Bankroll Management - Help please

Bank Role Management

Bannnnk Roooollllleeee Maaannnnagementtttt

Baaannnnnnnnkkkk Roooooo... (you get the idea)

Now...

I have about £1,000-2,000 ($4k US) that I am prepared to put online, having just sold my house and moved in with the girlfriend. (don't worry, that's not the only money I have.. but its what I am prepared to risk)

Should I deposit it all?
Should I put a few hundred in?
What limits should I play at? or SnG ?

I have about 4 years experience playing in the casino and have done well with several tournament wins, (I reach a final table 2/3 out of 5 times that I go. I go 2 -3 times a week)
I've read and understood about 10 books on the subject. I read a lot on the forums. I try to practice what I preach (its hard though, sometimes I just cant lay down big hands when I have to)

I've had online accounts for years as well and but only ever stuck in $50 at a time, - biggest i've been to is about $400.

I was playing 6 tables at 25c NL 9 seated. I was "winning" on 4 of the 6 tables and was wiping out on 2. I tend to break even, all the time except when I don't win on the 4 and I am a loser for the session.

I am at a quandry, play more? give up? put more cash in and play higher stakes where my huge re-raise with AA is not called by some donk with 66 who hits?

As I type this, I floped trips, put in a big raise and was called with 4 9 suited who hit his flush on the river. .. ho hum!
And just as I finished typing I had AA vs KK on another table, all-in preflop for a K to come out.. Not my day really.. lol..

So -
Should I
Put more cash in?
Change the tables I play at (up or down)
Give up altogether?
Get even tighter and not even play AA or trips? (he he - joking)

All advice is good,

- O, my objectives? Win more cash playing part time.. Maybe 10-20 hours a week. Win world series, you know, the usual!

It kinda sounds like while you want to succeed at your online game at a more regular basis that its still just mostly pure entertainment tro you. I suggest that you take a little time to refine the simple points of your game. Like, playing fewer tables at once so that you can study your table better. Even, online an astute player can pick up *tells* of how a particular player bets a hand. Its, not just play your game always but play the player . Good luck and Pe@ce

At this stage I would hold back at depositing the whole amount you have available. There are 2 reasons this. 1st, you need to gain a lot more experience playing poker than you currently have imo. Putting the whole roll at risk with the temptation to blow through tilt and poor play is just way too risky. You need to read up on lots of strategy and post lots of hand analysis. Once you feel confident in your game, by all means load up the whole roll and play at a level your confident at.

But please learn everything you can about BRM. That includes, the psychology behind it, having contingency plans etc etc.

2nd point is consider bonus whoring and rakeback before you deposit. No use putting this all into one site and blowing any chances of rakeback without doing any research. There will be plenty of months when things are going bad, that you will be grateful for bonuses and rakeback believe me.

Last little caveat! You have a great chance here, more than most people get playing poker. Most ppl have to start with £50 or whatever and grind it out. Practice BRM religiously and we won't here about you in 2-3 months time bemoaning your luck and 'online pokers rigged' blah blah blah.

GL m8.

I'd deposit it all on FTP and play the NL25 tables. What's your username BTW?

How sure are you that you are a winning player? Have you used poker tracker or something similar before?

If not, deposit $500 at Full Tilt or PokerStars and play 10k-15k hands of NL25. If PokerTracker says you are a winning player there after that many hands, then move up. If not, no matter what you think the reasons were, move down and try to figure out what you are doing wrong.

I would never do that... Never have and never will. Some days it goes good and somedays it goes bad. Its just the percentages, everything has to happen sooner or later.. EG - in live play last night. I got knocked out a $150 game in 7th place at the Casino in Edinburgh. I was shortish stacked and on my BB it was raised at me, I had QQ. i pushed and was called by 77. And he hiits a straight . Unlikly but it has to happen sometimes. (was playing well all night.... darn)

Experience.. - How much is enough then.. I've not played that much online, i only have about 15k hands in the poker tracker. But I have only had pokertracker 2 weeks. The last two weeks i've probably doubled my hand count. So maybe 30k hands.

I'm on Full Tilt (hello) and have taken advantage of a 27% rakeback program. This seems ok to me. So hopefully i'll get a nice figure back at end of the month or whenever!

Hillbilly, - i look forward to seeing you online.

I have about 15k of hands in pokertracker. all in last couple of weeks.

I'm not making cash from online poker (live i am ok). I seem to do well but from my tables playing usually about 5 or 6 at a time, I'll blow it all.. so ... eg.. 6 tables played.. I win $14, $10, $8 $ 8 and lose $25 and $25.... Its beginning to suck. However some days, I don't win on the 4 and lose $25 x 4 tables..

I guess I need to stop doing that..

Its always with the big hands I lose them, KK, QQ AK, and JJ (poker tracker tells me that at least 3 times I've played JJ into a 10 high flop or less and walked into an overpair. ) (I don't think its rigged btw)

So I play steady, make some headway then lose it all in one hand! Need to stop doing this.

----------

I might move down a level, play another 10-15k hands and figure it out.

