Bankroll Management "Why"

I know there's no shortage of bankroll management posts, but I think most of the focus is on the "what is it" or "what rules should I follow" and sometimes, "here's why I'm not going to follow bankroll management, why I'm the one guy who can get away with it, and can I have your support". However, there are not enough posts that I see on the "why". I wanted to start a thread about why players should be more apt to follow bankroll management and less apt to take shots or act with total reckless abandonment. If nothing else, it will be a nice frame of reference for me to point to for different posts where I want to extol the virtues of bankroll management, but not use too many words doing in the process. Feel free to add your own ideas or discuss further. If there are links to similar posts that I've missed, post those here, too and we'll try to consolidate.

1. Dealing with Variation. It's been said many times, but the most obvious reason for why you want to follow bankroll management is because poker is a game of variation and probability and even though we play for the good times, we have to be able to withstand the bad times. To withstand it, you just need two things: (1) Be a winning a poker player @ the level and peers you're playing against and (2) Have enough in your bankroll to withstand reasonable variation.

If you are not a winning poker player, there is no amount of money that can save you. Your bankroll will fluctuate up and down very similar to a winning player, but long term you will lose more than you will gain, and you will lose it all eventually if you play long enough and don't get better. In terms of results, poker is a very poor short term game, but very accurate long term game. The better player will always come out ahead in the long run. Again, you just have to play enough - thousands and thousands of hands.

Assuming you are a winning player, you will still lose through bad luck, bad decisions, better opponents, and a myriad of other reasons. Even if you always played against players worse than you or always made good decisions or even if you always made THE perfect poker decision every time, you would still lose sometimes. The only way you could not lose is if you could ALSO predict the future. So, keep in mind that even with X-ray vision that allowed you to see all the hole cards, unless you also knew what cards were coming, you will ALWAYS lose at some point. And if you can lose once, you could lose more than once, and something not likely, but still possible could happen and you could lose your entire bankroll. But, by following sound money management principles, we can reasonably overcome these uncertainties.

There's enough posts out there about what a good bankroll is to withstand natural variation, so I won't delve much into that. But, in a nutshell, for no limit, I strongly believe in having at least 30 buy-ins before moving up a level. Not 15 to 20 or even 29 - the whole 30. With bankroll management, always error to caution because your bankroll is your poker life's blood. DO NOT act carelessly with your poker life - give it the attention, priority, and respect it deserves. If you don't move up a level when you have 30 buy-ins, make it because you're waiting to do so @ 40 or 50. Once you start @ a level, you can continue playing at that level unless you lose enough to fall to 20 buy-ins at which point you should drop a level of play. Also, never put more than 10% of your entire roll into play through buy-ins @ multiple tables. Have a stop loss in place such that you will not allow yourself to lose more than 5% of your entire bankroll in one day.

2. Poker Mindset - It's just chips. Reason "why" # 1 is the most obvious and usually where the discussion stops, but bankroll management gives you so much more freedom and chance to enhance your abilities. Making good decisions is the foundation of being a strong, successful poker player. But, having a clear mind and making sound decisions is easier said that done. Once real money is introduced into the equation, people start to react and behave differently than they might otherwise. Some people play more greedy and aggressive, some play more passive and scared, some try to get fancy or tricky, and the list goes on. Some people can handle calling an all-in bet for $5 because it's just five bucks, but $100 could pay my cable bill for the month, and $1000 could pay my rent. No matter who you are, at some point, money starts to matter and it will affect your decision making. I know it's happened to me and I see it routinely happen to others at amounts that don't even seem that significant.

However, when you follow bankroll management, you literally have no reason to worry as far as the money goes. Bankroll management was designed so that you don't have to worry about your money. It's already been taken care of. You just follow the rules and play the best poker you can play. You aren't buying in for $5 or $50 or $500. You're buying in for 100 big blinds and when you first arrive @ a new level, you have a bankroll of at LEAST 30 of them with nothing to worry about because even if you lose 10 in a row, you'll drop down a level that you KNOW you can beat and build it back up again. Proper bankroll management allows you to look at the chips the same whether it's a $2 buy-in or a $200 buy-in. The theory of poker and how you should fight for those blinds is the same no matter what - only your opponents change.

