Bankroll adjustments for live play

[Rico Suave]

Up until now, I have been mainly an online player (mostly party); but I now have the opportunity to play live on a more regular basis. I am most likely going to set aside a live bankroll separate from my online bankroll---I know, I know, it sounds stupid, but for right now, this is how I would like to deal with things. So my question...do live games (which are generally looser, but less aggressive) have a different bankroll requirement than their online couterpart. For instance, I would not feel comfortable with playing 5/10 (my current game) at party without a 500BB bankroll. Is that excessive, for say 10/20 live?

Yes, I understand that my bankroll requirements depend on my winrate, sd, risk tolerance, etc. And I understand this is a fairly general question. But I was just curious, if and how people adjust bankroll for live vs. online.

--Rico

[bobbyi]

It's hard to answer since we don't know the specific game. There are certainly some live games that tend to be very wild and filled with people who love to gamble it up, and for those you are going to need a pretty big bankroll. However, you're right that in general live games have lower variance. The fact that you can see people and judge where they are and pick up phsyical tells will allow you to get away from hands you would be forced to chase online (or to just call down when you be raising online, etc.), which can also lower your variance. I think that most for most live 10/20 games, 500 BB's would definitely be excessive. If you play your local game a few times, you'll probably get a decent intuitive feel of how big the swings are going to be and then you can judge yourself. If you keep good records (which you should), it won't take to long before you have a reasonably accurate measure of your standard deviation, which is really what you are going to need to determine bankroll.

[Danenania]

For many of the live 10/20 games I've played in, I'd feel safe with 200 BB's.