It’s every poker players goal and dream to drag the million dollar pots in the biggest cash games or to be sitting at the final table of the World Series with the TV lights shining.  While this is a cool goal and the dream is possible, you can’t expect to go from novice player to big time winner all in one night, one year, or probably your entire lifetime.  It is important to set goals for yourself in poker, but you want to set goals that, though challenging, are also likely to be accomplished with some work.

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Many players will never develop their abilities beyond the level of occasional hobbyist, which is fine, especially if they realize where their skill level lies.  If you can admit that you’re playing for fun, then a $200 losing session doesn’t hurt that bad.  It’s the price of a night out and the fun you got to have making jokes with your table mates was worth the price.  However, if you only have the ability of a novice and expect to win like a pro, you’re in for a lifetime of frustration.

If you develop your skills to the point where you’re a winning player and can supplement your day job with some poker earnings, it is probably not the time to quit the day job because you may have made a big score or two.  Rather, you might want to see how things go over the next year before you even entertain the idea of going “pro.”

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If you keep your expectations in step with your talent level you will always be getting better, but you won’t be nearly as frustrated with the game.  It’s important to have a healthy relationship with poker and an honest assessment of where you stand is the basis for this relationship.

In this article I will attempt to give you an overview of how to approach bankroll management when it comes to Double or Nothing sit and goes. For your information, Double or Nothing SNGs are a special type of SNG where you either double your money or walk away with nothing. If you want to know more, I recently wrote an article covering the basics of DoN SNGs.

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Double or Nothing Bankroll Management

Most SNG experts recommend that your poker bankroll should be at least 50 times as large as the SNG buyin level you’re playing. In Double or Nothing poker however, you will make it to the money more often than in regular SNGs. This means that your bankroll will have less fluctuations over time and as a result you can make do with half the number of buyins in your bankroll as compared to regular SNGs. Below is an overview of bankroll requirements for DoN SNGs:

• Buyin: 5$ +0,5$ ; Bankroll requirement at least 137,5$

• Buyin: 10$ + 1$ ; Bankroll requirement at least 275$

• Buyin: 20$ + 2$ ; Bankroll requirement at least 550$

• Buyin: 30$ + 3$ ; Bankroll requirement at least 825$

When it comes to Double or Nothing bankroll management the usual rules apply. If your bankroll increases enough on the level you’re playing to cover the minimum bankroll requirements on the next level, good bankroll management tells you to that it is safe to move up in limits. On the other hand, if your bankroll decreases below the minimum bankroll requirements on the level you’re playing, good bankroll management tells you to move down in limits.

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You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

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In gambling games such as poker, blackjack or video poker where the player is trying to make money not only is it important to be playing with a positive expectation but also much care must be taken not to lose all of one’s money. As the saying goes – “It takes money to make money”. This requires winning players to maintain a certain amount of money in reserve to handle losing streaks and is commonly known as the player’s “bankroll”. This article will explore how to estimate the amount of money that is required to be kept as a poker bankroll in order to play so as reduce the probability of going broke to an acceptable level.

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Risk of Ruin Formula (warning serious math content ahead)

The risk of ruin formula is given below. The formula is based on a random walk with upwards drift and has some assumptions that although not exactly correct are good enough that it still gives a good approximation of a poker player’s risk of ruin. These assumptions include: a) normal distribution of results b) constant win rate and standard deviation. If the actual parameters vary too far from these assumptions care must be taken as the formula is likely to underestimate the actual risk of ruin.

Risk of Ruin = e ^ (-2WB / (S ^ 2))

e = Constant (2.718281828)
W = Win Rate, measured in $ pr. hour
S = Variance (has a unit that doesn’t really make any logical sense)
B = Bankroll, measured in $
^ = Power symbol (e.g. 3^2 = 9; 3^4 = 81)
/ = Division Symbol (e.g. 24/6 = 4; 56/7 = 8 )

Reference : D. Schlesinger, Blackjack Attack, RGE publ., Oakland 1997 (2nd ed. 2000)

Note: A player’s win rate and standard deviation is usually obtained from a Poker Database program such as “Poker Tracker”.

