Bankroll size for live games.

Since live tends to be a little more on the passive/fishy side at the lowest spread, could this call for lower bankroll requirements than that of online since our BB/100 will be expected to be greater?

How bout a poll: For those who play $1/$2 or $2/$5, what's your bankroll size and why did you choose that number of buy-ins?

For the live games I play now, I just kind of do out of pocket. I don't have any set amount for specifically poker. I made $100 playing 1/2 last sunday and if I can repeat that or better a couple more weeks in a row then I might just set it aside for poker purposes.

But to answer your question directly, I think you could probly have a looser BR requirement just for the simple fact that the games are REALLY fishy. (At least they are at the casino I go to ) I'd say anything more than 10-15+ would be acceptable. But then again I'm just a recreational live player.

I always bring at least the buy-in and 3 maximum rebuys for no limit and 150xBB for limit.

In my opinion, it's dependent on how often you plan on playing and how much the money means to you. If you plan to play often, you need to follow the same bankroll management rules you should follow online. No matter how soft or passive the game seems @ any stake, you can and will lose and the purpose of bankroll management is to naturally weather those storms. If you're not playing that often or the money just doesn't mean anything to you, then I say just play whenever you want.

Jason is right about bankroll, but there's two different issues here: (1) how much to bring to the casino, and (2) how much you have set aside to cover poker play. (2), the ultimate bankroll, should be enough to cover even a long losing spell, and the recommendations on bankroll management that Jason links to are sound. However, for all sorts of reasons, you probably don't want to bring your entire bankroll to the casino to play each night. With respect to (1), I want to make sure that I can play deep-stacked even if something bad happens, so that's why I bring buy-in + 3 re-buys in NL or 150xBB in limit.

I was thinking that because we can't muiltitable live, we won't be risking large amounts of our bankroll at one time. I have a very conservative approach to bankroll management online. Good points about bringing multiple buy-ins too. Especially top up cash. I can see where it's easier to loosen up bankroll reqirements live because we don't have to add money to a website, and since you can basically play out of your pocket, as long as results are tracked I suppose that's just as good as setting aside a chunk of cash. But of course for a professional, a large bankroll would be a must have given that it's their life line and the key to earning bill money.

Thanks for the answers guys and feel free to comment on what I just wrote.

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

I was thinking that because we can't muiltitable live, we won't be risking large amounts of our bankroll at one time.

This has nothing to do with BR management

Originally Posted by swiggidy

Originally Posted by Micro2Macro

I was thinking that because we can't muiltitable live, we won't be risking large amounts of our bankroll at one time.

This has nothing to do with BR management

I disagree so let me elaborate. Let's say for online play someone uses the '20BI rule'. Now let's say this player plays 10 tables, but isn't very good at poker and tends to go on monkey-tilt. (Of course a player shouldn't be playing 10 tables if they can't contol tilt+suck really bad but let's just make the assumption here).

Okay, so a player is on 10 tables, and things aren't looking so good. He's down 4 buy-ins and is really starting to hate life. (Note 4 buy ins have been reloaded onto the 10 tables thus leaving your total roll with 16 buy-ins). He remembers somewhere about some stop-loss article but forgets because everything is going so fast with those 10 tables having the timers ringing. Players start berrating him in the chat box and he can't help himself but to type back...

All of a sudden he becomes enranged and pisses away 8 buy-ins due to insane monkey-tilt. He never even saw it coming. Now he's left with an 8-buy-in bank roll and will have to play solid poker at a lower level in order to work himself back up to par. All of this happened within 15 minutes or so. In a live game where you're one tabling, it is way less likely for somone to piss over half their roll away because it is tough to get out of line when you have time to turn your attitude towards tilt around.

Obviously this is all pretty unlikely for anyone who works hard at the game, but I believe losing multiple buy-ins to this extreme is more probable to occur online than live. It just takes way longer in live play to do it, whereas you can play over 1000 hands an hour on your computer.

Have you ever seen someone donk off 3-4 buy-ins in a live game? If so over how many hands was it? Because clearly you can't log as many hands in a night live as you can online. And how much worse do you think that tilt would have been if that player had being playing multiple tables online?

Maybe this doesn't have to do so much with BR management as it does just tilt and money management. But the topics are pretty related I guess.

5000 hands is 5000 hands, it doesn't matter if you play 10 tables or live, a 5K hand downswing or even 10 BI's can happen anywhere. This is not arguable.

Biggest expected downswing size is a function of your edge in the game.

20 Buy-ins is fine. If you drop 10 buy-ins go down a level or put in personal money to rebuild.

Just as important, control your tilt, have a stop-loss and play good seats in good games.

