When Bankroll Management seems impossible

[This Fish Chums]

bankroll Management has always been a massive problem for me (and many other players based on posts I've read). A lot of people ask how to do it and the advice tends to go something like:

1. You have to only spend x% of your bankroll.
2. You have to do it no matter what.
3. Just do it or you're a bad player.

There isn't really much helpful information on HOW to become good at bankroll management when you have problems with it. Well, as I said above, I am horrid at it, however I believe I have had an epiphany of sorts and wanted to get peoples opinions on these thoughts.

Causes of Poor Bankroll Management

1. Being a compulsive gambler.
   Can't really help this one other than to say if you truly are a compulsive gambler you should stop gambling period before it spirals out of control.
2. Finding min-stakes poker boring.
   People just find small-stakes poker boring. Playing for .01/.02 can be seen as nothing better than just playing freerolls. The thought being that you're money earning rate will be about the same.
   Perhaps if you looked at it this way; Yes, min-stakes poker is as valuable (or worthless) as freeroll poker. However, if you have min-stakes bankroll management than you get to choose when and how often you get to play without having to wait around for the next freeroll to start. So, instead of seeing it as worthless, try seeing it as being a pass-time that you get to choose when to play.
3. Wanting to make a living playing poker.
   Flat out, you CANNOT make a living in the US by starting out with min-stakes and working your way up. Let's say it takes 1 month to move from one level to the next using the typical leveling up mentality. It would take upwards of a year just to get to a high enough level where you can be making enough money to make it a career. This is the thought process behind just ignoring BRM and jumping up to the high levels right away.
4. Wanting to make a living playing poker #2
   Secondly, there isn't any good way of knowing what level you should be playing at to "earn a living" playing poker. For instance, can you make $7.25 an hour playing .10/.25? If someone could come up with some kind of chart demonstrating how much money a player who is playing very well could make per hour at each level that may help people pick more appropriate levels. The reason for this is that if someone realizes they can make 9-5 job money playing lower levels then maybe they wouldn't feel like they have to jump to the top level stakes.
5. Periodic Redepositing
   The final thing I know I get caught up on is the idea that I can redeposit periodically (about once or twice a month). So there is this mentality of, if I gamble and lose it all this time I can just wait a while and try again later.

Ultimately, at this point, I have no BRM skills. However, here's what I'm going to try the next time I deposit:

1. Allow myself to play in the high stakes with half my deposit. This would allow me to have that feeling of, "I have a legitimate shot at making a living" without completely blowing my whole bankroll.
2. The other half, tell myself I can either spend it all all at once, or I could play min-stakes, even though it's worthless, just so I have something to do until my next deposit. And try to convince myself that I had a chance at earning a living, now I just need to spend the rest as a pass time hobby so I'm not so desperate the next time around.
3. Knowing I have "permission" to spend half the deposit any way I want, hold off on doing that as long as possible. The goal being to do this the day before the deposit in an attempt to not need to redeposit if I get lucky.

So, aside from "just do it", does anyone else have any suggestions for good building the self control needed for good BRM? Or does anyone have other reasons why they cannot execute on a good BRM plan?

 

[fundiver199]

The concept behind bankroll management is, that it will protect a winning player from going broke because of variance. However this obviously only apply, if you are actually a winning player. If you are a losing player, and most people are due to rake, then no amount of bankroll will protect you from losing your money. Its only a question of, how long it takes.

If for instance you win a million dollars in the lottery, then you are theoretically more than bankrolled to play cash games with 50/100$ blinds. However if you jump right into such high stakes games, its extremely unlikely, you will be a winning player. You have the bankroll to play the game, but you dont have the skills to be a long term winner.

So for me the idea with bankroll management is also to simply prove to yourself, you are even a winner, before you move up. Sure its not worth it in monetary terms to play online poker for a buyin of 2$. But you should see 2NL as a learning tool, and it makes a lot of sense to not start playing 5NL until you at least know, you can beat 2NL.

And the only objective way you know, you can beat a limit, is, if your bankroll actually grow. So it make a lot of sense to use for instance a 30 buyin strategy and set that as the minimum for, which stake you play.

If you deposit 100$, you then need to win 50$ at 2NL, before you can start playing 5NL. But given that a solid winner should be able to get 10BB / 100 in such a soft game, this is actually only 25k hands, which can be played in less than a month even by a part time player.

Getting to 10NL then require you to win 150$ at 5NL, which can maybe be done in 60k hands with a winrate of 5 BB / 100. But this is still only another 2 month or so. And honestly if you dont have the patience to wait 3 month before reaching 10NL, then you probably dont have the mentality, which it takes to be a long term winner and much less a professional.

 

[eurosTotnd]

if you cannot hold yourself to play bigger buy because of tilt or other reasons you can try to exclude your self from those big buy in i tried this and it worked well for me i minimised my loses , some poker plateform offer the exclude from buy in range feature

 

[TheDude6622]

If you cannot control your bankroll when playing, my advice is taking a break from poker. Do other things to clear your mind. Whether it be meditating, go for a walk, play with your pets, do something that you enjoy that isn't poker. Being able to rid your mind of the bad of poker is key.

 

[eberetta1]

My personal take is usually the people who can't do BRM, also can't keep their spending below their monthly income also.

Having good BRM usually has a good effect on other areas of your life. Like having money left over at the end of each month. Or a net worth that continues to go up each month.

 

[gwj63]

i'm really bad at bankroll management too
I know 3 reasons why i'm bad at it
#1 I can deposit after losing
#2 micro stakes are boring to me
#3 I tend to chase bad money, if I lose I step up higher to get it back
if I can stop #3 i'd do much better at making a deposit last longer