For David: Correct Bankroll Question

Hi David,


Can you give your opinion on the correct bankroll for 40-80 limit hold-em for a player that can average one big bet per hour at the game? If you could include the chance of ruin for $20,000 bankroll and the chance of ruin for what you consider the correct bankroll it would be appreciated. This assumes the bankroll is not depleted for living expenses.


Thanks

For a player who does not feel it is worth $25-30 to buy one of the books I mentioned last time I answered this question, $20,000 is almost certainly not enough to play $40-80 for life.


Dan Z.

You've asked this before. You can find plenty of info on this in Malmuth's Gambling Theory book, or in the archives here, or in the rgp archives on Google. Just asking direct questions of the authors, requesting answers on a platter, is a little presumptuous.


There is no absolute answer since it depends on standard deviation, and there are a couple of debatable issues concerning how best to arrive at the answer. But the answers provided by anyone reasonably credible will put you on the right course. By the way, if you can earn 1BB an hour at 40-80 you probably already have a sufficient handle on this.

Here is my answer to your rather condescending responses to my question:

Unless either of you guys are David Sklansky, I'm not interested in your answers. David posted an unsolicited message to RGP which was exactly on this topic, but for lower games. It was very well written and a bit different than what is in the references you have mentioned. David's opinion means quite a bit more to me than either of yours and that is why I requested he answer the post.

If David's answers mean so much to you, do us all a favor and buy one of his books that answer this question and others.


Alternatively, send him an email directly. This is a forum where everyone shares ideas and benefits from them. Sorry if I don't mee tyour standards to offer some help.


I will refer my advisor at the Carnegie Mellon math department to your post and demand a refund of my $100K. If after 4 years I can't answer a simple stats question like this I think deserve a refund.

No offense Dan, but if its a forum of people helping each other and answering questions, then why didn't you answer him. You say you know the answer because of your math degree, so why didn't you answer it! If its so easy, then why tell him to buy the book? Why not just answer him?

Fair enough. I apologize for my response - I overreacted.


The question is fairly easy to answer. But I do not feel like it is my place to plaigerize material from 2+2 books on the internet. I did offer an answer that was arrived at from open sources, and my own observations and thinking, and is not a regurgitation of one of David's or Mason's essays. Their essays are where I found very detailed answers to the question, so I referred the poster to these places. I do this frequently in my posts.


Since David and Mason and Ray essentially taught me how to play casino poker, I feel very strongly about not plaigerizing their material. I do not feel it is inappropriate to post things that I had arrived at on my own, and subsequently read in a 2+2 book.


If the poster had read the 2+2 sources, it would not be reasonable for me to refer him there. Instead of ignoring my first response, he could have either asked his original question with an explanation that he had read some of these books, but wanted further insight or clarification, or responded to my post by saying he had read these and had some deeper question, or there was some apparently conflicting material on RGP.

If he had phrased his question with these things the first time, maybe even David or Mason would have responded.


Again, sorry for the overreaction.


Good luck.


Dan Z.

Mark- the guys who "answered" your post are pompous asses. Hopefully, you will get your answer from David. If not, perhaps you could try the "vince" forum, where people are a little more attentive. My suggestion is to post the question there tonight and see if Tommy Angelo or someone intelligent will answer it for you.

$14,000 should do the trick with only a tiny chance of ruin. By the way, are you sure you can really beat a $40-$80 game for one big beat an hour?

Mason- thank you for answering Mark's question about 40-60 bankroll without a smart alec remark. Some of us read the posts here to learn and improve our game, not to be insulted. You are terrific.

" ...see if Tommy Angelo or someone intelligent will answer it for you."


Thanks for the kind words, babe. As to the squabble, before jumping too harshly on the pompous replies, let's not forget these words from Mark, "Unless ... you ... are David Sklansky, I'm not interested in your answers."


I think it's perfectly understandable to want to hear from David himself and only David (I would add Mason to that short list), but I don't think it's fair to chastize anyone for NOT giving an answer after such a clear statement of disinsterest. A thin analogy would be a golfer who watched a Jack Nicklaus how-to video and then went golfing. His caring buddies, wanting to help him get the ball off the ground after watching a dozen worm-burners, offer some help, and the new golfer, instead of listening to a group who all know the basic answers, instead says, "I'm going to ignore you and go home and watch the video again, or maybe just write to Jack."


Then Jack tells him, "Keep your eye on the ball," just as his buddies did.


Jack might be the best qualified to know the "why's" behind the answer, but it doesn't mean that others cannot know and use the answer as well. In this case, David and Mason know the whys, for sure, but if the peer review, all purpose, time tested answer is, say, 300BB, then the knowing or not knowing of the whys has no effect on the validity of the sourse of the answer. This is where I think Mark is a bit narrowly focused.


On Mark's defense as to one aspect of the replies, I don't think the stated condition that a player win one BB per hour means or even implies that Mark himself wins one big bet per hour. If I were to ask how an atom is split does not mean that I ever have or ever will be able to split one. Sometimes a question is just a question.


As to the question itself, I have no answer because it rates very low in my concerns -- my lifestyle is virtually unchanged whether my BR is 100 BB or 1000 -- and I think this question has been highly overblown in importance in general because it's practical application is extremely rare in the real world.


Unless the bankroll WILL be depleted by living expenses, then I think the risk-of-ruin question is useful for only two things.


1) To provide the most general guideline, the same guideline that common sense would suggest, namely, that we need a bunch of money to play poker if we hope to not deplete a prescribed starting amount.


2) As an interesting mathematical exercise.


Tommy

Hi Mason,


Thanks for your clear and to the point response. (I'm sure the "one big beat per hour" is just a Freudian slip directed at such an insolent poster as myself). Anyway, I am a little curious as to how the figure could be so low in light of the post below that David made on RGP:


*****************


Dsklansky wrote in message news:20010828201042.23988.00002453@mb-mg.aol.com...


Regarding the 15-30 Hold-em game:


Assuming you can beat the game fairly easily, it is extremely unlikely that you would ever go broke with a starting bankroll of $20,000 that you did not deplete for expenses. Anything under $10,000 is in a lot of jeopardy (because its chances are about the square root of $20,000's chances-eg 1% vs 10%.)


*********************


I took that post to mean David thought that a $20,000 non-depleted playing BR for the 15-30 hold-em game would give someone who "beat the game easily" a chance of ruin of about one percent. That would lead me to believe a bankroll in the area of about $60,000 would give someone who "beat the 40-80 game easily" a chance of ruin of about one percent in the 40-80 game. I am not trying to be difficult, but I was wondering what size BR would have about a one percent chance of ruin for a player able to beat the 40-80 game for one big bet per hour and what chance of ruin that same player would have if he (or she) used a $20,000 non-depleted BR to play the 40-80 game.


By the way, I have read all of David and Ray's books and most of Mason's books.


Thanks,

Mark

$14,000 sounds way to low. $24,000 is 300 times bb