Example

Given a winning poker player with win rate of $30/hour, standard deviation of $600 and bankroll of $15000:

Risk of ruin = e ^ (-2*30*15000/(600^2))
Risk of ruin = 8.208500%

Although this is a precise answer given to 6 decimal places it is only an approximation and probably would be rounded up to give a 10% risk of ruin in practice.

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What Risk of Ruin should you accept?

One can never eliminate the risk of going broke, that is reducing the risk of ruin to 0%. Whilst 5% might be acceptable to a part time player, a professional whose only source of income is from poker should use something like a conservative 1% risk of ruin. Also given the error likely in measuring the win rate and standard deviation and also changing table conditions one should maintain a higher bankroll than calculated.

This article was written by Scott McIntosh of ReviewPoker Rooms which has a Bankroll Calculator based on the formula given above.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

To celebrate our new collaboration on the Poker Bankroll Blog and PokerBRB sites, McTap03 and I have started our own bankroll building SNG and MTT (multi table tournament) project on Full Tilt Poker. Our starting bankroll is 150$ and we will be posting regular updates on our many wins and hopefully fewer losses.  It goes without saying that we expect our bankroll to increase significantly in no time.

 Here are our rules for bankroll management and sharing of winnings

• We will start playing SNG’s and MTT’s with 5$ buy-ins or less. If we play re-buy tournaments, we are allowed to re-buy up to a total buyin of 5$.
• Each time we double our bankroll we will add another buy-in level
• All levels must be played for 1 week before moving up. This avoids any *rush* playing (where you only move up because you are on a winning rush), and allows some time to get use to the current level. Weeks start Monday morning.
• All SNG winnings will go to boost our bankroll.
• MTT winnings will be shared according to the scheme below with the winning player getting the bigger amount:

- MTT winnings below 100$ will go to boost our bankroll

- MTT winnings between 100$ and $500 will be split 45/45 and 10% to the bankroll. 

- MTT winnings between $501 and $1000 will be split 55/35 and 10% to the bankroll.

- MTT winnings between $1001 and $2500 will be split 60/30 and 10% to the bankroll.

- MTT winnings between $2501 and $5000 will be split 70/20  and 10% to the bankroll.

- Anything higher than that will be split 80/10 and 10% to the bankroll.

Winnings can be withdrawn when agreed upon by both of us.

Our screen name is ‘pokerBRBblog’ and our motto will be “Embrace the risk” which hopefully will make Mitchell Cogert proud of us:-)

Wish us luck!

Mark and McTap03

Besides playing too many starting hands for their own good, online poker beginners usually commit another – extremely frequent – mistake: they play on bankrolls way too flimsy to support the limits on which they’re trying to make money. Playing under bankrolled can ruin an otherwise good player’s monthly revenue too, let alone that of a player who’s only just begun exploring the intricacies of the game. Here’s why:

Texas Hold’em is a game of relatively high short term variance. What this means in layman terms is that experienced players and rookies will do battle from relatively equal footings on a per hand basis. The luck factor gets a bigger role than in other games and that acts as a big equalizer often upsetting the pros in favor of the beginners. This however is an extremely deceitful image: over the long-run, skill always prevails over luck and the gamblers are bound to get felted.

Suppose you’re a good player and you only have a very small bankroll to play on. The variation may well get to you and bust you completely before you ever get the chance to impose the advantage your skill lends you.

If you play on an adequately large bankroll however, you’ll be able to emerge after bad beats and with the positive EV provided by your sills and discipline, you’ll turn a profit at the end of the month.

The big question is: just how big is an “adequately large” bankroll? – and it may be more difficult to answer than one would think at first glance.

In order to accurately determine the size of bankroll that would back you up well at the green felt, you need to ask yourself a few questions.