Again, this may at times be easier said than done once you reach certain levels, but in truth, it's only different if you allow it to be.

3. Poker Mindset - I have discipline. Even more important than knowing poker and playing good poker in my opinion is having good discipline. You will be tested @ the poker table in more ways than you can imagine. You will get sucked out on, you will miss draws, you will get cooler hands like your QQ spiking a set on the flop and villain KK flopping his set on the turn (happened to me less than a month ago), you will have villains needle or berate you, and so much more. To be successful at this game, you have to develop the discipline to handle those situations and not let it affect your game. So, if you can't even have the discipline to stick to bankroll management, what chance are you going to have to deal with all the other stuff that will happen? Once you start breaking bankroll management, before you even sit down at the table, you've basically admitted to yourself that you don't have any discipline. It applies to ALL bankroll management decisions: playing under your roll, taking shots, putting too much money in play, and not heeding one day stop losses. Developing and maintaining discipline is an important "why" you want to follow bankroll management.

4. Poker Mindset - I believe in myself. Having confidence in poker is a slippery slope. You don't want too much of it or to lack too much either. I think that many people who don't follow bankroll management secretly or subconsciously don't believe they are good poker players. Because if they did, they would have no problem starting from the bottom following the rules knowing that they have the skills to basically skate to the top. Sure, there will be some bumps along the way because there always are, but if you are a winning player, it doesn't take long to move up. If you are a 10bb/100 or 4ptBB/100 winning player @ $2NL and start playing with a $60 roll @ just 200 hands per day Monday through Friday (1000 hands per week), you would hit $150 and ready to play $5NL in less than 6 months. Those are pretty conservative numbers and you also have the freedom to put in more hands and work on your game to improve your win rate to make it go faster if you like. By taking shots, you are basically saying that you don't have confidence in yourself or the system.

5. Poker Mindset - I believe in myself, but I know I'm human. Lacking confidence will cause most players to play less than optimum, and so too will having too much confidence. Some players, ironically, usually the greenest of the green from what I've seen, think they're going to waltz into the poker scene and start taking money off the table like it's low hanging fruit. More times than not, if you play outside your roll, you'll quickly solve the "too confident" problem by going broke. This is negative reinforcement and far from optimal. By following bankroll management, you can constructively hone, build, and assess realistic confidence levels. By starting from the bottom, beating levels, and playing within your means, you approach poker from a fun perspective, the way it was meant to be, as a game. Poker is a game and should be fun. Even if it becomes a job or pays the bills, the fun factor should stay constant. By starting online @ $2NL or in a home game for a $20 buy-in, it's like inserting a quarter into a video game and seeing how high you can get the score up. If you're truly God's gift to poker, you will find yourself blazing a trail through each level leaving fish and nits in your wake and blinded by your glory. If not, then you'll probably find yourself like the other 99% of the poker population grinding it out, but still having fun, learning, and growing each step of the way whether those steps are up or down. Don't forget to have fun.


Summary
To summarize, the benefits of following sound bankroll management are far reaching and it is something to embrace, not ignore. It will enhance your success, not hold you back. Poker is a game where only 40% of its players will ever make money in the long term. We know the bad players go broke, but surprisingly many good ones do too. Stu Ungar is widely regarded as one of the best no limit players who ever lived, but also one of the worst at handling money. There are stories of many well known pros living today who are losers long term because they are not disciplined with money. This alone is pretty convincing evidence that bankroll management is required for success as no amount of skill can overcome it.

Wow that was a great post. When I first saw it I was thinking "Really? I thought there was enough on this..." but I found it to be very informative.

