Roy Cooke article in Card Player is wrong. [Archive]

Posty123

11-15-2005, 03:04 AM

His main point being that internet hold 'em ring games require a 50% larger bankroll than live play.

No tipping and no jackpot drop unless desired should not increase but decrease bankroll requirements.

I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

I believe that bank roll requirement are much less for online winning players.

He usually has such good advice. I was surprised to see such an inaccurate assesment.

Comments?

Seether

11-15-2005, 03:13 AM

It has nothing to do with the rake and tipping and everything to do with the difference in aggression and quality of play at the differing levels.

augie00

11-15-2005, 03:15 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

[/ QUOTE ]

damn. you must be the best poker player on earth. geez. i would like to stake you for 20/40. i'll have to sell my car but it will be worth it.

seriously, man. i know some damn talented LHE players and they have ALL swung down 500 bets or more at one point in time. 500k hands? are you sure?

Posty123

11-15-2005, 03:16 AM

Tipping and jack pot drop have to increase variance. That's just a fact.

Especially at the $1-$2 to $5-10 level.

Posty123

11-15-2005, 03:23 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

[/ QUOTE ]

damn. you must be the best poker player on earth. geez. i would like to stake you for 20/40. i'll have to sell my car but it will be worth it.

seriously, man. i know some damn talented LHE players and they have ALL swung down 500 bets or more at one point in time. 500k hands? are you sure?

[/ QUOTE ]

12% VPIP 30% WTSD 3 AF

11-15-2005, 03:28 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Tipping and jack pot drop have to increase variance. That's just a fact.

[/ QUOTE ] Bankroll amount for a given risk is a function of advantage, dispersion and bet amount. So if your advantage is sufficiently less online for any level (and that seems to be general agreement) then original statement makes perfect sense.

SoCalRugger

11-15-2005, 04:05 AM

[ QUOTE ]
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I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

[/ QUOTE ]

damn. you must be the best poker player on earth. geez. i would like to stake you for 20/40. i'll have to sell my car but it will be worth it.

seriously, man. i know some damn talented LHE players and they have ALL swung down 500 bets or more at one point in time. 500k hands? are you sure?

[/ QUOTE ]

12% VPIP 30% WTSD 3 AF

[/ QUOTE ]

See that augie? He really is the best poker player on earth. Man, did he show you...

Shillx

11-15-2005, 04:06 AM

Tipping and varience have nothing to do with each other. All tipping does is increase overhead, so tips might turn a 2 bb/100 winner with an SD of 16 into a 1.5 bb/100 winner with an SD of........sixteen.

Think about it this way...if you decided to tip $100 for every pot you won in a $1/$2 game, you would not have very large swings (it will not all the suddon become possible to win two grand in a night). You would just go broke very quickly as your winrate (after tips) would predict.

Posty123

11-15-2005, 04:11 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

[/ QUOTE ]

damn. you must be the best poker player on earth. geez. i would like to stake you for 20/40. i'll have to sell my car but it will be worth it.

seriously, man. i know some damn talented LHE players and they have ALL swung down 500 bets or more at one point in time. 500k hands? are you sure?

[/ QUOTE ]

12% VPIP 30% WTSD 3 AF

[/ QUOTE ]

See that augie? He really is the best poker player on earth. Man, did he show you...

[/ QUOTE ]

Was that intended as a cogent comment?

Those are my stats from my experience. If your intent was to imply that those stats do not imply the variance I mentioned, I would appreciate your input. That was my intent of posting those numbers.

Bottom line, from experience, does anyone else disagree with Cooke's comments?

11-15-2005, 04:13 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
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I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

[/ QUOTE ]

damn. you must be the best poker player on earth. geez. i would like to stake you for 20/40. i'll have to sell my car but it will be worth it.

seriously, man. i know some damn talented LHE players and they have ALL swung down 500 bets or more at one point in time. 500k hands? are you sure?

[/ QUOTE ]

12% VPIP 30% WTSD 3 AF

[/ QUOTE ]

See that augie? He really is the best poker player on earth. Man, did he show you...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think his point was that he's a tight player, and because of that, he has a lower SD. I think it's very possible for a 12 VPIP to not have any >150 BB swings.

