How realistic is a weekly 10% bankroll increase?

Hi all,


This may be a rather long thread so please bear with me

Was interested in your thoughts and feedback. To give you an idea I’ve been in sales for about 5 years now hence I’m no stranger to goals & targets. It has pretty much become the way I operate. I struggle to play poker without having an end goal in mind. But don’t get me wrong, any end goal I have in mind must obviously be realistic.

I’ve limited my play to online cash games, always following the 5% bankroll rule. As an average, yet improving player, is concentrating on a weekly bankroll increase of 10% achievable?

I tested it last week, and to be honest I did play a few sessions looser than I normally would. I ended up with a weekly profit of 10.12%

To give you some stats:
Played 23 sessions
Profited 17
Lost 6
Total playing time 14.35 hrs
Started with $67.28
Ended with $74.09
Limit .01/.02

I’m happy with the result but feel I could have made a few bigger laydowns to avoid the heads up coin flips, EG all in before the flop with AK vs QQ etc
I also feel as time goes on and I move up from the micro limits I will slightly have a better return as I won’t be against so many calling stations or crazy hand situations. I understand that those situations will always be in poker at any limit, but should be a lot less at a $3/$6 against a .01/.02

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and appreciate your time and feedback in advance.

The short answer is no, it's not realistic to think you will make $2M in two years.

10% per week is an ambitious goal, and you could probably do it, at least until a certain level (and don't expect that level to be too high). good luck!

custo80 said:

I also feel as time goes on and I move up from the micro limits I will slightly have a better return as I won’t be against so many calling stations or crazy hand situations. I understand that those situations will always be in poker at any limit, but should be a lot less at a $3/$6 against a .01/.02

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you seem to fail considering the options that your return might be less. reasons: a) calling stations are actually good for your profit b) the people will have a better understanding as well, and might fold some hands where people at the lower levels wouldn't c) or they might simply be able to read you better

Based on your stats, you make .47/hr playing .01/.02 limit. At those stakes, that's a huge return.

Having goals is a good idea. I would like to suggest a slightly different one for you to consider.

I suspect that you're not planning on playing .01/.02 limit for the rest of your life.

Think about a bankroll amount at which you will switch to .02/.04 or whatever the next level is. Learn how to win at that level and set a goal for the next level, probably .05/.10.

Also, realize that the games are different at each level, and the skills you employ at .01/.02 may not serve you as well at .02/.04. You'll have to learn to adapt.

Focus on that and track your return/hr. I suspect it will be lower than the 23.5 bb/hr you described above.

Once you're making $200/day, I doubt that you'll care what the percentage increase in your bankroll is.

Good Luck!!!!!

custo80 said:

I also feel as time goes on and I move up from the micro limits I will slightly have a better return as I won’t be against so many calling stations or crazy hand situations.

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I wanted to address this to start. This statement it completely wrong. As you move up in limits, you'll find out that you will be looking through the tables trying to find the calling stations. As you play people that are better you won't get paid off with your good hands, and they will be the ones putting YOU to the tough decisions in crazy hand situations.


The answer to your main question, no.


Your sample size is way too small to reflect any sort of average return. Play 20,000 hands and then you'll start to get an idea of your returns.

I assume you are playing No Limit? You have in your chart there "Limit .01/.02" yet you mention being all in preflop with AK vs QQ ????

It's not realistic. Variance is the enemy of your goal. Even if you are a winning player, which is by no means proven by this thread, some weeks you will up your BR by 20%, others you will lose 20% and it won't (necessarily) be your 'fault'.

+10% per week translates into +14104% per year. So after one year you would have $9500. That may be possible if you turn out to be a REALLY good player. But don't expect to repeat that kind of +% the following years.

I've personally started playing poker 32 weeks ago and I am now averaging +25% per week (+142190% over 32 weeks). The trick was to start with a tiny amount: $.47 from freerolls.

But if I look more closely, I was +225% per week over my first 4 weeks (turned $.47 to $52 in a month) and +7.6% per week over the last 4 weeks. You do have to expect the win rate to decrease as you move up in limits. Had I kept the same win rate I had for the first 4 weeks, I would now be sitting on $10000000000000000! That's a thousand times the GDP of the United States of America...