Originally Posted by jyms

5000 hands is 5000 hands, it doesn't matter if you play 10 tables or live, a 5K hand downswing or even 10 BI's can happen anywhere. This is not arguable.

Yeah I know. I was just mentioning the fact that if it is easier to tilt money away online so should we not have a larger BR then to have our losses appear smaller relative to the size of our roll?

It's all a pyschological thing really. For those of you who won't actually read this post I'll put that in bold for you since pyschological factors do infact affect your edge in a game. The general math behind it obviously remains the same. But if somone is prone to tilting then obviously it will hurt them more in an online game than live because you can lose money alot FASTER. It takes alot longer to lose money playing live as opposed to online. Think about it, you can go through the exact same loss of say 5BI's over 1000 hands both live and online. That can easily be done in an hour online, and it could really wreck you if you can't deal with it. Live though, that 1000 hands will take awhile, so whatever coolers or bad beats you may claim to experience will go much slower giving you more time to recover emotionally. Thus your win rate may be lower online, combined with higher variance, thus the need for a larger roll.

it seems like your goal is to have people say "It's OK to play with less BIs live", perhaps because there is a game you want to play you can't afford. And it is OK, but you can't justify it with reasons that apply to anyone but you. Or expect people to agree, given they are not you.

It may be 'easier' for you to tilt online but for a lot of people it may be easier live because they want to prove something, feel embarrassed, can see how drunk the guy beating them is, etc. Playing a bunch of tables may keep people from tilting in spots where they might live stewing over one beat. You can buy in for more at the average live game. You can often times not table select and either have to go home loser or stay in a bad game. I can go on here.

the idea of longer downswings being easier doesn't make much sense to me. Super shitty day + OK month is better than kinda shitty month even if the total shit volume is the same.

No bankroll can handle consistent tilt or poor play. We have BRs to manage the swings that come when we play correctly and lose.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

it seems like your goal is to have people say "It's OK to play with less BIs live", perhaps because there is a game you want to play you can't afford. And it is OK, but you can't justify it with reasons that apply to anyone but you. Or expect people to agree, given they are not you.

It may be 'easier' for you to tilt online but for a lot of people it may be easier live because they want to prove something, feel embarrassed, can see how drunk the guy beating them is, etc. Playing a bunch of tables may keep people from tilting in spots where they might live stewing over one beat. You can buy in for more at the average live game. You can often times not table select and either have to go home loser or stay in a bad game. I can go on here.

the idea of longer downswings being easier doesn't make much sense to me. Super shitty day + OK month is better than kinda shitty month even if the total shit volume is the same.

No bankroll can handle consistent tilt or poor play. We have BRs to manage the swings that come when we play correctly and lose.

I agree with everything you say here. I know that this wouldn't apply to everyone, so of course there will be different repsonses. I've just read before that it is easier to tilt online because of the speed of the game and how losses happen faster etc. thus it can have a unique emotional impact on a player whereas live play allows more time for a player to recover from tilt. Again I understand this would only apply to some people. For example, I;m really nitty about my bankroll and I'm a little overrolled but it allows me to not worry about losing 'x' # of buy-ins so it keeps me away from tilt, whereas someone else may not be able to play with my requirements because they will end up spewing/tilting because they are overrolled.

The point about the drunks is very salient. When you are being felted by a bad player live, it's all the more insulting because the player is right there and he's often behaving boorishly and idiotically. It's embarrassing to funnel all your money to a drunken idiot.

Online, yes there are jerks, but since you aren't seeing them in the flesh and their opportunities to even talk to you are pretty limited, and because everyone else isn't physically watching you lose your money to the guy, I think you are less likely to tilt.

Boy, lots of answers here.

Live I always bring 100x the BB and never more than 10% of my total poker bankroll.

This always gives me enough to weather the ups and downs and if I have a bad run and bust out, I am not so devastated that I contemplate shooting myself in the head (or the dealer for that matter).

Originally Posted by always2away

Boy, lots of answers here.

Live I always bring 100x the BB and never more than 10% of my total poker bankroll.

This always gives me enough to weather the ups and downs and if I have a bad run and bust out, I am not so devastated that I contemplate shooting myself in the head (or the dealer for that matter).

I have about the same strategy. Has been working out great for me.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

No bankroll can handle consistent tilt or poor play. We have BRs to manage the swings that come when we play correctly and lose.

This was my next point but drmc beat me too it. The 20BI rule is for protection from standard variance, tilt is a whole other problem as evidenced by my OP thread. I burned through a hell of a lot more than 20BI's at one limit. I have had non tilt swings in the 10-12 range before as well. Usually when playing bad players at lower limits, so live could have this same issue.

