bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

I know that most people recommend 15-20x the buyin for nl, but is this based on the max buyin or the actual amount that you buy in at (which would be the minimum if you are using the short stack strategy from GSIH)?

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

[ QUOTE ]
I know that most people recommend 15-20x the buyin for nl, but is this based on the max buyin or the actual amount that you buy in at (which would be the minimum if you are using the short stack strategy from GSIH)?

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, I see this question a LOT. Here's the deal:

Bankroll requirements are determined by winrate and variance. The higher your variance the bigger the bankroll you'll need. That's obvious.

But the LOWER your winrate, the bigger the bankroll you'll need, and they are roughly inversely proportional. I don't remember the exact math (I'm sure someone will chime in with it), but I generally think of it as if you halve your winrate, you roughly double your bankroll requirement.

In limit, "good" players will tend to have similarish winrates. In a $3-$6 game, maybe 1.5-3BB/100 or something like that is typical. Since winrate and variance (which usually doesn't change drastically from winning player to winning player either, despite what some readers of SSH might say) can often be nailed down to a "one size fits most" range, we can begin to talk about "standard bankrolls" for limit.

Obviously, these are gross estimates, and any particular player might have a bankroll requirement much different. Indeed, a bankroll requirement is meaningless for a losing player. But it makes some sense to talk about a "standard bankroll" for a winning limit player.

No limit is another ball of wax. The winrate of an expert could be five times that of a modest winner. Variance also depends greatly on your style, buy-in size, and caliber of opponents you play... and it differs more than it would for limit players. So the notion of a "one size fits most" bankroll for no limit is basically nonsense. Every player is, indeed, quite different.

Having said that, the GSIH style is prescribed enough that one could probably nail down a reasonable bankroll requirement within 50% or so. I haven't done it... doing so would require a fairly accurate winrate and variance measurement in typical games.

But don't think it makes any sense to compare El Diablo's bankroll requirement to the GSIH strategy's requirements. They are hugely different, and I wouldn't even want to begin to estimate how different they are.

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

My experience (maybe 40K hands, not a huge sample) has shown negative downward fluctuations of 7 buyins (short stack, of course). I suspect a BR of 20 short buyins should be plenty, but don't have a statistical basis for saying so. This would be for typical games at 25NL at Party, or a similar game. Tighter games may have a smaller fluctation based on very limited experience, zero statistical basis for this observation.

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

(From pg 45 of GTAOT, I hope I'm getting this right)

Mason gives a formula to calculate a "no-risk" bankroll, basically you need to calculate the point at which the largest possible deficit can occur:

N = [ (3*std dev)/ (2*Winrate)]^2

and then you plug that number into the BR forumula

BR = (winrate)(N) - (3)(std dev)(N)^1/2

(Assuming my math is right and assuming I'm understanding correctly what mason is saying...both of which might be big assumptions [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ... ) If we use a winrate of 2bb and a std dev of 20bb (which seem to be reasonable based on my limited expereince with the strategy) you'd get an N of 225, and a "no risk" BR of 450 (so the 20 buy-in rule would be 400 and pretty close to the result we get). Naturally if your winrate or std dev are higher/lower you'd need to adjust, but the 20 buy-in "rule" seems reasonable.

If someone has more concrete numbers for winrate and stddev please feel free to chime in (and feel free to double check my math).

J

EDIT: wait, I confused myself...2bb and 20bb are refering to "big bets" (i.e. the way pokertracker calculates them) so the result is actually 450 big bets (900x the big blind which would be 45 buy-ins)....I think? Yeah...I'm pretty sure. hmmm... [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

RE-EDIT: Yeah, that's right (if you plug 4 and 40 you get 900). I'm going to bed before I embarass myself further.

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

I've toyed with the short-stack system a few times. It's not hard to go through something like ten (short) buy-ins in a given session. I know since I did that once. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] However, this was at the UB $0.50/$1 game, and I was four tabling.

I did use the short-stack system at Empire while clearing a bonus (this was at the $0.10/$0.25 level), and I think I dipped to being maybe one or two buy-ins behind before surging and making a nice profit (again, I was four tabling). My experience is that the short-stack system seems to work better at $0.10/$0.25 than it does at maybe $.50/1.

Please bear in mind, though, that I don't have nearly enough hands for a statistically meaningful sample size.

Nonetheless, my limited experience suggests that it's safer to have more buy-ins for the short-stack strategy than you might have for a typical NLHE bankroll. (This is primarily because you'll often be getting your entire stack in the middle every time you enter a hand.) But, also keep-in-mind that a typical NLHE buy-in is around 3-5 times what you buy-in for with short-stack play. So, in an absolute sense (i.e., number of dollars), a short-stack bankroll will likely be smaller. In a relative sense (i.e., number of buy-ins), you might need more buy-ins for a short-stack strategy than for a regular (whatever that means!) strategy.

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

Well, you can calculate it fairly well. By some bizarre act of statistics the GSIH win rate/standard deviation ends up looking alot like a very good limit players.

I got something like 6bb/100 win rate and a 36bb/100 standard deviation. bb = big blind.

If we plug these into BruceZ's formula for bankroll using a 0.1% risk of ruin we get:

B = -(36^2/12)*ln(0.001) = -108*ln(0.001) = 746bb.

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

I think your bankroll requirements have to be pretty high. I say this because the only person I know who is winning with the short-buy system plays 12+ tables.

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think your bankroll requirements have to be pretty high. I say this because the only person I know who is winning with the short-buy system plays 12+ tables.

[/ QUOTE ]

What does the number of tables have to do with the required bankroll?

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

With a gigantic sample size (more than 250k hands at 25NL) I require $420 for a 1% ROR. I always play, at least, 16 tables.

Re: bankroll requirements for short stack theory
 

[ QUOTE ]
What does the number of tables have to do with the required bankroll?

[/ QUOTE ]

When I decided to use Kelly betting while 'starting over' with shorthanded play all the way back down from 0.5/1 it did make a difference. I had to adjust my bankroll up to be able to buy in on six tables. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]