S
Syfted
Rock Star
Silver Level
Our bankroll is in place for two reasons:
-It allows us to overcome short run variance
-It helps prevent us from tilting
The first point is widely accepted. A very good $2/$5 player who is running on only $2000 in his bankroll will likely go bust. He would only have to swing for four buy ins to lose his whole bankroll. But still, it’s only two grand- if that same player worked a regular full time job, he would be able to replenish that money very quickly. Should he be afraid at all to play $2/$5?
Obviously, the answer is no. If he has statistical evidence that he can in fact beat the $2/$5 game he is playing, he can fearlessly play that stake so long as he sets aside the necessary funds to supplement his bankroll in the future. But how much should he supplement? We can use the following formula to determine the answer:
Cash on Hand = {(Weekly Stop Loss)-(Weekly Investment)}*{(Desired Bankroll)/(Weekly Stop Loss)}
The formula is really very simple.
Cash on Hand is the amount he has in his pocket that he is able to play with. It does not include the money he needs to spend on his wife, girlfriend, kids, rent, food, etc. It is the amount he would typically use as a roll to play a lower stake. In this example, our player has $2,000, roughly enough to play $0.5/$1.
Weekly Stop Loss is the amount you lose before you stop playing for the week. It should be distributed equally among your sessions for the week. You need to determine how much you can lose before you start to become affected by tilt; this is your stop loss for a single session. If you tilt after losing $1,000 (two buy ins) at $2/5, then your stop loss needs to be $1,000. You MUST stop playing after you lose $1,000. If you play twice a week, then you MUST stop playing for the week after losing $2,000 between those two sessions.
Weekly Investment is the amount you determine you can spare every week to supplement your bankroll with.
Desired Bankroll is the amount you would need to consider yourself “properly bankrolled” for a given stake, assuming perfect bankroll separation. 20 buy ins is pretty standard. If a game is tough and loose, there’s nothing wrong with upping this number to 25 or 30 buys.
Now let’s get back to our player’s predicament.
He has $2,000 on hand. If he determines he tilts at two buy ins ($1,000 at $2/$5) and would need $10k to typically play $2/$5, how much does he need to deposit every week?
Assuming he only plays once a week, he would need
2,000 = {(1,000)-(Weekly Investment)}*{(10,000)/(1,000)}
Or an $800 investment every week.
Obviously that’s a lot of money to devote to your poker bankroll on a weekly basis. But if our player has done his budgeting properly, and determines he really has $800 per week lying around that he can spare, then he may play that $2/$5 game with only $2k in his wallet. Of course, he needs to deposit that $800 per week, WHETHER HE WINS OR HE LOSES for the week. That $800 per week is no longer his once he decides to do this. It belongs to his bankroll.
Note also that he doesn’t have to deposit that $800 indefinitely. Your {(Desired Bankroll)/(Weekly Stop Loss)} is the number of weeks you’ll have to deposit that $800 for. Of course, if he isn’t at or above his desired roll after those allotted weeks, he needs to continue to deposit.
Let’s look at another scenario. Let’s assume that Johnny Welfare gets $400 per week in his welfare check, and works a job full-time. Let’s also assume that Johnny Welfare knows he is a winning $1/$2 player at the local casino, and wants to dump his whole welfare check in the card room. He figures he can drop about $600 per session, once per week, before tilt starts to creep in. How much does Johnny need to save up (Cash on Hand) before he is properly bankrolled to play?
Johnny must save,
Cash on Hand = {($600)-($400)}*{($4,000)/($600)}
Or about $1,333.33
So what good is this recreational bankroll management? Basically, it allows a player who isn’t immediately bankrolled for a stake to throw himself up there on a regular basis without running a massive risk of ruin. This is accomplished by adding to his bankroll every week while keeping to a reasonable stop-loss.
One last point… I stated at the beginning that one of the purposes of bankroll is to prevent tilt. I also emphasize the stop-loss. Some degenerate is going to come up to me and say something stupid, like, “Oh, I’m really great at controlling tilt, so I don’t need a huge bankroll,” or maybe something like, “I never tilt. Ever!” This is bullshit. This same idiot will probably sit there and tell me that he isn’t going to tilt at all after dropping four buy ins. Nonsense. He’s just looking for a reason to continue playing so he can try and win his money back. And that’s completely degenerate behavior.