Posty123

11-15-2005, 04:17 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Tipping and varience have nothing to do with each other. All tipping does is increase overhead, so tips might turn a 2 bb/100 winner with an SD of 16 into a 1.5 bb/100 winner with an SD of........sixteen.

Think about it this way...if you decided to tip $100 for every pot you won in a $1/$2 game, you would not have very large swings (it will not all the suddon become possible to win two grand in a night). You would just go broke very quickly as your winrate (after tips) would predict.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you were a .001 bb/100 winner would that increase your variance? Does taking it to the extreme in this way illustrate how your example shows how you are incorrect in your analysis.

11-15-2005, 04:21 AM

I've never had a downswing bigger then 150BB either. I don't understand why that is hard to swallow for some people. I posted my winrate in an earlier thread and most people thought i was making it up. I have not read the article in question but I haven't played b&m either so I couldn't compare the two. 200 to 300 BB's seems like a safe number to start at at the small stakes tables if you are a decent player. Probably less for good players.

11-15-2005, 04:30 AM

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If you were a .001 bb/100 winner would that increase your variance?

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If you tipped .001bb/100 you would have zero variance. You would always break even. As long as you always tip at the same rate your variance will remain the same.

SinCityGuy

11-15-2005, 04:30 AM

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I've never had a downswing bigger then 150BB either.

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150BB is a bit low for online play. You'll have one worse than that at some point if you keep playing. At the other extreme, the 500, 600, 700BB downswings that some of the lagtards in the HUSH forum go through are a product of their own recklessness.

Mason Malmuth

11-15-2005, 04:34 AM

Hi Posty:

The only way Cooke would know this is based on his own personal experience. It may also mean that his online win rate isn't as high per hand as his cardroom win rate is since required bankroll has something to do with the relationship between your win rate and standard deviation.

Another thing to consider is that bankroll is proportional to your standard deviation squared. So if your short term swings go up only 23 percent and your win rate per hand stays the same, that's enough to increase your required bankroll 50 percent. If your swings go up less than that, but your win rate also drops a little, that could also be equivalent to the 50 percent increase.

For reasons that I won't get into here, I would suspect that his online winrate per hand would be a little lower and his standard deviation would be a little higher. So his estimate of a 50 percent increase in required bankroll seems reasonable to me.

Best wishes,
mason

11-15-2005, 04:44 AM

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Hi Posty:

if your short term swings go up only 23 percent and your win rate per hand stays the same, that's enough to increase your required bankroll 50 percent.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm assuming the fact that you can play 10 times as many hands an hour negates the effect of the short term variance. This is probably something cooke did not take into account if this is why he thinks a 50 percent increase in bankroll is necessary. Maybe I'm wrong, half of this post was over my head after all.

11-15-2005, 04:48 AM

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150BB is a bit low for online play. You'll have one worse than that at some point if you keep playing.

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I will be very surprised if this happens. Alot of posts are made on variance and winrate, and the sample size needed to assess them. I think this is less of an issue at smaller stakes, and that most of these posters are mid stake players or higher. Dead money mitigates long term variance and thusly mitigates the need for bigger sample sizes to assess variance, winrate, ect...

Mason Malmuth

11-15-2005, 04:49 AM

Hi betadecay:

No. The number of hands you play in some period of time has nothing to do with required bankroll.

best wishes,
Mason

timprov

11-15-2005, 05:18 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Hi betadecay:

No. The number of hands you play in some period of time has nothing to do with required bankroll.

best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

The total number of hands you intend to play certainly does, though. So if you're playing the same hours live vs. online you need to take the greater hand/hour rate into account.

11-15-2005, 05:41 AM

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Hi betadecay:

No. The number of hands you play in some period of time has nothing to do with required bankroll.

best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

I understand that it has nothing to do with playing consecutive hands, but what about concurrent hands. Will this affect bankroll requirement? Won't variance drop significantly if you concurrently play 2000 hands on 5 tables, then if you play 10,000 hands on one. Wouldn't this mean you no longer need as big a buffer for the variance, so a smaller bankroll would suffice. Again, I am not sure what the definition of "required bankroll" is, and I am not a mathmetician.

