BR disagreement/fallacy

[Fabian]

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Personally from all the posts and info I no longer believe a BR is as important as I once thought. Even if your a winning player you can still lose a 500BB BR so what is the point of having one that big? I thought with a break even player or better with at least a 300BB would prevent one from going broke but obviously I was mistaken. I'm just going to do what I want in terms of my money management.

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Which is why you need a bigger bankroll than 500BB if you're unwilling to move down.

[silvershade]

I'm curious what people think about playing short, say a roll of 250bb, so long as you are willing to move down if you lose half of it this would seen fine to me. 500bb seems excessive if you are going to move down as well, unless you need that much to avoid playing scared it just looks like overkill. ( obviously I'm not thinking its ok to play pro with a short br. )

[Zetack]

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I'm curious what people think about playing short, say a roll of 250bb, so long as you are willing to move down if you lose half of it this would seen fine to me. 500bb seems excessive if you are going to move down as well, unless you need that much to avoid playing scared it just looks like overkill. ( obviously I'm not thinking its ok to play pro with a short br. )

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Even as a non-pro 500 BB is much better than 250 even if you move down when you lose a lot. At a 250 BB bankroll, if you are pulling money out of your bankroll as you win (say every time you hit 400 BB's you pull out 150 BB's) to stay around 250 BB's with the plan on dropping down if you lose half (down to 125 BB's) then its invevitable that you will have to drop down. 125 BB downswings are routine. If you pull money out of your 500 BB bankroll everytime you get up to 650 BB's you have a much better shot at not having to drop down in limits since 375 BB downswings are pretty rare.

--Zetack

[JTMoney42]

Bankroll Formulas
http://support3.com/poker/bankroll/

I don't use PT so what should an avg. SD be for both long handed NL and Limit?

Thanks

I personally think the posters on this site generally espouse what I would characterize as a "weak tight" approach to BR. Having 500 BB on hand for a game is completely ridiculous unless you're barely a winner at all. Even 300 BB is usually excessive, because for every good player that goes through a 300 BB downswing, there are many who never experience it. It is true that if you play poker long enough you will go through a 300 BB downswing, though everyone here seems to think this means it is somehow likely to happen to a given winning player in his lifetime. It isn't.

Many (not all) of the posts on here from "established" winners who have gone through lengthy downswings are, I believe, from people who are marginal winners with significant leaks in their game that get magnified by the frustration of a downswing. If you're a smart player, are more than a marginal winner (2+ at least), and if you can actually handle a 100 BB downswing without tilting away another 50 BB, you're highly unlikely to experience a 300 BB downswing in your lifetime. So relax about these doomsday BR requirements and play solid poker.

[Nigel]

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though everyone here seems to think this means it is somehow likely to happen to a given winning player in his lifetime. It isn't.

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Have to disagree. It's not only likely, it's inevitable.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find too many players who have made it to limits above 15/30, logged at least 500k hands, and who haven't had at least 1 300BB tanker.

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though everyone here seems to think this means it is somehow likely to happen to a given winning player in his lifetime. It isn't.

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Have to disagree. It's not only likely, it's inevitable.

I think you'd be hard pressed to find too many players who have made it to limits above 15/30, logged at least 500k hands, and who haven't had at least 1 300BB tanker.

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I'm honestly not trying to be disagreeable, so please don't take it that way, but I know many players like this. Probably 20 at least. Maybe they didn't tell me about their major downsings, but I believe they would have.

And for what it's worth, I have not experienced it, and I am a 15/30-30/60 player who has about 5 years and a million hands under my belt. Perhaps I have been very lucky, but I find that when I go on a 100BB downswing I am usually not playing well. The few times I have gone on 200+ streaks, poor play has been a *major* factor in the losses. I have no evidence or data to back my claims up, but I really do feel that a "pure" 300BB downswing where the player plays close to his A game and still loses 300BB through sheer bad luck is an exceedingly rare phenomenon. I hope it never happens to me, and at the risk of invoking the wrath of the poker gods, I don't expect it to.

[TimM]

Its a lot easier to not tilt when your bankroll goes from 500BB to 400BB, than it is when your bankroll goes from 300BB to 200BB.

Also, being forced to move down by downswings is bad, because then you spend much more time recovering.

By the way, I am waiting for 700BB to play 20/40. Of course not all will be on a poker site; more than half will be in my bank account. It's for the idea of knowing it's there just in case.

If you're a winner, and you started playing at 300BB, just think how much further ahead you'd be instead of waiting for the extra 400BB ... [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]