I wouldn't deposit it all. I think the fact that most of us started out by depositing the bare minimum, and worked our way up from there is what helped us succeed in the game. If you can't make 50$ work, then you can't make 4000$ work. If you have 4000$ its just going to tempt you to play the higher stakes hoping to profit faster. It won't work that way always.

About 2 years ago I deposited 50$, I played 1 table with that 50$. I don't remember exactly what happened, but when I had enough to move up, I did, with my entire bankroll. Eventually I have 2650$, I withdrew 2500 and it was the down payment on my car. Leaving me with 150, I knew nothign of bankroll managment and I woke up one morning, went into a game with all 150$ and needless to say I went broke. The 2500$ I withdrew was sheer luck. I highly advise against doing that. Follow strict bankroll managment and you'll do much better. I deposited 50$ a few months ago, and following strict managment I am up several thousand dollars. I could easily afford to sit in a game with 5000$, but I don't. I am still playing cash games of 1/2$ blinds. When I am tired, but bored, I jump in a 1$ tourney or play some .05/.1 cash game so if I make any stupid plays, I am losing 2-3$ rather than 30-40.

I hope this advice helps. I'm not telling you to spend the 4000$ elsewhere, believe me, I want my shot at it ; ) Just don't deposit it all at once. Try 100$ for now, sit in on some micro-stakes and set a goal with that 100$. Say... 500$. If you can hit that, you're ready to move up. but that 4000$ shouldn't be needed if you are a good player. Even with a horrible month or 2 you shouldn't need to deposit more than 500$. If you hit that point where you've deposited 500$ and you continue to lose, go back to the cash games that you are good at. Online might not be for you.

Gotta call BS

Stay on topic. You can PM me your bags of BS.

I am on topic. What you just gave IMO was bad advice.

Then say it was bad advice. You were calling BS on my story. You can't call BS on advice, it just doesn't work logically.

I thought your advice was bullshit! Better?

Please explain how my advice is bullshit.

I haven't seen you offer any.

Oi -

Take your arguments elsewhere please...

Could you post your PT stats, maybe a screen shot?

You didn't state who you wanted to post a screenshot KyleJRM

it's been said, but i think the best way to play is to earn what you can play. i personally chose to get all my money for free and have worked it up quite nicely from there. the biggest way to lose is to deposit large then feel inadequate playing at the appropriate level (i.e. $3 sngs w/ $4k roll).

Just deposit like $200 and use extreme br management and move up if you feel ready and have accomplished the earnings to do so. personally i never have enjoyed moving up past the $15-20 tournament level even w/ my bankroll because i still don't feel remotely ready. that's just me.

^^^I now pronounce you life partners, you may kiss the .....whatever you want to be named

IMO I think that was some good advice by synthetic and your opinion was out of line Wolf.

As for the OP, you should deposit with what you'll feel comfortable playing with and by what you had typed before I would advise against playing more than 4 tables at a time.

Here you go.. Is this the info you wanted?

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2.../ptrscreen.jpg

Yea move down stakes (no more than NL10) and try to improve your online poker. Once you start to beat a level, then look to move up. But you shouldn't even be playing low stakes like NL25 until you are a consistent winning player imo, because you can still lose quite alot of money at those stakes over time.

Anyways, if you want advice looking at your stats...

Lower VPIP. You are playing too loose. Tighten up your starting requirements, and DO NOT play crap like Q9, KT etc unless you are in position and raising into a pot (which you don't do much). Play tight, focus on bigger aces + KQ type hands, bigger pps, small pps for set mining and s/c cards if you want. Once you learn how to play better, you can change your range. A high VPIP with a low pfr and a lowish AF doesn't work. You just end up bleeding chips by limp/calling then folding the flop. Playing fairly loose passive also gets you into situations where you have marginal hands (but often good enough to make you want to continue...like TPBK etc) which is another way to lose alot of chips
Increase your PFR. You are limping with WAY too much atm. Try to have your VPIP/PFR ratio fairly near to 1. That means you kinda want stats looking something like 17/12 etc. Anyways, with 23/6 it is very hard to win pots, because you probably have less than ideal cards in most cases and without the initiative preflop are unlikely to be able to win the pot in the case that you miss (often). Att to steal is low, but this is directly related to the fact that you don't raise much pf. So when you are in late position, you should consider raising hands like 89s and just folding bad hands like QTo etc.
And then in general just pay alot of attention to position. You can have a much wider range in late position, whereas from UTG you probably don't want to be playing anything worse than AJs+ AQo+ KQs 99+ (and maybe small pps for set mining).

There are a few problems with some of the other stats, but those are the main ones on which you should focus.

Yep this is the main reason why you shouldn't deposit the whole lot just yet. From your stats, you really need to study a lot more about online poker. Now I hope that doesn't sound condescending because its not meant that way. If you play with those stats for a prolonged period of time you will go through your roll in no time.

There's plenty of advice available on here if you need it. You only have to ask. Use the search tool and read the strat articles. Once you have a good grounding in what style you should be playing and what stats to aim for then you can move forward.

hrm just noticed you play @ fulltilt. Moving to NL10 is going to also be a bitch, because i can't see you managing to beat it with the ridiculous rake charged at those stakes.