The fact that you need to drop in stakes from a B&M room to online games call for a much smaller bankroll anyways.

Mason Malmuth

11-15-2005, 07:33 AM

Hi Tapirboy:

No. That's not correct. The total number of hands that you intend to play does not impact what your bankroll should be.

Best wishes,
Mason

Mason Malmuth

11-15-2005, 07:35 AM

No. Again that has no effect.

But going down in stakes will reduce your required bankroll.

Best wishes,
Mason

timprov

11-15-2005, 07:36 AM

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Hi Tapirboy:

No. That's not correct. The total number of hands that you intend to play does not impact what your bankroll should be.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

It most certainly does. This seems incredibly obvious to me. Your most extreme swings will have higher magnitude in ten million hands than ten thousand.

Mason Malmuth

11-15-2005, 07:47 AM

Hi Tapirboy:

We're talking about bankroll needed to play. Assuming you're a winning player, the more hands you play the more money you should win. That negates the swings you are talking about. I suggest you give my book Gambling Theory and Other Topics a good read. All of this is covered in there.

Best wishes,
Mason

stigmata

11-15-2005, 07:57 AM

The main confusion in this thread is the differeces between low-stakes and mid-high stakes. At the stakes Roy Cooke is playing, I think he is entirely correct.

Compare the presence of multi-tabling TAGs and the very aggressive nature of the Party 30/60 to some pretty soft B&M games. The winrate is far lower online, and the variance far higher. In fact, a 50% bigger bankroll for online may be somewhat conservative. I have seen the figure of 800BB bankroll for the Party 30/60 mentioned several times, but this would be excessive for many B&M games.

At the lower stakes online, you probably can get by with a similar bankroll to B&M -- the play is better online, but the rake isn't such a killer.

TemetNosce

11-15-2005, 08:22 AM

Yep.

timprov

11-15-2005, 08:53 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Hi Tapirboy:

We're talking about bankroll needed to play. Assuming you're a winning player, the more hands you play the more money you should win. That negates the swings you are talking about. I suggest you give my book Gambling Theory and Other Topics a good read. All of this is covered in there.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, your bankroll can remain relatively small as long as you never want the money for anything. You don't see the catch-22 in this? Treating poker as an end in itself is kind of silly.

maxpowers21

11-15-2005, 08:59 AM

Live games tend to be much softer, basically more passive. Passive play decreases variance, because when you run bad you aren't being charged the maximum by aggresive opponents, and you're not losing the maximum when you charge your over aggresive opponets when they do draw out on you. EV/hand tends to be higher live because the competition is softer in general. This means you need a smaller bankroll requirement.

That being said, you can easily play 10 times as many hands one would be playing for any period of time in live play by instead playing online, and more then that depending on how many tables one plays. Which means that it can be very worth while, despite the obvious drawbacks.

Maybe that's why the games are so much tougher...at respective limits online.

maxpowers21

11-15-2005, 09:02 AM

Mike Haven

11-15-2005, 09:32 AM

If you play one game of 10-20 let's agree you need a 6,000br, or a 300bbbr.

Whether you play this one game fast or slow is irrelevant; you still only need this 6,000br.

However, independently, each game you play needs this 6,000br, so if you played 4 tables at once and kept separate bankrolls for each game, for some strange reason, you would need a 24,000br in case each one of your games hit a major downslide at the same time.

Obviously, you don't really need to keep 4 separate bankrolls, because, in theory, you would have to reduce the number of games you were playing to 3 once your total br reduced to 18,000, and to 2 at 12,000, down to 1 at 6,000, to stay in line with standard br advice.

Working up the other way, as long as you know you should reduce to 1 game once your br has reduced to 6,000, then, in practice, it is alright to "push your luck" a little and play more than one game.

There is an exact mathematical way to work it out, but it is probably reasonable to say that a 100bb downturn on each table at once would be "unlucky", so, if you are playing four tables, with a view to reducing to 1 table in a "br emergency", a 4,000 + (4x2,000) = 12,000br should be safely sufficient.

