Please Help: Bankroll management-1st year of Poker and STUCK.

[silversurfer]

Some great posts here - re-read them.

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However, I always have the feeling that I need to win it all back in a day;but, clearly I don't have the BR to accomplish that. At any rate, I am getting alot smarter with the limits I play--Nothing higher than 3/6 limit and .5/1 NL. Another problem is that when I reach a bad -30-40BB losing streak, I just about ALWAYS take what I have left to a 5/10 or 10/20 game and either lose it all or win it back.

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As someone who has identified lack of patience as the biggest hole in his game, I feel for you. The line I quoted by you is particularly worrisome; you may be playing an ok game but if you get bored, tired, impatient, or have something on your mind, you have got to stop playing and walk away.
Sounds like you have studied and cut down in limits, which is good, but the tense you said that in gives me the impression it is still your achilles heel - and it'll cost you much more than 5k if you don't develop the discipline you need.

Patience is by far and away the most important thing you need to play this game.

[Malcom Reynolds]

Read "The Psychology of Poker" by Alan N. Schoonmaker. Run, don't walk to the store. I think this book will help you tremendously.

It is terrible to take what you have left and try to win it back at a higher limit. That is clearly a losing proposition, as you are simply gambling it away. Winning poker requires a lot of self control and patience.

Read and reread Small Stakes Hold'em by Miller. Post hands here. Make sure you have a 300 BB bankroll, and stick to the microlimits .5/1 until you can prove that you are a winning player after 10,000 hands. By then you will have built up a bank roll and you can move up to 1/2 or 2/4 or whatever. Move up slowly.

And keep studying. Just playing poker won't teach you to be a good player. You need to read books and post hands to learn the right ways to play hands. The right plays are not intuitive. For example, say the pot is $100 and your opponent bets $4. All you have top pair, and based on the betting you are "sure" that your opponent has two pair. Intuitively, you would think that you should fold. But you are getting 25 to 1 on your call, which means that your opponent only has to be bluffing 3.8% of the time for your call to correct! And who knows, maybe your opponent just before the hand found out his wife was cheating on him and just went on absolute tilt for that one hand. This, like many poker plays, are based on math and not something that human intuition easily understands.

Good luck!

[apd138]

The only thing I can say about bankroll management is that becuase you are a losing player you would probably be best playing as low a limit as possible thus losing your money the slowest. You should try .01/.02 but even that is probably too high maybe some play money. If all else fails just go watch Desperate Housewives, I think it would be +ev for you.

[Blarg]

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Bankrolls are for players who win. Bankrolls do not convert losers into winners. A good player who does not have a sufficient bankroll runs a significant risk of going broke, and not being able to play anymore; 300 BB is supposed to be enough to make that rare for someone who wins 1 BB/hour. On the other hand, a losing player will burn through any amount of money. Losing players don't have bankrolls. They have budgets for their gambling losses.

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This is easily one of the single best things I've read on this site.

It's also probably one of the least truly understood.

People glom onto that 300 BB figure like there's some magic in it somewhere -- like it'll keep them from harm somehow.

But even winning players go through that much sometimes, and not everyone is a winning player. Moving up levels makes things far more shaky still.

At a new limit, you haven't proved anything yet -- not that you're a 1 BB/hr winner, much less that you're even a winner at all. So even for winners, moving up just because you have 300 BB doesn't mean you're properly funded for what you're about to experience. People often talk about a 300 BB bankroll as if it were a license to mint money at the next level, when in fact it can have nothing to do with how the next level will treat you.

300 BB can be a very false foundation, and a dangerous concept. Losing players kill themselves that way, and even winning players very often don't have even 300 BB before they tackle a level, becoming losing players before they've had a proper go at it.

300 BB is an amount you can afford to and occasionally expect to lose at a level in which you're already a proven winner.

It's a concept that provides no value to losing players, and is irrelevant when considering moving up limits.

[SA125]

"300 BB is an amount you can afford to and occasionally expect to lose at a level in which you're already a proven winner."

Pzhon was on the money, but this is by far the hardest thing to overcome playing online poker, even if you're good enough to be a winner.

It became easier for me to understand when I read what Sklansky said about swings in his essay "Is your wallet fat enough" from his "Poker, Gaming and Life". He said a winning player can expect a "max" swing of 75-100 BB's in an 8 hr session. That's live - 1 table. Multi-table and you can see how it compares.

[r3vbr]

I'm proud to say I have NEVER been a losing player (meaning that I won the first hand I ever played, and that my bankroll never fell bellow the initial 50$ minimum deposit I made at pokerstars).

At my first week of play, I've read the whole www.flopturnriver.com website and Theory of Poker + Super System. From then on, I've been climbing tables (started on 0.01c/0.02c NL on Pokerstars and now I'm playing 1$/2$ NL on Partypoker). I make well over 30$/hour and a solid 3500$/month (the last 3 months).

By GameTheorys post, he clearly is a compulsive gambler and should not view poker as a "money-making activity". Poker can also be played as an entertaining passtime. I advise you to stop playing ring games, and play on low buy-in tournaments. They provide much more hours of fun for a lower price.

[willmay3]

Dear Game Theory,

Just a quick note to tell you that others have been where you are at man! Glad to see you still have confidence and keep reaching for it.

My thoughts, for what they are worth. You seem to have a bankroll issue that is a symptom of a bigger issue, which is, like ME!, PATIENCE. You must, YOU MUST, have patience to be a winning limit Hold 'em player (I do not play NL, so you will need to seek guidance elsewhere on this).

But, especially if you are playing limit, if u burn through your bankroll it is just arduous to build it back up as you are LIMITED in how much you can win. You can't double up like you do in NL.

Now, with that said, here are some bankroll tips that help me with patience.

