I have played about with a little over 100$ in total on ACR then won/lost around 900$.I've added 200-225$ on ignition and again, around 900$ won and lost. Then switching, I added 70$ on GlobalPoker. For some reason, every single time I play on ignition, I have someone jump onto a table, bet HUGE and go all-in by the turn then hit some ungodly hand and bounce out. On Americas cardroom, I had a bit more luck with sit and go/mtt but I still could not get a good enough balance to keep from putting 10% or more of my bankroll at the micro tables. Recently though on global, I have taken 70$ and brought it up to 225$ with a couple mtt freerolls and cash games but since winning big (for me) on Saturday, I am on a major downswing. I am getting so many bad beats/coolers that I'm starting to wonder if it is even worth playing anymore.

How does one control themselves when on a downswing and prevent losing their entire bankroll like I have over the last 2 days? Yes, 2 days is all it took for me to lose the 225$ due to thinking, "I can move up from .02/.04 and .05/.1 to .10/.20 and .25/.50". At what point would you recommend moving up? I have been watching previous gameplay. I'm noticing that once I took some pros advice and tightened up then started squeezing when I make a hand, 15/17 hands end up being the second best set/full house/quads. Hiring a coach may be next on my list but I have to figure out how to say "Stop" once I've lost a certain amount.

I have this problem, too. My thing is, I have an amount that I will quit at. If I don't hit it, I'll continue playing. Sometimes it requires losing all of your money, in order to quit playing poker, for some time. I'm almost 100% sure that players who consistently lose, have never cashed out. Ever. Cashing out and physically having money in your hand, will allow you to have more control. Honestly, I haven't cash out since the days of Poker Stars. That was about 16 years ago.

I hear you guys,

In theory I’m the most disciplined player in the world. Then once I hit the tables and suffer a bad beat it’s bye bye bankroll 😭

There’s something to not just having a plan but being able to STICK TO IT in mentally stressful situations

Originally Posted by VedySneakyYT

I have played about with a little over 100$ in total on ACR then won/lost around 900$.I've added 200-225$ on ignition and again, around 900$ won and lost. Then switching, I added 70$ on GlobalPoker. For some reason, every single time I play on ignition, I have someone jump onto a table, bet HUGE and go all-in by the turn then hit some ungodly hand and bounce out. On Americas cardroom, I had a bit more luck with sit and go/mtt but I still could not get a good enough balance to keep from putting 10% or more of my bankroll at the micro tables. Recently though on global, I have taken 70$ and brought it up to 225$ with a couple mtt freerolls and cash games but since winning big (for me) on Saturday, I am on a major downswing. I am getting so many bad beats/coolers that I'm starting to wonder if it is even worth playing anymore.

How does one control themselves when on a downswing and prevent losing their entire bankroll like I have over the last 2 days? Yes, 2 days is all it took for me to lose the 225$ due to thinking, "I can move up from .02/.04 and .05/.1 to .10/.20 and .25/.50". At what point would you recommend moving up? I have been watching previous gameplay. I'm noticing that once I took some pros advice and tightened up then started squeezing when I make a hand, 15/17 hands end up being the second best set/full house/quads. Hiring a coach may be next on my list but I have to figure out how to say "Stop" once I've lost a certain amount.

Thank u 4 Posting

A bankroll of 100 buy-ins is recommended. For the very reason of the swings amateur players have.

So If you are playing 2NL $200 is needed.

If you build your bankroll to $225 and move up to 4NL $400 is needed you are $175 short.

Moving up and losing kills the bankroll. If we have a 10 buy-in down swing at 4NL that is $40 we are now short on our 2NL roll. That is a nothing swing. You can do that in a day online and never even make a mistake. Add in mistakes look out.
We need to take shots at higher levels but stay in the game we win in until we have the bankroll for the higher stakes.

Hope this helps

Basic bankroll management is good and reasonable like 100 buy ins you can even go lower 70-80.

Maybe you have wrong bankroll management. At the lowest stakes, until 10NL you can have also 60 buy ins. From then you will need to have between 60 and 100 buy ins. It depends on your skill. You have to realize when you are on a downswing decrease your stakes. If you don't do it you will go broke every time. It's hard to play for example on 25NL and then decrease to stakes to 5NL.

Originally Posted by eetenor

Thank u 4 Posting

A bankroll of 100 buy-ins is recommended. For the very reason of the swings amateur players have.

So If you are playing 2NL $200 is needed.

If you build your bankroll to $225 and move up to 4NL $400 is needed you are $175 short.