That's a 600bbbr for a 10-20 4-tabler.

imo

Snoogins47

11-15-2005, 09:36 AM

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150BB is a bit low for online play. You'll have one worse than that at some point if you keep playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will be very surprised if this happens. Alot of posts are made on variance and winrate, and the sample size needed to assess them. I think this is less of an issue at smaller stakes, and that most of these posters are mid stake players or higher. Dead money mitigates long term variance and thusly mitigates the need for bigger sample sizes to assess variance, winrate, ect...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think people tend to have similar mindsets until they have said downswing. I do realize that a hugely higher winrate, and a significantly smaller SD has to make the chances of a downswing of that magnitude significantly less likely. Not having a bunch of sims or anything makes my post here more speculation and guessing than anything else, but I have to imagine that -150BB is not a startlingly rare downswing for almost anybody across the board. Of course, much of this becomes arguing semantics, which I'm painfully fond of.

Now, if you're referring to 'going broke' after starting with a figure of 150BBs, this is a different story entirely. I would, though, like to try to hunt down simulations done with stats more in line of somebody who is crushing a micro-limit game, as opposed to the ones I've seen of somebody beating an aggressive online game for ~1 or ~1.5bb/100, just out of curiosity more than anything.

I also can't imagine that a game being weaker would 'actually' make a player's winrate converge in a shorter period of time, unless of course a weaker game significantly lowers your SD (And, as the last time I took a math class was 4 years ago, and really know very little in this realm... I am assuming a lower SD would mean that winrate would tend to converge in smaller samples... is this true? hehe)

stigmata

11-15-2005, 09:41 AM

I meant that "presence of multi-tabling TAGs" affects the difficulty of the game (and hence need more bankroll), but multi-tabling itself should not have any direct effect on bankroll (although it will have an indirect effect due to decreased overall winrate).

Mike Haven

11-15-2005, 10:19 AM

I understand what you are saying.

I was trying to point out that, (imo), you do need more bankroll the more tables you play simultaneously.

To give a more exaggerated, (if somewhat unlikely), example, if you were playing 12 tables at once and had only a total 300bbbr, each table could take a hit of "only" 25bb's and your br would be wiped out.

It's an unlikely occurrence, (what bad beat is not?), and unique to multi-tabling internet poker, but certainly possible within any "unlucky" hour or two.

stigmata

11-15-2005, 10:23 AM

I was allways under the understanding that with multi-tabling you just hit the long run faster. E.g. everything else being equal, the chance of a 300BB downswing at 1-table is exactly the same chance as simulataneous 25BB downsings at 12 tables.

pzhon

11-15-2005, 10:31 AM

[ QUOTE ]

I was trying to point out that, (imo), you do need more bankroll the more tables you play simultaneously.

[/ QUOTE ]
You are wrong. Your bankroll requirements do not increase just because you play multiple tables. It may be counterintuitive to you, but this is not just an opinion. I'm telling you this as a mathematician.

[ QUOTE ]
To give a more exaggerated, (if somewhat unlikely), example, if you were playing 12 tables at once and had only a total 300bbbr, each table could take a hit of "only" 25bb's and your br would be wiped out.

It's an unlikely occurrence, (what bad beat is not?), and unique to multi-tabling internet poker, but certainly possible within any "unlucky" hour or two.

[/ QUOTE ]
An acceptable bankroll does not mean you are certain to avoid going bankrupt. It means your risk of ruin should be very low. The probability that you lose 25 BB in a couple of hours on all 12 tables is much lower.

Voltron87

11-15-2005, 10:46 AM

His idea is right. Since live games are generally much softer than online ones, generally your bankroll will not need to be as large for them. If you have two players playing in the same 5/10 game, a person winning at 5bb/100 does not need a bankroll as large as someone winning at 1bb/100.

theghost

11-15-2005, 11:36 AM

2 obvious (but relevant) points I would have liked to see addressed by this article were:

1. Your winrate/100 may go down slightly at multiple tables, but your hourly will certainly go up if you are beating the limit. (I do agree that lower winrate/100 would mean you need more BR.)

2. If you have bankroll concerns, you can cut your br requirements almost in half by playing 2 or more tables of 10/20 instead of one live table of 20/40 (for example). I think Roy dropped the ball leaving this out of the article.