-It allows us to overcome short run variance
-It helps prevent us from tilting
The first point is widely accepted. A very good $2/$5 player who is running on only $2000 in his bankroll will likely go bust. He would only have to swing for four buy ins to lose his whole bankroll. But still, it’s only two grand- if that same player worked a regular full time job, he would be able to replenish that money very quickly. Should he be afraid at all to play $2/$5?
Obviously, the answer is no. If he has statistical evidence that he can in fact beat the $2/$5 game he is playing, he can fearlessly play that stake so long as he sets aside the necessary funds to supplement his bankroll in the future. But how much should he supplement? We can use the following formula to determine the answer:
Cash on Hand = {(Weekly Stop Loss)-(Weekly Investment)}*{(Desired Bankroll)/(Weekly Stop Loss)}
The formula is really very simple.
Cash on Hand is the amount he has in his pocket that he is able to play with. It does not include the money he needs to spend on his wife, girlfriend, kids, rent, food, etc. It is the amount he would typically use as a roll to play a lower stake. In this example, our player has $2,000, roughly enough to play $0.5/$1.
Weekly Stop Loss is the amount you lose before you stop playing for the week. It should be distributed equally among your sessions for the week. You need to determine how much you can lose before you start to become affected by tilt; this is your stop loss for a single session. If you tilt after losing $1,000 (two buy ins) at $2/5, then your stop loss needs to be $1,000. You MUST stop playing after you lose $1,000. If you play twice a week, then you MUST stop playing for the week after losing $2,000 between those two sessions.
Weekly Investment is the amount you determine you can spare every week to supplement your bankroll with.
Desired Bankroll is the amount you would need to consider yourself “properly bankrolled” for a given stake, assuming perfect bankroll separation. 20 buy ins is pretty standard. If a game is tough and loose, there’s nothing wrong with upping this number to 25 or 30 buys.
Now let’s get back to our player’s predicament.
He has $2,000 on hand. If he determines he tilts at two buy ins ($1,000 at $2/$5) and would need $10k to typically play $2/$5, how much does he need to deposit every week?
Assuming he only plays once a week, he would need
2,000 = {(1,000)-(Weekly Investment)}*{(10,000)/(1,000)}
Or an $800 investment every week.
Obviously that’s a lot of money to devote to your poker bankroll on a weekly basis. But if our player has done his budgeting properly, and determines he really has $800 per week lying around that he can spare, then he may play that $2/$5 game with only $2k in his wallet. Of course, he needs to deposit that $800 per week, WHETHER HE WINS OR HE LOSES for the week. That $800 per week is no longer his once he decides to do this. It belongs to his bankroll.
Note also that he doesn’t have to deposit that $800 indefinitely. Your {(Desired Bankroll)/(Weekly Stop Loss)} is the number of weeks you’ll have to deposit that $800 for. Of course, if he isn’t at or above his desired roll after those allotted weeks, he needs to continue to deposit.
Let’s look at another scenario. Let’s assume that Johnny Welfare gets $400 per week in his welfare check, and works a job full-time. Let’s also assume that Johnny Welfare knows he is a winning $1/$2 player at the local casino, and wants to dump his whole welfare check in the card room. He figures he can drop about $600 per session, once per week, before tilt starts to creep in. How much does Johnny need to save up (Cash on Hand) before he is properly bankrolled to play?
Johnny must save,
Cash on Hand = {($600)-($400)}*{($4,000)/($600)}
Or about $1,333.33
So what good is this recreational bankroll management? Basically, it allows a player who isn’t immediately bankrolled for a stake to throw himself up there on a regular basis without running a massive risk of ruin. This is accomplished by adding to his bankroll every week while keeping to a reasonable stop-loss.
One last point… I stated at the beginning that one of the purposes of bankroll is to prevent tilt. I also emphasize the stop-loss. Some degenerate is going to come up to me and say something stupid, like, “Oh, I’m really great at controlling tilt, so I don’t need a huge bankroll,” or maybe something like, “I never tilt. Ever!” This is bullshit. This same idiot will probably sit there and tell me that he isn’t going to tilt at all after dropping four buy ins. Nonsense. He’s just looking for a reason to continue playing so he can try and win his money back. And that’s completely degenerate behavior.
