Bankroll questions and BB/100 considerations

[TheDelChop]

Hello everyone, long time reader first time poster and I have a quick question. I am a fairly new player, or at least new to the "professional" aproach to playing (tracking my stats with PT and multi-tabling) and have been multi-tabling $3/$6 at Party. I know that most of you agree that a BB/100 of approximately 2 is a measure of a sucessfull player. I was wondering if this applies at a low limit with worse competition, or should the BB/100 be higher? My BB/100 is apporximately 2 with a sample rate of 5,000 hands, however, I have been running extremly poorly as of late. Also, what is a good bankrool to multiable at $5/$10? $10/$20? Thank you in advance for your input.

[DrGutshot]

at 2/4 and 3/6, 2bb/100 is pretty good, a good player can make 3-3.5, but definetly don't be disapointed with 2. Also - the 5/10 full handed games (at least on party poker) seem very tight and not very profitable. However, the 6max games are immensely profitable which much larger variations. I would reccommend a MINIMUM of 600BB for the shorthanded games. Also, make sure you have reviewed shorthanded play, it is VERY different from 3/6 fullhanded. Start off with 2 tables, add more as you get used to it.

By the way - while I don't doubt you are a winning player, a 5k sample is WAY too small to have anything close to your actually bb/100. I would wait until at LEAST 30k hands before you are within 0.4bb/100 or so of your true winrate.

Welcome to the posting part of the forum, and good luck!

-DrG

[fsuplayer]

gutshot pretty much said it all.

if you want to go the 6 max way, i would try about 5-10k hands at 1/2 and make sure you are beating those games ok. then move up to 5/10, which are much trickier than the 1/2.

fwiw I used a 450BB to start out at 5/10, then played until i had about 400-450BB for the 10/20 games.

i wouldnt play either without less than 500BB, unless you can replenish at any time (which I could have done if necessary)

gl to you

btw hang around the HU/SH forum, you will learn v. fast.

fsuplayer

[TheDelChop]

Thank you Dr and FSU for your replies to my question. However, if you don't mind I have a few more. When you say 600 BB you mean $6000 dollars right? Now my bankroll is nowhere near that level, I current play $3/$6 with $1100 or 190 BB if i understand you correctly. What is the advantage of having, in my opinion, such an excessively large bank roll? I mean i have had some bad days, but I can't imagine losing so much money that I would need 600BB.

[fsuplayer]

500BB is the safe way to go.

you can sure play those games with less, but your risk of ruin goes up. swings of 100-200BBs (and sometimes more) are not terribly uncommon. 500-600BB gives you plenty left if you are unfortunate enough to hit one of those swings. that way you dont have to drop back down a level bc of a swing that is out of your control.

i would stay at the 3/6 for a while and make some more money to build your BR. then drop to the 1/2 for a little while, then you should have the BR for the 5/106max if you want to.

i wouldnt play that game with less than $3000 though

fsuplayer

[tablecop]

basically two reasons why you'd need a higher bankroll (measured in Big Bets). 1) at the six-max games your StDev will be half again as high as your StDev at the lower limit full-ring. 2) the higher you go the harder it becomes to replenish your poker bankroll from non-poker sources.