Moving up and losing kills the bankroll. If we have a 10 buy-in down swing at 4NL that is $40 we are now short on our 2NL roll. That is a nothing swing. You can do that in a day online and never even make a mistake. Add in mistakes look out.
We need to take shots at higher levels but stay in the game we win in until we have the bankroll for the higher stakes.

Hope this helps

This is excellent advice! that and you can also set a loss limit on most clients if you find yourself losing control.

Originally Posted by eetenor

Thank u 4 Posting

A bankroll of 100 buy-ins is recommended. For the very reason of the swings amateur players have.

So If you are playing 2NL $200 is needed.

If you build your bankroll to $225 and move up to 4NL $400 is needed you are $175 short.

Moving up and losing kills the bankroll. If we have a 10 buy-in down swing at 4NL that is $40 we are now short on our 2NL roll. That is a nothing swing. You can do that in a day online and never even make a mistake. Add in mistakes look out.
We need to take shots at higher levels but stay in the game we win in until we have the bankroll for the higher stakes.

Hope this helps

What can a high performing reg expect as worst case scenario downswings? I was under the impression somebody of that level would not see 10 buy-in downswings?

Originally Posted by Richard Grant

What can a high performing reg expect as worst case scenario downswings? I was under the impression somebody of that level would not see 10 buy-in downswings?

Variance of online poker is alot higher, even playing live a 10 buy in downswing is not uncommon. I personally can sit down and lose 5 buy in a cash game no problem then break even or +ev within afew hands because low stakes online really comes to push fold until you get to know your players at the table by using huds and notes etc. Everything has a pattern and until then you can assume everyone is playing bingo which is where alot of your bad beats will come from. Plus its hard to push an aggressive reg off a hand that is +ev most times for them at such low stakes as they are usually bankrolled alot higher/assume you will fold and are basing most information just off your hud stats . To answer your question i would say best case scenario downswing is you slowly lose your roll but it doesn't effect your mindset as your playing at a stake that doesn't effect you financially and you gain lots of skill and have fun. Worst case "Ontario" you have to turn to stripping to pay bills.

Originally Posted by Richard Grant

What can a high performing reg expect as worst case scenario downswings? I was under the impression somebody of that level would not see 10 buy-in downswings?

Thank U 4 Responding.

Two questions.

What do you consider a worst case scenario downswing in this scenario?

The reason one recommends 100 Buy-ins is because worst case scenario for very good pros has been as much as 60 Buy-ins.
Again not often but possible.
Google Bryan Devonshire downswing. His card player article is informative.

Hope this helps

I am not a cash game player, but I am a stickler for BR management. I avoid cash games for that reason. A downswing in cash hits the bankroll way harder than MTTs. The easiest answer to you question is your moving up to fast. At your current bankroll you have enough to play the micros comfortable and take the hits of a downswing and not go broke. If your crushing a level CRUSH it pad your bankroll and take selective shots but if you get your hand smacked don't be afraid to move down and start crushing again. Will keep your confidence up and you'll have hopefully learned why you got your hand smacked.

The second thing I want to point out is the extreme difference in playing .02/.04 and .25/.50 online. There are fish everywhere at the micros but as soon as you move up to "mid" stakes that is where sharks fest. Take small shots when you move up get comfortable with the play and most importantly protect your bankroll!!!

Originally Posted by VedySneakyYT

I have played about with a little over 100$ in total on ACR then won/lost around 900$.I've added 200-225$ on ignition and again, around 900$ won and lost. Then switching, I added 70$ on GlobalPoker. For some reason, every single time I play on ignition, I have someone jump onto a table, bet HUGE and go all-in by the turn then hit some ungodly hand and bounce out. On Americas cardroom, I had a bit more luck with sit and go/mtt but I still could not get a good enough balance to keep from putting 10% or more of my bankroll at the micro tables. Recently though on global, I have taken 70$ and brought it up to 225$ with a couple mtt freerolls and cash games but since winning big (for me) on Saturday, I am on a major downswing. I am getting so many bad beats/coolers that I'm starting to wonder if it is even worth playing anymore.

How does one control themselves when on a downswing and prevent losing their entire bankroll like I have over the last 2 days? Yes, 2 days is all it took for me to lose the 225$ due to thinking, "I can move up from .02/.04 and .05/.1 to .10/.20 and .25/.50". At what point would you recommend moving up? I have been watching previous gameplay. I'm noticing that once I took some pros advice and tightened up then started squeezing when I make a hand, 15/17 hands end up being the second best set/full house/quads. Hiring a coach may be next on my list but I have to figure out how to say "Stop" once I've lost a certain amount.