Innocentius

11-15-2005, 11:53 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I was allways under the understanding that with multi-tabling you just hit the long run faster. E.g. everything else being equal, the chance of a 300BB downswing at 1-table is exactly the same chance as simulataneous 25BB downsings at 12 tables.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you disregard the drop in quality of your play due to multitabling, this is completely right.

pudley4

11-15-2005, 11:56 AM

[ QUOTE ]
If you play one game of 10-20 let's agree you need a 6,000br, or a 300bbbr.

Whether you play this one game fast or slow is irrelevant; you still only need this 6,000br.

However, independently, each game you play needs this 6,000br, so if you played 4 tables at once and kept separate bankrolls for each game, for some strange reason, you would need a 24,000br in case each one of your games hit a major downslide at the same time.

Obviously, you don't really need to keep 4 separate bankrolls, because, in theory, you would have to reduce the number of games you were playing to 3 once your total br reduced to 18,000, and to 2 at 12,000, down to 1 at 6,000, to stay in line with standard br advice.

Working up the other way, as long as you know you should reduce to 1 game once your br has reduced to 6,000, then, in practice, it is alright to "push your luck" a little and play more than one game.

There is an exact mathematical way to work it out, but it is probably reasonable to say that a 100bb downturn on each table at once would be "unlucky", so, if you are playing four tables, with a view to reducing to 1 table in a "br emergency", a 4,000 + (4x2,000) = 12,000br should be safely sufficient.

That's a 600bbbr for a 10-20 4-tabler.

imo

[/ QUOTE ]

No. Not even close.

Your bankroll requirement is based on your win rate and standard deviation. These are commonly measured in BB/100 hands. It doesn't matter how fast or slow you play those hands; the more hands per hour, the higher your win rate per hour and the higher your SD per hour. Conversely the fewer hands you play per hour, the smaller your WR and SD are per hour. These changes in WR and SD offset exactly enough to keep your bankroll requirement the same.

The only difference in adding more tables is that your WR may go down - this change is the biggest reason for the increase in BR requirement when multi-tabling, NOT the increased number of hands/hr.

Voltron87

11-15-2005, 12:05 PM

[ QUOTE ]
However, independently, each game you play needs this 6,000br, so if you played 4 tables at once and kept separate bankrolls for each game, for some strange reason, you would need a 24,000br in case each one of your games hit a major downslide at the same time.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is waaaaay off

pudley4

11-15-2005, 12:07 PM

Mike Haven

11-15-2005, 12:22 PM

Obviously, from the responses, what I thought was wrong.

I'm not a multi-tabler, and, being a hobby player, I have never had to worry about my bankroll, so I haven't thought too much about the br issue. (That's my excuse for my ignorance on this topic.)

However, from an academic pov I am still having difficulty getting my head round it.

So, if someone decided to give 30 good players $200 each to play a table of $10-$20 each for him for the next four hours, that would be a fairly good low-risk idea to make a quick $5,000 or so?

We should form a mutual society and take turns in reaping such a cash bonus for one member every week.

theghost

11-15-2005, 01:20 PM

12 players at 500 each sounds more appealing. Sitting with less than 12 BB is not good.

edit: and you would make ~$960 assuming 2bb/100 and 50 hands per hour.

Posty123

11-15-2005, 01:49 PM

Something I didn't include in my original post.

I tightned up considerably when I left the B&M world. Mucking QJs/AJ/KTs under the gun is routine now. Playing 200 hands in 7 hours (including breaks) led me to play looser at the Casino. Being able to knock out 200 hands in 20 minutes helps keep marginal hands out of my playing range. My impression is that every winning player would tighten up on line, increasing the ev per hand played and thus reducing their fluctuations and required bankroll. That's what I found. I thought it would be a more common experience.

Good to hear everyone's comments and impressions. Very interesting discussion.

Fraubump

11-15-2005, 01:59 PM

Another difference between online play and live play is bonuses/rakeback. My bankroll fluctuates a lot less on the downward side because it is constantly being propped up by bonuses. In general, this effect is more pronounced the lower you play: If you're playing 30/60, a $100 bonus for 1000 raked hands is at best 1/6 of a BB/100, so the effect is fairly negligible, while at .5/1, even if it takes 2000 hands to get 1000 raked, that's 5bb/100, which makes any negative swing much more unlikely. (My specific math may be off, but the general point is valid)

DarkKnight

11-15-2005, 02:11 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Tipping and jack pot drop have to increase variance. That's just a fact.