First of all: what is the game of poker for you? Is it just a small time hobby, is it your biggest hobby, is it an obsession or is it what you do for a living?

If it’s just a small-time hobby and you only spend a few hours playing poker in a year, you shouldn’t really worry yourself about bankroll issues at all: you do not need one. In this case, your primary reason for playing is obviously not to make money, but rather to have some fun, fun which you’re probably willing to pay for too.

If poker is more like a hobby for you, you’ll need the equivalent of 2-5 buy-ins for the limit on which you play. This bankroll will be enough to cover your expenses for 1 month’s worth of play, but it sure won’t be enough to carry you through bad swings. Then again, if you treat poker as a hobby, your objective will probably not be to make money on it, and therefore you will not feel the need to have your bankroll carry you through times of bad beats.

If poker becomes your obsession, and you realize you’re in it for the money, you’ll need a legitimate bankroll, one that will carry you through downswings. In this case, due to the fact that you’ll be playing much more often, you’ll need a bankroll of about 10 buy-ins. At this stage, you probably have a separate source of income, so that will come in handy to bail you out if things misfire completely.

Of course if you’re an online poker player you will need a slightly bigger roll of about 15 buy-ins, because of the bigger number of hands per hour you’ll be playing at the virtual tables.

If you’re thinking about going pro, about making a living playing poker, you’ll have a whole host of different factors to consider. You’ll have to take a really serious look on the life you’re currently living and assess whether you’ll be able to maintain or even improve (depending on your goals) your current living standards. You’ll have to take your rent, loan, mortgage and other expenses into account, and you’ll also have to consider the fact that you may act differently at the table when your rent is riding on the pot you’re striving to secure.

As a pro, you’ll need a much bigger bankroll, one that is rather intricate to accurately determine. Regardless of whether you’re a weekend player or a professional however, you should never play a single hand without rakeback. Rakeback will yield a constant trickle of revenue, one which – if you’re a high stakes player – will quickly turn into a steady flow.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.
Best,
Steve

Bankroll Preservation

There are all kinds of blogs about bankroll management. Thinking of managing your bankroll using math and percentages is great when you’re a rational thinking player. It is my belief that the most important part of being a successful poker player is controlling your bankroll when you’re losing.

Tilt is probably the most used word to describe a player’s emotion at the poker table. My definition of tilt is anger at the game of poker. When on tilt, a player is mad at the world and plays loose and very aggressive. The problem with online play is that it is very easy to play high stakes and lose your entire bankroll when tilting. The play online is so fast that even being angry for a minute can lose you a lot of money.

Playing live at a casino is a much better place to be if you are on tilt. The play is much slower and it is easier to just stand up and go for a walk when you experience a bad beat. It is important to realize when you are playing angry and take steps to preserve your bankroll. When I started playing I let my emotion get the better of me too many times and it cost me a lot of money. Throughout the years I have found some effective ways to preserve your bankroll from yourself when you are tilting.

If you are experiencing a bad session of play, many players will start playing higher stakes and looking to gamble to recoup their losses. This often results in a bankroll balance of zero as emotional poker is not profitable poker. If you feel yourself wanting to move up in stakes stop playing. If you want to make sure you don’t start playing again till you’re cooled off, most poker sites offer a self exclusion where you can exclude yourself from playing on the site from a minimum of 12 hours to weeks or a maximum of life. This 12 hours will give you time to think about what went wrong and cool off. My favourite way to end a tilt session is to just cash out my bankroll. It makes you feel good if you have still cashed a profit and you know that that money cannot be abused by your tilted evil side.

Don’t let that evil side bankrupt your bankroll

Brian Suta

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Now to the topic of today’s post, playing in your “profit zone”.