Originally Posted by eetenor

Thank U 4 Responding.

Two questions.

What do you consider a worst case scenario downswing in this scenario?

The reason one recommends 100 Buy-ins is because worst case scenario for very good pros has been as much as 60 Buy-ins.
Again not often but possible.
Google Bryan Devonshire downswing. His card player article is informative.

Hope this helps

Interesting. I assumed strong players had enough of an edge that it wouldn't get that bad. Micro LAGS I assumed were bashing the tables up to such an extent, bleeding lots of exploitable leaks, that when variance came into play they would effectively already be covering a lot of losses.

I'd have thought players who know the game inside out could start with 10 buy ins, then grind, only going up levels when they have built up a stack that covers ten buy ins at that level.

To what extent is Devonshire got a good edge on the tables he played? I'll have a look at what he says.

I might be wrong but i dont play any cash games till i have 200x the ante. I stay with small mtt and sit-n-goes money seems to last longer for me.

To avoid losing all your bankroll, you should not play outside bench, to play tournaments you must have at least 100 buy ins.

As others have said, the way to avoid going broke in poker is to use some form of bankroll management. However that being said a recreational online player does not need 100 x the buyin to play micro stakes cash games. That level of buffer is for professional players, who depend on poker for their living.

For the rest of us moving down is an option, if we hit a downswing, so its more a question of having the discipline to actually do that, and certainly not move up to "win it back". And should we lose the last at 2NL, well then redeposit is also an option. Its not like, its the end of the world, if we talk about popping for instance 50$ into the account.

I would recommend 30x the buyin as a reasonable bankroll management rule in the micros, which give the following guideline for, which limit to play using the 888 poker limits as an example:

<150$ - 2NL
150-300$ - 5NL
300-600$ - 10NL
600-900$ - 20NL
900-1.500$ - 30NL
1.500-3.000$ - 50NL

Note that while the minimum is 30BI, a lot of the time we are actually playing with way more, so this is already fairly conservative. If you dont mind some larger swings, its also reasonable to use a "shot taking" system, where anything above 30BI for your current limit can be used for "shots" at the next.

If for instance you have 80$, that is 30BI for 2NL + 4BI for a "shot" at 5NL. And this is fine, as long as you respect the system and move back to 2NL, if the "shot" fail. If you can not survive at 2NL with 60$, then chances are, you are not even a winning player, and then no amount of bankroll management will protect you from eventually having to reload.

To quickly not to lose your bonus in the initial stage.

What minimum bankroll and what limits to play to increase your bankroll at the initial stage. I've been playing for a few years, but I did not manage to increase your bankroll, that I win, I lose the other games.

Control the tilt. Tilt is the No. 1 bankroll killer in the world. Usually caused by a violation of one of the previous rules, or by something like a bedbit. Tilt is able to bring even the most balanced player to frenzy, unreasonable bets, raises and calls. The causes of tilt are individual and can come from anywhere. Although the intensity of tilt varies from one person to another, it is impossible to completely get rid of it.

I would personally recommend that you take some time to rest from the tables, relax, study a bit and analyze where you are making the mistake or mistakes when you are playing, you should also control your temper, losing and entering with more to recover will lead you to have great losses if don't correct your failures

To OP
If you want to get better at poker or play more seriously you must hire a coach.
If you want to play for fun put a stop loss at 3 BI. Post some hands at the forum and read some books.
Just my 2 cents.

Best way to keep your bank roll is to learn to play within it ! Whatever games you want to play wether cash or MTTs should be within your set limits

Some decent standards are 25-30 buyins for cash games and 100 buyins for mtts. Then adjust accordingly to how much is in your BR ! Good Luck

Originally Posted by VedySneakyYT

I have played about with a little over 100$ in total on ACR then won/lost around 900$.I've added 200-225$ on ignition and again, around 900$ won and lost. Then switching, I added 70$ on GlobalPoker. For some reason, every single time I play on ignition, I have someone jump onto a table, bet HUGE and go all-in by the turn then hit some ungodly hand and bounce out. On Americas cardroom, I had a bit more luck with sit and go/mtt but I still could not get a good enough balance to keep from putting 10% or more of my bankroll at the micro tables. Recently though on global, I have taken 70$ and brought it up to 225$ with a couple mtt freerolls and cash games but since winning big (for me) on Saturday, I am on a major downswing. I am getting so many bad beats/coolers that I'm starting to wonder if it is even worth playing anymore.