Especially at the $1-$2 to $5-10 level.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually they decrease winrate (if you include the toke - and the extra drop) varience shouldn't change much if at all

adios

11-15-2005, 02:32 PM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Hi Tapirboy:

We're talking about bankroll needed to play. Assuming you're a winning player, the more hands you play the more money you should win. That negates the swings you are talking about. I suggest you give my book Gambling Theory and Other Topics a good read. All of this is covered in there.

Best wishes,
Mason

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, your bankroll can remain relatively small as long as you never want the money for anything. You don't see the catch-22 in this? Treating poker as an end in itself is kind of silly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man you really lost me on this one. Mason doesn't need me to confirm he's right. Mason is absolutely correct and I would suggest you get the book he recommends and read BruceZ's posts on the subject. You're thinking about this topic wrong. Do the math and you'll see what Mason is right.

The points you're making are in reality that the effects of being skilled dominate your variance at a faster rate. Put another way your point is that ones results converge to their true win rate at a much faster rate online. However, this doesn't mean you need a smaller bankroll for playing online since your risk of ruin is a function of your win rate, variance, and bankroll size. It just means you get into the "long run" at a much faster rate.

adios

11-15-2005, 02:38 PM

[ QUOTE ]
His main point being that internet hold 'em ring games require a 50% larger bankroll than live play.

No tipping and no jackpot drop unless desired should not increase but decrease bankroll requirements.

I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

I believe that bank roll requirement are much less for online winning players.

He usually has such good advice. I was surprised to see such an inaccurate assesment.

Comments?

[/ QUOTE ]

I would say that Cook is closer to being right than you are probably. I say this for two reasons:

1) You're win rate probably drops a little because the players tend to be better than at the same limits you play live and the information you get about your opponents is better live although these points are certainly open to debate.

2) I think a good player live is subject to less variance for a variety of reasons with one being that it's probably easier to read players and hands live than it is online FWIW. The reading players and hands part effects win rates and variance IMO.

With all that said I think playing online is much better than playing live from the standpoint of making money and having your skill dominate your results in a shorter period of time again FWIW.

UATrewqaz

11-15-2005, 03:10 PM

How can so many intelligent people be squabbling over something very obvious.

How many hands and how quickly you play them has 0, nada, nothing, nill to do with bankroll requirements.

All increasing the number of tables and number of hands per hour does is speed the rate you reach the "final destination".

What's the difference between playing a million hands individually, one after the other, and playing 1 hand on 1 million tables simultaneously (if this were possible).

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Each hand is an independent event.

Your results are exactly the same after each set of million hands, regardless of how quickly you play them.

What is throwing people off is the "time" issue. If I'm a losing player I can milk my bankroll through a long period of time by playing very few hands.

Say I only play 100 hands a month. With a 300 BB bankroll, even if I'm a -3 BB/100 player I can play 100 months.

Summary: Playing more tables does not increase your chance of busting, it will simply speed up the process of you doing so.

As for Roy Cooke's point, he argues basically that your winrate will be less online (due to more aggressive players, etc.) and/or your variance will be higher, THUS the need for a larger bankroll.

* Thousandth Post (eye r0ck ur sox)

Lestat

11-15-2005, 04:46 PM

What you're saying is certainly correct. The reason that people have a hard time understanding (or accepting) this, is because the more hands played (simultaneously), the more win rate drops, thus increasing bankroll requirements.

DeathDonkey

11-15-2005, 05:29 PM

[ QUOTE ]
increasing the ev per hand played and thus reducing their fluctuations and required bankroll.

[/ QUOTE ]

You might increase the average EV per hand played by cutting out some of the marginally profitable ones, but the tradeoff you make is decreasing your total EV. Put another way, if playing QJs under the gun is marginally profitable, then by folding it you are lowering your total expected $$ won and probably lowering your variance. But if you reduce your total EV by too much, then your variance will increase anyway, because you will be a more marginal winner - Nate the Great had some very good posts on this subject if I remember correctly.

