want to build a bankroll for live tournaments

hey guys,

i've been playing poker off and on for about 6 years, but I never really had a "bankroll" Theres a few casinos about an hour away and every day they have a $60 tournament + $10 dealer toke for a total of $7,000 in chips.

I plan to play Saturdays and Sundays and start from there until I get enough built up that way I can start playing higher tourny buy ins.

What should my bankroll be for this? or how many buy ins should I have to start playing twice a week on the weekends for these tournaments?

now I usually cash game after I'm through with the tournament. I think if I'm doing that to, I think I should have separate bankroll for that as well.

What do you guys think?

It depends on how big you plan on going up in buyins.. For the 70 buyin range i think 700 would be good or 10x the buyin for whatever turnys you want to play in. but thats just my opinion. you dont have to have a seperate BR for cash games but thats a good idea also

10 BIs would be stretching yourself pretty thin. One thing about live tourneys is that they tend to be fairly tight payout structures, meaning that they don't pay out a lot of people. This is good for the players who are winning because the prize is bigger, but it will also mean that you will be cashing less often being a more inexperienced player. Saying that, you should have more padding for those stretches where you won't be cashing. I would say if you're wanting to be serious about it then the lowest should probably be 20 BIs.

Also, it is a good idea to keep two separate rolls for tourneys and cash games, but for the majority of people it is hard to stick to.

My opinion would be to havea seperate bankroll for Cash games. And one for tournments becuase sometimes we get on a bad stretch and find ourselves spending too much on live cash games and not being able to afford tourns.

Depending on no of entrants obviously but I would say at least 50BI, most likely more though if a decent amount of people play. I don't think 20BI is anywhere near enough tbh. Even presuming you are a winning player massive swings still happen that cost a hell of a lot more than 20BI.

BlueNowhere said:

Depending on no of entrants obviously but I would say at least 50BI, most likely more though if a decent amount of people play. I don't think 20BI is anywhere near enough tbh. Even presuming you are a winning player massive swings still happen that cost a hell of a lot more than 20BI.

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Normally I would completely agree with you, and obviously the more BIs you have, the better, but if you look at your average small stakes tourney at a small casino, you can come up with reasons to have a little less. Live isn't like online where grinders are playing 10+ games at once so they need a lot of extra BIs. Also, most of the live weekly tourneys at small local casinos I've played in have all been pretty small, so there isn't the "we're not winning because there are too many entrants" situations as often.

At least that's why I say 20BI is the absolute LOW end.

I think 20BI is going on the road to bust. I've lost 22 HU games in 25 matches playing fairly well. Thats a game with two entrants and fairly bad palyers for the most. I think even with a smallish field 20BI will easily wipe you out. I honestly think even in a piss poor field you're risking it with 50BI.

there's usually about 50 players or up in the Saturday and Sunday tournaments. on a really good weekend, you might have 90. our casino has a promotion if you play 6 hours live, you get into the tournament the next day for $10.00, so that attracts a lot more people. it use to be 4 but they bumped it up.

another curious question i have....

if you play $1/2 NL live, i think the your starting stack should be $200 at least, if this this is the case, how many buy ins should you have for this, or bankroll?

Well you need 50 at least imo. I probably wouldn't play with less than $6000 for cash but I'm not a big cash game player so not 100% sure on that.

It depends on the blind structure and how fast it becomes a shove or fold fest. The faster the blinds, the higher the variance and the less likely you are to cash, so the more money you will need.

With live cash games the variance isn't as high because you're not playing the insane amount of hands like you are multitabling online, so really anything between 25 and 30 BIs for cash should be good. So like Blue said, ~$5-6000. However, we have no clue how competent of a player you are, so if you notice yourself slipping in your first couple sessions, you may want to raise that up a little bit to give yourself more wiggle room until you become a more consistent winning player.