Weird semi-problem with BR management

I don't even like calling less than $100 at a site with penny tables a bankroll. I mean, really it's not enough to handle a string of losses at that point, so how's it a roll?

Nevertheless, one way or another I got some more loot heading my way. But I've got a little money management problem with the penny tables. See, I keep finding that only one of three things happens, and what's got me stuck is that whole Chris Ferguson BR management thing where you leave when you have more than 2x. Well, the problem is, I keep winding up in odd situations.

I can't for the life of me hit something like 2.25x or 2.5x my buy in. Instead I can hit 3x-4x of my buy in no problem. But that's when I'm winning. So when I'm not winning but technically shouldn't be losing any money, I lose it anyway because I'm trying to push up to over 2x my buy in, and poop happens, and I'd still have loot if I didn't have "Leave when you have more than 2x your buy-in" ringing in my ears.

I have it stuck in my head that more than 2x means just a little more than 2x. On top of that there are times when I should just leave. Get the heck out, because I know it's not going to get any better and my stack has stalled before hitting the full amount I should leave with.

Is it okay to adjust the rules? Can I change them to something like "leave when you hit 3x - 4x your buy-in or if your stack stalls"? I'm sick of leaving at the wrong time just because of rules from someone who has never actually been in my situation. For instance, I had a couple of live ones the other night. Kept throwing chips at me, I'm pretty sure I could have all but cleaned them out. But I left once my stack was up to 3x my buy-in, just because of what I read/heard. Only, in the process my play was sending some would be hijackers away too so I had these two isolated and easy to beat. I had to be nuts for leaving. I just had to be, but I was following the rules.


So couldn't I adjust them and add an all you can eat fish rule? I mean it sure would help to cover the downswings if I can.

Granted, I did push it way too high a couple of times and get carried away, but most of the time I can push away before the downswing at a table tilts me.

I'm just trying to adjust so the upswings outweigh the downswings.

Ruless are meant to be broken. Actually they are only a starting point. If you can make some adjustments to them that makes them work for you, do it. Everyones playing style is different so what works for CF may not work for you exactly. the thing about 2x is that its easy to figure in your head. Try adjusting your cutoff to just under instead of just over 2x and see what happens. The problem with playing after you have pasted the 2x point is that your winnings are at risk if you get a good hand and someone else hits a monster.

Personally, I hate this rule. It makes sense if you find yourself playing poorly when you're deepstacked - being deepstacked requires changes in the way you play NLHE (not familiar w other games), and if you're not good at deepstack play, then by all means get up and leave.

But if you have a solid edge on the table and are comfortable playing deepstacked, I think it's silly-verging-on-insane to leave at a preset amount.

Just imo.

Are you playing SS??? you should get off the table, when you at 1.5x higher then what you came in with...
When i start to drop i take off.

Stop wins/losses are always debatable. Chris's zero to hero bankroll guide lines are geared towards never going broke because he can't reload. The money he has is worth more than the money he could win.

If you start playing $10NL with 20x the buy in for a bankroll ($200) you've got 5% of your roll on the table. Pretty safe.

Say you triple up to $30 and a couple other players triple up with you. Now you're playing $25NL with 9x the buy in for a bankroll.

The stop wins keep you from making a deep stack mistake.

Did I miss the point? I haven't had any coffee...

u can not play with scared money.

CF is right at the rules, but remeber when he did this experiment he played half of his time.

*he played the other half in the big games.He is not scared like u are

I'd say it's OK to tweak it. But Double-A has the essence of the problem. Once your stack goes over a certain point (CF's 2xbuy-in, for instance), you are no longer playing within your limits.

Unless, of course, nobody else at the table has a full-buy-in. In which case, you don't need more either, do you. (OK, it's enjoyable to have a big stack at a table. You can be a bully -- but you will lose that stack soon enough if you are.)

This doesn't matter if you can or are willing to simply re-deposit if you go broke. But if you are trying to hard-wire the discipline of keeping to limits and holding onto your bankroll, stick to your rules. If you can do it at micro levels, you may be able to hold on to your roll when you are playing higher... and there is a reasonable chance that your roll will increase and you will be able to play higher.

@ RI ER SA

Yes! I have considered this a lot. Ferguson is a much better player than I am. Does that change how I view his rules? Yes. I think I need to be even more conservative.

He did say that he sweated this challenge. It didn't matter to him that he was playing for pennies, because pennies were all he had and he'd had to fight for them. So he claims he played his best thoughtful poker.
It's not really about playing scared. But I think Ferguson rules may be for him and maybe someone not as good as him should be even more conservative/careful about following rules.

I should have been more clear. My prefered game is PLO hi/lo but I like playing PLO, NLHE, and PLHE at the bottom. Chris lost at PLO hi/lo while looking for a game so he went with NLHE. Chris bought in for 5% of his BR and left when it reached more than 2x his buy in which on average was when it reached 15% of his br.

Basically Chris was more conservative with play than buy-in. He was loose when it came to buying in. Not as loose as a happy-go-lucky sort who buys in for half their br or some such, but still pretty loose. I mean when your buy-in times 2.5 or so equals 15% of your br that's imho on the loose side.