-DeathDonkey

pzhon

11-16-2005, 02:40 AM

[ QUOTE ]

So, if someone decided to give 30 good players $200 each to play a table of $10-$20 each for him for the next four hours, that would be a fairly good low-risk idea to make a quick $5,000 or so?

We should form a mutual society and take turns in reaping such a cash bonus for one member every week.

[/ QUOTE ]
The basic idea is sound. The ability to play higher stakes with a shared bankroll is one reason it is so powerful to have a team of card counters in blackjack (even without the team tactics). This has also been done successfully in other forms of advantage gambling from sports betting to backgammon to the stock market.

In practice, there are a few problems.

/images/graemlins/diamond.gif It's hard to identify the players who are actually winning on average rather than just claiming to win or on a hot streak.

/images/graemlins/diamond.gif People might not play as well when they are playing with someone else's money.

/images/graemlins/diamond.gif Someone who is an established winner for a level usually has built up his own bankroll, and doesn't need to play on a team.

ChuckyB

11-16-2005, 02:49 AM

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How many hands and how quickly you play them has 0, nada, nothing, nill to do with bankroll requirements.

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I would think except if you're going on tilt and peeing away money. More hands in the same amount of time = bigger losses.

Nick-Zack

11-16-2005, 08:12 AM

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I've played probably 500,000 hands of online poker from $1-$2 to $5-$10 and have not deviated down more than 150 BB at any point.

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You must play alot better than most of us. I have been down 150BB over the course of 1 day - 450BB before the bleeding stopped at the end of 11 days.

Theodore Donald Kiravatsos

11-16-2005, 08:40 AM

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Tipping and jack pot drop have to increase variance. That's just a fact.

Especially at the $1-$2 to $5-10 level.

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This is the first time ever for me to say the magic words...

As rake increases from the normal, to the high, to the unfair, to the unrealistic, to the insanely high (picture a 1-2 game with a million dollar rake no matter the pot size, and a "no flop-no drop" rule in effect), increasing the rake will DECREASE your variance.

"Do you see why?"

Zetack

11-16-2005, 12:07 PM

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Obviously, from the responses, what I thought was wrong.

I'm not a multi-tabler, and, being a hobby player, I have never had to worry about my bankroll, so I haven't thought too much about the br issue. (That's my excuse for my ignorance on this topic.)

However, from an academic pov I am still having difficulty getting my head round it.

So, if someone decided to give 30 good players $200 each to play a table of $10-$20 each for him for the next four hours, that would be a fairly good low-risk idea to make a quick $5,000 or so?

We should form a mutual society and take turns in reaping such a cash bonus for one member every week.

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Mike, other people have made the point, but in case you are still having trouble getting your head around it think of it like this:

If we say 300BB is an appropriate bankroll (personally, if you're playing at any stakes where you can't easily go back into your pocket to replenish your bankroll I like more than 300 BB) then we all agree that you can play a single table on that three hundred BBs.

So you could play one table for, say, twelve hours on your 300 BB roll if you wanted.

Suppose instead that you sat down and played four tables for three hours. The next day you again just play one table for 12 hours straight. Can you see that there is absolutely no difference in bankroll required for these two activities?

Well what if you lost 75 BB on each of your four tables--you'd be broke! If you were only playing one table you'd just be down 75 BB's right? Well, no. Remember you're playing your one table for 12 hours.

Multi-tabling Losing 75 BB per table means you're losing 75 BB's per three hour block on each table. Its the same as losing 75 BB's per three hour block for all four of the three hour blocks in your 12 hour one table session.

Or put it this way, if you assume 50 hands per hour per table, 4 tabling you get 200 hands an hour or six hundred hands in our hypothetical above. Playing 12 hours of one table also gets you 600 hands. A 300 hundred BB loss in 600 hands is a pretty damn big hit, but regardless, the risk of that happening over 600 hands is exactly the same whether you play your 600 hands in three hours (by multi-tabling) or over 12 hours (by single tabling).

So an adequate bankroll does not change because your number of tables goes up (all things being equal)

Does that help at all?

-Zetack