comfortability vs. BRM

do you ever let you comfort level override proper BRM?

example:

your bankroll is $70. 5% is 3.85 which on pokerstars allows you to play 1.20 stt or mtt. or 3.30 turbo's. you play 5.50 instead because you feel comfortable playing at that level.

Occasionally. Not to say it's 'right', though.

BRM is meant to discourage this type of thing. Regardless how comfortable or good you are at a certain level, if you play over your limits on a regular basis, you will get massive swings (or possibly lose your BR).

Since my 400nl blowup, I've stuck to the %5 percent rule, but I'm not sure that's even safe. I've read that for multitabling STTs, 50-100 buyins (ie %2-%1) is standard; I've also read that for MTTs, 100-200 is standard (ie %1-%.5).

agreed that at this level it can be dangerous to your BR. but is the 1.65 it takes to move up a level really that much?

Well realistically, all BRM comes down to is how much the money means to you.

Looking at both ends of the spectrum, if the $70 and change is just fun money to you, then you don't need any BRM rules. On the other hand, if it's all you can afford to have online for a long time, then yes, the $1.65 over the %5 really does matter. Especially if other players (who are more experienced than us) say that 50-100 buyins is the norm. In that case your $3.85 is already too big anyways.

I have the opposite problem: I am uncomfortable unless I am what most people would consider "over rolled" (I like to have 100+ buy ins personally).

ChuckTs said:

Well realistically, all BRM comes down to is how much the money means to you.

Looking at both ends of the spectrum, if the $70 and change is just fun money to you, then you don't need any BRM rules. On the other hand, if it's all you can afford to have online for a long time, then yes, the $1.65 over the %5 really does matter. Especially if other players (who are more experienced than us) say that 50-100 buyins is the norm. In that case your $3.85 is already too big anyways.

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well said! another factor i think that needs to be taken into consideration is the level of play at these low limits. i've played all of the levels up to 5.50 (which i've quite sure you have as well) and i've found that the only difference is the level of seriousness at which the game is taken, but not skill level so much.

aliengenius said:

I have the opposite problem: I am uncomfortable unless I am what most people would consider "over rolled" (I like to have 100+ buy ins personally).

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i would love to have that luxury. i am working on it. it's take an extrordinary amount of patience to get there from virtually nothing. which is obviously why people stray away from proper BRM.

I stick to the 5% SNG / 2% MTT rule down to the last dollar. I used to "take shots" but not anymore.
This can be a lesson in discipline, and it keeps your bankroll safe.

ChuckTs said:

Since my 400nl blowup, I've stuck to the %5 percent rule, but I'm not sure that's even safe.

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Why would you say this? If you always move down a level once you'd be past 5% there's virtually no chance of going broke.
At 5% you only have 20 buy-ins, but that doesn't mean you can play 20 times at this level. Once you have only 19 buy-ins left you must move down.

Chris_TC said:

Why would you say this? If you always move down a level once you'd be past 5% there's virtually no chance of going broke.
At 5% you only have 20 buy-ins, but that doesn't mean you can play 20 times at this level. Once you have only 19 buy-ins left you must move down.

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Factoring in multitabling and variance and the %5 isn't safe enough for me. I was on a downswing with a ~$900 bankroll at the $16s while four-tabling and the swings would tear my bankroll a new asshole every day.

I think %5 is enough, but the smaller the % the better. If you don't change your game by being overrolled (ie don't undervalue every buyin), then playing with <%1 is just plain safer.

IMO bankroll management is what makes long term winning players. Stick to it, and you cant go wrong.

H020585 said:

IMO bankroll management is what makes long term winning players. Stick to it, and you cant go wrong.

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Completely agree. It's at least a huge, hugggee factor.

ChuckTs said:

Completely agree. It's at least a huge, hugggee factor.

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Right, but even if you're playing with 0.00001% of your BR, you're still gonna lose if you consistently call 3 all-ins with hands like KJ (and boy are there plenty of those, just tripled up at a cash table with AA vs. KK and KJ, bet, raise, raise, raise, raise all-in, call [this was KJ], call [me, happily rejoicing]).

In fact, I would go as far as saying that after joining CC, the thing that improved my online poker experience the most was learning proper BR management.

ChuckTs said:

Well realistically, all BRM comes down to is how much the money means to you.

Looking at both ends of the spectrum, if the $70 and change is just fun money to you, then you don't need any BRM rules.

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I understand what you're saying here, but I disagree just a bit. My entire online bank roll (indeed, my bank roll period) is what most people would call "fun money." When I decided to start playing poker, I used the money I would usually spend on other entertainment (movies, eating out, new clothes) to fund my original bank roll. I have managed to build it up quite a ways, but I still adhere to strict brm rules. I want to be a profitable poker player, not just a poker player who can afford to donk off a pile of money. The only way I can continue to show a profit (the only measure of success that matters to me) is to abide by those rules.

vanquish said:

In fact, I would go as far as saying that after joining CC, the thing that improved my online poker experience the most was learning proper BR management.

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Couldnt agree more. It wasnt until I started reading cardschat that I realised what BR management was, and just how important it was. In my humble opinion it is the single biggest factor that has helped me win more, avoid tilt and stay sane in the process.

I ocassinally play a game that is just out of my bankroll ($5+50) but i think this helps me even if i loose it is a wake up call for me to play better and i seem to do a lot better at the games i normally play for at least a week later. Not a tactic i would recommend to everyone but works for me.