I would actually suggest that you deposit a little on Pokerstars. 1. they have a shitty first time deposit bonus so you aren't losing any "potential" money if you later wanted to deposit alot. 2. the cash games @ low stakes have standard rake and the play isn't very good (but i doubt it is at tilt either).

The one problem with this obviously is that you aren't going to be able to clear your first time deposit bonus @ tilt (presuming you have one to clear). But i hate to say this, i doubt you are going to be able to beat NL10 @ tilt with 10% rake at this stage.

Well,

I moved down to the 10c NL games and so far have won 25 of the 27 played sessions. Not that bad going with a BB/hour of about 43.2. Only been just over 1000 hands but not been playing much this week. AF is is up to 2.5, pfr is at 6.9 but i have found my VP$IP is up to 27%.

I reduced the starting hands I'll play with (no more K9 or J7), am trying to play position more, trying to bet my hand more (rather than check top pair etc for a bigger bet at the end.)

I'll stay here for a little while and play another 4000 or so hands and see if I can keep it up.

How are you doing at the casino? How many hours have you spent at cash tables there and at what stakes? How many sit and go tourneys have you played live? Do you keep track of your stats? Have you taken the time to calculate your live sit and go ROI?

I don't know how good of a player you are....for all I know you might be a losing live game player. But my advice to you, if you have a casino within driving distance of your home, is to put 90% of that money into live poker and put 10% or less into online play.

To put it another way, I play $250 and $500 sit and goes live, but I play $10 rig-n-goes online. Online ROI = 6%. Live ROI is over 30%.

I wouldn't put $50 into an online game, let alone deposit $4,000. They day I deposit $4,000 on some online poker site and put it in the hands of those Costa Rican theives, I would have to be senile or have so much money that $4k is like $4.00 to me at the time.

So you think online poker is rigged? Hmmmm....never heard anyone espouse that theory before please do tell. Also please provide all your supporting reference material.

Thanks for the heads-up.

I was never planning to deposit $4000. I said I had that is an available BR that I wouldn't be that killing to my life if i lost it. Huge difference.

I play 2-3 live tournements a week in the casino. 1 £10 re-buy and 2 x £30 freezouts usually.

I make a final table 2 in 5 times and top 3 usually 1 in 10. Usually 40-80 players. - I've won 5 or 6 times. Biggest was a £10 re-buy, with no-re-buys to win £2000 with 120 players.

I rarely play the cash tables there. I might start. They are £1/ £2 min £50 sit down. best times to play late night, i.e. 1am - 4am. so it gets tricky with real life and such.

I don't think its rigged. I just haven't seen any proof that it isn't.

Do you have any "supporting reference material?" For which site? If you have some proof that a particular site is not rigged, I would sure appreciate you sharing it with me. I'd love to deposit a few hundred on that site and get started making money.

Thanks in advance. I look forward to reading your material.

Hey, that sounds pretty good. Why bother with online poker. Why not just haul your butt down to that casino?

As for the cash games....if they are as soft as those tourneys, you should do well there.

Good luck.

Oh Dear.. Why don't we just discus whether or not God exists? You prove it ----- no you prove he doesn't ... no you prove it.. etc etc etc...

Anyway... I read my own post where I said I play a lot more tournements and said.. why don't I try one online... So I played a $10 freezout and came 3rd. (lost with 2 pair to a hit flush draw against massive stack) and got just shy of $300 for my bankrole... Might play another one today!

sweet mate good little start there!! Keep it up !

I agree with that analogy. People who aren't open to the possibility that a site is cheating them are similar to the faithful. They have a belief in something with no proof to back that belief up. That's why it's called faith. Instead they use a lack of negative proof as a form of proof positive. Faith has little to do with logic of course.

Another thing that makes your analogy so good is that both God and online gambling sites could easily proof they are real, but both chose not to. God could appear and tell us he's real, and online gambling sites could open up their records and make their programs available to outside scrutiny by fully independant organizations. But, like God, the gambling sites have a multitude of faithful defenders gripping their mouses like little pocket bibles and dismissing any doubters that might get in the way of their pretty picture.

Hell, online gambling even has a bunch of people screaming for the government to stay out of it and not try to regulate it....seperation of church and state!

I don't agree with that analogy.

With any proposition, we have to make a basic assumption based on the most common situation. I think the statement "an online gambling corporation dealing with tens of thousands of customers and millions of dollars is consistently operating within the guidelines of its terms of conditions." is a fair assumption. That doesn't mean they aren't all corrupt cheat-corps, just that most reasonable people will assume they are on the up-and-up, provided there is no credible evidence to the contrary.

The UltimateBet situation was discovered by the players long before Ultimatebet fessed up. There are thousands of players using hand tracking software. Yet, we have seen no credible evidence of "rigging" on any other major site. That complete lack of evidence makes me believe that it's fair to assume that my online money is safe for the time being on these sites.

"An online gambling corporation dealing with tens of thousands of customers and millions of dollars is operating within the guidelines of its terms of conditions."

"I am unable to walk on water."

Both reasonable assumptions. No faith needed for either statement, provided you are open to new evidence that may disprove them.