I'm going to have to agree with xpaand. Well done! You talked me out of moving up to 5NL too soon. As for the stop loss, you're saying that if I have a $70 bankroll...I should stop if/when I lose $3.50? Also, with the same $70 bankroll, I should only use up to three tables with $2.33 each (or variations of?). I just want to be sure I understand your rules completely.

This is an excellent post. Great job explaining the importance of bankroll management. Alot of the content and examples you included are also very motivating.

Thanks. Most of my posts seem to reference something about Bankroll Management, so I wanted to get it all out on virtual paper.

Yes, if you lose $3.50 of your $70, it's time to stop playing poker for the day. Your bankroll should be built up slowly and if you're going to lose it, it should be lost slowly too.

And you're also right about the multi-tabling. With $70, you can play up two tables with $3.50 each and if you exceed that, you wait till right before the big blind gets to you and leave the worst table you're at. Chris Ferguson was the person I heard this rule from and the idea goes hand in hand with the 5% rule - the money hasn't been lost, but you just don't want too much of it in play or "at risk". To follow this rule, it will put a bigger burden on those who excessive multi-table, but when you play no limit, your stack is always vulnerable and if it's not, you're not playing optimally.

tl;dr

pictures say a thousand words?

Originally Posted by d0zer

tl;dr

pictures say a thousand words?

wtf? please explain because those graphs are insane. did someone really put so much of their bankroll on 1 tourney? then repeat several times?

Thanks for the post, Jason. Your arguments are totally valid. Deep in cold depths of my pea brain, I know that if I was a winning poker player, I would eventually move up following proper BR management. But I feel that there is nothing wrong with risking a portion of your profit (as long as it isn't your whole roll) to speed up the process... if you fail, so be it... you took your shot and you still have things to learn (or variance killed you, which is probably why people tilt off their whole stacks).

And if you succeed, then you have saved yourself endless hours of grinding (which may or may not prepare you for the next level up anyways, due to the difference in styles between say 10NL and 25NL).

I think a mistake that people make is that they play beyond their roll for too long. I am currently experimenting with one month and one month only playing with only 8 buy ins. A recipe for disaster? Sure. But if I lose 4 buy ins, I will start grinding again at a lower level.

The thing that might save me is that even I'm not dumb enough to keep moving up levels with only 8 buy ins. Even if I win money, I will wait until I'm sufficiently rich (20 buy ins) to advance to the next level.

Good luck to you, Jason. Like you said to me on my blog thread, I'll probably see you at 10NL when I inevitably lose and drop down. Just don't three bet my blind steals, okay?

Great post. I have two ideas I'd add.

1. I don't think 30 BI's is enough when you move up later, say to 100nl and above. I'm a bankroll nit, but most people agree you need more protection the bigger and less replaceable your bankroll is. I could rebuy a $500 bankroll pretty easy. Not so much with my current ~ $3k roll. So you play extra careful in terms of BI's when you win your way above your ability to replace it.

2. You can put more than 10% of your roll in play at once multitabling if you use the 30+ BI bankroll rule. I don't advocate playing mass tables at the micros, but I would suggest buying in full on any tables you play. Buying in full on 4 tables w/ 30 BI's behind shouldn't be a problem, as long as you can quit if you start spewing.

I'd agree that higher levels mean you should have more buyins, as you would expect generally to have a lower winrate at higher levels and therefore the chance of losing x amount of buyins due to negative variance would be greater.

Nice post Jason.

I went from 20 USD to 3300 in a little more than 1k hours with an extremely nitty bankroll management on one table only (50-100 buy ins + most of the time). This was my fourth roll I had built.

Now I am doing the same again (5 time) with a much more aggressive bankroll management and things are going much faster. So far 80% profit (from 200) after 15 hours. Other experiments have also shown that my bankroll grows much quicker with aggressive BR.

Anyone knows how much an edge one needs before variance does not affect you?

I mean I have never experienced more than 5 buy in swings- and that swing I recovered from in matter of hours( I still remember it and I did not play my A+ game, more close to my B game). I very rarely go a week without reaching new summits in my BRs.