How does one control themselves when on a downswing and prevent losing their entire bankroll like I have over the last 2 days? Yes, 2 days is all it took for me to lose the 225$ due to thinking, "I can move up from .02/.04 and .05/.1 to .10/.20 and .25/.50". At what point would you recommend moving up? I have been watching previous gameplay. I'm noticing that once I took some pros advice and tightened up then started squeezing when I make a hand, 15/17 hands end up being the second best set/full house/quads. Hiring a coach may be next on my list but I have to figure out how to say "Stop" once I've lost a certain amount.

I think you just have to diversify your leisure time.
I mean, look for more hobbies for yourself besides poker.
If you sometimes do something else, it will increase interest in every poker game. In the end, it will increase your result. But this is only my personal opinion.

It is easier if you have proper bankroll management (BRM) in the first place!
(My assumption of you having wrong BRM might be wrong and I apologize if that is the case. However, the problem you are talking about is very tempting if a player has wrong BRM. Then, let's say he has 10-20 buy-ins and loses 5. It is quite tempting to raise the stakes in attempt to recover the notable losses. But if you have 50 buy-ins, the temptation is much weaker. So... Perhaps 1 advice is to play proper stakes and have proper BRM! )

Originally Posted by VedySneakyYT

I have played about with a little over 100$ in total on ACR then won/lost around 900$.I've added 200-225$ on ignition and again, around 900$ won and lost. Then switching, I added 70$ on GlobalPoker. For some reason, every single time I play on ignition, I have someone jump onto a table, bet HUGE and go all-in by the turn then hit some ungodly hand and bounce out. On Americas cardroom, I had a bit more luck with sit and go/mtt but I still could not get a good enough balance to keep from putting 10% or more of my bankroll at the micro tables. Recently though on global, I have taken 70$ and brought it up to 225$ with a couple mtt freerolls and cash games but since winning big (for me) on Saturday, I am on a major downswing. I am getting so many bad beats/coolers that I'm starting to wonder if it is even worth playing anymore.

How does one control themselves when on a downswing and prevent losing their entire bankroll like I have over the last 2 days? Yes, 2 days is all it took for me to lose the 225$ due to thinking, "I can move up from .02/.04 and .05/.1 to .10/.20 and .25/.50". At what point would you recommend moving up? I have been watching previous gameplay. I'm noticing that once I took some pros advice and tightened up then started squeezing when I make a hand, 15/17 hands end up being the second best set/full house/quads. Hiring a coach may be next on my list but I have to figure out how to say "Stop" once I've lost a certain amount.

thats good that you have that kind of willpower, but it doesn not matter what limit it is, you will all ways have bad beats. knowing when to quit is great, i wish i could.

I have never gone broke in 10+ years mostly playing as a pro. Bankroll management is the key to never losing your bankroll.

You need to set clear rules for what bankroll is needed for each limit and then you move up or move down accordingly.

For me, I often play with as much as 100 buyins per cash game limit. This ensures that there is no chance I ever lose my whole bankroll, no matter how bad a downswing I go through.

By using bankroll management correctly. A good rule of thumb for me has always been, 100 buyins for MTTs and 25 buyins for cash games then adjust accordingly.

I have used this strat to much success over the years, depositing very rarely.

Hello, this is a poker friend, there is nothing surprising, this will not happen so that you constantly earn money playing, you need to be ready for everything, poker is a game of distance and to earn you need to play a lot of correct plus poker, this is an unpredictable game and when you load money into tournaments, you have to say goodbye to them, because you can lose them, even if you play very well and best of all.

Once I start playing, playing to lose all the money in your account unfortunately

Hold the punch, there is no game today - it will be tomorrow. Leave all the bad thoughts and stop thinking about reducing your bankroll and defeat. Good luck in the game!)

Hi mate.If you keep on playing poker without bankroll management you will lose and lose again.And,of course,you should only play cash games in the limits that your bankroll allows.Good luck!

A good psychological, an efficient bankroll management, much study and a lot of practice...

Downswings and losing sessions are inevitable. But they are backed up with upswings and winning sessions. I know it's hard to the week (those who watched the streams know what I am talking about), but now at Friday I am back at the same bankroll I had at the start of the week.

Hey! Sorry to hear your bad luck. Sounds like lots of awesome members have insight. If I could id like to reiterate tilt control and studying. Bankroll mgt is important too. But most of all try to remember your reason for playing poker and dont give up!