Most knowledgeable players will tell you that you should only play in tournaments or cash games where the buy-in represents not more than 5% of your bankroll. More conservative players might even say you should have 40 times the buy-in in your bankroll before sitting down at any table. That means you do not play in a $5 tournament or bring $5 to a cash table unless you have at least $100 in your bankroll, or $200 if you are on the more conservative side. Got that? Pretty easy to understand, right? I hope so because if that math is tough for you then poker might not be your “thing”.

So, if I gave the worst poker player you have ever played against $200 and let them loose on $10 online tournaments how do you think they would do? They would be following the 5% rule, at least for the first game. I suspect they would do rather poorly. In fact, I’d go so far as to say I know they would do poorly. Sure, everyone gets lucky now and then but that $200 would be turned into nothing in a hurry.

My point is that the 5% guideline is there to keep you from risking too much of your bankroll at any one point, which is wise to say the least. However, it`s just as important to remember to play in your profit zone. What’s your profit zone? It’s the level (buy-in) where you can make money and build your bankroll consistently. Some people are so bad that they flat out don’t have a profit zone, you can only go so low after all, but assumig you’re not in that category then stick to the 5% rule and stick to a buy-in that’s profitable. If you are consistently making money playing $5 tournaments and you build up your BR to the point where you can play $10 tournaments (using the 5% rule) then by all means do. But if you are not ready to make that jump and the players at that level eat your lunch, then get back to your profit zone and keep working on your skills before you try the jump again.

Why do people play in games they aren’t good enough for yet? Here are some of the reasons I think people do that, if you can think of others then please let me know and I’ll add them. If you recognize any of these in yourself and make some adjusments as a result, then my job is done … your bankroll is already in safer hands. If this is not a problem area for you, come back next week, hopefully I’ll have something for you.

People play in games beyond their skill level, buy-in level and outside their profit zone because:

• They are attracted to the potential of the one big pay off
• They think they’re a better poker player than they really are
• They think anyone can get lucky once
• They figure the fastest way to recoop money lost at the lower levels is to win one big game
• They think poker is a game of pure chance
• They think they play better when up against better opponents (ie. fewer donkeys)
• They have more money than brains

If you find any of my thoughts on poker interesting you should check out my Aces-cracker poker blog. My buddy’s blog is one I also recommend. blind v blind poker blog .

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The Importance of Poker Bankroll Management

One of the most important aspects of being a successful poker player, (apart from being good at poker obviously), is having good poker bankroll management skills. This part of poker is largely over-looked by a lot of poker players, and the simple fact is, if you are good at poker, then there is a higher chance that you will not be as successful as you could be unless you take care to play in the correct games.

So what are the guidelines for good bankroll management?
Personally, as a guide I only like to play with 5% of my bankroll at any time. This rule applies to both cash and tournaments. (You will find from most other players that 5% is the normal amount, some however are even stricter and use a 2% or even 1% rule!).

Cash Games:
If you are playing $0.05/$0.10 NL cash games, then you want to have at least $10 (100 x Big Blind) on the table. This means that you must have about $200 (20 x $10) in your bankroll if you follow the 5% rule.

Tournaments:
With a bankroll of $200, this will allow you to play in $10 tournaments.

Whats the point in being so strict with the bankroll?
Well this is an easy answer! If you have $200 in your bankroll, you could obviously play in a $200 tournament. But if you get knocked out without making the money, then boom, your down to $0. If however, you only play in the $10 tournaments with a $200 bankroll, it will be quite hard to go to $0 because you would in effect, have to lose 20 (or more) games in a row!

When to move up/down the stakes?
Just stick to the percentages as a guide for which games to play at! If you are playing tournaments, then usually, the next level up from $10 is $20. So going on the 5% rule, this means you can comfortably move up once you have got to $400.

The 5% rule works a treat for making sure you don’t go broke as well. If your bankroll happens to drop from $200 to $100, then just move down to the $5 games until you get back to $200. (It is VERY important to stick to this rule because if you do lose half the bankroll in the current level, then chances are, you might not be ready for that level).