Please do not reply the way I am used to. I find it hard to compare with others, because I have yet seen anyone with similar winrates. My question about how big an edge "removes" variance correlates with the answer of why we should have more "padding" at higher stakes where edge is presumably lower.

So how big an edge- in bb/h do we need to "remove" variance?

It makes perfect sense in a vacuum. But pepper in the emotional highs and lows of the game and you know you'll just deal with br management later. Over come that hurdle and you'll be rich!

Sir Pawn, the answer lies in the comparison between win rate and standard deviation. Most of the standard deviations I've seen in my own analyses of my game are about 40 - 50 ptBB/100. Basically, w/ win rates around 10 ptBB/100, you have nearly 80% winning sessions, so the downswings are pretty rare. When you get down to 3 - 4 ptBB/100 win rates, you have more 5 - 10 BI downswings possible. And of course, at 2 or less ptBB/100, you have tons of 10+ BI downswings because only about 55 - 60% of your sessions are winning ones.

That's the math side of things. Someone else could give you more practical advice. I just know that good players all over FTR have experienced multiple BI downswings - like 30+ BI's in some cases, while playing decent poker.

Sir Pawn, the answer lies in the comparison between win rate and standard deviation. Most of the standard deviations I've seen in my own analyses of my game are about 40 - 50 ptBB/100. Basically, w/ win rates around 10 ptBB/100, you have nearly 80% winning sessions, so the downswings are pretty rare. When you get down to 3 - 4 ptBB/100 win rates, you have more 5 - 10 BI downswings possible. And of course, at 2 or less ptBB/100, you have tons of 10+ BI downswings because only about 55 - 60% of your sessions are winning ones.

That's the math side of things. Someone else could give you more practical advice. I just know that good players all over FTR have experienced multiple BI downswings - like 30+ BI's in some cases, while playing decent poker.

Thanks Robb

Your example shows clearly why BR management is extremely important when our edge is small.

The 5 buy in downswing I experienced happened when I first started multitabling and my edge was probably much lower as I got used to 4 tables.

Also- as we reach higher stakes our BR is becoming harder to replace- as someone stated.

Can we conclude that BR management depends on these factors?:

1. Relative edge vs opponents, 2. how easy it is to replace BR and 3. general variance of games played.

This requires that we follow a BR management which is the one that reduces the risk the most but at the same time maximizes our expected profits. To do this we must tailor a personal BR management.

Very good thread.

god if any of you new guys follow this crock of shit u'll be very very very lucky if you make it to 50NL after a year starting out @ 2NL

Color me lucky starting @ $2NL and making it to $50NL by July plus more players than I can count still struggling or having quit because they couldn't follow bankroll management. But, please, Yoda, share your wisdom

Thanks for posting this Jason, it was a very good read!

To all the tourney players starting out. There is a ton of great information that pertains to your game as well!!!

Originally Posted by Jason

Color me lucky starting @ $2NL and making it to $50NL by July plus more players than I can count still struggling or having quit because they couldn't follow bankroll management. But, please, Yoda, share your wisdom

Young sir for you to begin your training your force will need to be stronger. That is all for now.

Originally Posted by Instant Aces

god if any of you new guys follow this crock of shit u'll be very very very lucky if you make it to 50NL after a year starting out @ 2NL

Wow, so I'm pretty lucky then am I? Good to know. I've taken an initial $10 deposit in November of '08 and taken it to $1560 as we stand today following fairly strict BRM rules. Oh, and that's not counting 3 months of boot camp where I was allowed to play 0 poker and I haven't deposited another dime, except for a deposit bonus, which I withdrew as soon as I was able to.

Also, if you go back through and look at my earliest posts, you could say that I was...erm... "inexperienced" to say the least lmao. Thank the lucky stars I am where I'm at, huh?

no bank roll =[ and i have no signature

Didn't Spoon post something about BR once where he compared it to wearing a cup?