With crypto deposits and withdrawals being available these days I would advise requesting payouts when you get up a decent amount. You can always deposit again if you need to.

Kenny rogers said it best-you gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to RUN.
I have found this to be best advised when I have paid attention to the details of my competitors play.

That's the million dollar question. I think you have to set a limit on how much you lose a 1 time. No matter what the circumstances.

I solved this question very simply. I never spend more than 1-2% of my bankroll per day. I have followed this rule for many years and it has had a positive effect on my results.

you need to play following the bankroll management. Players lose in your bankroll

Your problems seem to be related with two of the most common problems for beginners - bankroll management and tilt. You can read everywhere about bankroll management but a short summary is to play at levels which you can beat consistently and have deep enough buffer to handle the downswings. Tilt is more difficult to handle but is something that you also need to work on. For me personally the book "mental game of poker" helped me much to understand and correct my mental weaknesses affecting my poker game (tilt is one of them).

An important and too often overlooked aspect of bankroll management is a thorough understanding of normal variance—which is specific to your individual game type. Oftentimes, players are surprised by how bad they can seem to run with it still being actually (and unfortunately) normal.

As one’s bad run becomes more and more statistically unlikely for a winning player, it’s very important that they take time to make adjustments such as studying a lot more, moving down in stakes, and possibly looking into coaching etc.

There are free variance calculators available and a lot has been written on the subject right on CardsChat of course

I think someday the loss of a bankroll is inevitable.
Another question is how much money it will be.

The poker variance calculator is designed to help the player determine their possible scales of positive and negative variance.There are many free poker variance calculators and one of them is Pokerdope.If desired, you can easily calculate the level of variance of your game.

How much money you can afford to lose? Is game making you problems for you, or others close to you? You need to have clear mind of what are you doing, make analyse of your games, when and how you are loosing. Don't fall with the bad luck, everyone has survived through that in the poker history. Maybe its just not your day,month, year. Even very experience players are losing mind blowing cash in some period of their lives. Try play slow even you are aggressive player, they say that morning is smarter then evening. With bankroll of 500 $ or less play 5$ tournaments or even less of that buy in 1-2 $. Making money from poker isn't easy, we all want that fast cash and that, is yours and others people most usual problem. Try to be smart steady octopus, which will wait for the opportunity and make move when its time for that.

I still have not found the answer, if you do you anuntatima please, I'm tired of loosing all ...

If you like to play tournaments, the buy in of these tournaments should not be more than 1% of your bankroll. I recommend this for you. Don't play tournaments that are more expensive than this. You should get some control. When you earn some money, you can move up to some more expensive tournaments, when you lose you go to cheaper ones. For cash games I cannot help you. I don't have experience in that as I don't play that.

Yeah me too I think a proper BR management is most people's main leak.
The op for example 'sounds' to me somewhat that he moved with ease from 200$ to 900$ then back and forth and again from 70$ to 225$ in a day (wow) and then 'suddenly' lost everything.
This looks like he was not playing at the right stakes for his money.
I don't count at all what kind of player he may be, if winning or losing, it doesn't matter because even the best can bust fairly quickly without a plan about his BR.

For the input, I 'll say 100BI for small mtts like 18 to 45man (I prefer even more than 100BI) and add BI as the field go larger and larger with at least 300BI for the bigger mtt with 1000 or more people.

For cash, for 2NL I believe 30 to 40BI is reasonable and add BI as you move up.
40 for 5NL, certainly more for 10NL (50-60 maybe) and from there even more.

And most of all, enjoy the game. (BR management helps to that too)

This is a really excellent post and it's something that we all struggle with. Everyone gets heated up and starts chasing losses from time to time. I feel that once we reach a new $ milestone we don't like to see our balance dip below that. Example we grinded up to $100, now we feel the progression should just be straight to 110, 120, 130 etc., we psychologically hate seeing it go below $100. But if you look at a sample of games we lose and win; it goes up and down; you just need to be slightly on top when it averages out

Don't admit to your tilt. That's the most important one.
For me it's still my weakness. especially when I lost a few times in a row it gets hard to control it.
It already improved, but still I don't control it completely, today I lost again big just because of the tilt while if I would have rested calm, I would have had a green day.

Don't play spin and go haha

They say 5% percent ER less of your bankroll should ever be at risk at any one given time. That being said you can never lose your stack even if you always played half of your bankroll at a given time 1/2 of 1/2 is infinite.

Originally Posted by maksonios

Don't play spin and go haha

Yeap... this is how i lost all my money )