Also i played a Knockout the other day and that also seemed to get me out of my rut of lossing, I guess if your lossing your normal game try a different to get your mind of it before going back it works for me.

i try hard to conform to my BRM but sometimes i do find myself over it because i am coformfortable at some higher levels, it is a risk i guess and could hurt u quick, but i think keeping control of yourself can back it up, like u have ur $70 and u play in the $5 and lose...u took that stab at it and lost so now back to doing it right, instead of trying to play again and again to get it back...thats how i do it. another thing i do if i want to play in a higher limit game is i will go play a cash game to win enough for a buy-in and i treat it like a satellite, basically go sit in a cash game until i have a profit that covers the buy-in.

my br only allows me to play $1+.20 sng at pokerstars. Once in a while i'll play the $5+.50 sngs. I do well in those, winning a couple and placing in the money in others. its tempting to want and try to double and triple up your br, but i'll learned my lesson and tried to jump up to $10+1. that was dumb. Now i just stick to my $1+.20. I know it will take a while to build my br, but i am determined to stay disciplined.

T-MaQ said:

my br only allows me to play $1+.20 sng at pokerstars. Once in a while i'll play the $5+.50 sngs. I do well in those, winning a couple and placing in the money in others. its tempting to want and try to double and triple up your br, but i'll learned my lesson and tried to jump up to $10+1. that was dumb. Now i just stick to my $1+.20. I know it will take a while to build my br, but i am determined to stay disciplined.

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Please move your br to a site like UB instead (where they have $0.50 + $0.05 sngs). You must realize that a 20% rake at the one dollar level is probably unbeatable long term. You can move back when you can afford the $5 games if you like FT better (rake is 0.50 = 10%), but please, please, please get out of the 20% rake games if at all possible as soon as you can.

Also, consider e-mailing FT and telling them that you don't appreciate them raping their low limit players, and point out that you have options (like UB), and will not accept a 20% rake at any level.

chiefer77 said:

agreed that at this level it can be dangerous to your BR. but is the 1.65 it takes to move up a level really that much?

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Yes, it is that much!

The relationship between risk of ruin and % of BR is extremely non-linear. For example, let's assume that the 5% rule is "safe", i.e. that it is very unlikely to lose your BR due to a bad run. If you started playing using 25% of BR, you are almost certain to go broke, not just 5 times more likely.

The flip side of this is what AG is saying. If you play "too safe", you are not getting enough profit. Say that you use 1/10% rule. The reduction of risk is not worth it. Say that, just for the sake of an example, the 5% rule leads to 1% chance to go broke per year. If going down to 1/10% decreases your risk to 0.001%, it may not be worth it.

Basically, the expected win is rougly proportional to the buy-in, but risk raises VERY QUICKLY above the "safe" levels, and decreases very quickly well below that.

So playing above your BR limits is NEVER a good idea. If 20% rake is a barrier, play at another site.

Poker World(and other skins) have SNGs as low as 10c with 10% rake (but very low volume during the day).

P.S. I am currently in the process of setting up calculations for OPTIMAL STT bankroll given a player's actual performance. So instead of using a rough rule like 5%, one would be able to calculate the exact risk given that player's performance. The performance is the distribution of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th+ places.

There is no formula possible, not even a spreadsheet can do that. So I would have to compute this in each case. If anyone is interested to obtain their optimal STT bankroll, then let me know and I will tell you what data I would need. Obviously, I would keep any such information in confidence.

zachvac said:

Right, but even if you're playing with 0.00001% of your BR, you're still gonna lose if you consistently call 3 all-ins with hands like KJ (and boy are there plenty of those, just tripled up at a cash table with AA vs. KK and KJ, bet, raise, raise, raise, raise all-in, call [this was KJ], call [me, happily rejoicing]).

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BRM is only relevant for winning players.

If a player is losing, the required BR is infinity. In that case, it is not a BR management issue, but a budgeting issue.

Cheetah said:

If anyone is interested to obtain their optimal STT bankroll, then let me know and I will tell you what data I would need.

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This sounds very interesting, can you please tell me what data you need? I'll PM it to you.

Chris_TC said:

This sounds very interesting, can you please tell me what data you need? I'll PM it to you.

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Chris, I need a space separated table with the following columns:

Turbo: (either 'y' for yes or 'n' for no)
Buy-In:
# of players:
result:

For example:

Turbo Buy-In #players result
y 1 10 2
y 1 10 1
y 1 10 10
y 1 10 3
y 1 10 6
y 1 10 9
n 1 9 3
n 1 9 3
n 1 9 5
n 1 9 2
n 2 10 1
n 2 10 4
n 2 10 3
n 2 10 6
y 1 6 4
y 1 6 6
y 1 6 1
y 1 6 2
y 1 6 5

The turbo and buy-in are needed to group together games of the same type. If all your data is the same type (say $5 regular), you can omit the first 2 columns.

# of players is need for grouping and to calculate the prizes.

I will assume standard payout structures. If the payout structure is non-standard for some of the entries, indicate what it is.

Oh wow, I think this is beyond me.
My PokerOffice database is MySQL, so I'm sure there's a way to read out the data and format it the way you need it but I don't think I can pull this off.

I'll ask on the PokerOffice forums, maybe someone can help me.

I only like to use a small portion of my bankroll. I very seldom go higher than 5 percent of my total bankroll. If i do, Its because i feel very focused and feel like gambling.