitch.

I play more like 20K hands per month, so could hope for a little more profit if I can achieve these winrates. I can't win @ 6BB/100 right now but I'm hoping in the near future to be able to beat 5NL or 10NL at > 4BB/100.

I'm prepared for variance and possibility of moving down, and I'm quite good about that - had to move down to rebuild twice already.

ofc. It's the average that matters - my true winrate will be the results from several months of play.

Thanks for taking the time to answer all my questions benevg
in reponse:
1) 4BB/100 over a period of several months would be great. I would be happy with that .
2) I realized after writing that it is a personal preference as to whether to withdraw some along the way or use all for building, but thanks for your answer anyway! Maybe I will try to get to at least 25NL before spending any of my profit, it's not like I need it to live off anyway so may as well build it up to over 1K and then decide.
3) Yeah if I move up to 50NL one day I realise I will need to keep more than 500 on the site. What I'll probably do is to just keep 25BI or so for the level I am at on the site, and keep the rest somewhere else (and not spend it )

On your final note: I don't think I have grasped this yet. When I tried to move up to 25NL recently I shit myself when I lost a few buy-ins because it seemed like a lot of money. Will try to think about it differently next time. Also I only had 20BI for 25NL so it seemed like I was losing a big chunk of my roll, which didn't help

I was thinking of cashing some out while playing 10NL, but maybe I'm gonna try and be beating 25NL before cashing out idk. Will see how it goes.

Yes it is

One thing I would say is that if you dont like leaving too much money online I would recommend you do get a Neteller account, it is easy to set up and I see you play on PS and to cash out to your Neteller account from PS takes the maximum of a minute, they are so efficient.

Yeah I was thinking of getting a Neteller account to store some of my BR on.

Do you have to pay a fee to transfer between PS and Neteller? Or is it just when you transfer between bank and Neteller?

Dam, my post didn't post, cut off and I cba writing it again

In a nutshell though...I woulden't recommend withdrawing as BR building is what it is, building I'd only considering withdrawing when I felt I was at a level where withdrawing an amount didn't have a big impact on my BR. Withdrawing any worthy amount at 10nl for example or any sort of micro limit is going to be a big hit on the BR and feel like forever building it.

If you don't feel comfortable with keeping more than $500 online, then I'm unsure as to how you are going to be able to consistently play a limit which making the withdrawal of $200.00 p/m isn't going to hinder that particular limit.

By the way, play at pokerstars - you can trust 100% that your money is safe based on how it's all segregated and you would never lose those monies unless you did something illegal yourself, by colluding/cheating/money laundering etc


In my opinion, keep grinding, move up levels and don't worry about keeping more than $500 in your account. Get to 100nl, then you will be at a limit where withdrawing $200 p/m isn't going to "huge", it's only like 2 buy-ins where at 10nl/25nl etc it's like 20buy-ins or 8buy-ins which in my opinion depending on your winrate is difficult to withdraw each month without the grind becoming an extra long grind.