I play $2-6 tournaments online, but the ones I play live are more frustrating. They have tournaments ranging from $35 to $120 ran on a weekly basis, and monthly $300-500 tournaments. The $35s conflict with my schedule, sometimes I can get there in time for the $70 tournaments, but normally I wind up only being able to make it for their $95 or $120 (I haven't played the 120 yet, but have played the $95 a couple times).

I really want to generate a bankroll for live play. I've got a full-time job, so I can throw some money at live play in order to make it happen. (I'm currently down about $200 live, and up about $600 online.) What sucks is that I can lose it a lot faster playing live poker than I can make it playing online poker, just due to the stakes. So, at some point, unless I win one of these tournaments to recoup my losses, I'll be forced to quit playing live until I am truly rolled to play it. (That really seems like the most reasonable way to do it, I'm just impatient.)

Sounds like you're going through a similar mental process, bringing in the players' general fishyness (which I too notice). So, I suppose I understand your playing under-rolled to a degree, as I'm doing it too hehe. Just make sure you keep in mind the risks associated with playing under-rolled, and don't be pissed when you drop half your roll.

Originally Posted by nUFamn

I really want to generate a bankroll for live play. I've got a full-time job, so I can throw some money at live play in order to make it happen. (I'm currently down about $200 live, and up about $600 online.) What sucks is that I can lose it a lot faster playing live poker than I can make it playing online poker, just due to the stakes. So, at some point, unless I win one of these tournaments to recoup my losses, I'll be forced to quit playing live until I am truly rolled to play it. (That really seems like the most reasonable way to do it, I'm just impatient.)

Sounds like you're going through a similar mental process, bringing in the players' general fishyness (which I too notice). So, I suppose I understand your playing under-rolled to a degree, as I'm doing it too hehe. Just make sure you keep in mind the risks associated with playing under-rolled, and don't be pissed when you drop half your roll.

It's tough, but you should really stay away from the casinos and taking shots until you're rolled. The rules don't change because you're live. Look to home games or starting your own home games at stakes lower than what the casinos provide to help get the ball rolling. If you're a winner online, that's another way to systematically build up money. Again, if you're just playing once in a blue moon, it's no big deal like a night on the town, but if you keep going back regularly, you have to be prepared for the swings or it will catch up with you.

For casino cash games, the lowest stakes are $1/$2 NL and you can easily burn through a grand or two playing optimally and not making mistakes. For MTT tournaments as low as $35, you can easily burn through hundreds of dollars without so much as a cash, let alone the win you'll eventually need to break even. To be rolled for $1/$2 NL, you need about $6000 (30 buy-ins @ $200). To be rolled for $35 MTT, the general rule of thumb is 100 buyins or $3500. If it was a one table tournament, that number could be lower around 30 to 50 buy-ins, which would still be over a grand.

for small live MTTs I would not factor in fishyness much because the structure is probably so horrible that you can't have much of an edge, unless you find the rare live players who fold too much. I guess it depends on your poker goals but generically speaking playing a 95 MTT with a ~1k roll is a terrible idea. If you want to build a roll more quickly, deposit whatever you're spending on the live MTTs online and play either cash or SNGs, the huge fields in micro MTTs mean you may have to wait a looooong time for the big score.

It may seem like you're waiting longer but on average you'll have a roll you can use to play those live MTTs much more quickly. You could even take like 1 shot per 1k you earn in your BR as a reward.

Originally Posted by drmcboy

for small live MTTs I would not factor in fishyness much because the structure is probably so horrible that you can't have much of an edge, unless you find the rare live players who fold too much.

True, the structure makes me want to cry. Unfortunately, the only really decent structure is their $120 deepstack tourny. So I should put it off until I'm rolled for that. Thanks for the insights.

I play $2/$5 NL live and usually take 2 BIs with me to the casino ($1,000). I have not had to use the ATM for a 3rd buy in in over a year. Its been a good run.

I have seen people lose 5-6 buy ins in just a few hours and about a month ago watched a guy lose over $5k in a span of 4 hours (the first 6 hours he was up over $2k- some from me, but after about 15 coronas he was bleeding money and had to rebuy about every 30 minutes until 5AM when I left).

I used keep about 10 BIs at home ($5k), but recently decided I didn't like having that much cash around so I use an old checking account that I don't use for anything else to keep the balance in. I've also started using that account to fund online bonus hunting accounts.

Originally Posted by v diddy

I used keep about 10 BIs at home ($5k), but recently decided I didn't like having that much cash around.

$5k fits quite nicely in a single money clip.