This ’5% rule’ just makes playing poker boring!
I’ll answer that statement with a question:

Maybe it does, but what is more satisfying, having a steadily growing bankroll or just going broke all the time?

Poker success is determined on how much you have won/loss over periods of months/years, not hours.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first post on the PokerBankrollBlog, see you next week! Don’t forget to check out Willy C’s Poker Blog!

I already know the game and most of its aspects after 4 years of online poker, and I’m really not that interested in learning the finer details at the time being. My knowledge is good enough for the low levels I am playing. So where lies the fascination? Where does my motivation come from? Why am I content with grinding low limit tables with my short stack strategy?

I think I have the answer: I am in love with my Poker Bankroll. It’s my precious. My current Poker Bankroll is 191$ and I cherish every single dollar. You know why? Because I earned them myself from scratch by being better than my opponents. I have treated my Poker Bankroll with respect and done my utmost not to lose it when I have taken chances at higher limits. By doing so I have avoided going broke which in turn means that my current Poker Bankroll represents more than 100 hours of my life.

I want my Poker Bankroll to stay alive for a long time to come. Therefore I play as much as I can on limits where I know I can win and with a short stack strategy that I believe is profitable. This way my Poker Bankroll will grow fat and be able to withstand lean periods.

I hope that one day my Poker Bankroll will be able to pay me back for the many hours I have invested in it by paying for buyins to large tournaments, cool electronic gadgets, romantic dinners or even holidays.

We have had a rocky start my Poker Bankroll and I, but things are finally starting to go our way. We have almost 25 buyins to the limit we are playing and can therefore soon boast of practising sensible bankroll management.

I look forward to sharing more stories about my Poker Bankroll in the future.

…..inner state of desire or need. That desire or need creates a movement or activity towards satisfying that desire…

So actually it is based on an internal drive or need that is already there – not just a future mental projection on what would be cool to reach.

Why is motivation important in Bankroll Management?

When starting on serious bankroll management the motivation and energy is often high. With the desire of improving yourself and reaching your goals such as being good at poker or building a big poker bankroll. But how often have each one of us not started a project where we in the beginning are really dedicated to the project, but then after some time it’s like the project just fades away and we kind of forget about the whole desire and motivation for the project.

So the question really is – How is a high level of motivation reached in the beginning and more importantly how is the level maintained?

How to keep the motivation high?

The first step is getting a high level of motivation from the start of the bankroll management. This is achieved by setting a goal which is visionary enough so that you would feel absolute fantastic if you reach that goal. Your goals must result in a drive and inspiration that can maintain motivation throughout the course of the project. Persistent motivation is based in great visions, where you are not intimidated by the size of your goal.

The second important step is the ability to keep the high level of motivation throughout the course of the project. Actually the way to achieve this is very much based on step one. When you set a goal that is too small and timid you will suffer a lack in motivation for bankroll management. At the same time the goal must be based in your true desires and not just a mental attraction to some state in the future – or else pursuing the goal just won’t feel right. If you find the right goal and it is something that you deep down really really desire you will always have that to fall back on and it will instantly increase you level of motivation.

Setting visionary goals actually requires a lot of courage and some fears may have to be confronted. Many people set low goals due to self doubt or the fear of getting disappointed. Actually it is needed to overcome these mental blocks for these people to be able to set a visionary goal that will keep motivation and energy at the highest level. These people have to realise that self doubt or the fear of getting disappointed is really not doing them any good and they have to put these blocks aside and open up for new things instead that really will do them good.

Other articles in this series:

• Bankroll Management
• Bankroll Management – Motivation
• Poker Bankroll Skills – Willpower
• Poker Bankroll Skills – Positive Thinking
• Bankroll Building Skills – Persistence
• Bankroll Building Skills – Acceptance
• Bankroll Building Skills – Discipline

— Join the Poker Bankroll building community on the PokerBRB forum and get support and useful hints from other bankroll building poker players.

— Get a PokerBRB rakeback deal to maximize your revenues.