We are all going to get kicked in the nuts by downswings multiple times.. and BR management is our cup.

100 buyin BR= steel cup
50= iron cup
30= aluminum cup
20= leather cup
10= cloth cup
<10= tin foil cup

I still need to learn how to flop sets on turn.

Just being nitpicky, excellent post, I'm glad I found it after my latest -4BI session

One thing I have been wondering, when do you leave a table when you are winning? ie, I have $45 in my bankroll, that includes the $2 I have on the table. Let's say I go up on the table to $4.77, that makes my bankroll $47.70 and I am now risking 10% of it. Do I leave the table if I win another hand?

you leave whenever you feel you are no longer playing a game where you have an edge over your opponents. or just because you feel like it.

Reasons for that could be tilt, playing scaredmoney, lack of focus, etc.

Originally Posted by JKDS

you leave whenever you feel you are no longer playing a game where you have an edge over your opponents. or just because you feel like it.

Reasons for that could be tilt, playing scaredmoney, lack of focus, etc.

Sorry, but I find that response rather amusing. All of this game can be broken down into math, which is logical. Yet when to leave the table, you give an emotional reason. No logic. I'm sorry if not many appreciate the irony in that.

Originally Posted by trilerian

One thing I have been wondering, when do you leave a table when you are winning? ie, I have $45 in my bankroll, that includes the $2 I have on the table. Let's say I go up on the table to $4.77, that makes my bankroll $47.70 and I am now risking 10% of it. Do I leave the table if I win another hand?

it depends...
on the stack sizes of other players for one thing. If you are 250bb deep, but the next person is only 100bb deep, then you are effectively playing 100bb deep.
Whether you should leave the table depends on how comfortable you are vs any players that cover you, and your relative position vs these players.

Originally Posted by trilerian

Originally Posted by JKDS

you leave whenever you feel you are no longer playing a game where you have an edge over your opponents. or just because you feel like it.

Reasons for that could be tilt, playing scaredmoney, lack of focus, etc.

Sorry, but I find that response rather amusing. All of this game can be broken down into math, which is logical. Yet when to leave the table, you give an emotional reason. No logic. I'm sorry if not many appreciate the irony in that.

you dont see how the above reasons affect your ability to logically think through decisions?

Originally Posted by trilerian

Originally Posted by JKDS

you leave whenever you feel you are no longer playing a game where you have an edge over your opponents. or just because you feel like it.

Reasons for that could be tilt, playing scaredmoney, lack of focus, etc.

Sorry, but I find that response rather amusing. All of this game can be broken down into math, which is logical. Yet when to leave the table, you give an emotional reason. No logic. I'm sorry if not many appreciate the irony in that.

daven and iopq had a huge discussion about this in the irc, and it was actually kinda interesting. but really it's just kind of an issue of semantics and isn't really a practical discussion.

if you are a robot and don't have any feelings or emotions and are capable of playing poker and making every poker decision ever solely on logic, then by all means never make a non-logical decision like quit because you're starting to tilt (because as iopq argues, this technically CAN be defined as tilt).

however, if you are human and sometimes find yourself angry at the poker gods and cannot find the fold button with AK on an A-high board against a super nit, then you have only the choice between two emotionally-based decisions: 1) tilt your money away by going all in with AK in bad spots and make similarly bad decisions or 2) quit and keep your money. one is obviously more EV than the other.

of course it's IDEAL to never make a tilted decision, and certainly you can define quitting because you're tilted in itself a tilted decision, but if your decision comes down to two emotionally based decisions (play tilted or quit), then LDFO chose the one that's more EV

Jason-- thank you for starting this post and so clearly outlining your thoughts. As a new player, it's really helpful to see this and think about how I want to set up my spending strategies.

ITT: VARIATION.

Hi
Very nice post. A friend of mine once said that risking little and making profit leads to making more profit in the long term and keeping it. High risk just leads to higher risk of loss, even if the profit may be greater, it is only for the short term.