Now first I have to build up enough to only bring 1% but that's the plan. To bring no more than 2.5% but around 1% of my money to the table on average.

Buying in short in PLO hi/lo at the bottom's not nearly as risky as buying in short for NLHE at the bottom. First of all, almost nobody raises pre-flop. When they do raise, most only raise with A2 in their hand or AAxx. That makes putting them on a hand easier (most of the time, I'll elaborate later). The big difference between PLO hi/lo and NLHE apart from just pure logic and little things like knowing you'll get quartered if you stay in for the lo with the board drawing to a straight, or the wrong suit, and folding with minimal losses is that you can play a hand all the way through and pump the pot.

I'll give an example. Say I have a good to great starting hand. I'll raise with a pretty wide assortment but this is a given. AA23 double suited to the aces. I will raise pre-flop with that and if there's a frenzy wind up all-in pre-flop with that but it's okay because it wins almost every time and scoops a lot. Flop comes A45 rainbow. With 2 or 3 players in the pot I can start betting and raising, even check-raise with just 1 other player. They're probably going for lo because they stayed in pre-flop. If they're going for hi it's the high end of a straight. I've got top set and guaranteed lo. Turn's anything from pairing the board to a second card to my A hi flush. I stay in and keep pumping the pot. I don't care if I hav 2 or 3 opponents because I'm drawing best and it'll take a lot for me to get quartered at this point.

Long story short the pot gets pretty darned big without a whole lot of chips from yours truly. Worst case scenario someone has quads and I'm quartered for the lo. But most of the time my boat holds up or my flush pans out + I got the nut lo, so I scoop or quarter the opposition.

So 2x my buy in isn't as common in that particular game as it is in NLHE(where I actually do leave as soon as I get more than 2x my buy-in). In the scenario given, I can actually sit with the minimum and win up to 4x my buy in for that hand alone. 6x is far fetched since I'm bound to quarter at least 2 of my potential 3 opponents(and 3's not uncommon at the very bottom).

Normally I stay a courtesy orbit or two and that's okay can spare a couple of cents to be courteous. Then I bolt with around 4x my buy in. That's a really lucky hand though, but it still illustrates how PLO hi/lo is so different from NLHE. In NLHE it's hard to even double up. In PLO hi/lo it's pretty easy to triple up in a single hand. NLHE makes ya shove and pray for the best. PLO hi/lo lets you play the hand through and get your chips in while ahead and deep in a hand.

Thing is it's still poker, and there aren't any guarantees for a single session or hand.

Still, I know Chris didn't have any luck with PLO hi/lo cuz he mentions it in the podcast. So he played NLHE to build up. He had very little experience at the bottom so he had to struggle to win $2 in a freeroll. Thing is, when I cash in those FTP freerolls, I normally make the final table. Then he floundered at the bottom until he found a cheap MTT which boosted him to I believe over $200.

Chris is a much better player than I am overall. He'd beat the living daylights out of me at high stakes, or even low to mid stakes. But I actually think I could whoop him at the lowest stakes for PLO hi/lo, and stand a chance at NLHE for pennies or dimes, at least with a few other players at the table I could.

What I really want to do and explained it poorly last night is sorta flip his rules and also adapt them to PLO hi/lo which pays and plays differently from NLHE. Right around 2x at PLO hi/lo seems to just mean that I'm stuck and I'll be saying bye-bye to my chips more often than pushing them up to just over 2x my buy-in or even 3x-4x. So I really just want to adapt when I leave to the game and make the most of winning, while curtting losses by just getting the heck out when I stall at under 2x but without just breaking even or worse yet, losing.

But that's not the only thing I want to change. I want to actually buy-in for less. Once I have enough money to where I can bring a small percentage, I'd much rather bring no more than 2.5% to the table 9 times out of 10. Bringing just 2.5% or less, quite obviously means my money can withstand things like a couple of bad nights, maybe a bit of revenge tilt, and a dry spell.

Also I need to find a way to play in the Daily Dollar at least three times a week during this stumbling, low on cash time. I figure that if I have to play in it a hundred times to finish in the top 2 spots I'm still way ahead(at least 10x my total investment). It's a hundred little shots and along the way I should cash for a couple hundred at some point. At that point I don't have to worry nearly as much and can just bring the planned 1%-2.5% to any given table or tournament, and it'll take a lot to plow through a couple hundred bucks. Last time I went out in a blaze of glory. There weren't that many left to the bubble but I got all my chips in with QQ against inferior hands, and just happened to bust. Didn't get mad though because I did the right thing, and since the player who won the hand could afford to lose what myself and the other loser were shoving in, only one player played the hand wrong and it was the other loser who shoved with a tiny pair after I made it clear I was commited and the much bigger stack made it clear they weren't going anywhere. The tiny pair definitely didn't have much of a chance, and it was obvious.

Thanks for the input but I'm pretty much set on doing it my way. I can at least try, and with so little to lose, it can't hurt much to give my way a shot. Chris' way hasn't worked for me yet, except it did make $50 last an awfully long time at UB.

Why I like limit. I'm not going to lose my whole stack on one hand. Only time I play NL is tourneys.