1. It has been mentioned that 300 bb is a good number to shoot for in a bankroll. I agree, but since we are not patient players, I bump that up to 400 X. That keeps us out of panic mode, keeps us in lower limits while trying to become better players.

2. 30 bb rule. When I, and I suggest you, buy into a game, only buy in for 30 bb. So, if you are playing 1/2 limit, only buy in for 60. If u lose that, then QUIT. Something is wrong. You are either COLD, COLD or the competition is too tough (happens to me all the time) or you are playing badly. Stop, analyze and come back tomorrow.

I hope this helps. It has helped me. However, I have only been playing about as long as you have, so if you get better advise or contrary advise, please toss mine in a second.

Best Regards,

Will May

[GameTheory]

I appreciate the advise thus far people:

Let me get a few more things out of the water. I have made the proclamation that-I am puting 400 in my account, and I am going to play .5/1 limit ONLY, and after 10-30K hands, I will post my PT results. From there, I'd like to see what people think.
Books I've read:
Theory of Poker-Slansky
Hold em' for Advanced players-Slansky/malmuth
NL/PL poker by Tom mcevoy
Winning poker-Don't know the author.

IMO-I understand the game at a higher than basic level. I am well aware of +EV plays, pot odds in comparison to drawing odds etc. I'd say I make pretty rational desisions when it comes to raise/fold/call, in order to best play the hand.
All in all, I feel I have the ability to BE a winning player, if I can stay within my limits. I totally understand the fact that any player could lose any bankroll at any limit at any time if they're playing incorrectly;However, all very good posts.

I am coming to the seemingly easy conclusion that-I could never sustain a BR or a consistant winning, not because of inferior play, but because I am playing games like 10/20 with 500% roll (Once I thought this was possible...)I mean,..now that I read more about BR management, I find that if you do it to that extreme-It's IMPOSSIBLE to be a winning player, No Matter Your Skill with that BR, due to the simple variations and swings.

If you people have any doubts as to how good of a player I am, I think it would be interesting if a few of you would "quiz" me on some hands, and ask me how I'd play it and why. That would a pretty good way to critisize my thought process.

Keep the advise and commentary coming people.
Again, I thank you all, and still looking for some positive support with my above goal--

Thanks.
YHD

[Cerril]

The useful info is covered in the posts above. Get books, get used to playing where you can win and getting better there, and try to adjust your attitude.

Okay, the reason I'm actually replying here is that your post made me alternately wince, nod, and wince again.

Obviously what you were doing before wasn't right, but a lot of what you're saying is bad because of things other than bankroll.

There's no harm in playing one session every so often with one buyin, prepared to cash it out if you get too low to do anything with it (which is not the same as actually losing everything, more along the lines of losing three fourths). You'll have a lot of very short sessions but if you're a winning player you'll win in the long run.

I've been a winning player for awhile, but I haven't been a good player for very long. You know HE, so I'd advise picking up one of several books leading up to and going past SSH (though SSH should be your primary book for a long time). If you have a firm enough grasp on things now, just go straight there and pick up other books to add to the foundation SSH provides.

And as to your second leak - taking your losses to a higher game and losing more or winning it back - unless you're a solid winning player at your current limit, taking a shot at a higher limit is a huge problem and something you need to fix. This is -not- a question of bankroll again, it's a question of control over your game. This is the sort of flaw that rates up there with a craps addiction or other external leak. If you can't get past these problems (which are only peripherally related to your actual HE game), then you should stay away entirely. Of course, I'm not saying you -should-, I'd rather believe you're fully capable of controlling that issue.

As for the rest I can only give you my own methods. For every hour a week I play poker I probably read or discuss poker four hours. Things are evening out but at the beginning I might play an average of five hours a week but read and discuss fifty more on the boards. I went through HEFAP and WLLH before ever hitting the online games, and after realizing I needed more work took a week off for SSH before coming back. At the same time I spend a lot of time lurking and posting here, checking all the forums for anything peripherally related. Questions of bankroll and psychology are as common as anything else. For other viewpoints, I also went over to pokerpages and read everything up there. That's less a direct help to your game (in fact, if it contradicts the books suggested, go with the books for now) than just to keep yourself immersed.

And then it's all about playing hands. Play 10,000 .5/1 hands even if the games seem too easy. Do the same thing at 1/2, and 2/4, and so on. Ideally you want a lot more hands than that but if you can't handle it that'll at least allow you to have put in 9 months of B&M poker before you hit 3/6 again.

Get PokerTracker. Reviewing your hands is nice. Having a handle on the true % of hands you play, and raise with is very nice. But more than anything, you can't lie to yourself about how much you're winning or losing. You can easily chalk results up to good or bad swings but three months in you can't just think 'I'm up/down a little' when you're actually down a couple hundred BB.

Playing more will also get you accustomed to odd situations. Good swings and bad swings will happen and you just need to have them happen a lot to figure out what about the bad or the good causes your game to suffer. Discuss it here, or look for other people with suggestions that resonate with you. Post. A lot. Anything that forces you to think more about poker.

On that note, explain things in small words to friends and family about the game. Find someone who actually cares or will pretend to. Find someone interested in poker and teach them. You're almost certainly better than someone and can look like a genius to them. It'll make you take more responsibility for your opinions and to better understand your reasoning

Last, there's really no excuse for someone interested in being profitable at poker to be a target at a higher level than they can handle. Don't play games you don't think you can beat, and try not to have any unfounded illusions about your game.

[GameTheory]

Day 1.
Today I played 1/2 limit for about 1.5 hours. Made +40 exactly. Saw the flop 14% when not in blinds. Played 3 tables. Was +70 but took some ridiculous gut shot beats on River to my overpairs..un-motivated me, so I called it a pretty solid day.