I believe that the way you stated your potential goal you will run into some severe 'mathematical improbables'. During the early stages things can happen that way. But once you get into big stake games the sheer numbers will get you.

However, a slight variation to your goal does seem more doable.

Rather than a 10%/week increase, set stages or levels to benchmark against for some undefined period.

Lets assume you start with $100. Still a couple of weeks away from where you state you are today.

Using that 10% number per week on the $100 will net you $10 that first week.

If you change it from increasing your br per week, to increasing your base ($100) per week until you hit a specific goal, perhaps $500, may be actually really easy. That would take 40 weeks. But I'm fairly certain you want a more accelerated ROI. So make it $300.

At that point you change your base. Say the base is now $300, $30/week still really doable at that bankroll.

The benefits here are a bit tighter control, without the looming improbability of an exponentially increasing goal. Plus the added experience at each level, and an expected gain in your ability to apply your talents.

Dorkus's comments on variance suggest those variances will occur. You can count on them occurring. Some weeks you will not meet your goal, while other weeks you might far exceed you goal. So for any week, you will want to take that weeks performances in context with several weeks on either side of said week. Think rolling 5 day averages of a stock. Ignore the daily ups and downs.

As for the improbability of it all. Consider the stock market. No stock can make 10% per week. But every stock strives for a better than 10% raise per year based on original stock price (base).

If I'm a little old lady in Pheonix, with $100K in the stock market I might be very happy with 10K per year forever. Same lady might be thrilled with a 10% per month rate, but she will be rightfully leery.

Start with .01, double your money each day for a while.

Tell me how much you have? You think it's possible that it's that easy?

10% = turns into way to much at some point, there is quite a few mathematical problems with your theory, because 10% of X and 10% of Y do not come close to equaling the same thing.

Its not realistic, you can play well/good cards and increase your bankroll quickly, but its impossible to keep up. Because no hand wins 100% of the time.

I was on like a 2 week heater and made about $3800, just recently took a 4 buyin loss, I knewwww it would happen because its impossible to win all the time.

The key is being able to recover when you do hit a pocket of bad luck, the good players can make back losses and continue playing their A game. You can set goals to try and reach, example would be when you make $1000, take out $500 and keep playing till you hit $1000, take $500 out etc. Someone else mentioned this "50/50 method" and I use it now.

At low levels ofc it is possible...in fact you should at least expect to make 10% per week. I started with 10$ about 3 weeks ago, and am slightly over 300$ now (bout 310). Well that is 300/3 = 100$/10$ x 100% = 1000%/week.

But that is mainly because you start with such a small BR, and because it is easier to win money at lower limits in general. If i was to consider my BR starting at 50$ (which took < a week but for simplicity say a week). Return is then 260/2 = 130$/50$= ~ 260%/week.

For the last week (about 100$ i guess-->so similar rate for each week...but VASTLY different BR%s profit). 100/1 = 100$/210$ = 48%/week

So it doesn't take a genius to see that as your BR increases, to make a 10% profit per week is quickly going to become impossible. Variance will be the killer...like i lost about 50$ 2 days ago i think to 4 hands in fairly quick succession which were the biggest joke i have ever seen in my life (to the point where if i had a withdrawal method set up at that stage i would have withdrawn everything and quit poker lol).

It would only work if you could move up stakes almost every week (without losing everything) and continue to win the same% of your buy in, but that simply is not reasonable.

I think I would come up with a system where the higher you go in levels the less percentage of profit you count on making. Like at the first 2 or 3 levels stay at 10%.Then when you move up from there drop to an expected 9% or 8 % etc...

player7000 said:

I think I would come up with a system where the higher you go in levels the less percentage of profit you count on making. Like at the first 2 or 3 levels stay at 10%.Then when you move up from there drop to an expected 9% or 8 % etc...

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BTW, for SNGs, you can look at the leaderboards on sharkscope to see the kind of ROI that the best players are able to achieve at each level of buyins

Is there a similar tool to see the typical BB/100s achievable by the best cash game players at each limit ?